House Before and After (part 1)

We have officially moved and begun putting our stamp on our new house!

One of my most happiest of places is decorating. I like to find, or come up with an idea, and seeing it unfold and become reality. I get excited at the very thought of it all.

Our house is 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and has a 2 car garage. It is roughly 2092 square feet.

The front yard was a jungle! The previous owner was some kind of landscaper. When we got ahold of it, it truly was so overgrown it looked nothing short of a hot mess. There was maybe only a 2 foot by 4 foot section of actual grass. The rest was covered in weeds and helpless plants and flowers. Here is a cropped picture of the yard before. Mind you, this was before Spring and everything was able to grow. So it was much worse the day we closed verses this picture.

I know it is a terrible quality of picture. Here is how part of it looked when we closed on the house.

This retaining wall is falling apart. The mud is pushing out and even the stairs are not straight. We are going to get the stairs mudjacked and rebuild the retaining wall, properly.

As for the rest of the jungle, Chris decided to mow over all of the plants. We also plan to take out the dead looking tree bush in the middle of the yard. Which, is almost finished. We both do not have the greenest of thumbs. Plus, with all these plants I don’t know how I would be able to put up my Christmas decorations. <-Yes, I am obsessed. We are currently in the process of re-doing the yard (I will have to do a yard post later once it is finished).

One of the other first things we did was paint the front door. At our old house, our door was red. I liked it because not many houses had red doors at the time. When we had our 3rd house offer accepted, we really thought that is where we would end up. I had started Pinteresting front door color ideas that went with the exterior color (it was a dark grey). I found a picture of a yellow door and instantly fell in love! Even when we wound up not getting that house, I still was set on a yellow door. Thus, here is my new yellow door.

When I was painting it, I intended on the whole door being yellow. Once I finished the outside frame, I took a look and thought, “this is actually really pretty and unique”. I did not think Chris would agree with me, but I left it anyway. I sent him a picture. He wasn’t sure at first, but seeing it in person, he agreed and liked it too. I did make our door hanger while we were living in ‘the dungeon’. I think it came out very cute.

Moving on, to the interior.

The entry way we didn’t really want to change much. Eventually I want to do a different light fixture, but it works for now. All we did was hang up some wall decor.

The picture above is my grandpa when he was in the air force.

When we moved in, nearly all the interior walls were white or recently painted an off white color. For the most part, I didn’t mind the color. However, some rooms needed some extra pizazz.

I became obsessed with emerald green about 6 months ago. My obsession was solidified when I found these on Pinterest.

I had this vision of emerald green walls and copper accents in the kitchen. Along with my vintage-y farmhouse sort of style (throughout most of the house).

Our kitchen, is good in size, but lacking in cabinets and counter space. Eventually we do have plans to renovate, but right now it isn’t a main focus. The one thing that did drive us bonkers was the kitchen ceiling. It was ugly florescent lights and drop ceiling tiles. Which we figured could be a problem for the tall guys in my family.

Is that not atrocious? To me it is. Lucky for us, we know someone who can do this sort of stuff properly. I knew I wanted something more modern, but also that maintained my overall farmhouse style. The day we got the keys, Chris started ripping out the tile. Lucky for us, it was drywall underneath. There also was an attic access, which we thought was odd. We wound up deciding on some can lights and one light fixture. Here is a picture after the new lights were installed.

Here is a picture of the ceiling after the attic access was removed and filled, retextured, and painted.

Here is our kitchen in its entirety.

Off the kitchen, you have the dining room. I wanted to make it feel as though the dining room went with the kitchen. The dining room is also attached to the “front living room”, I wanted it all to feel like it flowed together. I did that by incorporating colors from both rooms. One wall in the dining room is the same green from the kitchen. The decor matches the farmhouse sort of style. I also incorporated blue in the table decor to match the blue that will be going in the front living room decor.

I am still trying to find the right decor pieces for the mantle and centerpiece.

I am still trying to figure out/find the wall decor for the front room. Also, don’t mind Graysie hanging out in the picture 🐈.

We pretty much have everything put together, but are still working on some details. Hence why I will have to do this house update in ‘parts’. We had our landscaping bricks delivered yesterday so we will be working on that. I am still hammering things on the walls, so once everything is done I will do another post.

Until next time,

Jenn