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The Beginning of the Before and After Pictures:
Living room before
Living room after
To the right of the front door before
To the right of the front door after. Not much different,
just cleared
out a bit.
Kitchen before:
and the kitchen
after:
All of the upper cupboards had doors removed
and were painted in Walmart paint, "Black Rose," which is a match
for Sherwin Williams, "Black Bean." The cupboard with the dishes in
it on the right still needs the inside painted, which will happen
this weekend. The walls were painted a softened green, a
border of mossy oak leaves was added and "wallies" of bears and
trees were added. I have beautiful harvest appliqués and I am
still mulling where to put them. The cupboard above the stove
had the huge ventilation duct removed to provide more storage area.
A ventless hood was installed.
I hate it. It has no pull at all, but I
do like the extra overhead storage. The ivy wallpaper was
removed and vinyl tiles (from The Dollar Tree, 3 for $1) were
purchased and applied using the sticky adhesive on the back of the
tiles, supplemented with Liquid Nails. The tiles were a
challenge because the walls are very uneven, but I am happy with the
result. It is very, very easy to take care of and keep clean,
as are the darker cupboards.
The cupboard doors below are still open because
the paint went on yesterday and is still a little tacky. I
still need to do some touch up on the cupboards, which will happen
this weekend when I paint the inside of the dish cupboard.
The cupboard over the oven, which previously
had baking pans in it, had the door removed and was painted.
The microwave was moved up there. The upper shelf was then
used to store the baking pans, which are now nested together.
This is detailing (albeit fuzzy) of the bears, trees and mossy
oak border. I keep my coffee filters in my big junk pig
(it has little geegaws in it) and I like how it makes it look like
he's wearing a jaunty little hat.
The shelf that was previously up against the refrigerator was
relocated (show you in a minute) and only the black, metal shelf
remains. It is now a bread, snack and utensil area. The
mug rack was painted to match the cupboards. Josh got me that
little plaque that says, "Home is where your Mom is." Awww.
The bottom became overflow storage from the open cupboards, since
it will look crappy if I have much stuff up there.
I bought a dark basket that happened to match the paint and it is
now my potato bin.
Behind the table, the door was taken off of a cupboard that had
been previously used to store games that had lost pieces and were no
longer usable. These were discarded and the cupboard is now
used to store diet sodas, Capri suns and such. The shelf
behind the table is used for decorative purposes, plus to store the
bottled water.
This closet under the stairs was originally basically unusable
space where things were tossed. I moved the shelf from next to
the refrigerator and put it into the closet for pantry use.
All of it together - please ignore my recycling around my trash
can. Of course, the overall kitchen appearance is that it's
much darker than it was when everything was white, which I like
much, much better.
This is a quarter turn from dining room table. A wicker
basket ($4 at Walmart, you'll see a lot of those through the house)
was put by the bottom of the stairs to hold shoes.
Now into the family room, which is to the left
of the stairs...
This area was
previously the dog room and storage area, as well as my laundry
room. It is still all of those things, but also has Eric's
desk in it now and has been cleaned out a bit. It could use a
good sweeping today, but overall, is better. Here it is after:
The doors used to be at the entrance of the
room. The screw that holds one of them up became damaged, so both
went down and they are awaiting repair. See the picture of the
tree in the middle between the two windows? That tree followed
me around for years. I found that tree pictures in thrift
shops across the nation. I love it. To the right is a
(get ready) Beatles decoupage. I'm a major fan of Da Boys.
That's Aiden's toy box (my grandson) for when he visits. The
mats and rugs on the floor are for my poochies to sleep on.
Jo-Bu keeps eating them. This room is off of the family room
and is still waiting for paint, which Eric will do (I'm too short,
even with a ladder, for this one).
My desk area in the family room before, the laundry/dog/storage
room in the back...
My desk area afterward. Pictures were changed out, the
shelf to the left of the desk was replaced with a printer table.
A file box was put under the printer table to hold a lot of my vital
paperwork. The floral curtains were replaced with bamboo
blinds. Different statues were used. To the left is my
personal computer and to the right is my transcription computer.
The family room before...
There were 2 6' book shelves end to end across the one
wall.
...and after
The curtains at the smaller window are replaced with bamboo blinds and the
green and blue curtain on the back door is replaced with a white set of
curtains. One of the 6' book shelves was taken out to the meditation area
and other furniture was distributed more evenly around the room. The
chaise was rejoined with the rest of the couch.
This is a close up of my kid wall over the couch. This is a collage I
made about 7-8 years ago of photos of my boys who are now grown up. Photos
of my little kids (the last 3) surround it. The collage is about 36x24".
My weights! Yayy! ...and that's right, a console stereo.
The giant bear in the background by the turtle tank gets dressed up every year
for Halloween. Last year, he was Superman. This year, he has on a
convict's outfit.
This is to the left of the collage (window in between them). That long
strip above the blinds and below the ceiling will be painted the same color as
the kitchen cupboards...
...as will that strip that the track lighting is attached to and the three
shelves you see that are above the doors and above the TV. I am not sure
when I'm going to get to that, but I hope it's soon because other than the
kitchen painting I'm doing this weekend, that's the last of it.
NOTE: 11/8 - I changed my mind about
painting the two horizontal strips along the top of the family room. I am
concerned that since I would be using a color so much darker than the ceiling
that ANY imperfection (and since the ceiling lines are crooked, there is bound
to be a number of them) would be glaringly evident. Also, it would make
the lighter colored ceiling look dingier. Instead, I am going to paint the
outermost edges of the shelves the darker color, as well as the ceiling fan
blades and call it a day.
Now for some of the upstairs:
I put one of those famous $4 baskets on the landing and it is the "halfway"
basket. I put things in there that were left downstairs that the boys need
to take upstairs and they have been really good about keeping it cleared up.
This is the before photo of the stairs. They are now scrubbed clean
(didn't think I could get the stains out because I'd tried many times, but
finally, I scrubbed long enough), but I didn't take photos of them. Eric
was very dedicated to keeping the carpet and it was less work for me ultimately
because each stair has tack strips all around it for the carpet.
This open linen closet got a curtain on a pressure rod to close it off:
The curtain matches the one to my balcony doors.
The bathroom before:
And after:
The cabinet was replaced out with a pedestal sink ($100 at Home Depot), plus
the giant fixtures from Walmart ($20) and a wrought iron shelf to hold
towels and some of the crap that had previously been stored in the cabinet. The
wallpaper was removed and walls were painted the same green as the kitchen.
That damned deformation you see on the side of the medicine chest was caused by
BLUE PAINTER'S MASKING TAPE ripping the varnish off of the medicine chest when I
*gently* removed it.
The ugly clothes basket was replaced out by one of those $4 baskets, which
encourages me to empty it more often.
Bear and deer appliqués were stuck up all around. One reason I believe
wallpaper was previously chosen is that the walls were found to be in not great
shape, but I just painted over them. Tra la.
That just leaves the boys' room, my room and Delena's room for pictures. Delena is doing her room and is taking
forever, so I don't know when it will be posted. Photos
of my room and the boys' room will be posted soon, likely the
beginning of next week.
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions!
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