Hi there! We lived in this home for four years before selling it and moving into our current home.
Our home was built in 1937, has 1285 square feet, and sits on 1.37 acres on a partially wooded lot. There are 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, a basement, and over 300 square feet in the unfinished walk up attic. The house is completely renovated, has hardwood floors throughout, many built-ins and storage, and lots of character.
KITCHEN
The projects in here included painting walls, painting cabinets, adding a chandelier from Freecycle, replacing the countertop, removing an old wall oven and extending the counter, new window/trim, adding glass knobs and pulls, installing wood floors, and replacing the appliances with stainless steel.
The kitchen used to have gold flecked countertops and backsplash, 40 year old laminate tile, wood cabinets, and green appliances. Can’t picture it? Here’s what our kitchen used to look like.
Click here for all posts about our kitchen.
LIVING ROOM (THE “MOM CAVE”)
Our living room was an unused dumping grounds of furniture just here to fill space. We decided to transform it into a mom cave!
A lot of love and hard work went into this room! We emptied it all out, painted the trim and the walls a calming color, and added new and second hand furnishings (many that we already had). Now we have a room we actually love and use, perfect for quiet reading, work, or family time.
The living room/mom cave was also featured in the following magazines: Better Homes & Gardens, Traditional Home, Family Circle, More, and Midwest Living.
Here are all of the posts on our Mom Cave and Living Room!
FAMILY ROOM
Our family room has gone through a lot of changes, maybe because we practically live in there. 🙂
Want every post I’ve ever posted about the family room? Here you go. (There’s a lot.)
Like our clipboard wall? Here’s the tutorial for how to make a clipboard wall gallery for under $25.
This room used to have 30 year old carpet, ceiling tiles, and paneling. Here are the before pictures!
FOYER
Normally the foyer doesn’t deserve a post of its own, but we built this foyer from scratch. We had a problem (no real foyer, one hot mess), dropped a part of the floor, built walls, railings, and wider stairs. This was one of my favorite DIYs to date.
It also led to us adding a breakfast bar made of repurposed floor boards which is nice to have for quick meals, parties, or art projects.
Click for all posts about our foyer, including before pictures!
DINING ROOM
The dining room wasn’t too bad before, but we painted the trim, walls, and added curtains. I love the before and after because the before has the same furniture! It really shows the power paint can have on a space.
Click for all posts about our dining room.
Our Bedroom
We’ve lived in our home for 4.5 years and finally finished this room in February 2014. I feel like our bedroom has always been full of things that needed to be put away and we never got around to it. We painted the trim white and the walls greige (the color is Martha Stewart “Whetstone Gray”), made a headboard (tutorial coming soon!), added all white bedding and colorful accents.
Even though it *still* frequently holds unfolded laundry, it finally feels relaxing and calm.
Here are before pictures and all posts on our bedroom.
Kids’ Bedroom
We bought our two bedroom house when our oldest was a few months old, and now we have four kids! Our youngest has a crib in our room while the older three share the other bedroom. (
The room is pretty simple due to our toy organization system. We are in the process of giving this room a much needed makeover, so stay tuned for that as well as a post with tips for organization in a kids’ room.
Bathroom
We gutted this entire room and the projects include: adding porcelain tile, installing wainscotting and thick trim, adding hooks, replacing the toilet, light fixtures, sink, faucet, shower head, and mirror, painting existing built-in storage, raising the shower curtain and adding a curved rod, and painting the upper walls a medium blue.
We had rusty water so to solve it and keep our new fixtures clean, we had a whole house water filter and a whole house rust remover installed before we started the renovation. We then scrubbed off the rust from the tub and it looks new!
Unfinished Attic Space
We have a walk up attic that when finished would be an additional 300 square feet of living space. It would be perfect for a master bedroom, closets, storage, and a master bathroom. Even though it is unfinished, the old beams, exposed brick, and wood floor boards of the space made me fall in love with this home. The possibilities in this space are endless.
Here are all of the before pictures from when we bought it.
Take the tour of our current home:
