I've never really gotten round to posting many before shots of the house, so I've now taken some, thanks to Instagram. Some are obviously 'progress' shots more so than befores (I shudder to imagine what it was actually like when we moved in) but in all cases we've got SO much to do. In practice, we really only live in our bedroom (which I haven't photographed cos I can't be bothered making the bed), and the lounge, with of course the kitchen and bathroom being part of it. That's what makes it so easy to forget about all the other things we still need to do!
Remember this before?
Well, here's the work in progress. I should have photographed the middle, because I've painted over the fire guard, but otherwise, it's still fairly hideous.
Here's the bookshelf side, now color coded and decorated a little. The suitcase thing is an experiment that isn't 100% working for me, so gotta think of something to do there. Whilst this is better than it was, I am now pretty much set on the idea of built-ins, so just imagine these shelves bigger, whiter and more bad-ass.
Here's the other side, pretty boring, though new curtains (picked them up at a garage sale) and a new lamp that I need to recover. If I was keep the sofa and chairs as-is (as opposed to getting slipcovers made) then the combo of these curtains and the furniture forces me into a blue-green kinda color thing.
This is the other side of the room, pretty boring apart from Baxter loving the view. He's looking out the window in our little office nook.
Here is said office thing. Plans in here include building a day bed to replace the dodgy old sofa you can't quite see here off to the right, as this little spot would be a pretty nice place to sit and read in the sun as it gets more light than the rest of the room. Any improvements we could manage to the furniture would be great too as this is all just old kitset stuff. We have another set of cube shelving just off to the left which works well and can probably stay.
Here's the hallway, and again, this one is more progress than 'before'. What we still need to do here is add new skirting boards, touch up the painting, finish the gallery wall, put a mirror in on the right hand wall, and I must admit I'm thinking of repainting that buffet. The bedrooms, hallway and lounge are all carpeted, which is a bit strange when it comes to blogging, as hardwood floors are the standard, but carpet is a much more usual option here, and in the end, it was cheaper to get nice carpet for these areas than to get the floorboards restored in selected places (like this hallway) where we wanted to keep them. For an old, and cold, house like ours, it's much nicer too. PS: yeah, we gotta fix that wonky bit above the door. This pic is taken from just inside the front door.
Our master bedroom is off to the left from the pic above, but as I said, I skipped photographing that. Now, things get worse. Much worse. Here's what is theoretically our second bedroom, but because of its location just off the hallway, we use as our utility room. In here is a whole bunch of gym equipment, and all of our photography equipment. That green 'curtain' is not actually an example of my poor taste, it's a green screen. You can see my cross trainer, hubby's rowing machine, a couple of rolls of seamless paper, etc etc etc. We wallpapered one wall in this room (which I have somehow managed not to get in this photo) with a view to it being a proper studio of sorts, but it hasn't really happened. Long term I'd like to add some color to the walls in here, as well as turn this back into a bedroom and move all the stuff to the bedroom at the rear of the house, as it would better to have another bedroom in here.
The beautiful turquoise door at the end of the hallway houses our incredibly boring bathroom. Not much we can do here, though I need to repaint the trim and consider getting a proper frosted window made to replace this louvre window that opens up to a hallway out back. I wanted to ditch the bath when we redid the bathroom (we just put in a new vanity and added a toilet) in favour of a shower cubicle, but hubby disagreed, so we're still going for shower-over-bath.
The dining room and kitchen, both partially finished. I'd love to add some color somewhere in these two rooms, and I'll definitely be repainting the shelving and fireplace area white.
And as you can see past the dining room, the back hallway, occupied by a tragic laundry that's just sort of plopped there. Behind the door is a second toilet, which, when we moved in was the only one in the house. This area needs so much work it's not funny - new paint, new cabinetry, everything.
The other room off the back hallway is the third bedroom, which for right now is our guest room. It needs finishing - right now everything is super basic in here.
So that's it! So, so, so much to do :)
