Dining Room: Before and After

Yay, dining rooms!

BEFORE:

The old dining room was blah. Well, the shape is interesting: very much like its own little room in the house, but a narrow long room. With a big old doorway. And a breakfast nook sticking out the side from the kitchen area.
The room also shared the wall color with the kitchen, which was that sagey green that turned a lovely shade of 80s mint when the lights came on. Glamorous!

I always wanted a somewhat formal dining room, but this one wasn't really looking that way.

Here's the breakfast nook corner:

AFTER:

The things we did to this room were pretty simple, in fact it was the first one "half finished" (and the last one "mostly finished", as it was the last to get window treatments).

We painted it a soothing blue-gray, and the trim went white (you should see a pattern by now: we dig plain white trim). We put up drapery rods and some "champagne" colored curtains, that are a perfect match to the light fixture. All cabinet hardware was also changed out to an oiled bronze. We anchored one end of the room with our buffet, and got some cool things for decorating (forgive the left side of the buffet for the moment; usually there's a vase of flowers there to even it out). Easy!


All that's left is to find a rug that we like, and the dining room is officially finished.








We're going to fill up this wall with family pictures, eventually:

And that's it for now for renovations - the den and upstairs room are still in the early stages of remodeling stuff, and we've barely touched the yard (which was brilliant, because now we'll have the inside all finished and then will be twiddling our thumbs all winter, wanting to work on a yard that's frozen and dumped with snow/ice).

Beah is coming up for a visit late this week, so look for pictures later :) I can't wait!

Master Bedroom: Before and After

This room really isn't finished, so you're just getting a sneak peek on it.

BEFORE:

The walls were a nice ballerina-pink/peach color. Blech.

AFTER:

Well, here's what we've done: we painted the walls a warm "Peanut Butter" (Scott picked the color, if you can't tell. On name alone, yeah). We also got a new bed/new linens. And we changed the plastic blinds for cellular shades, and added drapery rods/drapes.

Oh! And we changed out the dated, white-speckled ceiling fan light cover for a warmer, caramel-swirled glass one.

Um, that's pretty much it. We knew we wanted an vintage-y iron bed, but got stumped when it came to the rest of the furniture. So we haven't bought anything yet. Any suggestions, by the way?

We also need to get an area rug for this room, and get our pictures up. Oh! And find a little lampshade for the sconce, that is killing us. I swear I used to see those things EVERYWHERE, and now that we're looking we can't find anything that fits. Grrr. One of those endless searches, I suppose...

Kitchen: Before and After

The kitchen is, quite possibly, my favorite renovation in this house.

BEFORE:

The walls were this weird green color. During the day, they were a pretty sage-y green. At night though, when the lights were on, it was this glaringly minty-blue mess. Yuck. So as much as we enjoyed the daytime green, it really needed a new color. Plus Nemmie always wanted a yellow kitchen ;)

On top of the odd color, we had the same problem as the bathroom - ugly cheap 70s cabinets. And the weirdest of the weird - the corner pantry area. The narrow pantry area had this recessed wall next to it, and a big block of a door that slid side-to-side to get to the pantry. It just seemed awkward and in the way and not right for our kitchen (kinda 80s looking). I didn't get any pictures of it before we worked on the room, and it's almost a shame. That thing was just not right.

Observe - greenish-blue walls with 70s cabinets:

AFTER:

We painted the walls a warm yellow, and the cabinets went white. I love painted cabinets, but beware - it is ROUGH. A good sanding and 5 coats of paint later, they were finally looking okay. We added new hardware to some of the cabinets (replaced pulls with knobs). It is amazing the change in the room:

Oh yes - those are fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon rolls you see on the counter (check my other blog!).

My extra-special baking corner, with all my flours and sugar on the counter (and baking pans, bowls, goodies in the cabinets, and special tools in the drawers...):

Here is the other side of the kitchen, where our pantry and spice shelves are. The little cabinet comes from Scott's mother's side of the family, a great little antique. It's filled with cooking magazines, newspapers, and our other cooking stuff like aprons etc. The pictures on the walls are all my favorites from the food blog.

The pantry. We took the big bulky door off, then painted the recessed area with chalkboard paint. It rocks, and is one of my favorite little corners of the house.

Bathroom: Before and After

We actually didn't do a ton in here, just a bunch small things, and more needs to be done at some point. Here's a start.


