Our Home...With Pictures!

Last year I wrote about how we purchased a foreclosure in our downtown area for dirt cheap.  DIRT cheap.  It was actually pretty surprising how cheap we got the house for considering the shape it was in.  As far as "big" fixes, we put on a new roof and installed a new furnace.  All of the difference in the home was made in our little fixes, like painting the kitchen cabinets, installing new kitchen and bathroom floors, opening up a bar area in the kitchen, wrapping the existing (ugly) beams in the living room, and so on.  Oh, and paint on literally every.single.surface and trim piece.  To be honest I missed out on a lot of the work that was involved because we had a newborn during that time, so I really have to hand ALL of the credit for this beautiful home to my husband.  He worked so tirelessly and so hard to make it exactly what we wanted.

So this is the outside when we had just purchased it.  We actually painted the trim in this picture, I think prior to us moving in it was a hunter green color.  Here is the finished house today:

We added a window box to the front window and did a little bit of landscaping.  Otherwise, we didn't do much besides put on the new roof.

Onto the inside!

Sorry for the bad photos, they're all from my phone.  But anyway, the picture above is the view from the front door - it looked into the foyer (not sure what else to call this little room at the front??) and the below picture is the living room.

Here it is now:

First, Brad opened up the wall that divided the living room from the kitchen.  It suddenly made the house seem much larger!  He built a "bar" type area and added paneling to give it its own separation (really did it just to cover up some holes from something, but it looks good!)  Here is an "in process" photo:

And here's an "After" photo of this bar:

We debated staining the big beams around the bar but ended up painting them white as we really wanted the ceiling beams to "pop."  Sorry for the clutter on the counter top, I had just had a Bible study at my house (which is why it was clean enough to photograph, haha).  As far as the ceiling beams, in the "Before" and "In Process" pictures you can see that they were pre-existing, but they looked as though the prior owners had just slapped up three boards and called it a day.  So what Brad did was "wrap" them (which is a pretty common technique in building, I think?).  He took better quality wood and ran them through some machine that roughs them up, and then attached them to the existing boards, then stained them.  We also took the cheap white wall paneling that you can buy at any home improvement store and put it on the ceiling.  Not sure if it's too obvious in the photos but it's very noticeable in person.  

Okay, onto the foyer!  We didn't get any great "Before" photos of cause it wasn't really much to photograph. We also didn't do much in this room, it just got a new light fixture added (the barn light below) and also a good coat of paint :)  I am starting to think about how I want to decorate the desk nook, I love the simplicity of the barn light against the stark wall but I'm also thinking that some pictures or something below it would look nice?  Not sure.  

And my favorite, beloved room in the whole house - the kitchen!  Here's the "Before":

This is Brad's uncle, checking out the house with us :)  Also the only "Before" picture I have, sorry it's so dark!  But as you can see, it was just a dark ugly room.  The cabinetry is nothing special at all, though it's fairly decent quality.  They also had the walls painted a hideous green color that made the room feel claustrophobic.

Here's the "After":

As you can see, we did a lot in this room.  We put in new flooring, painted all the cabinetry, added new hardware, all new appliances and kitchen sink, added subway tiling and wood countertops.

Brad also built a pseudo-exhaust box (what are those called?!?) over the stove and a pantry.  We also added beadboard trim onto the edges of the cabinets.

There was also kind of an odd area at the back of the kitchen, kind of like a breakfast nook.  You can see it in the "Before" picture of the kitchen.  Here is an "In Process" photo below -

What we did here was to add storage benches since the house only came with one closet (drives me nuts).  Brad was working on them in this photo.  There was also a big heater you can see in the right corner of the picture, our fridge is in that spot now.

Here's an "After" photo of this room -

Nothing special, but it definitely helps this tiny house to feel a little bigger!  I also want to add some kind of shade to these windows...just haven't done it yet ;)

Okay, the bathroom.  Here's the "Before" -

So ugly.  So, so ugly.  The ceiling was collapsing, by the way.

Here's the "After" -

Don't mind my diaper sprayer there, ha.  In this room we did new flooring and added wainscoting with a deeper chair-railing trim.  We painted the entire room as well as the existing vanity and did a white basic vanity counter.  Here's a better photo of it -

We added a new light fixture that we bought for $20 at Menards and painted black - and as you can see, have yet to fix the big hole in the wall.  My "fix" idea was to build a bigger mirror frame to cover it up but it's a tricky spot due to the light being right there.  Anyway!  We also put in a small row of large subway tile above the vanity to cover up some holes, but I think it adds to it.

And one last shot of the bathroom.  We also tiled the back wall with the large subway tile, as well as the inside ceiling of the shower.

Alright, that's it! I didn't show the bedrooms because ours is still a work in progress, decor-wise, and I've already got pictures of Hadley's room somewhere, I just have to find them, haha.  One of these days!

 We love this house so much and honestly, it's easy to be content when you're in a home that has been crafted to reflect exactly who you are and the things you love.  I could stay here forever - except that we bought it as an investment property and it would never hold more than the 3 of us, plus the dog!  At this point we're planning to live here for another year and ideally sell it in order to do another "flip" - but who knows with the housing market turning around!

Hope you've enjoyed it!