Hello, Home???

These are the pictures from the real estate listing of our soon to be forever home.  Soon I will have some better pictures and an updated house tour with a very long to-do/wish list.

There it is, just oozing with potential.  Can you see it???  I have so many ideas in my mind that I cannot wait to get started.  For now I will be pinning and planning!

Goodbye, House

First let's start with the house we are leaving.  It was a new build that I spent 3 1/2 years trying to take from "builder boring" to something more fitting of our style, while keeping in mind that we would more than likely be moving within 5 years and it had to appeal to potential buyers as well.

I can't find my before pictures, they must be in a box somewhere.  But just picture beige, flat paint on every surface.  Here are the staged pictures that I took after a week of de-cluttering and de-personalizing (taking down all family pictures and taste specific decor).  

The entryway had a bench and wall shelf for our visitors, which I recovered  with a tablecloth from Target and topped with a pillow from IKEA.

This niche was the hardest area for me to decorate in any house that I have lived in!  I think there were 3 different tables, 2 types of mirrors and many different frames in many different layouts.  The final arrangement had my children's old changing table with a few decorative things I hadn't yet packed up.  The mirror was a Home Goods find for only $40 (I've seen them online at fancy stores for much, much more).

The paint color in the entry and living room is Light French Grey from Benjamin Moore. 

Our playroom had a chalkboard accent wall that was great entertainment for the kiddos and two curtain wires from IKEA to hold all the artistic creations that came home from school (or at least some of them... Can you believe how much paper comes home in  backpacks every week?!).  The ceiling is painted the same color as the living room and the walls are Gentle Pasture from Valspar.

The sun light and blue chairs are both from IKEA.  The play table is a Nilo table, it is very sturdy and has held up great.

The living room was huge, so we bought a big sectional that our family could really spread out on movie night (unfortunately it might not fit in the new house).  

The "entertainment center" was a set of modular pieces that we found at Home Depot, it worked really well since we could customize it to go around the corner.

 

We had a pass-through to the kitchen which was really nice in theory, but very hard to decorate around.

We changed out the chandelier over the table for something that was much more modern (and had far less pineapples than the traditional one the house came with).  

The curtains are more Target tablecloths which are the perfect size and come in great patterns.  We added bamboo blinds throughout the main areas to really warm it up.

The paint color in the kitchen/dining room is Perfect Greige from Sherwin Williams and that was really the only change we made in here.  If we were staying in this house I would have loved a transformation, but I just couldn't justify it at this time.

 Our Laundry/Mudroom was the pathway between the garage and kitchen.  This was the smallest room, but probably had the most projects.  The wall color is the same as the living room and I painted the wall cabinet white to brighten it up.  We added the tall cabinet for cleaning supplies and built in shelves with a hanging bar for more storage.  We also built the counter top over the washer/dryer which was one of those wish-we-would-have-done-this-a-long-time-ago projects that really helped the functionality of the room.


On the other side of the room between the 2 doors we put up board and batten with hooks to create a "mudroom".  This little addition is the only thing that kept me sane when all the kid stuff came home after school.  The kids were pretty good at putting their stuff where it belonged before running into the house.

The Master Bedroom really wasn't anything to look at, why is it that we focus our attention on rooms for everyone else, but leave our own bare with no style?  You can bet the Master will be the first room done in the new house, Mama deserves her sanctuary!

The Master bathroom was painted in Bedford Gray by Martha Stewart and we added extra shelving from IKEA in an open spot for more storage.

The older kids ended up sharing a room after their baby sister was born, so I had to find a way to make it gender neutral and fun.  The striped duvets are from Target.  The accent wall is the same color as the playroom and the main walls are Popular Gray by Sherwin Williams.

Our kid/guest bathroom was painted with stripes using Perfect Greige and Popular Gray both by Sherwin Williams, they were definitely my favorite part of the room and even inspired a few of my friends to paint stripes in their own house.  

If we had more time I definitely would've painted the vanity and framed out the mirror, but maybe next time.
 

The baby's room was finished right before we found out we were moving so I had to take all of the decor down.  It was a sad day, but at least I know that I can easily recreate it in the new house.  

The walls are a light peachy pink called Fresco by Olympic.  The ceiling was a mis-tint I found at Lowe's that worked perfectly.  I had a chandelier from the Restore that I painted, but thankfully we hadn't installed it yet so we can take it with us.

 

Our guest room/office/craft room was mostly used as a junk room that you could barely walk into, but this is proof that we did attempt to decorate it at one point. We took off the closet doors and built in a desk with storage.  It worked great and I can't wait to do it again somewhere in the new house!  The closet color is River Mist by Martha Stewart and the wall color is "builder beige" (that's not a technical color name, don't go looking for it).

Our major weakness is landscaping, we definitely have black thumbs, but we tried our best to at least give our yard some kind of appeal.  We put in concrete curbing, planted some plants (of which a few of them lived), added a pathway from the front gate and sectioned off the other side for a play area.  Thankfully our new house is already landscaped (we'll see how much survives) and our realtor/friend is a landscaper so we can turn to him for advice... a lot!

So there is the home we are leaving in all it's glory.  Looking back there were so many projects that we completed, it really makes me wish I would've started documenting it all when we first moved in.  This time I can't wait to have a record of all those big and little accomplishments.

Post One

As our family is preparing to move into the house we fully intend on occupying until we have great grandchildren running around, it seemed right to start a journal of all the changes that will happen as the years go by.  

So here it is, my attempt on documenting the changes that will transform the previous owner's house into our home, and the tweaking that will happen as the years go by (because let's face it, I just can't leave well enough alone).