finally have pictures of our house decorated & redone :)

14 years ago

After 8 long months of redoing and decorating I finally have LOTS of pictures to share! It's been a LOT of work but it is SO worth it! My husband and I now feel like we totally live in a place we love. It's amazing the difference in how that can make you feel when you come home from a long day at work!

Here is one before and after picture and also a link to the full before and after gallery on flickr.

BEFORE (what it looked like when we bought the house):

AFTER (as of yesterday after a meeting we had at the house:

Thank you for looking! Thanks for all of the inspiration on this board! Thanks for the support! :D

Here is a link that might be useful: Before and After Flickr Gallery of Our House

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Comments (34)

leahcate
14 years ago
Nice job..lovely!
susanlynn2012
14 years ago
What an amazing transformation especially by painting the built-ins and thoe white blinds. What wood is your beautiful floors?
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mahatmacat1
14 years ago
That is some great work, rhapsdy--congratulations!!

A question, if I may: what's the color in the dining room? TIA.
ummm
14 years ago
very nice!

i also wonder about the color in the dining room and the color in the room next to it (i think this pic shows both? http://www.flickr.com/photos/55463415@N00/3592336131/in/set-72157619213197718/)?
cathrugg
14 years ago
Picture #2 looks like it's right out of a magazine, nice work!!! Picture perfect!
yborgal
14 years ago
Very nice. Your hard work really produced wonderful results.
msrose
14 years ago
I love everything, but those floors are to die for. Can you tell me more about them.

Laurie
yayagal
14 years ago
Your hard work paid off, it's beautiful.
eldemila
14 years ago
Absolutely fabulous work, thanks so much for sharing!!!
User
14 years ago
WOW !!! The wall colors are wonderful. And the use of the slipcovers and the banquette in the DR and your art work !! Everything just looks so fresh. I particularly love the suitcases and the ?burlap? bags on the floor . Where did you find those. I am going to have to go back through and look again. Oh also the pears...I love that look too. You have done a masterful job. c
enailes
14 years ago
Wonderful job and look, you've accomplished alot in 8 months! I love the slipcovers and painted cabinet.
pugga
14 years ago
Really nice! Everything looks so fresh and updated.

Love the "Erl Fud" on your refrigerator!
patricianat
14 years ago
Love, love, love what you have done. You gave your house a new lease on life!!!
rhapsdy
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you so much guys! I'm heading off quickly to work right now but I wanted to post thank you and let you know that I will answer all of your questions as soon as I have a few minutes to do so this afternoon!
natal
14 years ago
Wonderful transformation! You definitely have an eye for what works! When I saw the photo of the Old State Capitol I remembered who you were, lol. Great job!!!
redbazel
14 years ago
I love the golden wall color in the LR and also whatever muddy color you put in the DR. It reminds me of my DR Northampton Putty. The built-ins took on a whole new importance with paint. And the wood floors really elevate the whole decor. I love your house and know you guys put in a ton of hard work on this.

Red
nmladybug
14 years ago
So pretty! Please tell me more about your sofas? Are they new or did you have slipcovers made for your existing sofas? What material are they? Thanks for sharing your beautiful home!
equest17
14 years ago
Wonderful job! We are in the middle of a similar update in our 1972 home. There is nothing more rewarding than really opening up and transforming a dated house into a home! It looks like you did a great job on a smaller budget. I love how you kept some of the more permanent elements and worked with them instead of tearing everything out. I hope to have a similar slideshow of before and after photos soon, but it's taking us more than 8 months!
bonniee818
14 years ago
Your home turned out fabulous! Love the changes & updated everything!!!! Enjoy........Bonnie
nhb22
14 years ago
Lovely work!

I was going to say that the rooms look like they are out of a magazine, but someone beat me to it.
dilly_dally
14 years ago
Well, I'm going to say it again; Those rooms look like right out of a magazine!

Everything is so refreshing and creative. I love the chalkboard fridge. And the spice placement idea. The dining room set is so cute recovered like that. I remember that your drapes were vintage finds and so were your LR chairs. It all works so well. The colors are perfect and flow from room to room.

I like that fact that you worked with the personality of your home and did not just 'gut it'. Anyone can do that. You brought new life to it. Some of your ideas seem so original I have never seen done before, like the chalkboard cabinet doors with the chalked on 'recessed panel'. This home should be featured on one of those decorating shows or a magazine.

