6. "before and after" Evie's room

"Before" in Evie's room, which is just next to Noah's whose is next to ours! Yeah, the camouflage wallpaper wasn't too good for a girl's room =)

"After." Terry spent a lot of time scraping that wallpaper off. Then I painted the ceiling, walls and closet. We installed a new light in here as well. Evie is ready for a big girl bed soon though. And we'll be using that crib again pretty quick!

"Before" view towards the door.

"After." It's green and pink.

5. "before and after" Noah's room

Noah's room "before."

"After." We painted the ceilings, walls and closet, installed a new light and cleaned the carpet. The shutters are great, especially for darkening, but I have some fabric to replace the old once my mom is able to help me!

After "before" looking from where I was just standing.

"After"

4. "before and after" master bedroom

This was two teenage girls' room "before" and we didn't want to keep the lime green and bright purple =)

"After." We painted the ceiling, removed the old light and patched the ceiling, installed a new light, painted the walls and cleaned the carpet. Not bad. The new color is called "Soft Moss" and I really like it.

"Before" the view down the hall to the front room. You can also see the closet to the right.

"After." We even painted the closet!

3. "before and after" kitchen

Okay. Here is the kitchen. This is what I was the most concerned about and where the most work occurred. Man oh man has a lot been done.

So here is the "before" of the kids running from the front room (where I'm standing) to the back door and deck off the dining room. Notice the chandelier, box thing above the window and wood "trim" stuff.

"After." We removed the wood box above the window, painted the walls and wood "trim" stuff and replaced (and moved) the chandelier. The ceiling had previously been flat so Terry's buddy Kevin texturized it to match the rest of the house and then we painted it.

A "before" view of the kitchen. Notice the hanging shelves, breakfast bar and counter,

desk to the left, and the color of the cupboards.

"After." Man. Okay, so we had a TON of help in here. Terry's aunt JoAnn removed all the cupboards and drawers, sanded, primed, painted them (three times) and put on the new pulls. Herb, JoAnn's husband, removed the breakfast bar, desk, hanging cupboard and soffet. Kevin patched the drywall on the ceiling. Dr. Dave did the wood work where the soffet and hanging cupboard ended, as well as the trim around the stove, and new wood to cover up where the breakfast bar and old desk were. Kevin also installed 3 new can lights and patched where the old single light had been so we could install a new one. Terry put in the hanging lights. Then I painted the walls!

"Before" hutch. Notice the decorative molding or whatever that is at the top.

"After." Terry removed the molding and Dave cut and applied a new piece of wood over it after I stained and varnished it. JoAnn took off the doors and stained the wood behind them. I stained the doors and varnished the rest. And we put new pulls on.

Here is that "before" hanging cupboard and soffet. It really separated and darkened the kitchen, which previously only had one insufficient light. And notice the back splash.

Terry installed the new hanging lights. Herb and JoAnn installed the back splash, which had previously been the same Formica as the before counter tops...

"Before" Formica counter top and breakfast bar.

"After" the breakfast bar was removed, we had the counter "island" sort of thing extended, as well as the rest of the counter tops replaced.

"After" view of the kitchen. We had to get new appliances too. Oh, this reminds me that for the microhood and fridge to fit, we had to shorten the cupboards above them. Dave did that!

And a new sink and faucet.

2. "before and after" front room

The "before" photo of the front room. The door to the right-most is where you enter the house. The house actually has four levels to it. You can see the bedrooms going up and the family room is down. Under this front room is the "dungeon" as we call it, which is just a finished basement.

"After." We painted the ceilings, walls, wood "trim" going up the stairs and the closet door, which also needed to be patched. We replaced the front door, added four can lights and a fan (there was no lights or fan before). Terry tore out the old carpet and pad and installed the new wood floor himself. He also put new trim up in this room.

"Before" view from the upstairs landing.

"After." It really helped to get our stuff on the walls as well.

Here is the "before" wood "trim" or whatever this stuff is called...

And "after"! The carpet is new though perhaps it's hard to tell. We put new carpet on all the stairs, the upstairs landing and the downstairs.

1. "before and after" yard

Okay, I've decided to get this done - the before and after blogs. As of May 28th, we moved into our very first home - not a rental and not a parsonage. And we did a lot of work (mostly inside) that we're proud of. Especially since it all took place just four weeks in May before we moved in at the end of that month.

Here is the front of our house. I don't have a before photo and even if I did, it looks pretty much the same...

The view from across the street. There are two maples and an oak tree in the front.

This is the back deck at Easter, shortly before we started work. Notice that there is no railing, though the deck is great. Also, we've trimmed up the pine trees. The next thing on the list is a fence and a roof!

This is another "before" shot of the back yard. It's the same except more green, and the large maple tree is trimmed up a little.

Here are "after" photos. This is the deck now. Thanks to Terry's dad, we have a railing.

The current view of the backyard.

The view to the north of our neighbors lawn and freshly weeded patio.

Poor Snap would really like a fence... That's next!

sometimes i hate coming up with titles

While I was at work one Thursday, Terry allowed the kids to climb the tree, with Evie in her pajamas and hair undone no less! Ah, they love Thursdays =) And here you can see Noah loves his sister!

after the storms

After some recent thunderstorms, Terry scaled our rather large maple in the back yard to pick out the dead branches that he could reach. This tree is huge. And it needs cleaned up. But I was happy he didn't go too far on this day...

Noah sat on the lowest branch watching.

Evie and I were on the ground. Daddy joined Noah...

And Evie had enough of waiting. She wanted UP

So he got her up =)

And then they played on the ladder - supervised people!

rivers of rain

We've had some whacked out storms this summer. Thankfully it's not stayed as wet as it was initially b/c we do get a little flooding in the basement/dungeon. As such we always keep a shop vac down there and were vacuuming up after this storm for sure.

We got hail. Some of it was the size of golf balls, or at least ping pong balls.

See the river on our street corner?

See that tree branch in the river? Yeah, that's from our tree. It was in our yard until the wind picked it up and put it in the gutter (?) and the river carried it on down the road. This happened twice. Hey, at least we didn't have to pick up those branches, just a lot of smaller ones...

toes and tv

I've been meaning to do a before and after blog about our house. Perhaps I will get around to it. Later. But here is a picture of the new TV in it's place in the downstairs. And Terry made the shelves himself for the DVD player, etc.. For some reason the kids like sitting on the ottoman...

Evie toes. While she was sitting on the potty I crept upstairs and listened to her talk outside the bathroom. She was playing with her toes saying, "Wee wee wee, all the way home."