Showing posts with label Our House Tour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Our House Tour. Show all posts

Monday, August 12, 2013

Living Room Update

So we’ve been living a couple months in our new home.  Things are slowly coming together, and I thought I’d share a quick update.

I’ve set up the china cabinet, and I’m happy with how everything looks… for the time being.  I’ll probably change it again in a few months, I’m always rearranging things!

China Cabinet www.simpleispretty.com
Currently, I have placed a few cookbooks in the coffee table for some added color.

Coffee Table www.simpleispretty.com
I added some grey baskets to the bottom of the coffee table-- for color, texture and extra storage (even though they are empty now).

Coffee Table 2 www.simpleispretty.com

Living room sectional www.simpleispretty.com
A few days ago, I completed my pillow covers for the living room sectional.  Soon, I will get some pictures up.

As Always,
Sandra

Monday, July 8, 2013

Painting Progress… Before and After Pics

We decided to paint our whole main level before we moved in.  I’m so glad we did!  Click here for our paint choices.

Lets start with the entrance…

Entrance Before www.simpleispretty.com
Entrance Before

Entrance Before 2 www.simpleispretty.com
Entrance Before

Entrance After www.simpleispretty.com
Entrance Mid Painting

Entrance After

Kitchen…

Main Level Before www.simpleispretty.com
Living Room, Kitchen and Dining Room Before

Kitchen Before www.simpleispretty.com
Kitchen Before

Kitchen mid move www.simpleispretty.com
Kitchen in the Middle of Moving

Living Room and Dining Area After www.simpleispretty.com
Living Room, Dining Room and Kitchen After

Kitchen After www.simpleispretty.com
Kitchen After

Living Room...

Living Room After without Furniture www.simpleispretty.com
Living Room in the Middle of Moving

Living Room After www.simpleispretty.com
Living Room After

Staircase to Basement…

Basement Stairs Before www.simpleispretty.com
Basement Staircase Before

Basement Staircase After www.simpleispretty.com
Basement Staircase After

Master Bath…

Master Bath Before www.simpleispretty.com
Master Bath Before

Master Bath Before 2 www.simpleispretty.com
Master Bath Before

Master Bath After www.simpleispretty.com
Master Bath After

Now that we have painted the trim, I can’t imagine going back to the original oak.  I love the white!

As Always,
Sandra

Simple is Pretty Parties Here…

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Painting our New Home

Our new house was really, REALLY dusty (sorry previous owners).

Yuck www.simpleispretty.com

So we got in cleaners to help us out.  I’ve never hired cleaners before, but I would definitely hire them again.  We hired cleaners to clean the kitchen cabinets, wash the walls downstairs, clean the light fixtures, clean the carpets and tile and wash the windows.  Basically, the whole house got a spring cleaning.  And it needed it.  There was no way I would have had time to clean this new house, finish packing and still watch the kids.  Not to mention, the painters were still painting right up until we moved our first box and piece of furniture in on Saturday, May 25th.

We hired painters to paint the main floor including the bedrooms and the bonus room above the garage.  The house had oak trim and beige walls and a dark ceiling.  The previous paint colors were General Paint’s Tequila (8672W) for the walls, Muddy River (8674M) for the ceiling border and fan blades and Wooden Oar (8675D) for the textured ceiling.

Previous paint colors www.simpleispretty.com

Our new house was built in the year 2000 and needed to be repainted badly.  The walls were full of nail holes and scuffs.  I didn’t mind the colors they originally chose but I wanted to brighten the place up.  So together, my husband and I chose a white and gray color scheme.  The ceilings were painted white and the walls were painted Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore.


We originally used Gray Owl in our old house in the upstairs bathroom.  For our new house, I wanted a paint color that would be good in all rooms on the main level including the bedrooms and baths.  I also wanted a color that would go well with our stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and also with the oak kitchen cabinets.  We may decide to paint the kitchen cabinets white in the future.  Before we moved in, we just didn’t have enough time to paint the cabinets and it would be fairly expensive to complete.  Right now, I feel I can live with the original oak cabinets being unpainted because all the oak trim was painted white instead.

