Exterior Paint Update!

We have been here for 3.5 years. Last year I really wanted to paint the house but there just wasn't time for it. Instead we painted all of the trim white. It added a lot of contrast around the windows. We also painted the garage door but never got around to the service door. doh!

This year I really wanted to take the transformation all the way. Being 7 months pregnant meant I couldn't tackle the project myself. Instead, we hired painters to make our dreams come true. While they painted the siding Acier Gray (SW) and the trim and gutters white, Paul and I tackled the service and front doors. We had to completely strip the front doors. Talk about a pain in the butt! It took 3 rounds of citristrip, 2 days of painting, and a headache trying to attach the new door hardware. We ended up being doorless for THREE days and without a door handle for much longer than I care to admit.
...

BUT now it's done and I couldn't love it more. I am so pleased with how it turned out.

Half Bathroom Update

The half bathroom as seen on the day we moved into our house:

Before: Floral wallpaper with upper and lower border, old light fixture, ugly bathroom hardware, dirty floor and baseboards, cream paint on ceiling, doors and trim.

I got so sick of this bathroom that one evening, when Paul & Vince were out camping, I ripped off the wallpaper on a whim! It was hard work but I just wanted it GONE. I was overwhelmed when we were left with yellow, glue stained walls. It was just as bad as the wallpaper I had torn down. The walls sat that way for months while we tackled other projects.

About 6 months later I hit another breaking point. I'd had enough of the nasty glue walls. Paul and I committed and during Christmas break we tackled the bathroom update. I had no idea such a small room would require so much work. Here's what we did:

Steamed and removed the glue wallpaper gunk
Removed the heinous light fixture (which revealed that the electrical was placed in the center of the room instead of to the left over the sink. Ugh!! It was impossible to find a light fixture that could cover the electrical box so we decided to center everything)
Patched holes and damage from wallpaper and light fixture removal
Sanded the walls down
Washed the walls down
Scrubbed the dirty tile grout from grey to white
Painted the door trim from cream to white
Primed the walls (we chose grey primer since we were going to paint the walls grey anyway)
Discovered bits of residual wallpaper backing (it bubbled up when we painted)
Re-scraped the wallpaper bits
Sanded needed areas
Primed walls again x 2
Painted the ceiling from cream to white x 2
Painted walls Amherst Gray x 2
Installed new light fixture
Measured, cut, painted and installed new baseboards
Caulked baseboards into place
Installed new sink hardware
Caulked sink top to pedestal and pedestal to floor
Caulked around toilet base
Installed new toilet paper holder and towel hook
Built frame for mirror
Painted and adhered frame to mirror
Installed mirror into the bathroom
...I'm sure I'm missing something. But for real. Tiny room still = a lot of work!

I still have to decorate but I am so pleased to finally have a nice looking half bath. Hooray for home improvements!

During:

Left: The floor is clean at the top and dirty on the bottom   Right: Clean grout! Some areas need to be fixed

 After:

 And here's a side by side of the before and after. We're so happy with how it turned out!

Home Tour

Apologies for how long it has taken to get these photos up! It has been a crazy 1st month of home-ownership. We painted four rooms, one bathroom, the hallway, entryway and the kitchen! We had a tree chopped down in the backyard and a crack fixed in the basement too! Posts on all of that to come.

But here a quick run through of the house before we made any changes. My camera died so most of these are taken with my phone while holding a squirming baby girl. But you'll get the picture (ha!).

First up is the entryway. We have a large closet and fun flooring. You see a lot of that flooring in Grand Rapids. At least we did while house hunting, so obviously is applies to the entire city.

To the left of the entryway is the living room. Newer carpet, large, no ceiling lights, big windows.

The living room is connected to the dining room.

Which is connected to the kitchen.
Which is connected to the hip bone.
The kitchen is a dreary pink and also sports some wall paper! I had the exact same flooring growing up before my mom did a re-haul of the entire house. It's so bad. Not to mention, the floor is a bit uneven with a dip or two.

To the right of the kitchen is a hallway leading to the entryway with a half bath off to the right. Going through the eat-in kitchen you are led to the family room & three seasons room..

One door is a laundry room that leads to the garage, the other is a coat closet. Good luck figuring that one out.

Can you find the "dark corner". We call it that because... it's dark. The family room doesn't have ceiling lights either. It gets a fair amount of light from the huge slider door, but the wood paneling does everything it can to counteract the natural light. However, they spoiled us rotten by leaving us this Ethan Allen sectional and the patio furniture!

What do you call this room? Paul and I are having martial woes over what this is called. When referring to it on a regular basis "three seasons room" is too much of a mouthful. I call it the porch. Paul pouts and tries to get me to agree to "Sun Room" because a porch is on the front of the house. Sigh. What ever shall we do?

Okay, I'll give you a hint about the afore-pictured doors.

The half bath, sporting more lovely wallpaper with both upper and lower borders.

The entry from the stairs. Our carpet is green.

Now that we're upstairs, we'll head all the way down the hall to the master bedroom. It's great size, though lacking a walk-in closet. It has a small en-suite bathroom which suits me just fine. The carpet is good quality, but from all the tread and dirt there is a clean, light outline marking exactly where the bed used to be.

You can't tell but that little cupboard is like 3+ feet deep. It's as deep as the shower! Cobwebs galore because no human arm could ever reach back there. Although it's petite, little changes will make a huge impact when we update this little lady.

The previous owners had the guest room right off the master. Its closets are larger than the master and it has a slider to a balcony that spans the entire top floor. It really should be the master, though it's smaller and doesn't have a bathroom. Extremely bright from the awesome window/door but has carpeting that needs to be re-stretched. P.S. they left this furniture for us too!

A look down the hallway from the master bedroom. Unpictured to my immediate right is the guest room. Linen closest and another bedroom on the right. Bathroom on the left. Out of view is the 4th bedroom on the left.

You can't see it in the picture, but the counter top is green, like the carpet in the hallway. It's screaming for help. Rest assured, tiny changes will make a huge impact in here.

The other room on the right. Not hardwood, but excellent condition. That closest is deceiving too. It's huge. You walk in to it and it's wider than the door.

This is the room at the top of the stairs. Not pictured is another excellent two door closet.

I don't have any pictures of the basement to show you at the moment. It's mostly unfinished. There is a finished room with egress windows (craft room/guest overflow). Also, there's a second fireplace in the basement! Not to mention that the previous owners were kind enough to leave their pool table for us. They are kind and generous people. They lived here for 45 years and have left quite a legacy for us to follow. We love this house and it's quickly beginning to feel like our home.