House Before and After Pics: the Backyard

Sniff sniff...

This is my final Before/After Post!

And I post it with bittersweet feelings because....

...wait for it....

....we have an ACCEPTED OFFER ON OUR HOUSE!!!!

So, while it has been super fun and nostalgic and great to review all the work we put into making this house our home.  Now....NOW I get to grapple with OUR house being someone ELSE'S house.  I mean, I KNEW that day would come, right?  This IS what I was hoping for, right?  It was really hard to see them here today for the house inspection.  To watch other people walking around in MY house.  I'm sure it will be a little bit different when my stuff isn't in the house, and it is just a blank canvas again...but not too much different, I am sure.  I am sure there will be tears shed.  And you know what?  That is TOTALLY OK.

But, I digress...you are here to see the backyard transformation, no?

Let's start with the PATIO:

This was the back patio and back deck BEFORE.  Note the rotted deck and the overgrown landscaping.

 

Here's another view so you can really appreciate the state of condition the landscaping was in (if you could even call it that).

The view looking out into the backyard over the patio.

The overgrown vegetation (and the beautiful lamps)...

 

And here is what it looks like today!

This is a picture I took this spring when the phlox was blooming.  LOVE the carpet of purple...

The view of the patio from the second story deck above...

Another view from the deck...  See how all the landscape block is in straight rows?  Max SLAVED over digging up all the old block and relaying it.  It was a HUGE HUGE HUGE project, but one he undertook with minimal complaining.  And, just look at how beautiful it looks now!  It pays to do something right the first time!

View of the patio looking back at the house...  You can see the new deck, the plantings, and everything.

Moving on to the BACK YARD:

Shortly after we closed on the house, we had to have someone in to re-grade the yard.  The slope of the yard sloped too much towards the house rather than away, so they had to scrape a lot of dirt out and move it.  Rather than pay to have it hauled away, we relocated it to the back of the property to create a 'berm' to actually channel the water away from the house.  We live on a big hilled street and we are almost to the bottom...so a lot of the rain water from up the hill flows through our property.  This berm helps channel the majority of that water AWAY from the house.  But, it all had to be planted and landscaped as a result.

We planted everything ourselves.  Most of it was obtained 'bare root' from a local nursery.  It was fun to plan the landscaping and then literally get my hands dirty implementing it.  I love dirt.  :)

Mason likes it too...

Here's a view looking back at the berm.

And the back yard from the side view too...

Another shot of the landscaping...

The full back yard (we are on almost .75 acres...so the lot is pretty large.  You can see my apple trees in this picture too.  They produce AWESOME apples that are great for making apple sauce, apple butter, etc.

Moving on to .... the SIDE OF THE HOUSE:

Here is the side of the house (the north side).  This was pre-grading.  After the grading was completed, instead of re-seeding with grass we decided to mulch it...

And here is what it looks like now.  I think this is my favorite part of the yard...

On the other side of the house (the south side), there were two large juniper bushes that we removed.  It was the perfect spot to put a garden, I decided.  So, Max built me my own fenced in garden area...

It looks quite different now as everything is much larger (and producing food) but you get the idea.  I'm already scouting out places for the garden to go at the new house...  :)

And this concludes the House Before and After series.  Thanks for coming along on this ride with me!  It was a lot of fun for me to go back down memory lane for a lot of this.  AND, it certainly helped guide me on taking pictures of the next house (in preparation for something similar).  I am excited to see what changes we can make at our next house.  And, I really truly hope that the next couple who live in our house love it as much as we did.  I'm sure they will.

House Before and After Pics: the Bedrooms

It appears that I don't have a whole lot of before pictures of the bedrooms.  Probably because they are just bedrooms, nothing too special...

I guess the biggest problem with the bedrooms BEFORE was that all of the woodwork was this nasty dark brown color.  And, the previous owner had decided to paint some of the walls with flat white ceiling paint...and in a moment of wisdom, randomly rolled over parts of the woodwork with the same flat white ceiling paint.  They didn't paint all of the woodwork...I wouldn't even say most of it.  So, there were these random stripes of white paint across the dark brown...it was beautiful.  NOT.

Here's the Master Bedroom.  Unfortunately, I only have a picture of this corner of the room...not sure why this corner was so exciting to take a picture of it, but you get what I have, so deal with it.  :)

You can see some evidence of the white paint on brown woodwork above.  Weirdly enough, it looks like the trim around the mirrored closet is already white (probably ceiling paint white though)...  The hardwood floors were actually in really good condition, so we didn't even need to really touch those (other than doing a real good deep cleaning...)

