before and after pictures part 2 / do-over!

Ok, it's the moment you've all been waiting for since January when I originally said that I would be posting more before and after pictures! A lot has gone down since then. We DID finally finish the inside of the house- and in the process, a bunch of the old "before and after" pictures became obsolete. Thanks to some new pieces of furniture and some redecorating, we have some after-after photos. In short, forget all the pictures you saw before! These are the OFFICIAL Lunt Family before and after pictures for our first home!

First, we have our beautiful mailbox- which I am very proud of. I am the one that painted the post, and with help of Nathan's sister Amy and her Cricut, I was able to cut out our last name in vinyl and stick it on the side. I think it turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

Next we have the original picture from the MLS listing, before Nathan and I had ever even stepped foot inside. When we actually bought it, that dead plant in the middle of the yard had been pulled up and pretty much all the grass was dead.

And here what it looks like now! Fresh new paint, some new lighting on the outside of the garage, and the ever important American flag. Don't let the picture fool you however, we do not yet have grass in the front yard. Most of the green you see here is actually weeds, brought to us by all these lovely spring showers we have had in the past few weeks. Landscaping the front and the back is next on our home improvement to-do list. I won't even say when we are going to do this, because I am obviously not very good at living up to timeline promises!

This is what you used to see as you first entered the house; White walls and super ugly white ceramic tile.

Now, new and fabulous wood laminate flooring, warm, neutral paint colors, and of course our nice, homey decor! The difference is amazing!

The before view of the living room, from the back corner...

...and the after. I still can't get over how good my floors look.

The before view of the living room, looking into the dining area from the front corner...

...and the after view. Once we got the piano, we did some rearranging and the "dining" area sort of transformed. We took apart the dining room table and put the chair at the bar (which you we will soon see.) It was just too crowded with all the living room furniture, and the piano, AND the dining room table. We still have it though, to put up when we have people over. Moving right along...

This is the before view of the living room, from the dining area.

This is the "after" view we enjoy today. And if you were wondering, that's Law & Order SVU on the tv. It's up there with Grey's Anatomy on my list of all time favorite shows, and surprisingly Nathan seems to enjoy it too.

Our fireplace before...

...and after! Not much a change, I know. All we really did was dust it and add decor. We still haven't used it for it's actual purpose.

There is no "before" picture for this one. It's just another view of the wall that homes the bookcase.

Same story for this picture. This is just the view of the front room from the coat closet. I think that corner still needs something, but I'm not sure what yet. The mirror above the couch is still one of my favorite decoration in the entire house.

The before picture of the dining room...

...that is now the home for our piano. See, there are the chairs at the counter. There are only two of us, so we don't mind eating there. And it's a few steps closer to the sink- which is a plus when it comes to doing dishes.

Just another view, showing off the piano. It's also a good view into our addition- the new breezeway that connects the laundry room, that was once in the garage, to the rest of the house!

Here is a more up close and personal look. Ignore the large fruit bowl on the floor, that's not usually there. We just happened to put Dave & Buster's water in that, that day. I really like having the window in the back door, so I can look out and check on my babies throughout the day.

This is our new indoor laundry room. It has been great- I really don't think I could have survived with it outside in the garage much longer. It was so dusty in there! And having our very own full size washer and dryer is just tremendous! I love being able to get like a whole hampers worth of clothes into just ONE load. Life is good.

And in the laundry room, we have doggy door! What a great little invention. We don;t leave it open very often, but it's super convenient when we do. It's nice that the puppies can let themselves out and we don't have to worry about potty accidents inside.

I opened up the door to take a picture and Dave & Buster were right there, ready to come in.

Here they are trying to come in. They don't usually look that awkward, but they are both trying to come in at the same time here. Silly pups.

These next few pictures might look familiar- I didn't retake these because little has changed in the bathrooms. But anyway, this is the before picture of the hallway bathroom...

...and this is the after. Isn't my shower curtain fabulous?

This is a before picture of the hall bath that I took from inside the nasty old tub.

The after picture, taken from inside the nice, clean new tub. This is the only room I could get away with hanging up my flower painting.

I probably should have taken another picture of the tile in the bathrooms, it looks better after being cleaned and swept and stuff. But this still give you the idea- it looks MUCH better than the white stuff that was there before.

The icky old bath....

And the nice, deep new bath tub. It's been a while since I've taken a bubble bath in there, maybe I will put that on my to-do list this week.

