Before and After

Going through old pics of our house so we can show what we have done to it. Thought it might be fun to put them up on the blog.

We bought this house back in 2003 when I was about to have Cole. We hated the house, but the lot was good and it was very close to the school where Austin would be starting Kindergarten in the fall.

Yep- ugly. 1966 basic colonial.

Trying to find a pic of the outside front now- we added Hardi Plank siding on top (in a taupe color), pulled out the front door and put on a porch. Also gave the house all new windows.

You can’t see the house very well- but trust me it’s a huge improvement!!!

This is what the back of the house looked like

We took off the back porch and started to dig a new basement

The day we started to dig

And look how young my kids look playing in the hole

And then the framing started

Eventually the back started to look like this

Framing

And this

turned into this

I already did a post with full pics of the before and after of the kitchen.

You can see it here.

The upstairs

I took all of these pictures the day we looked at the house- I feel bad posting all of their stuff on here but I didn’t take any once we moved in because we gutted it right away. This cedar closet we completely removed.

This post shows the closet and what the upstairs looks like now and more of the kitchen area. Although I don’t think I have a pic of the bathroom now.

Look at my Blakey man- lots of growing up was done in this house. I remember there was so much glass, and my two boys kept wrestling in every single room.

This bedroom turned into my bathroom

This is one of my faves, and shows how a few small (but expensive-ouch) decisions can really change a house

This was our entry before

We pushed out the door to make more room for a bigger hallway, ripped open the stairway wall so it was not a dark tunnel going up the stairs, beefed up the banister and railing, changed the floor to wood (it was slate, I am sure I have told the story when one of the workers fell through into our new basement??), changed the lights, beefed up the molding around the doors, replaced the sidelights…. the list goes on

And of course the basement.

Looking at these pictures is bittersweet for sure but the best thing about them is that they give me hope. We have done it once, we can do it again. We put in an offer on a house. Once again, it’s not our style. But it has an awesome lot in a great location. So here we go again. It’s not near as bad as this one was. Honestly we changed almost everything about our current house. There is not one room we did not touch. It would have been way cheaper to build new. But I would do it all over again. I love this house, and now someone else gets to love it too 🙂

I get to start all over again. Remember my idea book? Well now it is all online on Houzz. I surf through the site every night from my iPhone before I fall asleep. Technology is a wonderful thing.