before and after: our home a year later. (or part of it anyway)

Way back in October Kevin ripped out all the carpet on our main floor (3 rooms) and put in hardwood floors while the boys and I were away visiting family. (renovation post here)  
Now that we've been in the house for a little over a year now, I'm finally getting around to taking and posting "before" and "after" pictures of the front and family rooms.

It's been crazy and happy for me to see all that we've been able to do to make this home our own in this first year. (first home tour here) We always have a million DIY and renovation projects buzzing around in our heads, and now that we are blessed enough to own a home we are finally able to try some of them, it's something we've really learned to love doing together and something we both feel passionate about.
We had our second boy the morning after we moved into our house and it's been a crazy whirlwind ever since.

Anyway....if you're a sucker for renovation "before" and "after" projects like I am, here it *finally* is.

Front room:

BEFORE:

Front Room: 

AFTER:

Renovation, in the middle of it, really isn't pretty, it's messy, always more time consuming than you planned, stressful and crazy. And if you're in a similar life situation to us, timelines get d r a g g e d out. We didn't get our new baseboards in for a good month after the new floors were in.

But, with some planning and lots of deep breathing :) it can be SO worth it, monetarily of course, but it also brings a lot of satisfaction to see something from the planning/envisioning stages through reality adjustments and then to the final product.

Family Room:

BEFORE:

The home had these funky shades separating the front and family rooms that we hated, such a waste of space. So Kevin tore those out (the day I came home from the hospital with our second I think) and put in see-through shelves. Which we LOVE.

Family Room:

AFTER:

glass pieces: antique chemistry pieces Kevin found//vase: Pier 1 Imports

bird: West Elm//vase: Target//candle holder: H&M

We have some other changes in the works and in the planning phase. (most of them unplanned until recently, thank you 20 year old house...) 

I realized I never even did a full house tour when we moved in so I'll work on getting the undocumented spaces up on the blog too, for my record if nothing else. :) I love being able to look back at pictures of where we've been.