Perfect?

Not even close! I don't want you to get the idea that my house is picture perfect. Not that you would so far since you've only seen before pictures. But I think there is a common misconception among blog readers that the people whose blogs they follow have picture perfect houses every minute of every day. Not only that, but we think our own houses should be spotless and photo shoot ready all the time and if it isn't we apologize profusely to those beholding our chaos. This happened to be just the other day. I had a pop in surprise visit from someone I really admire and think is fabulous. She hadn't seen my house before and wanted to check out what we had done with the place. Let's just say the house wasn't in tip top condition. I kept apologizing profusely. I've thought about it ever since. Most people don't notice the things that haven't been done. When I go to someone's house I'm not checking to see if they scrubbed their baseboards or even if the floor is clean. So my apologizing was probably just drawing attention away from all the hard work we've put into the house and made everyone feel more awkward. So the moral of the story is, quit apologizing. If you're unhappy with the way your house looks then grab a scrub brush, quit whining, and get to work. Otherwise, open the door with a big smile and say welcome to my fabulous home!

Hole in the Wall

"Buyers remorse is a very common affliction among new homeowners. Just because you have an acid stomach and a sudden urge to weep, that doesn't mean you made a mistake. Everybody knows old houses have their quirks." - Quote from the 2003 movie,Under the Tuscan Sun

There were definite moments of wanting to weep. Taking down the wallpaper was one of them. We started scoring and spritzing the wallpaper; slowly pealing it back, layer by layer. It was a tedious process. I swore I would never put up wallpaper, ever. As we were working in the dining room we were surprised to find large holes in the walls underneath the wallpaper. It looked like someone had glued wood panelling to the wall and then ripped it off and just hung the wallpaper over it. Talk about an acid stomach. Up until this point we had debated back and forth weather to paint the house and the kitchen cabinets ourselves or to hire a painter. That was pretty much the last straw. I can tape, fill in nail holes, and roll the paint on the walls but beyond that I call in the experts. And it was one of the best decisions we made. Our house has mostly smooth walls with not a lot of texture and I wanted the dining room to be the same. The painter did a fantastic job. Looking at the dining room now, you would never know that it used to look like swiss cheese. We had him prime and paint the entire upstairs, including closets, trim, cabinetry, and doors. All I can say is money well spent. He did a fantastic job. We did have one minor hiccup when he accidentally painted the bedroom the wrong color but he got it repainted in the correct color. I'll have to save the topic of choosing colors for another post.

Ready, Set, Go!

I remember feeling like I was signing away my firstborn child, my right arm and a pinkie when we signed our loan papers. But after signing and initialing a million times, the house was ours. Wow.


My intention was to have the house all done by the time we got married so we could start fresh in our newly remodeled home. While we didn't get it done before the wedding, we did start on it right away. We had an electrician come and put real light switches in each room. And since the living room had no light fixture, we also had him install can lights. Ah, just having that done was a revolution! Since the house already had a good layout, we weren't knocking out any walls. Our improvements were mostly cosmetic ones. We:

• Took down all the wallpaper (found a little surprise while tackling this project, I'll go more into detail on that later)
• Had the entire upstairs painted. Ceilings, trim, cabinets, and walls
• Finished the patchy crown molding and added some fabulous 7 inch baseboards
• Installed light switches in every room and installed can lights in the living room
• Changed the light fixtures in every room
• Changed out all the locks, door knobs, hinges and cabinet hardware
• Re-carpeted and added hardwood floors
• Took down the fence in front that connected to nothing
• Laid sod in the front
• Pulled out the huge thorny bushes in the front yard
• Painted the mailbox
• Finished the driveway with concrete by the mailbox
• Stained the deck
• Finished the picket fence in the backyard
• Built grow boxes and made a garden area
• Did lots of trimming! Everything was overgrown!
• Added insulation in the attic
• Added to the sprinkling system
• Planted a tree
• Planted lots of flowers, grasses, and bulbs
• Made a self watering drip system for the flower beds
• Upgraded the kitchen faucet
• Installed a dishwasher and a disposal
• Installed a cookie sheet cabinet
• Upgraded the appliances
• Painted the storage room and storage cabinets downstairs
• Painted northwest bedroom downstairs (which to us, is the exercise room)

By no means did we do all of this ourselves. We had the help of professionals, family and friends. We are still decorating and organizing. There are a few major projects we want to do but haven't tackled yet. I'll keep you posted on when and how we tackle those projects!

Meet the House ( An Oldie but Goodie)

We bought our house three months before our wedding. We had searched high and low and toured homes that had everything from dirt basements to broken foundations. We had had about enough of crazy houses and real estate agents that didn't want to give us the time of day (probably because we were really young) when we decided to give our house a chance. I think it was actually my sister that suggested we check it out. We had driven past it a million times without giving it much thought. It had overgrown bushes and a fence that connected to nothing but hey, it couldn't be worse than what we had already seen.

When I walked in, the first thing I said is "those kitchen cabinets have to go!". The house had a few other quirks (okay, so it still has a few weird quirks but that's why we love old houses, right?) there were light switch panels with red buttons to turn the lights on, but here's the kicker, there were only two in the whole house to control the lights. So when you walk into a room, you couldn't just flip the light on, you had to walk to the bedroom or the kitchen to turn it on. The interior was not our style. There was blue carpet throughout, and all the walls were some sort of peach shade or very frilly wallpaper. It definitely needed updating. Despite all that, it had good bones, decent size rooms, a somewhat open plan, a HUGE deck, a good size yard, is all brick, and a good solid roof. But most of all, it felt like home. It was the first house that felt right in every way. I remember sitting in front of the house in our car with Christmas like excitement deciding if this was the house for us. We both felt good about it so we put an offer in. Turns out other people felt good about it too and the lady we got the house from had rejected offers similar to ours before. But luckily she gave us a chance! This blog chronicles how we have showed our house some love. Hopefully some of my DIY projects and stories of remodeling will inspire you or at least make you laugh. I have no qualms telling you that updating a house is one of the most challenging things I've done. We always say that our marriage got through redoing the house so it can get through anything. It tested us in pretty much every way. But now that it is done (sort of, you're never really done, right?) we are so happy with the results.

Here are some before pictures of our house. . . Now I wish we would have kept chandelier because I've seen so many awesome spray painted chandeliers. It could have been awesome.
The kitchen. See the tiny fridge and lovely cabinets?

Taking down wallpaper. I HATE taking down wallpaper. . . The bathroom. . .

The office. . . The peach walls and blue carpet are displayed nicely here. . .

The front room in all its glory. . . The bedroom before the wallpaper came down. . .