We moved into our Glenn Drive house in July 2005, at the height of the real estate market. 🙁 It was built in 1948 and we purchased from the original owner. By March 2009 our family of 3 had grown to a family of 5 and I was itching for more room. Especially a second full bath, we only had 1.5 baths and I was sick of sharing with all these people! It’s sad when I think about how much work I put into that house and don’t even get to enjoy it, but I know all that work is what allowed us to sell it for a little more than we paid, but it a MUCH worse market. Anyway, here’s a little tour…
Oh, I totally forgot to mention that I don’t have any good “before” pictures because I lost everything from my computer several years back. FYI, I now swear by Carbonite. It saved my butt the last time I had a computer die on me.
Here’s the front of the house.
I did more removal of old plants/trees/bushes than anything else. I did buy that nice new door, but {full disclosure} I had Home Depot install it for me. It was definitely one of those projects hubby and I were like, “Man we should have done that a long time ago.” That little cutout in the door made a huge difference in the amount of light we got in our house. And duh, now you could see who was ringing the bell!!
Moving on… I do have pics of one of our front yard projects. There was a totally weird concrete patio, if you can call such a thing a patio, in front of the house. Now tell me, when would anyone want to sit on concrete watching all the cars go by, completely exposed and on display for everyone. We had a huge backyard to chill in, so I begged my husband to take the concrete out. He smashed all that up in one morning and hauled it away little by little. I think we used to sneak as much as we could in with the trash.
It cleared the way for some foundation plantings, which we desperately needed…
And planted…
You entered the house into the living room. I so wish I had pictures from the day I moved in!!!! The walls were orange and carpet was pink!!! Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way it was UGLY!!! I tore the wall to wall carpet out the day I closed on the house. Me. All. By. Myself. Done. The hardwood floor underneath was awesome!
Through the archway is the kitchen/dining area. My labor of love. Hubby and I took the wall down between the kitchen and dining room and I designed and installed the kitchen of my dreams! Check out this post for even more on the kitchen renovation. We used hardwood in the kitchen for a seamless look throughout this entire level of the house, but I would not recommend hardwood in the kitchen. Only a few weeks after I installed the cabinets, we had a leak under the sink (I won’t name any names, but it had something to do with the guy I live with) which ruined the floor. I managed to replace it, but it was a huge pain in the butt. Anyway, you can see in the picture below where the old floor meets the new floor. Pretty damn good match, if you ask me!
Read more about My First Kitchen Renovation HERE
Downstairs was the family room. It was a split-level house and there was also a basement, but this room was not the basement, even though everybody always thought that. Haha, this room was the only one that DIDN’T have carpet, and it’s the one room I put carpet in. It was always freezing in the family room and it had green and white checkered tile (probably asbestos tile). I really must beg my family to see if anyone else has pictures of this place in its original state. Wow!
I always loved our screened porch. We were so lucky to find a new house with an even bigger screened porch. When my kids were really little, I’d sit on the porch for hours and let them run/crawl around, or swing in a baby swing, all the while feeling like we were outside, but not having to deal with the “outside”.
The powder room was off the family room. This place got a complete makeover. I tore out the old tile and put this slate tile down. It was my first ever tile job. It was when I learned that you can’t cut your finger on a tile saw. Together, hubby and I put installed our first toilet and sink. The mirror covers the hole where there was once a medicine cabinet. That’s right, I didn’t even patch the hole. Now that I remember correctly, this was our unofficial test project. You know, to see if we would kill each other or not during a remodel. We both lived, so we started taking on bigger projects like the kitchen. But between you and me… the rule in our house is that he is not allowed to put a hole in or saw anything with out a consultation by yours truly. Let me just say that it’s necessary. But hey, there’s a lot of stuff I wouldn’t be able to do without him. And when I think of something, I’ll let you know. 🙂
Upstairs we had 3 bedrooms, with a 4th bedroom on the top floor. I am so not a fan of split level houses, but I didn’t know until after I lived in one. First let’s look at the nursery. It was a guest room for a bunch of years and that’s why the wall are blue. I decided to keep the blue for my baby girl, but painted all the furniture bright colors. Bright pink dresser (Goodwill $15), same color on rocking chair (red when purchased at a consignment store for $12), orange side table (flea market $15), bright green baby wardrobe (family heirloom, not in picture). Loved the green shag rug from IKEA. I taught myself how to sew by making that quilt and matching stacking cubes (not pictured). I also made the blue bed skirt. And attached fabric to the lampshade. The chair is the EKTORP JENNYLUND chair from IKEA. I purchased the white cover and used Rit to dye the fabric turquoise. It was the first time I ever used it and I was shocked at how well it turned out. I had a friend make rockers for the bottom. I don’t get why IKEA doesn’t make a rocking chair version??? My daughter still uses most of these pieces in her current room.
My older daughter’s bedroom was definitely a labor of love. Painting the harlequin diamonds on her walls was no joke. Two years later she didn’t like the yellow anymore so I painted the yellow diamonds blue. Just as freakin hard as the first time. Well almost. Still all that damn taping, just no measuring this time. I painted the bed in this shot, it was $5 at Salvation Army. The chandelier is from Home Depot of all places! I made the curtains. The side table was picked out of the garbage and painted pink. It’s now blue in her new room.
I purchased this three-piece bedroom set off eBay. I won each piece in a different auction. Read this post about how I (gasp!) separated the set and sold the vanity and dresser on Craigslist years later.
Next is the “master” bedroom. It was exactly the same size as the bedroom above, with a slightly smaller closet. When our guest room became a nursery, I tried to every inch, but we were definitely cramped. I took the doors off the closet and put up the curtains (but I kept the doors in the basement, important for resale!). We mostly had an IKEA showroom I guess. The wardrobe, dresser, shelves, and shoe holders were all from there. The shoe holders were the perfect thing for that wall because there was not a lot of room left at the end of the bed. These were perfect and gave us a place to display pictures. I wanted a “built-in” look for around the window and these pieces fit the bill. They don’t make these particular cubes anymore (they are solid wood) but the dresser is a classic MALM 6-drawer. I modified it by adding a wood base and legs so it would match in both height and style with the cube pieces. These pieces later became my son’s nursery furniture when we moved into our new house. That MALM was his changing table. I made the headboard. Then when I moved the bed to this wall I had to build a modification to keep it a few inches away from the wall because there was a heating vent behind there. It was one of those times I decided not to let existing structures dictate my decisions. Those shell pictures now hang in our laundry room.
That brings us to the backyard, which was nice and big and shaded, but wasn’t great on privacy.
That concludes the “old house” tour. I will definitely try to search for before pictures. And I think I took a video the first couple of days too. You know back when we used separate cameras for taking videos. I’ll have to go “check the tapes.”