House Update!

So, it's been forever since I have blogged and I have all these videos of the house renovation so I figured now would be a fine time to post them :-)

We have lived here for 3 months now although it feels like MUCH longer... I can hardly remember that little cramped apartment anymore (and neither can May, she zips all around this house like she's lived here her whole life).

Our main accomplishment since we have moved in is the big ole living area renovation -- here are some video's tracking our progress :-)

Before:

Here are some before photos:

from the living room (with the fireplace) looking into the weird shaped part of the room and the eat in kitchen

Living room/Eat In Kitchen (this wall is no more!)

The formal dining/living room - the wall with the two air returns on it is gone now and it's open to the kitchen

After #1:

Here some photos I took right after the walls came down:

Taken from the same spot as the first before photo above - standing in the living room looking at what used to be the weird part of the living room and the eat in kitchen...

There used to be a wall in the middle of this photo! Now we can see all the way to the front of the house... feels about a million times bigger!

Looking at the formal living/dining room - the wall is gone!

 After #2:

Chris added some of his carpentry handy work to give the rooms a little bit of separation while leaving it very open feeling still (oh and we painted, got a new french door in the back and a new fridge!)

No after-after photos... you get the idea from the video, I think :-)

I also have done a few DIY projects around here -- I'm not very good at DIY stuff but I really love painting things! So, we don't have very nice things so it's OK if I mess it up -- here are a few of the projects I have done...

More lamp makeovers -- man, I love a good lamp makeover! :)

You may remember this little number I did a while back -- old thrift store lamp that I originally painted blue, I can't find a good photo of the blue but here is a before:

I repainted it marigold yellow and found this AWESOMELY perfect shade to go with it at Target. (also, how cute is my fly garden ornament? I need to make my garden pretty before I put it in the yard though):

And here is another lamp that I painted the same color that sits on our side table - I forgot to take a before photo but it  would be similar to the one above -- brass (and wood, classy):

I decided, about two days before company was arriving, that I needed to do some work in the guest room... first up was to find a dresser to put in there.  I remembered that my dad still had some of our super old childhood dressers in his basement, so I sent Chris over to pick one up and I painted up using leftover paint samples from when I couldn't decide on a paint color for the living room.  And, thanks to my good friend Ashley, I learned how to make my very own chalk paint which made for a nice finish.  I am not completely satisfied with the color and I will probably redo it someday but I like it enough for now!  (and, thanks to the magic of chalk paint, I only needed one cup of paint to cover the WHOLE dresser... insane.)

Before:

After:

I wanted to replace the knobs with some nicer one's but they are super-glued on (thanks, mom!) so I just painted them white with the rest of the drawers :)

And now, on to the rest of the guest room make over -- it's still a work in progress but it's WAY better than it started! Again, about 2 days before company was arriving, I decided that it NEEDED to be painted -- we had leftover paint from the living room so I just went for it.  Chris got home from work one day and I was in there priming my heart out -- thank goodness for nap time! :-)

Before:

Obviously I had moved things around to take the photo already but you get the idea... blue. paint. everywhere. (yes, even inside the closets -- yes, there are two closets -- no, there are no closet doors... on any closet in this house... we have no idea why)

 

And After:

It's hard to tell but the walls are now grayish (Sherwin Williams, Perfect Greige), not inside the closets though, that felt like too much work so they are still blue, ick. -- I need to hang the curtains and get some matching side tables, and find some closet doors, and organize the desk and replace the carpet... we'll get there. :-)

And here's the newly painted dresser in the guest room -- It serves it's purpose, we needed somewhere for our guests to be able to put things (my poor mother in law was hanging her jewelry on an old bed frame we were storing in there last time she came to visit) and I wanted our guests to feel like we care, and we tried... so, mission accomplished.  On another note, check out that carpet, pretty nice, eh? ick.

OK, that's all for now! I'm hoping to have some new DIY stuff done soon (painting every piece of furniture in our living room, finishing up the bedding for the master bedroom and painting the walls)... plus we have a list a hundred miles long of house projects!

And here's an obligatory picture of my darling little boo boo, we finally took an updated family photo (it had only been about 7 months since the last one)...