Our Fixer Upper: Before and "After", Part 1

The perfectionist in me hesitates to post too many photos because there are so many more things that I think "need" to be done first.  (Katie Burrus, I have a feeling you can relate and that's why you have yet to send me new house pics.  Ahem...)  But, I know we've made a lot of progress since we moved in three weeks ago and I do want to share a few rooms' before/afters.

First off, the master bedroom.  Before we moved in, we pulled out a huge floor-to-ceiling cabinet, ripped up the old carpet, took the popcorn and track lighting off the ceiling, added recessed lighting, new carpet, and freshened everything with crisp new white paint.  We still need to replace the foggy window glass, hang the TV, add art, fix the missing trim, reupholster furniture, etc.  I'm also accepting all ideas on what to do with the brick throughout the whole house.  Painting the brick or stuccoing the brick or whatever will be a huge project for another day since we will probably need to do all of the interior and exterior at the same time.

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Next, the guest room/Rick and my offices.  During the construction phase, the carpet came out and new hardwoods went in, popcorn and track lighting came off the ceilings (plural! The poor painters had two ceilings to deal with in this one room), retro brown wallpaper came down, built-in cabinets came out, recessed lighting went in, we put glass in the loft (there wasn't any- hello dangerous!), and new paint was applied everywhere.

I think this room is my favorite so far.  My dear friend Carson helped me pull together the finishing touches and knocked it out of the park.  Rick's office is upstairs in the loft and mine is underneath.  Any guest is welcome to come cozy up in this room, too!  We can all be one happy family! :)

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And lastly, the stairway.  The stairs were covered in carpet and during the construction whirlwind, we made a last-minute decision to go ahead and do hardwoods on the stairs.  What a difference it made.  Now, we just need the glassmaker to come in and install our glass so the stairwell isn't so open and dangerous.  It's on order and should be here any day!

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 "Mom, take a picture of us, too!"  Well, okay.  You guys are troopers and so fun to be around these days!

More rooms to come in another post.  I won't bore you all at once.  (I'll let it be a slow burn...)

This remodel has been such a fun project and creative outlet.  Watch out, I'm going to want to flip something else when this is all done.  This is such a treat to do.

-Bethany

Sibling Talk

Palmer and Grace were apart for nearly two weeks recently.  Due to Palmer's back to back trips of New Mexico to go skiing and DC, the two sorely missed each other.  Grace walked around most days saying, "Where's Bubba?" or "Bubba Ski" or "Bubba DC".

Thanks to FaceTime, the duo chatted nearly every day and their conversations went something like this almost ever single time:

Palmer: Hiiii Gracie!
Grace: Agua? (Proceeds to try to give Palmer her cup thru the phone)
Palmer: Hiiiiii girleeeeeee.
Grace: Knock knock.
Palmer: Who's there?
Grace: Cow.
Palmer: Cow who?
Grace: Knock knock.  (She hasn't quite got the hang of joke telling yet.)
Palmer: I love you girleeeeee.
Grace: Love you.  Knock knock. Agua?

It's primitive, but their relationship works for them and is filled with love.  When they finally reunited, they both knocked each other over with hugs and then giggled in the backseat of the car the entire way home.  I'll take it.

-Bethany

Wordless Wednesday

-Bethany

Wordless Wednesday

-Bethany

Living in the Construction

Well, we made it.  We moved in just over a week ago and our move one mile away looked something like this:

Someone (Samantha) is dying for some new pictures, but it's just taking a little time.  We are getting settled, unpacked, and projects for the first push of remodeling are wrapping up.  I should have some befores/afters of our latest projects soon. 

But for now, enjoy the construction site.  Rick couldn't believe we were about to move in when just two days before, our house looked like this...

We repainted the entire house with a fresh coat of white paint.  See the contrast of that yellowish cream coming down.  Our dear painters also had the lovely task of scraping popcorn off of nearly every ceiling.  It was a huge amount of work for them and they couldn't have worked harder nor been more pleasant while doing so.

See this cabinet in the master bedroom?

It's gone (and some closet doors got painted).

 Did you notice that trashed out carpet? It's been replaced.

Speaking of carpet, we purged more of it.  New (unfinished) wood floors in the sunken den.

New wood floors in the guest room, too.  Good bye, carpet.

Between a professional post-construction cleaning crew and a lot of helpful parents, we got into the house the same week as these previous photos.

I want to do a little more work before I post some newer photos (ahem, Samantha), but here is a sneak preview for now:

 Grace's new hangout, Home Depot:

The guys left us for the weekend and went skiing.  I opted to stay back and keep making progress on the house without a house full of people.  Win for all.

 This little guy skied up on the mountain with Rick this year and even tackled a blue.  Incredibly proud.

And our neighbors must be so happy tonight.  I made best friends with Dallas' finest in sanitation and the bulk trash crew picked up our entire heaping (and sometimes smoldering) trash pile.  Whew.

Is anyone in the market for some vintage thermostats or an intercom system of a 7-gallon toilet? Just holler.

Whew.  We are all pooped.

-Bethany

Wordless Wednesday

-Bethany

Wordless Wednesday

(Samantha, I got WW up this week.  I don't want to hear anymore of your complaining...)

-Bethany