Our new kitchen ~ before and after shots!

I was going to share these photos next week, but I can't wait so I'm switching around my blog post calendar and busting 'em out today.

I took the "now" photos of our kitchen last weekend when I noticed the yummy light and I was admiring the work that Doug has done. I love that this kitchen is a combination of Doug's elbow grease and my "Can we please try this color on the cabinets?"

The photo above was taken standing in front of the door that leads to the garage, looking left toward our front door entrance. There's Lucky the dog on his favorite rug, guarding the front door.

Here's what our kitchen looked like when we first bought this house. Notice the arched doorway and front door in the center of the photo...

And after shot below...

Wow - right?!?! And yes, that is a dish drainer full of clean dishes on our counter. Kind of gives a sense of just stopping by unannounced, eh? I actually took these photos spur-of-the-moment to text to my friend, Connie. I loved them so much that I decided to bust them out in a before/after post, hence the lived-in-factor. There's also a laundry rack later in this post. :o) 

Anyway! The hood over the stove wasn't vented to outside, nor was that cabinet high enough to accommodate a microwave/stove hood. Doug raised that section of cabinet a little higher, and a contractor friend of ours installed a vent before finally installing the microwave.

Next photo, before - looking into the kitchen and out into the living room area on the right...

After: similar shot with the living room in the background...

Next shots, before: from backdoor looking into the dining area, with laundry closet straight ahead...

After: Let there be light. And some color! :o)

Before shot standing in living room area looking into the kitchen...

And after...  :o)

Next shot - standing in the kitchen looking out into the dining area, back door on the left behind that little wall...

After? Love, love, love!

So, yeah. That's our new kitchen! There are still some things to be added to walls, and I need to decide on window treatments, but we love it already.

It was so fun seeing the before and after photos while creating this post.

I hope you enjoyed it too!

♥

Rexy's Home - The Atrium (Before and After)

I've had some questions about Rexy's habitat, and it's been a while since I've done a "Before and After" post showing remodeling progress around our house. So in the interest of time and my world of multi-tasking, I'm combining the two and laying it down...

The photo above is now, the photo below was taken just after we got the keys to our house {last August}.

This little ficus tree was in sad shape when we moved in. It hadn't been watered in over a year and we were back and forth about what to do with it. While it would have been nice to save it, in the long run we knew it would eventually grow too large for this space and have to come out later on. So we decided to take it out.

This space is about 6'x6', is screened in on top, and is right off the kitchen. The window on the left is my craft room, and the one on the right is Doug's office. Though this next statement will be obvious, I'm going to say it anyway for the record: Doug did all the work on this space. I stood back and offered my opinion, but he did all the back-breaking-shoulder-intensive stuff.

The window trim and corner pieces all had to be replaced, and there was a lot of patching to be done before Doug could paint. From the start I wanted white because I wanted there to be some awesome light reflection going on out there. It's hard to tell, but if you look at the photo below you can see that we have a strand of white lights going around the top of the atrium. It looks so pretty at night! And yes, that is a cat door leading out to the space but neither of our cats is interested in squeezing through it.

We were undecided what to do with this space, and then along came Rex the Turtle. We {Doug} sectioned off a space for dirt and a little swimming pool, planted some grass seed, strawberry plants and some daisies, and called it good for now.

There's still some potential for a few more plants and creative touches, but it already feels like a sweet sanctuary.

And I'm not the only one who loves it here.

♥

Before, During, and After - The Kitchen

Thought I'd take a break from Christmas posting and give you a tour of our kitchen.

:o) ♥

Before:  Here's what the kitchen looked like back in August - the first time we looked at the house with our realtor {too bad the photo doesn't reflect all the grossness of this room...or does it...}:

During:  We'll eventually replace the cabinets and counter tops, but for now Doug did a lot of painting and making them look good...

