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A Before and After Story. From our old house to our new house.

I have been addicted to HGTV lately.  I don't know if it's the baby coming to town or what, but I've been thinking about the work we have put into our house.  Here are some pictures throughout our renovations.  We bought it in 2006, so, this progress has come along slowly over the last 5 years.  I cannot believe it has been that long already.  It is encouraging to see how much we have done looking back.  Much of this would NEVER be possible if it wasn't for my super smart Dad.  He started his own business (Shean Costruction Company) when he was about my age.  He taught himself all these skills and now he has been cool enough to pass some of it on to my husband and I.  I'm pretty lucky to have a handy, talented Dad.

This is a picture of the way our house looked when we bought it.

And here it is today.  We've removed the screens, painted the entire house (twice) and replaced the whole deck.  Tim is still in the process fixing the outside.  We bought new storms and had to repaint and fix up old windows.  All the weird things we found ripping up those stairs...ugh...ants the size of small rodents? We had to make the railing a little taller (to code).

We added some rocking chairs and a swing on the right side.

This was our living room when we first moved in.  We bought that chair for $5.  When you enter the house this is what you see immediately on the left.

Here is our living room today.  We added an L shaped couch, corner seating and a flat screen.

You can see I painted some branches and screwed them to the wall.  I liked it better than just putting a painting up there.  

Here is a picture of our dining room when we first arrived.  This is immediately to the right after entering.  Can anyone say mom's hand-me-down dining room set?

You may be able to tell already that we knocked out that wall and made it flow directly into the kitchen.

Now this was the entrance into our kitchen before.  The stove stuck out into the room and they had NO CABINETS!

This is the view turning to the right.  The original owners had lime green walls (before the temporary blue we chose) and this was the only storage in the room.  The woman sitting is the realtor.

So we created a kitchen.  We knocked down that wall and made a bar area with stools to sit at.   All new shaker style cabinetry!  We had a friend help us with the CAD design.

We put in a sink, tile back splash, added some pendant lighting, replaced the linoleum with pergo tile flooring and swapped the stove to the other side of the room.  We also made the windows slightly smaller to fit a counter top.  Gosh I wish I had photos of some of that demo...jeez louise...

We put a little more storage where the stove was before.  As you can see we opted for a green walls and kept the white trim, just not lime green.  Lastly, we put in a ceiling fan, in summer it's a major plus.

This granny style is a combo of hand-me-downs and a futon is and image of our old spare bedroom.

Now it's my little baby boy's  room.

You can see a bit of the butler's pantry in the photo from the kitchen above.  This was the style originally.  I like shabby chic, but this was just shabby.

Again we continued the back splash and the new counter top and cabinets.  We were even able to make a little bar with wine rack and a place for our wine glasses.  There is also two large cupboards on the right.  It functions as our pantry.

This is our crazy bathroom.  It is on the left as you enter the kitchen.  The shower and toilet were along the left wall but you had to scoot sideways to get by the sink!  Notice the textured walls.  All that tile and drywall came out.  There was some weird wire grating attaching the tiles to the wall.  Terrible to remove.  We found some cool stuff in those walls.  A wedding ring and old super hero cards.

 My smarty pants husband Tim had the idea to extend the bathroom into their former pantry area and put a sink on the left.

Silly lookin basement

And the spare bedroom returns!  In the form of the basement.  Carpeting, new paint, trim and ceiling.

Whoa!  this was the previous owners use of this space...

We made it an art studio/wood workshop.  Installed some fluorescent lighting and pegboard.

We also built these benches out of 2x4's.  Real easy.

Old school shed.  We demolished this (partially) and hired a guy from craigslist to demo the rest.  That poor guy did not realize just how much concrete was underneath that bad boy.

Taaa-daaahhh.  No more shed.  We installed a fence too.

We added a little shed in the backyard and my husband added a garden.  He is an expert gardener.  My dog Gus is posing for you.

And the work continues...It never ends!  Hubby was not too psyched about me documenting this moment.  But wow, after that I don't feel the need to do much more updating. (I'm a little addicted).  Sometimes I have to remind myself just how much we've already done!

My New Painting...

This painting was made for my brother's new office.  He just moved to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Some serious Nesting...

  I am helping with some of the decorations for my baby shower.  I think they turned out really cute. I know most ladies don't know about their shower, but I am lucky to know about it and help with the fun stuff.  Like these centerpieces! They were easy and cheap. Here's what I bought:  Glasses ($6)  & Rocks ($8)  from the xmas-tree shop and tissue paper ($7) and pipe cleaners ($6) at I-Party.  Here's a link on how to create the tissue paper flowers.

I also love making these tissue paper topiaries.

I made a mural for the nursery.  I'm happy with the way it turned out.  I also made some flags with left over material from my mobile project.  They are hanging around the perimeter of the room.
So I have completely stunk at the blogging this summer.  This is just a little update that my house has certainly turned into baby town. 

Baby on the way...

So I'm pregnant and I started making my own mobile for the little man...

Here are the monsters on my mobile...

A little close-up

Here is the finished product

Jon Gaunt and Chuck Ragan

My husband and I went to a show at Lupo's in Providence last night.  I like this large theatre venue.  We saw my husband's friend from college Jon Gaunt perform on violin with Chuck Ragan (formerly of Hot Water Music).  They opened up for Social Distortion but we didn't really stay for that.

Here is a funny drawing of both Jon and Chuck .  Lastly, This was my favorite part of the show.  Jon rocked out on his fiddle and it sounded similar to this.  I like meeting musicians and watching a variety of music.  These guys made my Sunday night pretty great.

Last Art Club for the Spring...