The problem is, I can see the potential.
When we were house looking, we found a house that was practically move-in ready, it only needed new paint. We looked at it 4 times. Our realtor knew we really liked it. That was the house Chris wanted and we were going to make an offer on it the morning our realtor called.
The quirky house that I had also looked at several times, the one that Chris thought needed too much updating and remodeling, the one that I thought had SO MUCH POTENTIAL just dropped their price by $40,000. So just like that, we switched gears and made an offer on the house that needed a lot of work.
I now often joke that I wish our house had less potential, as everything is taking a lot longer than we thought it would.
I’m excited to share some “before and after” photos of our living room, dining room and sunporch. These are long overdue!
First, we needed to get rid of the wallpaper and carpet. I’m actually becoming quite skilled at removing wallpaper, since almost every room had it. It takes time and patience, but luckily not a lot of brawn. The walls were in rough shape under this layer of wallpaper, probably from the last owners removing the grass cloth wall paper that had been there before. We dodged needing to skimcoat the walls, but Chris did need to retexture them before we could paint.
This floor took a little bit of artistic design finagling. It’s three different widths of boards that repeat in a varied pattern. Chris left that all up to me and just cut the ends when I finished each row. If I had to do it again, I would pick this flooring again. The rough “hewed” texture looks great.
From the start, I had particular ideas for the living room. I wanted dark wood floors and dark gray walls. For the foyer, I wanted a light blue to brighten the room and to set off the gray. I wanted all the trim and fireplace to be crisp white to really make the gray stand out. Chris is always a little worried when I pick paint colors, but then falls in love with them when the rooms are painted. This was no exception. He was nervous it would be too dark, but when it’s on the walls, it has the impact I wanted and everyone loves it.
When we were looking for a house, a formal dining room was something we thought we really wanted. Now that I have one, I don’t want a huge table taking up all that space. Plus, I have 4 kids who are pigs when they eat- I don’t want to bring that mess into any other rooms beyond the kitchen!
I decided to leave the dining room mostly empty, giving more open floor for the kids to play. It’s also the main walkway to the sunporch, so not filling the room with a table helps to make it feel larger. We took down the heavy chandelier and Chris convinced me to go with a darkened stain on the french doors. Along one wall, I created a family station for school papers and charging electronics.
And here are the “Before and After” of the spaces all together. We are so happy with the final result!
