Five years ago last week, James and I signed the closing papers on our house. Since then, we've also poured quite a bit of love, sweat, and more cash into this house. We've painted every room, replaced all the flooring, and had new windows put in. So far, we've put most of our money into that big stuff, like flooring, windows, and appliances, so we still have a lot of decorating I'd like to do. We also have some other big projects we'd like to get to, but I thought I'd do a then and now tour of what it looked like when we bought it and what it looks like now.
I really didn't think about documenting it too much when we bought the house, so my before pictures are the ones James took during the inspection.
I wish I had taken empty room pictures or saved the MLS photos, but this is what I've got. On the plus side, it makes the before and after pretty dramatic, because the previous owners were in the midst of packing, and there is stuff everywhere. I'd say they were teetering on the hairy edge of hoarding.. They were the original owners of the house and had lived here 19 years, so that's a lot of time to accumulate. But to be fair, they did at least have everything put away when we first viewed the house. There was still a ton of stuff, but it wasn't covering every surface like this
This is a picture packed post. I have tried my best to take photos at the same angles so you get a true before and after, even though this isn't always the best view of the room. Most of the rooms, I only have one angle, which means some of the updates we've made aren't visible in these pics. Bear with me, because these are all phone photos, which frankly isn't ideal for home photography.
Front of house, before
Front of house, now.
The guy in the garage in the before picture is the inspector. Sorry I took this pic at a completely different time of day, so the light's very different. I did think it was only fair to give an open garage view in this one, too. As far as the changes we've made, James pulled out all the overgrown shrubs. We've replaced all the windows in the house, and you can see our rain barrel peeking out on the side in the after pic. We've planted a bunch of perennials, and they still need some time to fill in.
The kitchen, before.
The kitchen, now.
Despite the table you see in the before pic, it's not really an eat-in. And although the cabinets and counters are the same, we've actually done a quite a bit in this room so far. James tore out the vinyl flooring. We had bamboo flooring
installed. Over the course of the five years, we've replaced all the
appliances, including replacing the vent hood with an over the range microwave. I eccentrically chose white rather than the
popular stainless. We also replaced the faucet
Kitchen/dining area before.
Kitchen/dining area now.
We had the old door replaced with a more energy
efficient new slider. It also works better for the space because it was a little cramped to have the door open into the table area. They had to put in new trim because it was much
cheaper to cut the door wider than go with a custom sized door. It still needs stained, so those blue stripes above the door are painters tape--project interrupted. We also have another light fixture out in the garage that will probably go in this winter. So many projects, so little time. :-)
Dining area, before.
Dining area, now.
The bamboo flooring goes throughout the kitchen, dining, family room and down the hall.
Family room, before.
Family room, now.
The fireplace and high ceiling were selling points for us, but this actually is a really tricky room to arrange.
The entryway, before.
The entryway, now.
The previous owners had so much furniture in the entry that
prevented the door from being opened all the way. It was like that when
we viewed the house, too. James built this coat rack with shelf to my design and replaced the light fixture in the entryway. The
picture above the coat rack is the printable letter art I made for a Pinterest challenge.
The hallway, before.
The hallway, now.
The doesn't actually show much of the hallway. The main reason I included these shots is that it's probably the best before/after of the old carpet and new bamboo.
Hall bath, before.
Hall bath, now.
You can see the beautiful tile floor James put in. He tore out the peel and stick tiles and the vinyl underneath, and a friend helped him install the new ceramic tile.
Spare 'oom, before.
Spare 'oom, now.
In the before picture, you can see a small square of the
old carpeting in the bottom of the picture--the greyish bit just right
of center. When we bought the house we knew we wanted to replace all the
wall to wall with hard flooring. We put in cork floors in all three
bedrooms. It took us a few years longer to replace the floors than we
originally planned, so when we got rid of that gross, 20+ year old
carpet, there was much rejoicing.
Second bedroom, before.
Second bedroom/Study now.
I felt like I had to give a wider angle in the after photo here, since we only had such a tiny slice of room visible in the before photo. Sorry you still can't see the floor very well.
Master bedroom, before.
Master bedroom, now.
The master was used as an office by the previous owners. I've written about a lot of the work we've done in this room
here, if you'd like to read about the projects we've done in here.
Master closet, before.
Master closet, now.
James installed a closet system, which is wonderful, though you can't see much of it from this angle. It made a big difference in the storage, because while it's a walk-in, it's not huge. We also took the door off. It was it kind of a pain to get to stuff on the right side with it on there. I still need to hang some hooks or something on that back wall.
Master bath, before.
Master bath, now.
New tile in here, too!
This is one of the best changes we (and by we, I mean James) have made to the house so far, because when we bought the house the sink area was carpeted. As a general rule, carpet + water = not a great idea. Love the tile so much! We also switched out the door that opened into the w.c. for a curtain.
So, that's our house! Hope you enjoyed the tour. Even after five years there are still so many things I want to do. One thing that's funny to me is that we've replaced the flooring and windows in all of these rooms, but hardly any of the light fixtures. Also, I'm afraid it's really time to start painting again. It will be fun to see what it looks like in another five years.