I gotta go back and look at all of it again I may have missed some of the cute creative details. (I love the bows tied to the shower curtain rings!)
User
14 years ago
I didn't get to see but a couple. Most just plain didn't show up. What I did see what beautiful. I want to see more though! I have a Flickr account and have never had any problems. :^(
claire44
14 years ago
Wow what a difference. Great Job!
rhapsdy
Original Author
14 years ago
OK I'm going to attempt to answer the questions one at a time! But before I do - thank you guys so much! I am so excited with how everything has turned out and really should thank lots of you guys for the many years of inspiration that I collected before we bought our house. :) I had folders of ideas from people on this board that I was able to pull from to help us make our house a HOME! :)

First and foremost we use the Kilz one coat coverage paint and the Colorplace paint from Walmart and had them color match all of the paint sample cards we brought them. Why the two different kinds of paint? We decided to use the kilz for colors that we knew would take two or more coats to cover what was underneath them - specifically the white we used on the red cabinets, etc. I really like the Kilz best and in the future will probably just be using it for all of our painting needs. It goes on nice and thick, without looking thick. It dries quickly and 90% of the time covered in one coat if we were neat painters. :)

In our bathroom the color is Shakespeare from the Relaxed & Cozy line by Glidden:

For our den (room with the tv)is the color Celery from the Vintage Masters line by Ralph Lauren:

Our kitchen/dining room color is called Moacha Accent by Behr. I would add an online color swatch of it here except all of them look brown - and this paint while having a brown undertone - is way more gray than the online sample swatches make you think. The color card code is 720d if that helps you find it on their website or in stores.

And last but not lease our front living room. This color was a really hard one. I wanted a yellow - but quickly found out that yellows are hard paint colors to get right. The second time we had to go much more "tan" on the paint chip to get a color that wasn't overwhelming on the wall yet still was golden. The color we ended up with was Kilz Soft Pebble. I love it!
rhapsdy
Original Author
14 years ago
(that should say last but not least :) sorry I can't type)
rhapsdy
Original Author
14 years ago
The floors were a big mess when we got in the house! The front room had really dirty carpet. The dining room and kitchen had old sheet vinyl on top of linoleum tiles. The back den was half ceramic tiles, half REALLY dirty industrial carpet and both of those were laid on top of more linoleum tiles. It was a MESS! We knew we wanted to rip all of that out and unify the entire space with one dark flooring. We were looking at wood, but it was out of our price range. We looked at laminate but heard horror stories of laminates in kitchens and having water damage.

After talking to lots of people, doing lots of research, we ended up with a Vinyl Plank that looks like wood. We got it from Home Depot. It's called Traffic Master Allure and the color we purchased was Dark Walnut. We LOVE it. It is so easy to clean and keep up! It was easy enough to install that my family was able to help us do it in just under a week in the entire front part of our house. It was in our budget (which was low) - only $1.96 a sq ft. We had floor installers come in to give us estimates on putting in transition pieces between the carpet in the bedrooms and the hallway, and they thought it was wood it looks so good! They were amazed that it was vinyl.

My husband and I really can't say enough about how much we love our dark floors. :) Here is a link to my blog posts that mention our floors:

Our Floors on my blog

Here is a link that might be useful: Traffic Master Allure in Dark Walnut on the Home Depot website
moremoremore
14 years ago
You really did a great job...very nice and clean...

and I especially love kitty-wittles!!! beautiful cat!!!
juddgirl2
14 years ago
Wow - what a great transformation! I really love the clean wall colors and how fresh the white slipcovers look against the dark floors.
catkin
14 years ago
Beautiful job! Thanks for sharing!
oceanna
14 years ago
Wow, what an amazing amount of work you and your hubby did over the last 8 months! The results are fantastic. You now have a home of which you can be so proud. It's even better that you can say "we did this."

I have those containers on my fridge too, just a few marching up the side, holding the supplements I put on my food and my critters' food. They are SO convenient and easy to use.

How do you like having no cupboard doors on your overheads?
lovetorenovate
14 years ago
very cute! nice job! enjoy it.
mahatmacat1
14 years ago
Thanks, rhapsdy, for the paint color info. I'll go out tomorrow and get a sample. Really fabulous taste putting together all those elements, and fabulous workmanship on the execution :)
teacats
14 years ago
Fantastic transformation -- just a really lovely home!

I ADORE the banquette!!! Brillant! How did you make that?

Jan at rosemary Cottage
lalynn
14 years ago
rhapsdy, what do you use to clean your Allure flooring? We just had the Teak put in our kitchen and back hall a couple of weeks ago. I love the look, but I'm not sure what to clean/mop it with. Thanks. Lynn

finally have pictures of our house decorated & redone :)

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