House Updates

Since we moved in together back in June we've done lots of home improvement projects... some that were done start to finish in a day or so and others that have been worked on bit by bit for months. But as dedicated as I am to fixing up our house I'm not so great at taking pictures of everything. So tonight I went around and snapped pictures of 2 big room makeovers; our living room and our den. Lets start with the living room (or what we called at the time the Blue Room) before pics....

(yep, that's a microwave and a toaster oven... on TV trays... yikes)

And... drum roll please.... after!

The pictures on the wall were inspired by a YHL post on making art out of just about anything. I took some picture frames that were collecting dust in our catch-all room... I mean our office... and stuck in some pictures from a vintage alcohol advertising 2009 calendar.


I was so excited to fill up a blank wall without spending one penny! The 2 big additions to the room were gifts from our parents. The awesome love seat was given to us from John's dad. Thanks Keith! And this gorgeous wine cabinet was a gift from Santa (my mom and dad).




Thank you thank you! Moving on to the den... I didn't have any great before pictures but you can kinda get an idea in this picture that we took back in December. Our dogs had a big surprise for us when we came home from school one afternoon. They had gotten into a box of old family ornaments and crunched them up into tiny bits allllll over our house (the den was the may scene of the crime though). As if chomping on glass wasn't bad enough, they also (I'm assuming) spent an entire day walking back and forth across the glass bits. I was ready to roll up the carpet and hall it to the dump but John talked me into attempting to clean up the mess. To our amazement there was only one teeny tiny drop of blood on the kitchen floor. Our dogs are like cockroaches, indestructible and incredibly resilient. So here are the befores...


And here are the (very recent!) afters!...

I'm thrilled with how everything turned out... er, I mean how everything is coming along. These rooms will probably never officially be "done". We'll always keep making improvements and changing things around. It's just in our nature I guess... always looking for the next project. Now that we've gotten a pretty good handle on the front portion of the house it's time to make our way down the hall! Our bedroom, the office and the guest bedroom haven't been touched yet. Stay tuned!