Master Bedroom: Before and After

   

I am not gonna lie ....when we looked at our place for the first time I was immediately turned off by the garden level bedrooms. I mean I was turned off by a lot of things (popcorn ceiling, pee stain carpet, LINOLEUM!...just to name a few things). But I believe it was our discussion over that downstairs bedroom that inspired the renovation in the first place. I recall hmming and hawing over that downstairs bedroom when hub handed me pinterest and said "look...I could do this"...It was a picture from young house love -a bedroom with floor to ceiling curtains and a chandelier. He took back the phone and said or this...more pictures from Eye Candy: 10 Basement Bedrooms You'd Actually Want Sleep In! After a quick scroll I became intrigued - tell me more I said. And so the dreaming began in the bedroom. We can do bead board on the ledge wall, do hardwood floors, add a chandelier, and replace every door in the house. We both agreed we wanted matte walls and mirrors to make the room feel taller and a soft carpet just for our feet. The ledge would have to be painted and tall white trim installed everywhere! But first my hub told me we would have to scrape the popcorn ceiling right off. I had no idea he could...WE could... do all those things. And so we bought Belmar because of those bedrooms. Just because of a little pinterest inspiration.

And so we scraped the ceilings, mudded and sanded the drywall, pulled up the carpet, painted the walls and the ledge, installed hardwood, installed bead board then trim, ripped out closet doors (we lived with out them for almost a year), bought all our furniture from craigslist or thrift stores, painted again, put up a chandelier, bought more throw pillows, paid a handy man to install closet doors (we were over it), bought a new bed with memory foam and took a nap. Take a look at the before and after transformation. 

Kitchen: Before and After

The kitchen is the heart of the home. No matter how small or poorly laid out people seem to flock to the kitchen. And ours needed a lot of love when we first began this journey. 

Our 1970's included: dark laminate flat cabinets, blind corners, cramped cooking space, no designated microwave spot, and laminate counters. All of it had to go. We started by removing all of the cabinet doors. We set them aside to be fixed at a later date. We ripped out an old peninsula and replaces it with a lazy susan and a garbage base. We made more room next to the cook top to prep food. We ripped out the laminate counters and threw them out the window. Then we kilzed all the cabinets - inside and out. We ripped out the backsplash and replaces the dry wall. I then used a paint sprayer to spray the cabinets with bavarian creme. Husband rebuilt the peninsula and quartz grey expo counter tops and a sink basin were installed by Lowes. We had our appliances delivered and we were almost to the home stretch. We installed coppers tins for our backsplash she bead board around the peninsula. Almost to the end we added floor trim to the cabinet doors - then I caulked and painted them. Knobs and pulls were installed as well as a pull out garbage can. Last of all we used a vintage door and repurposed it as a pantry door. We added iron hinges and handles and called it good.

Living Room: Before and After

  

When we first walked into this place the first thing we noticed was a giant floating closet in the middle of the room. Um this has to go. We also noticed the nasty blue carpet that was stained from dogs and made the whole house smell musty. And then we noticed the popcorn ceilings UGH. I believe my exact words were - the only way we are buying this place is if the closet goes and you put hardwood in the whole house! And so that is the way it went. The day we closed we came straight over and took a sledge hammer to the closet. We then put on our goggles and began scraping away at those dang ceilings. Once the ceilings were throughly scraped clean we rolled up the carpet and tossed it out to the garbage pile. We got a little crazy in that first demolition session. We ripped out the fireplace and all the trim. It feels so good to destroy stuff...until you have to put it back together. To get the ceilings flat we had to mud and sand them. Then David took a PTO day to rewire all the electrical that was in the closet wall. We painted the ceilings and the walls and as soon as the paint was dry hardwood floors were installed. That same day I painted all the doors and trim for the whole house. Once the hardwood was done 6 inch white baseboards were installed in the whole house. The cherry on top was a brand new french door that replaced and jenky sliding door. We took our time to do the final details like the slate tile fireplace and crown moulding mantle. My favorite part was when we finally bought a couch that could fit both of us and the dog.

Moving on...

Oh  my it has been a long time since I have opened a new post page. I almost don't remember how to do it. Well my absence has been due to a job change. I began teaching at a new school and most of my creative energy and energy in general was spent to this new endeavor. No time to blog and no energy to do so either. But there is news at the Burrow. We have decided to move! We finished most of the burrow projects and well.... we just felt ready for another challenge, another round of painting, and late night trips to home improvement stores. We are closing in just a few weeks on our new home and are getting ready to put burrow 1.0 on the market. It makes us a little sad to say good bye to our first house project but we are proud of the work we have done and also a little wiser for all those mistakes we made on the way. As we cleaned and scoured our little home top to bottom we made notes of all the next times, and never will agains.  I decided to do a few more posts on the burrow dedicated to before and afters. And in just a few weeks we will start  a new chapter on our blog. The burrow will continue because it goes with us and there will be more projects and dreaming and ohhh God help us PAINTING!