Home Improvements: Before and After Photos

Our lives have been enveloped in home improvement projects for the last two months straight. When Neil wasn't traveling for work, he was staying up until midnight with me, painting, cleaning, and fixing our house.  We were motivated to work so hard because our family came to visit us for General Conference the first weekend in April. It was the perfect excuse to get everything done so quickly. Even though we are really tired, it feels so good to have accomplished so much.

Living Room Before (this is a photo from MLS, so the furniture was the Seller's):

 Living Room After (re-painted all walls "Whole Wheat" color):

Kitchen Before:

 Kitchen After:

Dining Room Before:

 Dining Room After ("Whole Wheat Paint on walls):

 Because we had no furniture when we moved in, we have had to buy everything new (to us). Thank goodness for the classified section on ksl.com. We found the three solid oak bar stools pictured above for just $25 each and the eight solid oak dining room chairs pictured below for just $20 each. My parents, Neil's parents, and Neil spent hours sanding and re-staining them to get them looking brand new. We are still using a folding table we bought from Costco, but plan to build our own table out of scrap lumber with our good friends who live just a few minutes away. Who would have thought we would be learning SO MANY new, handy skills?

 Office Before (Our realtor said this room would have been the cat's meow in the '90's):

 Office After (CLEANED, wall paper removed, ceiling, walls, chair rail and baseboards re-painted):

No one ever notices the much improved look of the walls when I show them this room. Instead they say, "Wow! That's a nice desk!" The desk was a purchase from an auction in Mesa. Neil got it for just $300. What a steal! Anyways, this room took me and my parents FOUR days to complete. It was pretty bad, but so fun. My neighbors caught me straddling the wall and the window sill of our 15 foot arch window trying to get every little corner painted. I felt like Spiderman. And I was very sore afterwards.

Basement Bedroom #1 Before (with lavender walls):

Basement Bedroom #1 After (Re-painted to "Macadamia" color on walls and White on ceiling):

Basement Bedroom #2 Before:

Basement Bedroom #2 After (Painted Ceiling White and walls "Macadamia"):

Neil bought the bedroom set for this room at an auction before we left Mesa. It was pretty beat up, so instead of sanding and re-finishing it all, we decided to paint it. It was very time consuming to get it just right, but it turned out really nice.

(Before)

(After)
Basement Bathroom Before:

Basement Bathroom After (Cleaning, Painting Ceiling White and Wall Macadamia):

We haven't done much outside, but we did get a new deck. The old one was damaged in a wind storm before we bought the house and was too fragile to walk on. The sellers gave us money to repair it. Rather than repair the old wood, we had the whole thing torn down and replaced with trex wood and a rod-iron railing. It looks and feels so much better out there now!

Old Wood Deck (This picture doesn't do justice. The railing on the far side was gone and the wood totally warped.):

 New Trex Wood Deck:

Now that the weather is getting warmer, our home improvement projects will include trimming trees, raking leaves, and installing a fence around the yard.

I should also mention that we have already used our home warranty for a new water pressure regulator and hot water heater when we realized both were broken. The gas company has also come over to repair a gas leak. Due to the broken water heater, Neil has had to rip up soggy carpet and baseboards that were damaged by the leaking water. We are actually quite grateful that these things are happening now rather than later so we can use the home warranty to cover the costs.

We are loving our new home more and more every day. The more we settle in and get things looking nice, the more we realize the great deal we have gotten. We have great neighbors, an amazing view, and a wonderful new house. This really is where Heavenly Father wants us to be, because we have continued to see His Hand guiding us along every single day.