The Old House

 My husband and I bought our first house together, back in 2008. It was on the north side of town, great school district, but track homes. To make sure our kids went to a good school, we sacrificed the love of old house character, for giving it character ourselves. We took the place from a NASTY abandon rental, to an updated house. It was alot of work, but with only one child at the time, it was do-able. Thank goodness my husband is extremely handy. When we expanded our family and our crap possessions, we had to find something bigger, and a better fit for our family. We sold the house in January of 2013. 

Here are the before and afters...

Before

After

The back yard was pretty bad. The day before we looked at the house, a huge storm had hit, and tore off half of one of the oaks in the backyard. There were very overgrown Red Tips lining the back fence. Behind the fence was a "green-belt" which here, is just a giant creek bed. So while it was quite, and no one was behind us, we had lots of creatures....Opossum, raccoon, squirrels, coral snakes, all sorts of snakes really. We finally cut the red tips down, put up bamboo, and chicken wire to keep the snakes out. We built the 16' x 20' deck ourselves, over a weekend, plus a couple afternoons. That's what you can do without little kids running around. The back yard was pretty small, so we went ahead and got rid of most of it. We permanently put in an above ground pool since our neighborhood didn't have one. 

Backyard Before

Backyard after

Back yard after

Backyard After

Backyard After

The living room was Berber carpet (plus a  few hair balls). All of the flooring came up, even upstairs. Every wall, ceiling, door, and piece of trim in this house was painted. 

Living Room Before

Living Room After

Living Room After

The salt water tank, was one of our favorite things, and my husbands hobby. There was large weird hole between the kitchen an living room, so we placed the 150 gallon tank in front of it.  You could see right through.  We built it into the wall with cabinets. He got really into growing corals, and having exotic fish. It was amazing to see all angles of the tank, and it looked amazing. Unfortunately we sold it since we weren't sure where we were going, and didn't know what size we would want when we got there. We still don't have a replacement, since time is not a luxury we have right now. 

Built-in Saltwater Tank

The kitchen was just sad...It screamed paint me, the moment I walked in! The fridge on the other hand, screamed throw me out. The renters had just bailed on the place, with food still in the fridge. With no power,  you can imagine what it smelled like. My dear friend was sure she could save it, alas it went to it's final resting place. The cabinets got a faux treatment, a two-toned sanded down look. I also faux finished the counters. We knew we were only staying a couple years, and didn't want to invest in granite, knowing we wouldn't get the return on investment.

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Kitchen After



The dining room was spruced up with bead board, to make it look larger. I matched  it to the cabinet finish.

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After

The Bathroom was my favorite place in the house. It was a lot of work, even in this tiny half bath. It was a layered, crackled and chipped, plaster finish. It looked so tropical and worn, I could have just slept in there :)

Bathroom Before

Bathroom After

Bathroom After

In my daughter's room, I let her pick what she wanted... A castle with a moat, she sort of got what she wanted, with a lake instead of a moat...who REALLY needs a moat.

Ashlyn's Room After

Guest Bathroom Before

Guest Bathroom After

Guest Bathroom After

My sons nursery, was a modern woodland room. The walls were painted a green color. We had a modern 2-tone crib. The curtains were hung on branches painted white. We found a fun rocker chair at Ikea, it had branches and acorns on it. I found a stroller blanket at Dwell that gave me the theme for the whole room. I painted tree trunks, and owl, and a  fox in the room. On the branches of the tree, I put leaves cut out of different pieces of scrapbook paper.

Braeden's Room Before

Woodland  Nursery After

Woodland NurseryAfter

Woodland Nursery  After

In the master bedroom I used a suede material on the wall, and hand painted a design above the bed. The ceiling was faux finished as well. 

Master After

Master After

Looking back at these pictures, the house seems so tiny. It worked for us at the time, it was a great house to start our family. We had fun transforming this house into our own, but we were very ready to find a new place to work over. Look for pictures of the new house soon.