Renovation Pictures... The Good, Bad and Ugly

Before I get started on what is two months worth of information, I wanted to share this site with all of the mothers out there. Scoop your kids up in your lap, sit back and let the “B List" celebrities read to you. This must be what they are up to in between promoting new club openings and filming Milk-of-Magnesia commercials. Braden just loves this site: http://www.storylineonline.net/index2.html Enjoy!

Second, I have vowed to end my now 19 month long exercising sabbatical and begin doing Pilates here at home. I’m hoping to sit down and work out an actual daily schedule to where I make it a priority. Back to being an earlier riser with a decent bedtime… Should this also be a prayer request? (My body is screaming- yes!) Now if only I can find my “Getting-in-Shape Girl” weights and Mary Lou Retton leotard.

I am still working part-time from home. I had to put in two weeks of full-time at the office the first two weeks in December (50 and 60 hr. weeks). They are wanting me to come back full-time permanently, but I told them that was not an option for my family. I am sticking to my guns on this one, but won’t be too surprised if I get the axe here in the near future. I have made it through another round of layoffs and was spared, so I am following my boss's advise to- “focus on the positive.”
We were about 30 days away from having no television. Why must the Urban Amish suffer so? We celebrate the fact that our converter box coupons were found after being lost for a few weeks. We now get channel 4 and 5! I swear people, it's like we have cable now!

Now on to our bitter sweet project. I have said over and over again that I will never renovate again. We couldn't be prouder of the work we have done, and John has done nothing but impress me the entire time. He is a plumber, an electrician, a contractor... the list is endless. Good thing that dowries are not the in thing here in the US- the two chickens and one flea infested dog my family could have afforded I'm afraid would have only been an insult. I've never denied that John is my hero!

Our New Home

We still have some landscaping to do as well as painting the outside and adding some shutters. All of this is on the to do list this summer when the weather warms.

Braden's Room Before

Braden's Room After

Master Bedroom Before

That door way is the closet and yes, that is a window in there. Don't you have a window in your closet?

Closet Before

Here is a picture of us knocking the closet wall down to make the bedroom bigger. Now I have to say, when we told people what we were doing, they commented about how brave we were. I'll admit that bravery was not exactly the correct word... it was more like stupid. I think mine and John's conversation about doing this went a little something like this:

L- "Hey babe, I think we should knock this wall out to make the bedroom bigger."

J- "I don't know about that, I'll have to give it some thought."

L- "I think all we have to do is take a hammer to it and then patch up the holes. Instead of using toothpaste for the holes like in college, we'll just use some actual wall patching stuff (said in a confident voice and insert a "it can't be that hard" smirk).

So here goes nothing!

Master Bedroom After (never mind the messy bed)

I have never had such big walls to fill. I am desperate for artwork! By the way, we did replace the closet. The master bathroom was actually two rooms- one was the bathroom part and the second was a powder room. The powder room we ripped the sink and cabinets out of and turned into a closet.

Office/Bar Room Before

Don't you just love the Cowgirl light fixture? It takes me back to my days as a hostess/server at Texas Land and Cattle Steakhouse (pause for a moment for me to reflect back on the long hours on my feet and the time spent making salads and convincing the Hispanic kitchen staff to sneak me a brownie or cheesecake from the back). Ahhh, the good ol' days!

The Office/No Bar After

Guest Bathroom Before

Remember the days when you had to put map wallpaper on your bathroom wall because you would spend so much time in there you would forget where you were? Do you also remember putting a bamboo stalk frame around your mirror because that was what naturally went with the map wallpaper? No?

Guest Bathroom After

Living Room Before

In case you are wondering, that is a pile of doorknobs on the fireplace. That's right, none of the doors had their knobs on when we bought the place.

Living Room During

Yes folks, we pulled the 1970's oh-so-fabulous dark wood panelling down to find that there was no drywall behind it. And I guess there used to be a serving window into the kitchen? Nothing is more like a kick in the head like discovering you don't really have any walls.

Living Room After

As you can see I still had some stuff to get up on the walls as we don't usually leave huge clocks on the coffee table. And might I add, I painted the living room three times with three different colors in a matter of two days before deciding to leave it this one.

Kitchen Before

I know you are admiring the faux wood counter tops and floral pulls! Don't get too attached.

I should also mention that everything in the house was pretty much one shade of pink or mauve. My Aunt Faye would have loved the place!

Kitchen After

We still have to work on the back splash, and will eventually have all black appliances.

Breakfast Area Before

I think the flower wall paper speaks for itself.

Breakfast Area After

This is the wrong angle, but the wallpaper is gone.

Formal Dining/Living Room Before

Did I mention that everything was a shade of pink or mauve? Nothing screams fine dining like Pepto pink walls.

Okay seriously... MY EYES, MY EYES!!!!

Formal Dining/Living Room After

Since the people that lived here before smoked, all the floors had to be replaced. John and I put in the wood floors ourselves! I am contract for hire (and by "I" I mean John).

Guest Bedroom Before

The wall looks weird because they textured over some plaid wallpaper. They did a SUPER job (insert eye roll here because you are NEVER supposed to texture over wall paper that is pealing away from the wall).

Guest Bedroom After

Second Guest Room Before

I don't know why I find this funny (except it went perfectly with the theme of the house, the theme being "It Can't Get Any Worse"), but the fan has three white fan blades and one wood colored one.

Second Guest Room After

The following two rooms are still a work in progress.

Master Bathroom Before

We have replaced the cabinets, counter and sink, toilet, tiled the floor, and painted. We still have to replace the shower.

Laundry Room Before

Once again, we don't know that we shouldn't really do this, but we are going to try and enclose part of the laundry room to make a walk-in pantry. We haven't really done it before, but you just nail up some studs and hang the drywall with a doorway, right?

Our Pile of Gutted House

To Be Continued...