For the last 8 years, I've had the bedroom painted a sage green color.  The realtor recommended we re-paint it a more neutral color, so we just used the same color we had in our living room -- Navajo White -- a nice beige white.  I think it looks nice with our bedding and curtains, and it did freshen the room up a bit...see for yourself:

The only other bedroom I had pictures of is what is currently Sam's room.  This room had a special yellow painted heat register (see below) and a wonderful old school ceiling fan.  You can also barely see out the window the state of rot the original deck was in.  When we replaced that, big Max went out and kicked at the railing and it fell right apart.  SCARY.  Glad we never used it!!

You can also see here how even the doors were painted that nasty dark brown color.  We re-painted the doors and trim a nice glossy white color that really freshened everything up.  It's true when they say a coat of paint can make ALL the difference!

Here's the finished deck too:

And, last but not least, lil Max's room.  Sorry, no before picture to compare, but a nice after picture (BTW, the color in this room was called "Tantalizing Teal"...I bought it at the same time as the "Naughty Neutral"....hahaha).

I'm a little bit sad that I only have one more Before/After post left: the backyard!  It has been so wonderful to go back and have all these memories re-surface and to relive all the work we put into this house.  I really hope the next owners love and take care of this house as much as we did (I am sure that they will).  It is a wonderful house.  Sure, like any house, it has some things we'd like to fix...I don't think any house is PERFECT (maybe unless you build it yourself, but even then...).  I've really enjoyed the last 9.3 years I've spent in this house -- years by myself, with roommates, and then finally with my husband and then my sons.  The years of my life I spent here were blessed, special and hold so many memories.  It will be really hard to package all that up when we leave...but I just have to remember that the next house will hold lots of memories as well!

House Before and After Pics: the Master Bathroom

Since my last post covered the main bathroom (with minimal 'remodeling' work), I figured it might be a good transition to the other bathroom -- the master bathroom.  This one needed a complete overhaul, as you can see below. 

It is a smaller bathroom, with a shower stall, toilet and sink -- Max and I can be in the bathroom at the same time, but it does require a little space negotiating.  We debated taking space from one of the hallway closets to make the shower larger (or turn it into a steam shower....my idea) but we ended up opting to just keep the layout and space the same.

The color of the tile just did NOT appeal to us, so that required us to do a complete tear down of the entire bathroom.  The other reason was that, unknown to me when I purchased the house (and NOT disclosed by the previous seller....NAUGHTY) was that if you used the shower, it would leak into the garage below.  I discovered this only be accident one morning when I realized the entire back half of my car looked like it had gone through a car wash...  Needless to say, I didn't use the shower after that.

Anyways, here is what the bathroom looked like before:

Wonderful pink and maroon tile.  Cheapo white laminate cabinet.  Nasty wallpaper (why is wallpaper such a pain to remove?)  Max just reminded me that when he pulled that medicine cabinet out of the wall a whole bunch of used razor blades fell out on him.  Apparently there was a hole in the bottom of the medicine cabinet to 'dispose' of your used blades....I guess if you consider throwing them into your wall cavities disposing of them....

This is what happens when you remove tile from drywall -- note we were not trying to salvage the drywall, I was trying to salvage the tile to send it to the Habitat for Humanity RE Store (where people can reuse the tile if wanted...I figured someone might need a tile or two to replace broken ones, and the retro tiles are coming back in style...)  See the funky pink and maroon tile in the floor?

Here is the shower completely gutted.  Pretty, eh?

Here's Max hard at work tiling the floor of the bathroom.  Neither of us had a ton of experience with tiling, but it's not that hard to master, and it turned out really great (if I do say so myself).  We did the remodel in the summer of 2007 -- convenient for me because I was pregnant with Lil Max at the time...so I could only help so much.... LOL.

The finished floor and shower floor (the threshold and step was done in a different tile (my idea).

Finished floor.

Cement board is up on the walls and in the shower...

We opted for an oak vanity and wall cabinet (to match the original oak trim that we found when we sanded off the multiple layers of paint).  Slowly things are coming together....

And here's what it looks like today!  I love the colors we picked for the walls...it makes me feel like I am in a spa when I am in there.  It was called (for whatever reason) "Naughty Neutral".  I may or  may not have purchased it for the name alone...

You can see more of the tile detailing in the shower in this picture.  The "border" in the shower was the same tile that we used for the step/threshold.  I'm really proud of how this remodel turned out also.  It is now one of my favorite rooms in the house!  The rain shower head is also pretty darn awesome, if I do say so myself....

