Our Home, A Tour: The Dining Room

It's no secret that we love to eat together in this family. We love to cook together and eat together, just us adults and with the kids too! So we have spent a lot of time in this next room, eating (of course) but also crafting, coloring and playing with play dough! 

The Dining Room 

Before: 

Progress:

We hung art, painted the bottom and top portions of the walls and added our furniture.

We knew right when we painted the walls that the trim color would need to change, but the idea of painting trim was daunting for a long time! I don't know exactly why, probably because it required using a paint brush and no roller? But after painting, and repainting Lucy's dresser I learned a lot about using a paint brush and the trim needed to be painted. After tackling the trim in the living room, I felt comfortable freshening up the trim in the dining room - and now wish I would have done it eons ago. 

Another progress shot - notice how the trim is kinda a pinky/almond color? It was not white and made the top wall color look a little dirty. 

Today:

Hurray for rugs, white trim and lamps!! :) 

This room has been the most difficult room in our house to photograph. I've been frustrated both in taking these pictures and in taking pictures of the kids playing (ie. with play-dough and decorating easter eggs). The pictures turn out very orange and need a good amount of editing to make them look "real" and even then, I think the pictures look "cold" (if that makes sense). I think it's because of the orangey wood flooring and table and the fluorescent light. 

We've dreamed about replacing that fluorescent light with something like this

(Source)

 Wouldn't that be loverly? ...Now I have that My Fair Lady song stuck in my head...

I got the lamps at a store called Kirkland's - they were $20 for both of them (NEW!), I couldn't have done better with thrift store lamps (the shades are the expensive part). When I repainted the trim, I took down the art from the wall and filled the hole - I'm liking the more casual, off centered look these days. 

Lucy's been sitting on this stool lately while she eats/crafts - it allows her to sit correctly (on her bottom) and rest her feet on the step. We've loved it, it's from Ikea for anyone wondering. :) 

Proof this room is difficult to photograph.... sigh. This picture does not show the true color of the lower portion of the wall, but it does show off my nice white trim. :) 

Is there anything in your house that you haven't tackled because of a tiny bit of fear?

Next up, the Kitchen! 

Our Home, A Tour: The Living Room

This next room is the largest in our home, and is the reason we purchased the house! 

The Living Room

Because this room is so large, I thought I'd share the changes as they've happened section by section, or wall by wall. 

North-West Corner

Before move in

Soon after move-in, after we installed the home-theater. 

After we purchased a new couch, hung curtains, removed wallpaper, and painted the walls and trim. 

With the screen up, a bit less centered on the TV. :) 

North-East Corner

Before move in

Soon after move-in

After the purchase of new a new couch. The room stayed this way for a long time - we focused our efforts on other rooms and spaces for a few years, but finally this year, soon after the New Year, I spent a week ripping down wallpaper, painting trim and painting these two walls to match the south wall (which had been painted for a while). We couldn't believe how much we were pleased with the change! It was one of those projects that took a good amount of time (the kids had a TV marathon week while I worked) but didn't cost a lot and made a HUGE change. 

After hanging curtains, wall-paper removal, paint on walls and trim. The trim was an almond color in the living room and dining room I repainted it a crisp white. I'm a HUGE fan of white trim. 

South Wall (You may remember many of these photos from this post and this one)

Soon after move-in, ripping down the wall to install a french door. 

Exposed studs!

Door removed and hole cut for french door! 

French door installed

Dry wall put up

Seams taped and mudded.

Wall painted 

Wall, windows and door trimmed out, curtains hung! ALL DONE!

The curtains are drop cloths from Home Depot that I hemmed to the correct length and added clip rings to the top. They work great, were extremely economical, are a fantastic weight and are a nice, neutral, soft touch in the room. With all that brick, I was thrilled to bring in some texture that was not hard to the touch! :) 

We LOVE our living room, and spend the majority of our time in this room. Wether we are playing with the kids, on our computers, reading, visiting with friends or watching TV - it all happens in this room, we live in here. :) 

Our Home, A Tour: The Master Bathroom

 Presenting: 

The Master Bathroom

Like I said when I gave you a tour of our Hall Bathroom, we learned a lot about home renovations during that project! And we were able to apply some of what we learned when working on our second bathroom. Like: 

• Don't start a project until you have money/supplies to finish it.
• Begin with a plan, not because you want to rip down a wall. 
• Don't begin projects right after you find out you are expecting a baby... oh wait, we failed on that one. oops! ;)

Oh! And we drastically cut down our project time! Our Hall Bath took us 2 years, for many reasons, but this one took us about 2 weeks! Hurray for applying lessons learned!

Before: 

 I wish I would have taken more-updated before pictures of this room - the above picture was taken right after we moved in and sadly this bathroom deteriorated under our feet. I'll try to describe to you in words it's situation: The tile in the shower floor had not been installed properly so the majority of the grout worked it's way out over 2 years - leaving a shifty, sometimes poke-your-toes floor. The linoleum was peeling badly and discolored in a few places. The cabinet door didn't fit correctly, so I only had one attached - something I, surprisingly, got used to. It's funny how your list of priorities changes when you've lived in a house for awhile. :) (Can anyone relate?) 

