Family Room - In Progress

Ah...the family room. Where else do you spend most of your time? This room is really coming together and looking absolutely AMAZING!!! Ray has done an exceptional job at transforming this room from blah to WOW! Check out some of the following pictures!

Here's what this room looked like when we moved in. The color was this ugly peachy/pinky browny tan color. Just yuck.

So, we started to paint it. I choose a very neutral tan for now. Maybe later we'll paint things different, but this color is painted in all rooms that flow into one another on the main floor. It's 'Light Rafia' from Valspar (Lowe's paint).

Here's the room all painted. The ceilings we painted white. We lived with the room like this for a couple of months (we painted before we moved in).

But really...this room was plain and had no storage. What to do, what to do...

So Ray built some shelves! Yep! They are fantastic. The 'arch' follows the same one that's over the fire place. He just made a template and cut out the wood to match. We decided to paint the shelves black to go along with some furniture we purchased for the dining area.

You may have noticed the tile gone in the picture about. Yep - couldn't stand the pinky, peachy ugly tiles. So...down the tiles came.

And here's what we're putting up in place. Some small 1" x 1" tiles around the fire place itself. They're made out of slate.

And then to add even more WOW factor, we're decided to go with large slate tiles (12" x 12") around the entire thing! Plus Ray added a wood mantle!

And talk about a WOW factor! Doesn't this look AMAZING! Really, the pictures don't do it any justice.

Here's an up close picture. The 2"x 2" squares that you see mixed with the 1" x 1" are made of glass. They have a cool 'foil' behind them and it really helps them pop!

We'll be painting the ugly gold/brass to a matte black to match the rest of the fire place. We haven't done any 'decorating' yet in this room, either, but I can't wait. I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this room and how it's looking! Eventually we'll get a flat screen TV to go above the mantle, but they need to come down in price a bit more.

Can't wait to add the same slate to the back-splash in the kitchen (but that's a bit down the road).

Check back again this week - for when we visit my other favorite place of the house - the SCRAPROOM! :)

Small Bath / Laundry Room Before & After - so far :)

Hi Everybody,

Sorry it's been so long. I've been slacking. Anyway, here's a quick update for you on what we've done to our small hall bath/laundry room on the mail floor.

When we started out, this room was completely white. We chose a very light blue color to paint the walls and are going with brushed silver and glass accents.

Here's a 'kinda' before picture - but after we painted.

You can see that there was just a plain opening/wall there separating the bathroom area from the laundry area. It really did not help to define the space.

So, since there was no definition, Ray came up with the plan to divide it a bit more by putting an 'arch' way between the sides of the room - kinda making each become it's own space.

And viola! It's pretty when painted like the rest of the walls. It really does look amazing! The first is a view looking into the laundry side.

Here's the view looking out of the laundry side into the bathroom, and then the hall area.

And here's what we did with the lights...I only have pics of the bathroom side. We started out with your standard ugly bathroom lighting.

And then we took that out and added some great light blue, dark blue, and a bit of green - pendant lights (2). The holes in the ceiling bring us to a 'funny' story. Ray couldn't fit his hand thru the hole on the wall to reach the wires. So I tried, but couldn't pull any of the wiring thru (it was stuck on something). So, we had to cut another hole to get what we needed pulled thru.

And once patched and painted - you'd never know we did anything :)

On the laundry side, Ray installed some recessed stainless steal lights. They look great. I'll update this post when I can find the pictures of that.

And that's the bathroom/laundry room so far. We have done no decorating just yet. But as you can see from the pic above, Ray did put it a great little glass shelf for me to add something to, and a new towel holder.

Yay!

The Upper Level

We received the results back from our inspection. Not 'too' many things needed fixing, but a couple were things that really need to happen prior to us moving in. Fortunately, the bank from which we're purchasing this home from is going to fix them all! Yay!!!

Here's a photo tour of the 2nd level of our new home. It host all 4 bedrooms and 2 full baths.



Below is a picture of what you see when you get to the top of the stairs. To the left are bedrooms, and straight ahead is the hall bathroom.

Below is looking to the right. That looks into the master bedroom.

And this picture is looking back down the hall towards my NEW Scrapbook Room!!! Is it bad that I've already got this entire room planned out? I don't even know what we're doing in the rest of the house, but the scraproom is set! :)

Here's a picture of the scraproom. It has a great window. I'll be so glad to not be in the basement anymore.

Here's a picture of the master. The right door is into the bathroom, the left into the walk-in closet.

Here's the masterbath. We do have plans for re-doing this room. We'll post plans when we're ready to do this.

Here's looking into the hall bathroom. It's not too bad the way it is. We'll be doing a couple of changes here, but not many.


Here's looking into one of the other bedrooms. Probably just carpet and a coat of paint here.

And here's the last bedroom. Same as the other - carpet and paint. This view is looking back out into the hallway.

And that's it for tonight. I'll post more of the basement, laundry and garage another day. :)

Inspection Day

Hi Everybody,

So, as most of you know (well, whoever received this blog address) Ray and I have finally received an acceptance offer on a house. The blog title says it all. YES, this IS the 13th offer we've put out there in the past 3 months. Crazy it took this long, but I believe our patience paid off - so far.

Today was inspection day. I took a few pictures of the house so you all can see what we're purchasing. By viewing the pictures you'll notice that, no - we did not purchase a new home. In fact this home is a foreclosure. We believe the people who lived there before must have liked the house well enough to not destroy it when they moved out. All appliances are missing - except a microwave (which will be replaced) and a gas stove which we will not be using (if you need one, we'll make you a GREAT deal! lol). Hopefully we won't hear too many bad things about the house. We already know some, but we'll see if the bank comes thru on making them right or not. Fingers are crossed. If not, we'll figure it out I'm sure.

Anyway, here are some pictures. I'll try to keep this blog updated thru our progress.

The above picture is of the front of the house. The picture below is of the back - with the deck. It will be great for the summer time!

Here's the view looking towards the front window in the front room. The color is yucky. We'll be painting that for sure. Anybody want to help?!?!?!? :)

Looking in from the front of the room. The stove you see in the background is the one we'll make you a great deal on. :)

VERY tall ceilings in this room. Really, you can help paint. You know you want to...

Below is a picture of the kitchen looking in from the family room.

Picture from kitchen looking out into the family room. Again, the stove...lol

More up close of the kitchen. Yep. Need all new appliances. I think we're going to do stainless and black stove/microwave, then black fridge and dishwasher.

This one's looking out the kitchen to the front door. Again...need to paint.

The bedrooms upstairs are pretty much your standard bedrooms. There are 4 of them. There are 2 full baths upstairs - one in the hall way, one in the master bedroom. The master has a walk in closet. The others have standard closets. On the main level, there is a half bath/laundry room. The basement is a blank slate. I've already mapped out which room will be my 'scrap/stamp room'. I'll be sure to post pictures of that once I get it completed (if everything goes our way with inspection/etc.).

Once we start to add our own touches/remodel some areas, I'll post more of those - with before and after shots.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed our 13th offer's first post. Again, stay tuned for more info. It's much easier to post this way and have ya'll look at it then to email everybody.

Until next time -

Miranda