After:  :o)

And here are some before, during, and after shots taken from the other end of the room:

Before: {first time we looked at the house...}

During:

After:

 

Here's a list of what went down:

- popcorn/acoustic ceiling in dining area removed

- all walls retextured and painted

- new base boards

- linoleum floor replaced with ceramic tile

- cabinets painted

- fluorescent light fixture replaced with can lights

- ceiling fan/light fixture in dining area replaced

- new blinds

- new door for pantry {forgot to photograph that}

- incorporated some antlers into the decor  :o)

* * * * * *

I still need to figure out some window treatments,

but for the time being I think we'll just let it ride.

What do you think?

Wanna' come over for a spot of tea?

xo

Before, During and After: The Living Room

:o) ♥

If you're a regular around these parts, you know that Doug and I purchased a house a few months ago that was a true diamond in the rough. Here's how things went down in the living room of said diamond...

♦ ♦ ♦

When I look at this picture now I think, "Eh, it didn't look that bad..." but trust me, it was bad. Maybe because I remember how dirty it was to begin with, and the sliding glass door that was broken and couldn't be easily opened and didn't have a working lock. And did I mention dirty?

The man. My man. This is what the room looked like within two hours of us getting our keys!

A few days later:  walls and ceiling retextured and painted, old light fixtures removed, new base boards...

A few weeks later: new ceiling fan/light fixtures, replaced the broken sliding door with French doors {my BIL Don did the install}, stuff starting to land in place...

The floor in this room doesn't look too bad in these photos, but it does have some flaws. To date we haven't done anything other than clean it, but we will eventually replace it with new flooring...someday...

Still a few decorating issues to address, but we do love it.

Cool, eh?

♥

November Attitude of Gratitude: Where do I even begin with this one?

* I'm so grateful that I have a husband who knows how to fix/repair/replace stuff! 

* I'm grateful that he fixes it and then lets me have creative license for where to put stuff.

* Even though we seriously downsized, this place is definitely us!

Before, During, and After: My Craft Room

Hooray!

:o)!!!!

Are you ready?
Come on in...

The first thing I loved about this room is that the window opens up to an atrium. The door that you can see outside opens up from the kitchen.

A terrible photo of an amazing and fun project:

This is someone we hired to retexture the walls:

My BIL {Doug's brother} Don helped with the floors:

Doug on a ladder...    {hehe. Because it's my blog - and I can...}

Ok! Enough of that. This is it now:

Still not as organized as it will be, or as embellished as it will be, but it's my space and I really, really love it! I originally wanted white walls so that's what Doug gave me, but now I think I want color...still thinking on that one... {I think my grandmother's dresser and mirror would really pop with a color behind it...}

We replaced the closet doors throughout the house but I wanted something different for this room. Carrie had some vintage sheets she'd picked up at the thrift store so she let me pick my favorite and I turned it into a closet curtain. {I just folded it over at the top to get the right length and used clip-rings to hang it.}

Wanna' see the mess of stuff inside? Ok...here you go...

Showing the inside of my craft closet kind of makes me cringe...it's so packed with a random overload of stuff. But to be honest, it kind of makes my heart sing too. It's taken me a long time to collect all that stuff, and I'll use every bit of it...someday...right?

One last look - notice the hallway through the door - you can see our wedding picture in the distance.

November Attitude of Gratitude:

* I am grateful for a handy husband. His talent goes far beyond the paint roller!  ;o)

* I am grateful for a craft space to call my own - one that has a door that can be closed to hide my "work in progress" and to keep the cats out.
* Even though the volume is a bit embarrassing, I'm really grateful for my collection of craft stuff.

Before and After: The Hallway

Before.

Here's what we Doug did:

Popcorn/acoustic ceiling was scraped off.

Walls (and ceiling) retextured.

Old wood paneling replaced with wainscoting.

Metal closet doors replaced with wood doors.

Baseboards replaced.

New light fixture.

Linoleum flooring removed and replaced with ceramic tile.

Freshly painted by a cool painter I know.

After. 

:o)

♥

PS: I'll show a few close-ups of some of the

items on the wall in a post tomorrow.