So we started with ripping out the shower floor - the walls were in good shape, so we hoped to save them and just lay new tile down on the bottom. Brad spent a good afternoon breaking out the tile and scraping the shower pan to prep it for tile. We were able to find a tile we felt accented the walls well for the shower floor and then a pretty close match for the floor of the bathroom. I can't believe how simply changing the flooring dressed up this bathroom! We also painted both the upper walls and freshened up the bead-board which covers the bottom 4ish feet of the walls. 

After:

 Brad also used his carpentry skills to cut down the cabinet door and even added some trim to them so that the doors looked more "finished" they are so amazing. I'm a proud wife. It's given us confidence about possibly redoing a kitchen someday.... eek.

Before/After Side by Side: 

Hurray! Two bathrooms, spruced up by the Kidders - it feels so good to have them done!! 

We are done with bathrooms and bedrooms, let's do living spaces next! Front Room, here we come!

Our Home, A Tour: Michael's Room

 Today, I'd like to show you: 

Michael's Room

 Some of you may remember, that this room was originally our Guest Room. But after Michael was born, we decided to move him in here and allow Lucy to have "sleepovers" with her brother when guests visit. Our kids, so far, have slept so much better alone - I know this is because they haven't been trained how to share a room and that training begins next month! They will be sharing a room in Lansing! 

I had so much fun decorating this room over a few months for our boy - we didn't paint, the color is neutral but I think I've been able to bring in color and whimsey through decorations instead. 

 Michael's room! :) 

 Changing table (you may remember I painted it for Lu soon after we moved to Pampa) 

 The cuddle corner - I love this rocker. :) 

 Hanging above Michael's bed are some of the yarn balls I made for an Easter Brunch at church (read about that here). They are hanging well out of Michael's reach, so don't worry. :) 

 All of our board-books hang out in here, along with cars, blocks and baby toys (in the top bin, no tag for it yet). I also keep the majority of our "makes noise" toys in here (in the basket on the right) Michael likes to play with them during room-time. :) 

 My favorite part in the whole room is this fun collage of memories. I found the printable online (you can find it here) and made the M canvas (info on that here). I had all these frames but they were different colors - a few quick coats of white spray paint made them coordinate nicely. :) I also invested in a mat-cutter (using a 40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby) and bought sheet of grey mat board. After some practice, I was able to cut out the mats and create a cohesive look for the collage. :)

Michael loves to look at books while his pants are changed, so I put a little set of board books into the wooden truck! It has been the perfect home for them, Michael and I both love the creative storage (for different reasons of course). :) 

 (There was a bit of something on my camera lens when I took these pictures - so please forgive the grey blotch.)

Well, that's Michael's colorful-and-functional-with-a-touch-of-whimsey Nursery. :) 

Next up on our house tour: Lucy's Room! 

Our Home, A Tour: Hall Bathroom

Hi friends, I'm starting a new - few week long - series here on the blog to document the progress and updates we've made on our home here in Pampa both for memory's sake and so you can see what we've done! :)

I even made a series picture/header! Fancy schmancy.

Today, I'd like to take you on a tour of our:

Hall Bathroom

I know what you're probably thinking, why in the world are you starting with a bathroom Sarah? I've chosen to start here for a few reasons. 

1. This is the room that took us the longest from start of project to finish of project (close to 2 years.... eek!). 
2. It's a pretty drastic before/after and, no lie, I want to make your jaw drop right off the bat. 
3. We learned SO much about home renovations and all future projects will be better because of this room. 
4. I'm really proud of this room. 

Let's start with the BEFORE: 

 Yep, that's a Pepto-Bismol pink tub accented nicely by gold and pink flecked tile and mauve walls. The room was crowned with floral wallpaper. Not in horrible shape, but definitely not our taste.

 The other side of the room. There was, when we put in an offer on the house, a pink toilet to match the tub, but it didn't pass the house inspection so the previous owner's replaced it with a white one for us. 

PROGRESS (taken over the course of 2 years):

We did the majority of the work ourselves, but did have some help along the way, we had a plumber install a line up for a shower head (the tub only had a bottom spigot previously), our friend Mike helped move the old tub out and new tub in and our friend Josh helped with all the tiling - both the shower surround and flooring. Thanks guys so much for your help!!! Brad did the of the brain work - and even found our MARBLE tile at a major discount.

AFTER:

 Shower! NO MORE PINK! Hurray! 

 The other side of the bathroom. After a new tub, drywall, shower surround, flooring, vanity, mirror, lighting, baseboards, crown and paint we were done! Phew!

And because I love a good before/after:

 Amazing right? 

We love our new bathroom! It was a lot of work, but we are so pleased with the results. 

Check back tomorrow for a tour of Michael's room (never seen before on the blog!). :)