May will be eighteen months since we've moved into our house. There's still more to do but I thought it would be fun to look at the photos from the real estate listing and compare them with our current rooms, shooting the rooms at the same angle. Sometimes I forget how much we have accomplished in a short amount of time!
The biggest change we made is in the kitchen. Knocking down the wall between the dining room and the kitchen made both rooms feel huge. Nothing remands from the old kitchen except the window over the sink! You can see more photos here.
Covering the brick fireplace with a "barn wood" look in the den took the room from 1950's to 2014 instantly! The heavy textured walls got a smooth finish with skim coating and a lot of sanding. The built-in's were converted from a TV nook to a desk.
After taking down the wallpaper, the walls were painted a soft gray and new wall to wall carpeting was installed. Window treatments were replaced as well.
The salmon pink bathroom was sprayed white, wallpaper was removed and the walls were painted a soft blue/gray. The old shower doors were replaced with a curtain. The vanity remains with new faucets and lights over the mirror.
In the master bath, the yellow tiles remained since they were in excellent shape and the color wasn't bad. The shower curtain from West Elm replaced the old shower doors and set the tone for the walls which got a similar striped paint treatment. The mirror and light fixture from Pottery Barn were updated and shelving was added (not shown in photo.)
The rec room in the basement was already finished. We added wall to wall carpet to convert it into a guest room for my daughter's (large!) family. There are more beds not shown in photo.
Taking down the wall between the dining room and the kitchen made the room much less formal and also gave us more space to squeeze more people around the table if needed. The wallpaper was removed and the walls got a coat of gray. Dated window treatment were removed and replaced with simple roman shades. The Capriz light fixture is from West Elm.
The laundry area was painted a fresh coat of white, doors were removed from the cabinets and the orange canvas containers from Home Depot fit perfectly into the nooks. I'll probably do something more fun in the future but this was a quick fix to get it up and running.
Since we don't live formally I like formal rooms—the TV is in this room on the other side. The bones here are great, it's a "sunken" room where you step down to enter the room. I painted the mauve walls Coastal Fog and changed the window treatments. It still needs artwork and the furniture needs staining/painting, and lamps.
The biggest change in the front hall was making two doorways into one large entrance. When we took down the wall between the kitchen and dining room it no longer made sense to have two doorways since it is now one large room. More wallpaper to remove and this spring I plan on stenciling the wall where the bench sits.
It's been a busy year!