House Before and After: the LINKS

Just so I can access all the links in one place (I'll add to it as I post new ones):

1.  The EXTENSION


2.  The KITCHEN


3.  The LIVING ROOM


4.  The FRONT OF THE HOUSE


5.  The MAIN BATHROOM

6.  The MASTER BATHROOM

7.  The BEDROOMS

8.  The BACKYARD LANDSCAPING

House Pictures Before and After: the Main Bathroom

I don't have a lot of pictures of the main bathroom before.  This is probably the only one that shows it in its original glory:

It's funny because I know lots of people who have intentionally painted their cabinets dark like this.  I hated it from the minute I saw it -- so I ended up painting it white.  I also wasn't a huge fan of the yellow tile and robin's egg blue sink (and bath tub and toliet).  Well, the toliet was replaced with a brand new clean white one.  And, the sink and tub...well unless we were going to do a complete overhaul of the bathroom, they had to stay.

Some other issues:  the grout on the floor -- see how it looks black in spots??  It was like that ALL over the floor.  It was really white underneath, but you never would've guessed it...  So, I got down on my hands and knees for like a week straight and ZAPPED the crap out of those stains.  The floor looked brand new and oh so pretty when I was finished.

Another problem -- the mirror.  It was a nice sized mirror, but it had water damage around the edges.  So, we built a frame for it -- it really made it look completely different.  But, see for yourself:

 

This was another cheap 'remodel' -- although nothing really was done other than some good old fashioned elbow grease....  And, I have to admit, the yellow and blue really grew on me over the years....once I learned to embrace it and find some cute matching accessories, I really started to like it.  It is perfect for the kids too.  Now, our master bathroom...well, that was another story...one that DID require a complete overhaul...but that is for another post...keep your eyes peeled!!  :)

House Pictures Before and After: the front of the House

One more before and after post before we move on to the upstairs of our house.  The FRONT of the house.  I will save the back of the house for last. :)

Some of these pictures were taken by my dad, who walked around taking THOUSANDS of pictures that he then taped together to make panoramic views (ah..the good ole days). 

Ah, the beautiful house with my parent's cars in the driveway.  They are so awesome.  They helped me SO MUCH during the first few months (and years) of being in that house on my own.  That's my dad's ladder too -- he did all the "manly" stuff that I didn't know how (or want) to do.  He rocks.

Pay particular attention to that large juniper bush by the mailboxes (gone now) and the barberry bushes by the front door...

Here you can see more of right along the front of the house.

Same with here (and you can also see the pictures taped together LOL). 

The entrance to the house was the bane of my existence for so long.  See the horrible steps with the black gunk from outdoor carpeting still on it?  I can't tell you how many times I tried to get that stuff off.  See how the house juts out just at the top of the steps?  If you weren't careful, you'd bang your head on the house.  SO many people did it (myself included).  It SUCKED.  Gotta love the 60's wrought iron posts too.

 

AFTER!  Juniper bush is GONE and new landscaping is in its place...

Wrought iron posts are gone and new posts and a rail are there.  Entrance to the house was relocated to be straight out rather than up along the side of the house.  Landscaping along the entire front of the house was completed.  I love gardening.  I get it from my mom.  But seriously, we paid for a landscaping plan, and then we did all the work ourselves.  It is so wonderful to see the fruits of your labors bloom right before your eyes (corny, I know)!

Another view of the new front porch and landscaping.  We also got a new fiberglass front door and an AWESOME storm door that has a retracting screen.  I love this door.  I think it will be the first thing we will purchase at our new house (unless it has one already).  Oh yeah, we also got a new 3-dimensional roof put on (a complete tear off project) and new gutters and facia.  (Let me tell you, that is NOT cheap)  :)

 

Looking at it like this, you'd never even have guessed where the old steps were located.  But wow, does it look better or what?  My neighbor popped over tonight to drop off a Tupperware we had left at their house from a previous visit and she was telling me how every time she drives by our house, she is struck by how 'welcoming' the front of our house feels now.  What a complement!  XOXO

House Pictures Before and After: The Living Room

You can't really tell from the picture above, but the carpet in the house looked tan when I first bought the house.  It wasn't until I cleaned it that I realized it was actually an ivory/white color.  You should've seen just how disgusting the water in the steam cleaner was.  SO GROSS.

There were also these really awesome curtains.  But hey, they did their job and I didn't have money  immediately to be buying window treatments...

My mother graciously gifted me some wonderful cellular blinds.  Which was no small (or cheap) feat...there are 4 LARGE windows in our living/dining room.  Did I say thank you enough, Mom?  THANK YOU.

More than anything, the 'remodel' to this room was finally getting adult furniture (and not the college/inherited mismatch collection that I had and that Max brought with him when he moved to WI).  I have always loved the large windows in this house.  They let in so much wonderful natural light...

 

That's the downstairs for you...we'll be moving along to the upstair (and outside) soon.  Thanks for tagging along on this ride down memory lane.  It sure is remarkable how much work we put into this house...and seeing it all with before and after photos really drives that point home for me too!