House before and afters

WARNING!  Super long post!
We moved to this 40 year old house just over a year ago.  We remodeled the first six weeks we lived here and I never took after pics.  So, I finally did it today!  Here are the before and afters of this awesome old house that we love.  Also, an insane amount of kudos and thanks to my amazing husband!  He is so talented, smart, hardworking, visionary and can seriously fix ANYTHING.  I owe it all to you babe!  And a big thanks to all the siblings, neighbors, etc. who helped with MANY parts of this journey!  Couldn't have done it without you all!

Front door.

 Just a little pop of color and removed the ugly old storm door.  New sconces to come this summer.

Walk-in and you used to see a closed off Dark paneled room with bad lighting and a Strange fireplace wall and weird stuff inbetween... and white carpet.  If you have children, you know, this must go.  Also, the ceilings were popcorn, so that too was a must go situation.

After a long grueling week of removing popcorn ceilings safely, we took out the paneling, took out the fireplace wall, removed wallpaper, took out half a wall, the weird rock railing thing, and the carpet.  We textured the ceiling and walls, put in wood flooring in entry, living and dining rooms, new rock fireplace, can lights, accent light fixtures, a much more modern railing half wall, painted the railing, all new trim around floor, windows and doors, and new paint on every surface - doors, walls, ceiling, trim... everything.  Also had to rewire lights and outlets since we moved the wall.  And added some modern decor.  Vuala!  A main floor that is open and light and welcoming.  Goodbye darkness and small separate spaces.

Fireplace halfway out.  Huge thanks to my father in law and hubby for days on end sledge-hammering away!

Just a little sheetrock dust.  Sanding is the best!  (Code for, I never want to sand another thing in my life)

Flooring halfway in!

Before.

After!

Before

After!

Before

After!

Shot from the front door of the whole thing.

Dining room Before

After!

 Before.  Such cute little helpers!

During.  Again, thanks to my father in law for your hard work and electrical expertise!

After!

Onto the kitchen.  Lots of dark cabinets in strange places and SO MUCH BROWN!  Tore out linoleum, carpet, countertops, backsplash and low hanging ceilings and cabinets.  Great appliances though so we were grateful for that!  We 2 color (upper white, lower black) painted the cabinets because they are an awesome style and I didn't want to replace them.  Put in tile flooring, new countertops (including a waterfall side drop which I LOVE), backsplash, beadboard under the bar, new trim around floorboards and windows, and re-sheetrocked/textured/painted the ceiling where we raised it, added a modern wood/tile floor transition and put new hardware on cabinets.  I updated the cool old school bar stools and added a little decor and an herb garden on the wall.  Done.

Down the hall we go to the bedrooms/bathrooms.  removed carpet and put in wood floors, new trim around doors and floors, installed new doors and hardware, and put in a new light fixture.

Into the main floor bathroom.  We took out linoeum, and put in tile floors.  New trim on floors, doors, windows, painted the cabinets and put on hardware, and turned the tub into a tub shower by adding a shower surround and plumbing.  Eventually I'll paint the cool light fixtures a cool color, but haven't done that yet.

There's 2 main floor bedrooms.  They both had decent carpet, so in the one room, we removed popcorn ceilings, textured/painted new ceilings, new light fixture, cleaned the carpets, painted and put in new trim and painted the closet doors.  Then turned it into a nursery.  Sorry. No before shot.

The Master bedroom needed the same amount of work but it also has a master bath that we are currently remodeling.  Pics of that project to come in the next few weeks.

Let's go downstairs!  We haven't really remodeled our basement yet, but we just changed out a few things.  We haven't quite decided what to do with it yet so, we're not doing much!  Took off the SWEET wallpaper and put up some much more modern wallpaper.  Added trim and painted.

There's this strange little space to the left of the stairs that we weren't sure at first what to do with.  We decided to turn it into a bedroom.  We got rid of the SWEET orange shag carpet.  Wow.  I mean. Orange.  Just Wow.  We replaced the orange with the white carpet we took out of the upstairs to save $.  It's just a basement, right?  And built a bunkbead.  There will be a wall to the left of the stairs eventually so it's an actual bedroom.

There's a large living room with another full wall fireplace.  I have yet to decide what to do with that, so for now, it stays.  Again, removed the orange shag and replaced with the white carpet from upstairs.  There were these cool old wicker light fixtures so I just took out the glass and painted them and removed the chain.  Now they're awesome.  And we hung some swings from the ceiling.  Good times in the toy room!

Here's our theater room and girl's bedroom.  Left both of these as is, just decorated.  There's a bathroom too that's not pictured.

The one basement room we did remodel was a must!  HOME GYM!  We took a storage room and painted the ceiling black to hide plumbing, painted walls white and blue, added trim and put in wood floor... and all my equipment of course!  

We live on about 4 acres and it was VERY overgrown and unkept for the past 40 years.  Last summer was mostly demolition with a few additions.

 View of the horribly ugly fence and over grown backyard trees from the front and side.

A little more open and spacious now.  Future home of a 15-ish fruit tree orchard and berry garden.  Goodbye ugly fence!

Views from the patio before.  What mountains?

Down goes a big ol' view blocking tree!  Brylee was quite worried... "Daddy got squished?"

Oh THOSE mountains!  Didn't even know they were there!

Dropped the fence and moved the shed to add a little space!

tore out this whole mess! 

And built kiddie playland!  17 tons of sand, concrete edging, custom built swingset and a buried trampoline.  What more could a kid want?!

Over to the left, we did some SERIOUS tree thinning, dropped another strangely placed fence, built a barn, and put in a campfire pit area complete with concrete edging.  Braden loves concrete!  And I need to weed.  haha.

From the back

 Before.  Yes those are exotic bird shelters (60 feet by 10 feet) and giant trees making it so you can't even see the house.

 During - bird shelter, fence, trees and evergreens gone.  Just a little tiny burn pile... and 7 trips to the dump!

 After!  Wide open spaces!

Now we go back even further to the canal.  

 What canal you ask?

That one!  Buried behind an absurb amount of bushes!

And this tree!  When a country boy sees a tree like this...

Of course he builds a tree house in it!  

With a bridge to get there.  Made from a metal I beam that we just found lying around.  The stuff people just leave around when you have 4 acres?!

And a sandbar behind it for the kids to play by the river.  This was half this size last year, but the river was moving so fast this spring, it ripped out a whole corner of land and deposited the sand right here.  Thank you river!  We'll take it!

Home!  Sweet country home!  It's a work in progress, but we are proud of our progress so far.