Exterior

Here’s what the front of our house looked like when we first drove up to check it out back in 2012. We put an offer on this house just a few hours later, although it wasn’t because of the way this looked.

The next summer, we spent a lot of hours in the heat tearing out all the old landscaping and overgrown shrubs. The one next to the door really blocked the entryway. Plus there was a groundhog living under our front porch so we raised the brick edge in front of the bed and filled it in with dirt and mulch so no critters were tempted to burrow under there.

Then, we pretty much left it alone until last year when we finally got the house repainted. And now it looks like this and I’m feeling all the heart-eyed feelings every time I go around the corner on our street and see it.

 

 

Here the entryway before, or rather during, when we were starting to paint the trim.

And after stage one.

The black door is SO much better! Check out that project here. And I can’t get over how much I love the white trim. I painted that sign on the left, but we eventually moved it to my office to make room for phase two. And 50 bonus points if anyone can guess my favorite thing in the room (besides Hubs, of course)!?

Now, the entryway looks like this with our map pinboard.

The living room looked like this the first time we saw the house. I hate TVs in the corner. And the beige wallpaper that might as well have been white…

And this is how it looked our first night here before we officially moved.

And now. We also ripped up the carpet and installed hardwood floors and added a rug. I really like how our DIYed curtains and the gallery wall turned out, too.

Whitewashing the fireplace made a HUGE difference! It’s one of my very favorite upgrades because it was so fast and easy, free, and made a HUGE difference.

Down the hallway…this is how scary it looked during the whole popcorn ceiling adventure,

So much better now! I can’t over how happy I am that we I painted slaved over painting all that trim. Thank goodness I had help from my mom and sister a couple days!

(But this photo reminds me I need to get a new photo with the hardwood floors. Oops!)

It’s also better now that we replaced all the doors.

And my office used to be pretty dull.

But now it’s bright and fun.

The yellow desk was a fun furniture project, of course. And it goes so well with my yellow lamp

I also remade an old microwave cart into a printer stand, which you can read about here.

The hall bathroom was so, so awful. We don’t have a full before picture to document the horrid burgundy and green floral wallpaper that was on the bottom half of the room, but here’s the mint green paint that was in there before we painted.

It actually turned out to be one of my favorite rooms so far, despite still needing some touch-ups. The bead board and the framed mirror made such a huge difference, plus the new light of course.

The nursery (old guest bedroom) used to be purple. The zebra print bedding and glittery peace sign really dressed it up, don’t you think? Wyatt just loved this room. In fact, it was the selling point for him…ha! And don’t forget the mirror that was GLUED TO THE MIDDLE OF THE WALL.

In it’s temporary stint as our guest room, it was blue and brown. We remade a free headboard and used some “hand-me-down and college leftover” furniture for this room to save money.

After we converted this room into a nursery, we moved the guest room downstairs, which involved painting, redoing the ceiling, adding furniture, a DIY tufted headboard, and some prints and other decor, like some more hacked curtains, using my favorite DIY trick.

We also added a Craiglist dresser that we painted white for some storage, and painted the trim and switched out the doors.

The old guest room is now our nursery, which you can read all about here. I think it’s super sweet and perfect for our little guy. The book ledges are my favorite part, but I also really like the chair, the crib, and the ottoman.

We scored a secondhand dresser and added some diaper storage on the wall with some spray-painted baskets.

As for the master bedroom,  this transformation isn’t quote complete, but it’s so much better in there. It was just “not us” before. Checkerboard wallpaper, in two places. Not to mention the super shiny fan, which Wyatt talks about replacing here.

And now, despite needing a better bed frame (which Wyatt will be building some day), it’s pretty nice, we think, for the first phase of improvements. I still have high hopes of making this space into a nicer, more luxurious retreat down the road.

We are especially enjoying our new dressers, and the mirror Wyatt fixed up for me.

Oh, and did I forget the kitchen? Before, it looked like this. Green and…well, just old.

We started with a phase one update that included new hardware. Here’s that project in progress. We also got a new range and painted the window trim white.

Also part of phase one, Wyatt fixed up the old lights, (in this post) made this rolling cabinet and took out the desk that was there.

He also made this shelf over the door to display some fun items, like the sign from our wedding!

And the dining room area of the kitchen was green before, too.

But, now the kitchen has been completely redone. We gutted it and removed a small wall over by the pantry.

We’re still working on a few finishing touches, but it looks like this now, and it’s amazingly wonderful.

On the wall by the door, I DIYed a plate wall for some fun decor.

One more shot of the other side, for good measure. You can read all about our kitchen, here.

We also finally got around to finishing our table and our old church pew. It was the longest project ever to salvage that old wood and make it into something new, but I am so enamored with it now that I sometimes just go into the kitchen and stare at it. 

Laundry room

Our laundry room is super small, but it is an actual room (unlike at our apartment where it was just a sort of closet in the hallway area) so I’m still very thankful we have it. Plus…it is on the ground floor and not in an unfinished area of the basement or something, so yea. It’s wonderful in many ways. But it was pretty blah and not very efficiently laid out for storage.

We started by adding a coat of fun blue paint which upped the cute factor a lot.

But…then we finally did a full room overhaul and it is now one of my favorite rooms in the house. We added extra cabinets from Ikea, painted the walls white and added a brighter light fixture. And my favorite is the built in pull out drawer/counter area that Wyatt built, and the wooden shelf and backsplash above the machines. And a super fun and bright hexagon wall accent on the wall with the door that you can only see when you are inside the room.

Seriously. I cannot even handle how much this room brings me joy. It’s just a laundry room, but it is SOOO lovely now.

Garage

Inside the garage, it’s a always a bit cluttered and messy and covered in sawdust…but…it’s our garage and our workshop, spray paint booth, spare storage area, main entryway, mudroom, and sometimes playspace…so,  I am trying to make my peace with it. Although we are working to keep it cleaner by having a designated space for everything and putting in some time each week to get back in the habit of putting things away.

Here’s what the garage looked like when we bought the house…

And how it looks now. At least both cars will fit in case of bad weather. Still have the gross carpet on the stairs. That needs to go. I said that 7 years ago. So…we’ll see when we get around to it.

 

Thanks for taking the tour with us! Can you see why we’re Loving Here? If you have sourcing questions or DIY questions on any of these areas, just ask!