Our House, Before and Now(ish)

 I'm so excited to post these pictures.  There's nothing like a hideous "before" picture to make a mediocre "after" picture look gorgeous!

 I'll be the first to admit that the outside of our house looks no better than before we moved in.  I'm sure any one of our neighbors would be second to admit the same.  (Sorry, people.)

 And below, the "during".  We've painted the front door red, removed the overgrown shrubs, and transplanted other shrubs from the backyard.  Actually, we've also removed the shutters so we can paint them, but I don't have a picture of that yet.

 Here's a "before" from the back yard:

And the "during".  Mother Nature is responsible for this make-under.  This is after Hurricane Rita took down the already ugly tree and our back porch.  It's also after one of the worst droughts our area has seen.  No, we don't water.  Can you tell?  (This was actually taken last year, our grass has really sprung back.  Phew!)

Another angle:

And "during".  Rita took off the porch cover, and we had to demo the concrete pad because it was so badly cracked.  The previous owner used NO rebar.  We removed all the old plants, and have yet to get new ones!  Oops.  Oh, we've also replaced the posts on the back porch, fixed the siding where it looks all wonky, painted the back door, and Craigslisted all the junk in the driveway.  I should really take a more current picture.

 

 
The inside of our house, on the other hand, is COMPLETELY different from when we purchased it. Here's the living room as seen from the front door.

And the "during".  You can see where we removed the wall.  We also refinished the original hardwood floors and painted everything else.  The ceilings required two coats of primer and four coats of paint to cover all the yellow-brown from the previous owners' smoking habit.  Did I mention that smoking inside(or anywhere) is a bad idea?  We also had to wipe down all the paneling before priming.  This place was nasty.

As I'm sure you can see (Fifteen month old Madison doesn't exactly use her infant swing anymore), this is not a current picture.  Since this point, we've moved the art to our bedroom, sold the baby-hazard coffee table, replaced the kitchen floors, added a (free!) leather chair to complete the seating arrangement, added curtains, and swapped out the rug.  I promise pics of all that.  One day.

Anyway, to be on the safe side, Pat replaced all the ducts (he used to work part time for an air conditioning guy) before we moved in.  We also removed all the (disgusting) carpet and scrubbed, painted, or replaced EVERY surface.

Here's the kitchen before we moved in.  This picture does not even begin to reveal the filth disguised on all that brown.  Everything was sticky.  See how the window is open?  I'm pretty sure that's how they justified smoking in here.    *shudder*

  And the "during".  We painted the cabinets brown (we had to use a dark color to help hide the damage to the surfaces), painted the back splash yellow (because everyone makes mistakes), painted the oven black, replaced the faucet, and removed the peninsula, replacing it with the fridge (which used to live on the demolished wall).

Since this picture was taken, we've replaced the floor and painted the column.

The kitchen looking back toward where the living room now is (sorry, I don't have any current pics of this angle.)  Just take a look at that sweet paneling!  Oh, and can you see how the cabinet doors are darker near the knobs?  That was half-inch thick grime.  I had to scrape it off with a putty knife.  Yep.

This is the first bedroom.  Now it's Madison's room.

 Throughout the house, we replaced the used-to-be-white miniblinds with white two-inch faux wood blinds.

What do you think?  I feel like we made a HUGE mistake by buying this house, but I hope to redeem that choice by finishing this danged remodel already!  Hopefully by the time we're done, we'll be able to sell it for at least the purchase price + reno costs.  Fingers crossed.

-Kelli