Here we have the master bathroom before hand. Is that not one of the ugliest counter tops you have ever seen? Ew.

And here is my bathroom today. The shower is spacious- I love it. And I love love love the new counter top.

The view from inside the shower. Looks pretty much the same now as it did when I took the picture except it's missing the bottle of Listerine and Nathan beard trimmer.

The old ceikling fans were just terrible. What a pitiful looking little thing.

Aren't the new ones so much better? And notice the popcorn ceilings are gone? Very nice. And a little side not about this particular fan- there wasn't one in the front room originally. Nathan has to go up the attic and get all the wiring right so we could have fan/light in there. What a great husband.

No before picture for this one- just the view down the hallway. The mirror at the end really makes the hall and the whole house seem a little bigger. I had to clean it a lot at first though because dogs kept running into it. Marvin and Sarah's dog, Brick, was the funniest. He ran at it full speed, like the hallway just went on forever. Classic!

And this is the view down the hall to the front door. I still haven't gotten around to flipping the pictures in that collage frame that's on the wall. It hung the other direction back at the apartment.

This is the view of "bedroom 1" before we got started.

And this is what it looks like now. See, there is the dining room table! We have used this as a bit of a storage room while we are trying to figure out where some last odds and ends are going to end up. It's not nearly as bad as the junk room back at the apartment though. This is also the babies' room. The kennel is in there and so is their toy box.

Before view of the same room, looking at the closet. Please excuse Buster's booty in the bottom right corner.

Same view, after style! I love the new mirrored closet doors we have in all the bedrooms.

This is just the view from bedroom 1 to the bathroom in the hallway. Wow...

And here's a picture from the other corner. I apologize for the poor decoration of this particular bedroom. One day it will look nice- I promise!

Before- bedroom 2.

After: bedroom 2 got turned into an office/craft room. It's been nice to have this space; I know we won't always have the luxury of an extra bedroom that can be used exclusively as an office space. It probably won't ever be an issue for us in this house, but one day our bedrooms will actually need beds!

Here is what the office looked liked before....

...and this is what it looks like now! We used a really big dining room table and split it in half. One side is the computer desk, and the other side is a craft/work space. Now if I could only find some time to actually do some crafts!

Just another view of the desk.

And here's a view from the corner where the desk is. No more bugs bunny light switch in here- so sad.

And this is the view from sitting at the computer- well, standing from where the chair is at the computer.

And now come the picture of one of my favorite parts of the transformation. The kitchen! Before...

...and After! Holy Moses! What a difference new counters, new sink, new appliance, and cabinet hardware make! I love my kitchen. It's not huge, but it gets the job done. And Nathan and I can both actually be in the kitchen doing things at the same time. In the apartment we were constantly bumping butts when we would try that.

This is the old nasty sink. Gag!

And the new and improved, stainless steel sink. So nice.

A view of the kitchen from the breezeway.

A view of the hallway from the kitchen. I'm not sure why I took this picture exactly.

Maybe it was because this is the opposite view- the hallway looking into the kitchen. I don't know. The empty wall space there next to the cabinets is where my honeymoon plates are going to go- once I get around to buying plate stands.

The kitchen from the piano. Are you sick of seeing my kitchen yet?

Our new appliances. Microhood and Stove.

And the fridge. Last kitchen pic, I promise.

Now we are going to move on to the master bedroom. Why I didn't take these picture with the other bedroom pictures, I have no idea. But anyway, here is the before picture looking from the bathroom.

And the after. The sheet over the window isn't permanent- we just haven't gotten around to buying blinds yet and the sunshine is not a friend to a person working nights.

The before view from the back corner.

And what it looks like now. This also gives you a good comparison of the old doors compared to the new doors. I love my new doors, but they were a pain in the behind to paint!

The master before- from the door.

My bedroom now- from the door.

And from the other corner.

And we'll end this post with my second favorite decoration in my house- probably because I made this one. I love seeing this before I go to bed every night and when I wake up in the morning. I love the way my love story is playing out- and didn't our first castle turn out well? Well, I am off to join my prince charming in bed now- more blogging in the morning! Nighty night all!

P.S. I apologize if any part of this blog didn't quite make sense, or if I left out a word or two here and there. Please take into consideration that not only is 1:00 in the morning- but also since I have so many pictures in this blog, there was a terrible lag when I was typing because blogger was trying to save every two minutes. Ok- that is all.