Yep, I said it… ‘all the trim was painted white’.  I know many people will be mad/sad that we decided to paint the oak trim.  I felt the oak trim was overwhelming and distracting.  I wanted to freshen up our new house and make it look more modern.  The oak trim was painted Oxford White by Benjamin Moore.


I’m very happy with our decision to paint the trim, ceiling and the walls.  The fresh coat of paint makes the new house feel more like ours now.

We did paint the garage on our own.  Originally, I believe the walls and ceiling in the garage were the same color as the walls in the rest of the house.  We used 2 coats of Benjamin Moore’s semi-gloss in white (straight from the can white, no tinting) to repaint the walls and ceiling.  We didn’t worry about patching any nail holes, since it is only a garage.  But we did take the time to clean the walls with a TSP solution, thanks to my paint store expert.

T.S.P. www.simpleispretty.com
Personally I’ve never heard of TSP, but I’m also not a professional painter.  I just asked Wikipedia and here is a little info: ‘Trisodium phosphate (TSP) is a cleaning agent, lubricant, food additive, stain remover and degreaser. It is a white, granular or crystalline solid, highly soluble in water producing an alkaline solution.  TSP is still in common use for the cleaning, degreasing and deglossing of walls prior to painting. TSP breaks the gloss of oil based paints and opens the pores of latex based paint providing a surface better suited for the adhesion of the subsequent layer.’   Who knew, not me.  It definitely works because we only used it on the walls and not on the ceiling and I noticed a difference on how the paint adheres.

Our garage is so much better and brighter!  Now we can actually see in there! In the pic below I just cut in with the paint around the door.  BIG difference…

Garage Door www.simpleispretty.com
We haven't painted anything in the basement.  Likely, that will wait for at least 6 months.  We have plenty of other things to complete around here.  Like… unpacking the minefield of boxes littering our basement.

As Always,
Sandra

I'm closing comments for this post due to numerous spam comments.  If you would like to comment or ask a question, please contact me at sandrapaul@live.ca.  Thanks!

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Moving

For the last year we have been trying to move.  Our house was built in 1976, and needed upgrades and renovations completed.  My husband and I already did a lot of work to the inside of the house but we still needed to complete a ton of outside projects.  --Like build a new garage (the old one was falling down), re-side the house, upgrade the windows and doors.  EXPENSIVE.  We had to make up our mind if we were going to spend our time and money on our current house or look for a different home.

After our decision to move to a different house, we listed our house last June (June 2012) with a realtor.  We had lots of interest and offers to purchase.  Every offer we accepted ended up falling through.  VERY frustrating.  In the fall, we decided to take our house off the market and stay in our house for a few more years.  Not long after we made the decision to stay, our septic system backed up. Oi!

Our fall and winter of 2012 were busy with cleaning up the downstairs and repairing the damage.  We also tackled renovating the downstairs and the upstairs bathrooms.

In the spring of 2013, we listed our house.  We decided to try our luck again at selling.  Our house was on the market for one day, and we accepted our first offer.  After, what seemed like forever, waiting for purchaser’s conditions to be removed… the final purchase contract was signed!  YAY!

Our house hunt began again.  We had looked at houses last year, and some of the houses we were interested in were still available and on the market.  We had to be out of our old house by May 31, 2013.  This didn’t give us much time to find our new house, get an inspection, line up financing and secure a possession date before May 31.  Just our luck, my husband was up north with work and he wasn’t scheduled to be back for a few weeks when we accepted our offer.  We never imagined our house would sell so fast.  To get a start on our house hunt, I got a babysitter and looked at some houses on my own with our realtor.  (So much easier to look at houses without kids!)  I was able to narrow our search to 3 good houses. 

When my husband got home, we put an offer on our 1st choice and the offer was accepted.

We got possession on May 17th.  Here is our new home!…

New House via www.simpleispretty.com

More pictures to follow!

As Always,
Sandra

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Sunday, April 7, 2013

Basement Completed!

Don’t adjust your monitors… Yes, the carpets and walls were GREEN!… YUCK!

Fireplace area before from simpleispretty.com
Before

After we got the basement cleaned up from the sewage backup, we got to work repairing the damage.

