Better After

Inspired by the site Better After, I thought I would post some of my before's and afters in my home! Let me start out with our downstairs bathroom...man, I WISH I took pictures when we moved in! The bathroom consisted of blue carpet, tan wallpaper that had little blue and black circly designs throughout with a dark blue and black flowery border at the top of the room. This is a small space...and it felt ever smaller! We immediately took all of the wallpaper down and for a temporary fix, I painted the whole bathroom a bright yellow and brought over the fish motif that we had in our duplex before! And that was fine for a while...until the tile in the shower started bowing inward and my daughter busted a hole through it while leaning over while taking a shower! At that point, we knew we needed to upgrade! We took down all of the walls, sheet rock, tile, and yellow color and had it totally re-sheetrocked and a marble shower and marble surround for the window put in...a new window put in...the ugly OLD dark brown cabinet taken out and replaced with a fresh white one...new sink...new toilet...blue carpet replaced with tile...THE WORKS!! I love it! This before pic does not do it all justice, but you can see the yellow paint and the UGLY linoleum that was under the blue carpet! (To see all pics of the bathroom click here)

Next we did the kitchen! The upstairs already had a nice 2 toned paint with crown and base moulding, which looked really nice, so we did not change anything when we moved in. We knew that the cabinets would be something we would want to replace, but a whole kitchen remodel is something you save money for (or file a refi for!!). So we eventually got a refi on the house (which we also used for the bathroom above, central air, updated electrical and a new furnace...not too shabby)! So the kitchen had really shallow dark brown cabinets with no hardware (well besides the copper hinges), and a brownish orangish formica countertop that had little pieces missing in a couple of places, old laminate flooring in the kitchen part and blue marble carpet in the dining part, the kitchen lights were all either brass fixtures or old yellowish track lighting, etc etc! Not a pretty kitchen! The side of the room that our fridge was on has a few shallow cabinets that were really un-usable because they were so shallow and the shelves were not movable so items like cereal boxes would not even fit in! Yuck!! We ripped EVERYTHING out! That was pretty fun to demo the kitchen ourselves...the not so fun part was finding another set of linoleum under the top linoleum and having to scrape and pull at nails for EVER!! But we added new cabinets, new counter top, new paint, new tile floors, new sink, new lights, new over the range micro, new dishwasher (old one leaked), and over by the fridge, we added a deep pantry and a desk! I LOVE IT! Such a tranformation! And we did the kitchen, the bathroom, central air, furnace and electrical all for $20k! I think we did good! (To see more before pics, click here...for more demo pics, click here...and more more after pics, click here) A few months later we decided our kitchen floors looked so good, but they looked TERRIBLE next to the ugly marble blue carpet that was in our living room, hallway and entryway stairs! We picked out the new carpet and thought, hey that ugly dark brown banister would look much better as a pony wall...so we also built in (when I say we, I mean my husband and his mom's boyfriend!) Looks so much better...now we just need to work on replacing the banister in the middle of the staircase from the upstairs and the downstairs! I was so excited to rip up the blue carpets that I forgot to take real before pics...so this pic is Bowe on his 1st day of school last year! You can see the ugly blue floors, the ugly hunter green shelf that I have up on the wall and the cherry finish old sewing table that really does not match anything! This pic shows not only my little girl when she was about 5 years old...but it was really the only pic I had of that ugly banister! Aahhhh...much better! Ugly blue carpet GONE! Now I needed to get rid of the ugly green and lace drapes I had up on an oak colored rod...That is better!The stairs look so much better...and the wall is almost done!I think these decorations look a lot better than that 90's green shelf I had before. And I painted my cute little sewing table a nice black to match all of the frames! Keeping up with the black accessories, I printed out some pictures that I had taken at Laguna Beach and Flaming Gorge and put them in some spray painted black frames...along with a large frame that I also spray painted black and added some vinyl lettering (I love Cricut) to spell out LIVE long LAUGH often LOVE always. And with my new star mirror, I chose to add some accents of stars throughout the room...you cannot see from here, but the tall baskets on the left of the entertainment center have little stars hanging on the little ties.
And since I was also just as good with after pics as I was with before pics...here is our wall all done...and doned with a baby shower garland! ha ha!

Our house looks so much better! Just a few more things to do before it is completely remodeled. I can't wait! Right now we are working on the front yard landscaping and we told the kids they could all get new carpet along with bedroom makeovers for their birthdays this year! Stay tuned! :)