Our House: Before and After

A year ago, on Labor Day, my husband and I decided to make an offer on the house that is now our home. Once we finally closed on it, we began renovating, with the help of family and friends. Here is what we did.

(The before pictures are on the left and the after pictures are on the right.)

Living Room
We didn't do much to the living room. We just repainted the walls and ceiling. My husband says the walls look flesh colored, but the color works well with the couches and curtains we were given.

Dining Room

In the dining room, we removed the carpet and refinished the hardwood floors. And we repainted the ceiling and walls. We had mint green and chocolate brown paint. (A friend gave us some leftover paint from when she painted her house. This helped a lot.) We wanted to have the brown on the bottom and the green on the top, but we didn't think that would look good with the vertical stripes of the paneling. My parents suggested the perfect solution: a chair rail. 

We also removed the furnace from the floor since it not longer worked and had been replaced with central heat and air. One of my brothers made us an insert for the floor.

Kitchen

We repainted the kitchen (we weren't big fans of the pink). We changed the light in the kitchen (we didn't like the circle bulbs). We installed new cabinets and countertop (we needed more storage and work space, and found some good deals on both). And we had a gas stove hookup installed (my husband prefers gas stoves). 

Utility Room
In the utility room, we removed the layers of contact paper from the shelves and painted them. My family installed a washer hookup (previously the washer hookup was in the kitchen). The dryer hookup was already there.

Sunroom
We did very little in the sunroom. Eventually we will need to, but it wasn't a pre-move-in priority. We did remove the old green linoleum by the door, and we changed the locks.

Hall
We didn't change anything in the hall, leaving the paneling and the carpet. But we like the new views from the hall much better.

Office
The office had a textured wall. We did a skim coat of mud over it. Then, we painted the walls and ceiling. On the walls, we used a sponge effect, putting a lighter color over a darker color. We removed the blood red carpet and refinished the wood floors underneath.

Bathroom

In the bathroom, we repainted, put in a new vanity and a new medicine cabinet, and put in new linoleum since the old was coming up. We also installed lights over the medicine cabinet.

After we bought the house, I discovered this cool corner cabinet behind the door. We repainted it. 

Nursery
Since we hope to start having kids in the next couple years, we decorated the small bedroom as a nursery. For now, we'll use it as a storage room. There was a thick texture on the walls and ceiling. We scraped the texture off the walls. We repainted the walls and ceiling, with a couple special features. I painted a tree in one corner and clouds on the ceiling. We also removed the shag carpet and refinished the floor.

I have mixed feelings about the tree, but I love the clouds.

Bedroom
The first thing we did in the bedroom was remove the paneling. The bedroom had a small closet. My dad suggested tearing out the old one and building a larger one. We liked that idea. To fill in the space behind the door, my dad built us shelves. For the paint for the walls, we picked colors that matched our bedding set. We painted three of the walls tan and did a green accent wall where the closet and shelves are. We removed the shag carpet and refinished the wood floor.

After seven months of renovations, we are glad to be living in our home. And we are happy with the changes we made to the house. We could not have done it without the help we received from family and friends, especially my family.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of our house. Which room is your favorite?