After the clean up, the walls were repaired and rebuilt.  All the basement walls were painted with “Ballet White” from Benjamin Moore. 



The green carpet was torn up and replaced.  We were not sad to see it go!  The new carpet is much lighter and a neutral color.  I also like the new carpet because it does not leave vacuum cleaner or footprint marks!

Carpet after from simpleispretty.com

Stairs before from simpleispretty.com
Before

Stairs After from simpleispretty.com
After

Family room area before from simpleispretty.com
Before

Family room area after from simpleispretty.com
After

We decided to sell the pool table. With the pool table out of the space, we have so much more room!

Fireplace area before from simpleispretty.com
Before

Fireplace area after from simpleispretty.com
After

The rocking chair got moved from the living room upstairs, to its new home in the downstairs family room by the office door.

Chair and door to office after from simpleispretty.com
After

Beside the stairs, this area seems to catch junk that was in transition.  The tubs, boxes and bags are full of clothes and toys to get rid of in a garage sale.  Right now, we have a futon against the wall.  The futon works well as an extra bed when company comes over to stay the night.

Futon area before from simpleispretty.com
Before

Futon area after from simpleispretty.com
After

The kids’ toy area is in the same place, just brightened up by new paint and carpet.

Toy area before from simpleispretty.com
Before

Toy area after from simpleispretty.com
After

The downstairs bathroom got a makeover, click here to see the bathroom’s transformation.

Downstairs Bathroom After from simpleispretty.com
Bathroom After

Overall, our basement is more inviting and brighter.  Even the kids enjoy playing in the basement because it is not “DARK down there”!

Fireplace area after from simpleispretty.com
After
As Always,
Sandra


Monday, March 18, 2013

Upstairs Bathroom Remodel

This bathroom is the most used bathroom in our home.  Most guests use and see this room.  Since we completed the downstairs bathroom remodel, we now had a fully functioning bathroom to use while we started work on the upstairs bathroom.  The upstairs bathroom desperately needed a makeover!

Check out the before…

Bathroom Before
Before

I love looking at Pinterest for inspiration. Right now I’m really drawn to white and grey colors. I just can’t get enough of them!  I wanted the room to feel as large as possible so we decided on Gray owl (OC-52) from Benjamin Moore.



Here is the after…

Bathroom After
After

I have 2 small boys who use this room lots. I find less is more. I try not to keep much on the counter. Less to keep clean. As for the medicine cabinet, I gave it a little face lift a little while ago here.

Bathroom Counter Before #2
Before

Bathroom Counter After #2
After

We reused the old toilet, sink, tub and tiles. The toilet was already replaced a few years ago.

Bathroom Toilet Before
Before

Bathroom Toilet After
After

My husband installed a new counter top to replace the old scratched, scarred, green counter top. Such a huge difference.

Sink Before
Before

Bathroom Counter After
After

The faucets needed an update so they were replaced.  We were able to also reuse most of the hardware and towel racks.  I spray painted the brass on the towel bars and toilet paper holder to give it a quick update.  The light fixture got a quick spray as well.

Fixture Paint

Fixture Before brass finish
Before

Fixture After
After

The old linoleum had holes in it and was way passed its prime. We installed new vinyl waterproof flooring right over top of the old lino.

Bath Tub Before
Before

The bathtub needed some attention.  The previous owners must have had tub stickers at one time because outlines of little butterflies were on the left bottom of the tub.  The tub was almond and the tiles on the walls are white.  This difference in color drew even more attention to the almond butterfly tub.  Not the look I was going for.

Shower and Tub After
After

To save some money, we painted our tub with special white bath tub epoxy and regrouted the bath tiles.

Shower Curtain After
After

I also used a bright and modern shower curtain to lighten things up.

Bathroom BeforeBathroom After

Our bathroom is so much brighter and cleaner.  Such an improvement!


UPDATE...



As Always,
Sandra

Simple is Pretty Parties Here…

I'm closing comments for this post due to numerous spam comments.  If you would like to comment or ask a question, please contact me at sandrapaul@live.ca.  Thanks!