Before and After's are my favorite

I was talking to my husband about what I should write about today. I mentioned that maybe I could do a before and after blog since I like looking at before and after photos. I have documented the work we have done on our house so I can put it in my portfolio why not do this now?. I asked him if I could put the house in this blog... and he was all like "well you can do it as long as you make the house look good" what the hell does that mean? "like the photos you took before looked bad" well I asked you and you said they looked fine.... "well can you take photos with out toys everywhere?" have you noticed that we have two kids? "well I'm just saying..." well next time don't say anything.

So I'm a little apprehensive about showing you our hut. I want you to be open minded... so.... imagine that you just bought a house with a newborn, and a 21 month old. You (the money maker) have taken one week off from your job to work on the house by yourself with little money for supplies. Oh and your married to an interior designer that has extremely good taste in expensive things but you wont let her spend any money... so she is coming up with crazy ways to save money and still make it work. AND there was a lot of work to be done because the house was in bad shape, and it was old as hell, and the previous owners had the same problem... lot's of kids with little to no money to fix it the way they wanted.

Ok... so with that in mind... sit back and open your mind to the home of a young couple and their first house. Also... I would like to brag that we spent under $100 for each room. The husband built some furniture (try and guess what he built) and the previous owners left a lot of their furniture. It saves a ton of money. Also, I found some oops paint at Walmart and mixed it with some paint that we already had, and I did things like make my own curtains, and painted the floor. It killed me to do it... but I did it. I also did not want to put a ton of money into something that we are eventually going to rip out or redo with insulation, bathrooms, and other such things. It's all temporary until we become rich and famous from this blog here. Right?! I'm going to be famous... just say it enough and it will happen. Ok enough already... just take a peak. You peeping tom you.

Before: Tomato Red Accent Wall and Tiled Ceiling

After: removal of tile ceiling in one half of room, paint, and refinishing of the floor plus addition of chair moldings. 

After: One half of room covered with  GWB. The previous owners left their sofa's, rug and entertainment system and book shelf unit. I used the rug for my color palette.

Before: The bookshelves are actually sitting on a giant plank of  pine wood . Furniture was left to hide  problems. 

After

Before

After: I based this room off of something warm. It is a very dark and gloomy room that has no function. I took pictures from our honeymoon in Sedona Arizona, and matched the red rock to this paint color. I also painted the door purple.

Before: This is why we removed the ceiling tile in the living room.  

Bedroom before. Trim painted hunter green, with a bookcase bolted to the wall and some flourescent lights.

Before: This is the other side of the room painted a periwinkle blue and hunter green... please don't ever put these colors together. This is now our walk in closet.

After: not much better but we built a wall to hide this.

After: The walk in closet is behind the wall. 

Before.

After: I wanted a cottage look.  A place that was calm, quiet, and light. 

After: I wanted wall to wall plush carpet to cover the lenoleum floor, but  we got a quote of $700 for it, and it wasnt even nice. So I just painted the tiles to make it look checkered. I also put in some cheap track lights to update it a little. The ceiling needs replaceing but that will have to wait. The windows also need to be replaced, they are cheap plastic from the 80's.

So there you have it. My before and after: Oh one more. This is for my hubby!

This is what my living room normally looks like because we have kids. This is what kids do to your house.