The After, Making it my own...

Making a home your own has to be one of the most exciting, frustrating, thrilling, rewarding, COSTLY things you can do. Well, I can do. It took me two years in my previous house to feel like I had made any kind of progress in converting it to what I had envisioned in my mind when I bought the house. 

Two years may seem like a short time to you, but when you are living it every day, if felt like a life time to me...and I won't get into how much it cost, water under the bridge as they say. 

Instead, I'll focus on the JOY of starting over (loud groans) and the thrill of making small changes that give you a moment of pleasure. That's what it's all about now for me. Small changes, big smiles.

First order of business was to bring in as much light as possible and in my mind that translated to painting. I'm much more of a gray person than a beige person. Out came the ladders and drop cloths. Out went beige and brown and in came the grey and white.

 After the walls and fireplace makeover, next up was tackling the nasty rug. By the time the previous owner had moved out, it was filthy. So I settled on a light color hardwood floor and began the tedious process of putting it down.

One valuable lesson we learned is not to believe what you see on all DIY TV channels. This project is not for the weak of heart. Holy cow it took us forever to get this done. Granted we both work full time, so the flooring project was done on Saturday & Sunday only, but my goodness it was painful, tedious work. Thank goodness I had the sense to make sure we had all the appropriate tools to get this job done. DIY shows say this is a weekend project for two people. Well that may be true for a square room, where the walls are in fact squared and there is nothing in the room but 4 flat walls. When you add in fireplaces, odd bows in walls, counters, and anything else, forgetaboutit! We started painting the walls around Thanksgiving, then moved to flooring, did the entire first floor and it took about 4 months worth of weekend work with a few weekends off due to exhaustion.


 I have to say we love love love, did I mention LOVE the outcome?

After - Great Room

I've been playing with table decor, obviously in a Nautical theme.

Guest room make over begins

Just simple linens and fresh curtains for the guest room. Way too many other projects before I can get in there and paint and remove the wall paper. That will freshen up the room for guests until the time comes to work on it.








The other bedroom becomes my office, at least while I am still working. Someday when retirement is a reality, I will convert it to my craft room. Until then, there is no reason I can't make it my own and dress up the walls. First up was to remove that wallpaper and wall color.

Second guestroom becomes my office

Painted walls a nice soft blue and added some fun to the walls with vinyl decals.








More to come....