Our House

Welcome to our home! When we bought this house, it was..well, pretty ugly. Since then, we've been trying our best to beat some of the ugly out of it. I've made some big mistakes, like painting each room the color of a different Muppet character, but I've tried to start fixing things up and getting some normal going on before we add our first new addition to the family (in January 2013!) Creating a home has been 4 years in the making and is still very much in the process of being completed. We have big plans for this year though. We are of putting a nursery together as we speak and and saving every dime for a much needed kitchen remodel. I'll be sure to post those pictures as things start to get accomplished, but for now, these are the most recent before and after pics (or in other words...killing some ugly).

This is the picture of our house before we purchased it. I hated the red shutters from day one. As soon as we closed on the house, we spray-painted those suckers... and so the ugly killing began.
 

Here is part of the process.

...and the after photo again

These are some pictures of the backyard. Pretty nasty, huh?

Sometimes it has to get uglier...

...before it can get better.

The master bathroom may take home the award for most improved, but I don't have a before picture, so I can't prove it. It was initially a disaster. It was not just unsightly, it was unusable. The vanity was so small that I had to fold my body in half to brush my teeth. The ventilation was so terrible that it began to grow mold, and the shower was a blue, crusty, old bath-fitter that had a huge crack down the middle. In short, I had to shower in the guest bathroom every morning. I never took pictures of it, because I never want to remember exactly how heinous it really was. Here is the newly renovated master bathroom. Amen!

This is the hallway bathroom that all of our guests use. It wasn't the most terrible thing in the world with a shower curtain up, but the toilet was broken and the beige-pink surround was just plain ugly. The faux-marble vanity top and the rusty little shower fixture were pretty bad too...so I guess, yeah...it was pretty terrible.

This is after it was totally gutted. and redone. I took this picture as soon as the contractor finished. He was probably pulling his truck out of the driveway as I snapped this. We've obviously added a shower curtain, bathroom mirror, and some towels and decorations since then, I just haven't snapped a picture yet. My favorite parts are the new floor and the tall, clean vanity. I also love having a tub that I don't get grossed out sitting in. The other one didn't have a drain stopper, so I had to shove a washcloth in it to plug it up. Classy.

This room ties the master bathroom for the "most improved" award. What was I thinking when I painted it kermit green!?

This is the final product.

Finally, here is the before picture of what will be the nursery. Actually, it was taken mid-bathroom-reno. As you can see, it was a gutted wall on one side and a dark hideous orange on the other walls. Long story short, we had some water damage that had gotten into the room next door. We didn't realize it because it was just being used for storage at that time. Now, we are slowly transforming it into a nursery.