Before & After (almost finished!)

Hellooooo!

Yesterday I told you that I'd be posting pictures of moving and our adventures so far. Well, I kind of lied. I feel like before I show you moving pictures, I should show you as much as I can of the house in its (semi) finished state. I got really excited about taking cute pictures of the house today and making it all homey. I must say, taking pictures of houses is harder than it looks! I get lots of my decor and photo-taking inspiration from my new favorite blog, Young House Love. They make room photography look way easier than it actually is. I promise it's even cuter in person, but here is my best attempt at showing you our little house! I'll warn you, this is a very picture-heavy post.

Before we got here, Thomas' Aunt Marisa sent us some pictures of the house we would be moving into, just so we could see a little preview of it. We didn't take before pictures of everything, so I'll be using pictures from her blackberry as the before shots. Also, we only have access to about half the house due to the repairs being done, but I went ahead and photographed the more finished rooms today.

First, the kitchen.

Before

 We didn't do much visible renovation in here, mostly just filled it with our LOTS of cute kitchen stuff!

 Thomas and his dad were able to get the dishwasher working, and we also removed the old window treatments.

This fridge was nice, but broken. It was also really heavy. The boys were able to finally get it out to replace it with our much smaller white one.

After

 On the left you can see one of Thomas' favorite things, his magnetic spice rack. It's cool looking and useful. A hook housing my extensive apron collection is also there.

 We're planning on changing the look of the cabinets, maybe by putting a cool fabric over the plastic inserts to modernize them a bit.

 One of my favorite things, the adorable green Crate & Barrel teapot.

From here you can see out into the laundry room, where the tree damage is still being worked on.

Now for the dining room.

Before

The previous owners used this as an office. We decided to use it as a dining room and moved the old stuff out.

After

We used books from our wedding centerpieces as well as my bridesmaid's dried bouquets in an old vase. The chair cushions are from World Market and our friends Sam and Scott gave us the adorable posey placemats from Crate & Barrel.

Here's a view of the whole room (although it isn't from the same angle as the before shot, sorry).

This is one of my favorite things in the house. My super creative Mother-in-Law (aka MIL) arranged it, and I think it's so adorable.

This is the "den" which I refer to as the living room. 

Before

We moved this couch to Thomas' music room. We also removed the old window treatments. Since the house is so high up, people can't see in, so we plan to leave the windows uncovered for extra natural light.

We laid out the room differently than the previous owners, as you'll see below.

After

 There is still work to be done--obviously, there's a huge boarded up window where the glass supposedly just fell out due to swelling before we moved in. I took the liberty of photoshopping in a mirror, which we hope to find and put up soon.

You don't even want to know how long I spent (terribly) shopping this mirror in. That's what I get for trying to use Gimp instead of the real thing.

We also repurposed the blue glass we collected for the wedding by putting it in all the window sills to catch the light. The wall with the TV is where the old couch used to sit.

Here's a book shelf we're still working on.

There to the right, you can see the room we haven't photographed yet because it's holding the stuff from the rooms that are out of commission.

Here is a preview of that room, which we're calling the front room. More to come!

Before

We took down all the pictures and are slowly replacing them. This is a view into the kitchen.

We also donated these shelves and set up the room a little differently.

I plan to recover this cool chair with some printed fabric.

After (preview)

 We found this green table runner on sale at Crate & Barrel. The cool tree came from our friend Jessica who got it at BB&B.

My dresser wouldn't fit in our room, so we're using it out here instead. We got lucky and found the bronze lamps pretty cheap at Target along with the pretty cream shades.

Isn't this awesome?! Our friend Lyndsey painted it. She's extremely talented. It is now hanging in the front room where everyone who comes in will see it.

Now for one of our favorites, the master bedroom.

Before

The room was originally painted a dark grey and had beige window coverings.

We're happy that there is quite a bit of closet space. This is my closet.

The closed door is Thomas' closet, which is also good sized.

After

We wanted to really lighten up the whole room since it is small, so we used a coat of KILZ primer and two coats of Valspar's Meadow Mist. This is another place my MIL came up super handy, being the pro painter that she is! The color is a light sea foam in person.

We ran across these cool stick on leaves at BB&B. Being the tree person that I am, I fell in love.  The curtain's are IKEA's Lenda, and they were really easy to hem since they come with iron-on hem tape.

The sconces are from Home Depot and they act as a replacement for bedside table lamps. Finally, the beautiful pillows were handmade for us by our friend Deana. They are perfect!

We made this 'dresser' out of our two end-tables (which won't fit beside the bed) put together, and hung the mirror from our actual dresser over them. It ended up looking really nice and it's super functional.

Finally, another big transformation, the bathroom. Photographing a tiny bathroom is hard. Trust me, it's cuter in person!

Before

We only have two pictures of the bathroom before, but you get the idea. It was pretty grungy and in need of updating.

The moms and I were pretty appalled at the condition of the tub before. No way I was taking a bath in that! But again, Andrea (and a little Tom and Mari) to the rescue, and the tub is beautiful again!

After

 Isn't is pretty?! The shower curtain is from Target, and for the paint we chose a light springy green, Valspar's Summer Rapture. It looks greener (and not as yellow) in person.

We thought we'd have a lot less storage in here than before, but having a medicine cabinet and over the toilet shelf gives you more room than you'd think.

The beautiful cross stitch was done for us by Thomas' awesome Aunt Helen. It says "A marriage is a friend for life--a lover's sweet embrace. A faithful partner one can trust, and dreams to share and chase." The colors fit perfectly!

 If you ever wondered what the inside of our shower looks like...now you know:]

Ahh. So fresh and clean! I had to use flash here to capture the full white effect.

I know I just barraged you with a million pictures, but we wanted you to see what we've been looking at for the last couple of weeks. Hopefully you enjoyed it! Tomorrow I really do plan to post moving pictures! 

Here's a final picture of Jack lazing on my mom's makeshift bed. 

-T, K, & J