House Tour

I’ve been meaning to post this house tour for like two years.  It is not quite complete since some rooms haven’t even been touched yet but I have to say, I LOVE that about my house.  I will never be done decorating and that’s endless possibilities (and blog fodder) for me!

ENTRY

Before

After: I added board and batten to the wall (as well as trimming a doorway which you can’t see), painted the french doors Benjamin Moore Kendall-Charcoal gray, added a rug and some decor. We might get around to doing something else someday, like maybe replacing the entire front door, adding little shutters to the sidelights and stuff like that.

FRONT ROOM/CRAFT ROOM

Before:  It’s actually not that bad but it was rarely this clean and organized.  It became that room that just accumulated more and more stuff.

After: We hung shelves on either side of the giant pegboard and I moved the tables to one wall. I had to cut off one end of one of the tables to get it to fit against the wall perfectly. There’s really nothing else in the room right now except our old recliner. I plan on doing this whole room totally differently in the future, turning it more into an office/piano room and moving the craft stuff upstairs to the loft.

FAMILY ROOM

Before:  This is the bare bones before, before we even moved in.  You can see none of the wainscoting is done, the door is not framed, the balusters not painted white, the boring mantel.

After

Here is it last Christmas because for some reason I rarely take pictures of this room.  It’s hard to shoot because of the huge windows on the side and I hate how the TV looks above the mantel plus all the cords and crap that are tucked away on the side because they are going to live in the built-ins, whenever those get done.  I want to move the TV into the space above the bottom built-in cabinets as well so we can have a pretty mantel.  

The couches are from IKEA, the rug is from Overstock, the recliner/wing chairs are from BHG at Walmart.  The sofa table behind the couch is an old one I built.  The small round table is from Home Goods, and the sofa table against the wall is from World Market.  I built the coffee table.

Here’s another shot, a little less Christmasy.  I promise when it’s good weather I will shoot some up to date photos!

DINING ROOM 

Before:  Our old old dining set which I’d redone at least three times.  You can see the stains on that upholstered chair on the end.  Both of those chairs have been refinished/reupholstered and moved to different rooms and I actually painted all the Windsor chairs gray and then black.

After: I built a new table and bench, sewed curtains for the giant sliding glass door, and we replaced the lighting fixture.  I also planked the wall where the clock is, hung some shelves, and plan on building a small console to hold china and such.  You can see my Windsor chairs here, painted gray, but below they have been painted black.

Except that the first finish wasn’t sealed well enough so I refinished it again and here’s what it looks like now (along with several other changes!)

KITCHEN

Before:  Again, bare bones, before we even moved in.

After
We trimmed the window, replaced the lighting, and added a marble tile backsplash. We still plan to replace the upper upper cabinet doors with glass doors, change the cabinet above the microwave to a hood, & move the microwave. And replace the range with a better one.

MUDROOM

Before:  Just a blank corner.  Not hard to imagine because there was nothing there.

After: I completely built this mudroom bench which has been so nice to have. But it’s still small. Someday, once we become billionaires, we will completely revamp this entire space and make it bigger and more functional. That is one of our biggest regrets in building this house…not rearranging this space to make more sense!

STAIRS

Before:  Blank and boring.

After: It seems weird to me that I made doing the stairs such a priority. It was actually one of my first projects in my house. But I’m super glad it’s done and I never want to do that again because it was hard. I put board and batten all the way up the stairs and we painted the balusters white. Both really hard and tedious projects. We plan on someday ripping out the carpet and replacing it with hardwood treads.

LOFT

Before:  This picture was taken at a Disney party I threw last year but it perfectly captures how much this room sucked.  Those bookcases wedged around the window, not fitting it well, how awkward the toys were stored, and the big boring TV wall.

After:   We decided to move the TV and couch to the unfinished basement. I actually cut one of those bookcases in half to use as cabinet carcasses and added a face frame and doors to them. I painted all of it, including the IKEA Expedit with a shellac primer so I could paint the entire unit in the Benjamin Moore Kendall Charcoal gray. I raised the unit with a 2×4 frame and screwed them together, finishing off with some baseboard trim. Now it’s a nice little toy storage unit which houses toys and video game stuff.  This room is mainly for toys and gaming and hopefully some homework on that back desk.  The plans are to someday rip out the carpet and put down matching laminate, build the entire perimeter with cabinets for all my craft storage and make it a craft room/homework room space.

GUEST ROOM

Before

After: I added tons of board and batten and a grid wall and painted the upper part Benjamin Moore Hale Navy. I installed curtains and bedding and other furniture which I’d redone as well as spray-painting the headboard of the bed. This room is now serving dually as a nursery so I’m taking out the pink accents and making it more masculine (since my baby is a boy.)

KIDS BATHROOM

Before:

After: I planked these walls and added some floating shelves. I also framed out the mirrors. I’m planning on planking the rest of the walls and someday we will replace the laminate counters with quartz and change out the light fixtures.

ELLIE’S ROOM

Before:

After: I added polka dots to this wall and tricked out an IKEA bed to make it a custom daybed. I hung curtains as well.  Except that this is also out of date because I have since switched my boys into this room and Ellie into another room and neither of the rooms are decorated yet.  

BOY’S ROOM

 I haven’t done anything to this room really besides trim the windows, but since I’ve switched them into Ellie’s former room, I have big plans for it this year!  It’s a darker room, facing north, so the white will help brighten it up.  And the boys room will be much more masculine and industrial.

MASTER BEDROOM

Before:

After:  I planned on decking this room out with millwork and painting it all, but it’s going to be a huge undertaking and not a priority so this one hasn’t happened yet but trust me, it will be awesome.  And I keep changing my mind about what I want to do so I keep waiting.  We moved the bed to the other wall because I hated how the bed barely fit in between these windows and we were going to upgrade to a king size bed, which we did (yay!)  I also hung bamboo shades and trimmed out the windows.  I am also planning on building nightstands this year.

Master Bathroom

Before:  I can’t seem to find a good before picture for this room.

After:  This is another low priority room but it’s another room where I keep changing my mind about what I want to do.  I’m seeing subway tile and round mirrors.

Master Closet:  This is really low on the priority list but I want to trim out the doorway and paint this room white and add some more custom organization options (drawers and whatnot).  In the meantime we moved all of the extra stuff that was in there and organized it really well.

The basement is unfinished right now but my plan is to finish it in 5 years.  We also want to add a roof to the back deck, finish the back yard, and add a fence.  The backyard and fence will probably happen this year.  

When you build a house there are just a bajillion things to do, especially when you have high-end tastes like me.  But it’s been a fun journey so far!