Before & After: Mudroom

The before shot above was what we saw during the open house. We pulled up the laminate flooring and replaced it with beautiful tile from our friends at DeMarco Tile, painted the walls, updated the molding, replaced the closet door... and changed the interior door that was serving as the door to the garage with a nice exterior door. We still have a few touch ups - but overall I'm happy with the transformation!

Quick Afternoon Project

There was an empty corner in our "mudroom", and I had this cheap chair from Target. A quick coat of paint in two colors and stressed with sandpaper and whola! A splash of color! The pillow from World Market topped it off. 

Before & After: Front Yard

I thought it may be nice to show you the front yard before and after the new landscaping was installed. As with all of our projects, it is still in the works... but overall you can see the shape of the new beds. No flowers yet... I'm waiting for winter for lots of colorful inpatients.

Thanks to Dad for all the great ideas and hard work!

Project #1: The Laundry Room

So our most major renovation so far is the laundry room/mudroom. We like to start small and practice then move to something more. 

Before shots (when the lady lived here):

I guess you can't see from the picture above, but the water heater was inside to the right of the dryer and the floor is lanolium from forever ago. The washer and dryer were so gross. I just gave up trying to get the washer clean - so much dog hair from before!

So the first thing we did was replace the floor. Why? Because Nate couldn't resist and starting pulling it up before we even decided to do the room! He really likes to demo. He's got that down by now. So Nate demoed the room. Lanolium gone, baseboards, doors, washer/dryer, blinds, closet doors... everything. The rooms were stripped bare. 

Finally, the water heater is moved out so Nate can re-pipe!

Looking in from the garage! We had to do some creative piping, because the wall where we needed to re-route contained all the electrical. Yikes! Thank goodness for the industrial design minor and Nate's handy-dandy welding expertise!

Final spot in the garage! Yeah!

Missing Salt and Pepper Shakers

So it has now been several months and things are getting settled (when they aren't being remodeled). Nothing is missing except my box of salt and pepper shakers, which normally wouldn't both me, however, my favorite 2 pairs are also missing... my 2 crabs and my favorite Anthropologie ones that I bought before the move. Grr.... where are those shakers??

Missing... really cute salt and pepper shakers!! 

The Great Cleanup

So after we closed we thought we would go over, meet my family and get the house cleaned up before moving stuff in. I had several days off, and the hurricane that had been including us in its cone had downgraded to a tropical storm and was slowing, so things were looking up. 

I might add that I had not visited the house (inside) since the first time we saw it which is 5 months prior to us closing. 

Let's just say that cleaning was an understatement. The place was disgusting! My favorite comment was from the lady's realtor in the closing... "She and her friends spent 3 days cleaning the place before she left". I'm not really sure what they did, but yikes!

So the lifesaver of the week was our investment in the steamer. Love it! The entire house is tile, little tile (that will soon be replaced) and black grout... after calling several places for estimates on having the grout cleaned, we made the decision to save the $2700 dollars and invest $500 in a steamer. While it has been great, it makes for long hard days of grout cleaning. Especially with the little tile. View steamer here.

(Dad and Nate cleaning tile below)

I wish I had a good before/after tile picture, but let's just say I had a bit of buyers remorse when we first moved in - especially with factoring in how dirty the place was and didn't take my normal amount of pictures. It wasn't until I was told me to snap out of it and enjoy the moment and take my pictures to remember everything did I start enjoying the process and taking pictures. So, back to the tile... it went from white tile with black grout to... WHITE GROUT!! I couldn't believe it.  

Needless to say, the cleaning took much longer than expected. About the entire week and we just brought everything in down to the wire of moving out of the condo. 

Our first House

Welcome to our first house! After months of searching we went back to one of the first ones we looked at. (Actually, after months of waiting for a short sale that would never be approved). 

Here are a few images from when we first viewed the house... who would have thought that we would be able to purchase a home in our favorite Naples neighborhood! There are some positives to a down economy I suppose!