Before and After
When we first moved into our house almost 7 years ago, we only planned on living in our "starter home" for five years. Our children were still quite young at that time, and we knew it would only be enough space for a little while. Since then, I'm sure all of our friends and neighbors have grown tired of us talking about moving, listening to me go on and on about model homes (I LOVE to visit model homes), and dealing with our wishy-washy attitudes about our home. We change our minds quite often about what our plans are. Of course, part of our wishy-washy-ness (I am aware this is not a word!) is due to the fact that our home is old.
While we love our neighbors and the community we live in, we don't love the pains that go along with owning an older home. When you drive through an older community, you see the grandparents who raised their kids in the homes they now entertain their grandchildren in, the cracked sidewalks that have held countless bike-riders, the kids playing street hockey under the sprawling oak trees. What you don't see are the pipes below the ground made of crumbling concrete instead of pvc, the wiring in the walls that now doesn't stand up to housing codes, the teeny-tiny little closets or the floor plans that don't make much sense.
In the 7 years we've lived here, we have had more headaches than we could count. Despite all that, I've come to love this little place we call home. We dream about a bigger place, one with a private bathroom for our daughter and a piece of property with enough room for a pool or a shop or a little pond in back. Who knows if we'll ever venture out and really go for that dream? Right now, I'm just so happy making this place our home. A place full of love and memories and laughter. A place where friends and family feel welcome and loved. Hopefully, a place my children will fondly remember when they grow up to tell their own children the stories of their childhood.
I thought I would share with you some before and after pictures. Some inspiration to get you motivated (if you need it) to make some changes of your own. We've put a lot of blood (yes, blood), sweat and tears into this house and when I walk around and see what we've accomplished, I can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for our many blessings.
When we moved in, the flooring in the dining room, entryway and kitchen looked like this:
BLAH! All that white was just glaring!
Here's where the blood, sweat and tears came in
(yes, I did some crying, this was hard work!)
Man, what a mess! I think it took us 3 days
to get all that white tile pulled and scraped.
Ok, you have to ignore the chair (and the un-painted trim!)
in this pic. My camera batteries are dead right now, so I'm
using a pic I took last week. This is what the flooring looks like today.
I just love the warmth. Not to mention it is oh. so. easy. to
keep clean! I think next time we'll hire someone to pull the tile
and we'll lay the flooring! They made their job look so easy!
When we bought the house, the people who sold it to us
were using what we now call the "dining room" as their dog / coat /
whatever-the-heck-else-they could stuff in it room.
Are you kidding me? We had to look past a LOT to see
the vision in this place!
The after pic isn't of the entire space, but that's because I'm working
on those chairs! Here's what one wall looks like now.
No dog beds or water coolers in this space!
The seller's had the living room looking like this:
See the plexi-glass windows that won't open?
Plus it was so cave-like! There was no light in here!
We turned it into this:
It's hard to get a good pic of the entire wall, but I
just love our new windows. I can open them on spring
days and feel the breeze and hear the kids playing outside.
(There are those warm floors again - luuuuuv! - this room had carpet before).
I still want to add some recessed lighting, but for now, a lamp here
and there does the trick quite nicely.
I know these pics aren't great, but with dead camera batteries I'm going with what I already have saved on my hard drive. I just wanted to share some of the progress we've made here. This old house has slowly grown on me, and after all the work we've put into it, I don't know if I'll ever want to upgrade. There are so many beautiful new floor plans, gated communities, and other amenities we may be missing out on. There is just no way to replace a labor of love. That's what this home has been for me.
Do you love your home? Or do you find yourself wishing for a bigger bathroom, a better yard, a fancier neighborhood? It's taken some time for me to really embrace and fall in love with this place, but suddenly I am bursting with gratitude for it. I think it's because I've made up my mind to make it the best home I can, to put my heart and soul into making it a place my husband and children want to come home to. I am absolutely loving the process and hope you'll stay with me as I share more of what's to come. I'd love to see what you're working on this spring to make your house feel more like home!
Happy Homemaking my friends!
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