BEFORE:


The bath was pretty darn dated. Cheapish outdated cabinets. Light cream (almost peach) trim, ugly white 80s towel rods/hooks/roll holder. No lock on the door; that's not gonna fly.

Now, I'll admit it wasn't absolutely totally awful, but not great by any stretch. The wall color I did like - kinda like the Clary Sage from Sherwin Williams, that color that everyone and their brother is putting on their walls. And for good reason, it's pretty. Also the light fixture was a pretty brushed nickel number that was definitely staying.

Oh! I almost forgot to add: the faucet doesn't show up in that picture, but trust: it was hideous. Very similar to this:

Yeah: see? Ugly.

AFTER:

First off was painting the trim a clean white. I hated the cabinets, but we're cheap, Scott and I. So they got the paint treatment as well. New handles for the cabinetry, a new door plate/knob (and working lock!). And the best of the best: the handy husband man installed a new faucet set as well as all new rods/hooks/roll holder goodies. All matching brushed nickel in there now.

Isn't that faucet a thing of beauty? There are a few things we definitely need to fix in the coming years: the shower-only option, for one. We'll probably need a tub at some point in our lives (although for now? Standing showers rock, so easy for the lady to shave her legs!).

Living Room: Before and After

Let's start in the living room, shall we?

BEFORE:

When we bought the house, the living room was dirty (which is to be expected with a house that was vacant for several months), but more importantly it needed some seriously perking up. The floor was dark, the walls were brown (not tan, but BROWN), the windows face large southern trees... So even in the retina-searing light of a Kansas summer day, the room was dark dark dark blah gross. And it smelled funny.

Behold, the Lair of Darkness:

Depressing, right?

AFTER:

First thing, we painted the walls a soft gray, and the bottom molding and picture rail white. VAST IMPROVEMENT. New cordless blinds, a fluffy white rug, some hand-sewn drapery magic compliments of Nemmie (microsuede, niiiiice), and voila:

I am much more comfortable in the room now, thank you very much.

So: what do we still have to do in here?

Lots. Well, at least a little: we need to create a compact entry area for coats/bags/shoes, and hopefully we'll find a nice bookcase to put against this wall:

I believe it's the bathroom up next!

The House!

Better late than never, right? Actually: I was waiting to post until I had pictures of the rooms finished in their entirety, exactly as we wanted. Only: I finally admitted to myself that it’s going to be 20+ years until we’re at that point. I might as well go ahead and get some pictures up now.

So: yeah! Did you hear we bought a house? 'Bout time, really. Early this summer we got in, and have been playing around with it ever since. Just a basic Cape-Cod-ish place, lovely older neighborhood and still very close to downtown, which we love. The house is about 70 years old, so it has a lot of that old-house charm we wanted so badly. Full basement, 1 bath, technically 3 bedrooms (although one is our den/”man cave”), yadda yadda. You know, your basic house.

Let’s start off easy. Here’s the front!

And the back (how exciting, yes)!

Very minimal changes to those areas right now – aside from some potted flowers and clean up (and a new driveway), they are basically the same. Therefore, no Before and After shots of the outside of the house.

The inside is another story. When we bought the house it had brand new flooring in the kitchen/dining/bath areas, and the original hardwoods in the other rooms had just been refinished in a nice deep brown. The walls, however, were dusty and in need of a decent coat of paint. All the cabinetry and hardware and well, basically everything was outdated (although the seller did install some nice matching lighting throughout the house, so that was a nice bonus).

I’m doing a quick tour of the house as we bought it, and then will get some other posts later to show you the renovations. So stay tuned!

First off: Living Room

Master Bedroom:

Bathroom:

Kitchen:

Dining Room (right off the kitchen):

Upstairs Bedroom, it’s huge!

Den/’Man Cave’:

That’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed the quickie tour! Will post more in the coming days, I promise.

Toodles,

Nem

Finally gonna give it a go

I've had this blog created for a loooooong time now, but have put off posting until we actually had something somewhat interesting to say. We'll probably get on with posting here soon, since we have the house now and will be working on it quite a bit (plus, have fun family stuff going on this year).

So keep an eye out for updates! Can't promise they'll be in any way regular, since Nemmie has That Other Blog to work on and Scott would rather watch football than write a post. Let's say "semi-regular-ish", at the very least.

More later.