{"id":28701,"date":"2015-09-13T18:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T23:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=28701"},"modified":"2015-09-12T16:28:47","modified_gmt":"2015-09-12T21:28:47","slug":"our-house-before-and-after","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=28701","title":{"rendered":"Our House Before and After"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone. As I write this the movers<\/a> are loading up their truck, and I am trying to finish up this post before I need to return our modem to our internet company. \u00a0We have so many new readers that I thought it would be fun to do a before and after of our 1928 bungalow. \u00a0The “befores” will be the photos on the MLS listing when we bought the house five years ago.\u00a0 We were not blogging then, and I wasn’t taking photos like the blogger me is doing now.\u00a0 We are on vacation now in Southeast Asia, and when we return we will be going straight to Charlotte, NC.\u00a0 (You can follow us on Instagram<\/a> where I will post photos of us on our trip.)<\/h3>\n

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Of course, I have to start with my favorite – the outside.<\/h3>\n

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\"House<\/p>\n

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I still can’t believe how the house looks so different now. \u00a0I am glad I had \u00a0a vision and that Yankee was willing to trust me.\u00a0 When we first saw the house while house hunting, he didn’t even want to get out of the car and go in.<\/h3>\n

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\"House<\/p>\n

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My vision (and our hard work) paid off because the new buyers pretty much had their minds made up that they wanted the house by the time they got in the door.\u00a0 (The first people who looked at it bought it at full price.) The improvements we made were a new roof, new windows on the lower front, new landscaping, window boxes, red paint on the doors, and a faux runner on the steps.<\/h3>\n

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\"FL<\/p>\n

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This is the front room that we call the Florida room. \u00a0We knew this could be a great room. It just needed some TLC. \u00a0The first thing we did was install more energy efficient windows, and then we got removed the tile and added hardwood. \u00a0I have to say installing the hardwood was smooth sailing, and it is a project we said we would do again.<\/h3>\n

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\"Living<\/p>\n

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The Florida room in fact was used a lot with our new set up.\u00a0 We had the bar that Yankee built, and it was a great game\/hangout area when we had parties or just for the two of us. \u00a0The bar was so perfect in that spot. We even sold it to the new owners.\u00a0 While we love it and Yankee worked so hard to build it, our new house doesn’t have a spot for it. \u00a0We know the new owners will enjoy this room as much as we did.<\/h3>\n

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\"Fireplace_before\"<\/p>\n

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I could not find a picture of the living room before. \u00a0But this was my very first blog picture and project at our house.\u00a0 Mom painted this brown fire place white.\u00a0 I’m glad to say that my camera skills have evolved since our early blog days.<\/h3>\n

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\"Living<\/p>\n

\"Living<\/p>\n

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Can you imagine if we had never painted that fireplace? Yankee was very, very<\/span> hesitant at first, but now he’s on board with my decorating choices.\u00a0 We also painted the room a fresh gray.<\/h3>\n

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\"Before<\/p>\n

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Here is the dining room before when we bought the house. \u00a0I love this room, and it was one of the first rooms we tackled when we moved in. \u00a0We added a chair rail, painted, made new curtains, added a\u00a0 different light, painted a hutch, and of course, tackled the staining of the table.\u00a0 This room was bright even on the gray days in Syracuse.<\/h3>\n

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\"Dining<\/p>\n

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\"Dining<\/p>\n

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One thing we did that is hard to see in the photos is the dining room table is not centered in the room. \u00a0We moved it a little towards the windows to open up a walkway. \u00a0That really helped make the room feel bigger. \u00a0The other side of the room has the hutch I purchased and painted.<\/h3>\n

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\"Study<\/p>\n

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This back room is what we used as the study. \u00a0The previous owner had it setup as his TV room. \u00a0The ceiling was black (which the owner painted white before we moved in), and it had a very dark red on the walls. \u00a0The painting was tackled early on because I wanted to lighten it up.<\/h3>\n

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\"Bookshelf\"<\/p>\n

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We bought Ikea Billy bookcases and made them into built-ins and added a window seat. \u00a0Fun modern art was also created for this room as well as our travel map.<\/h3>\n

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\"Study\"<\/h3>\n

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This room was nice and airy and a great room to have as my office since I work from home most days.\u00a0 You can see the globe I made into a light but never blogged about.<\/h3>\n

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\"Screen<\/p>\n

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The kitchen needed a lot of TLC. \u00a0While I loved the Craftsman style of the cabinets, I was not a fan of the wood color or the color of the kitchen. \u00a0Everything was blending together. \u00a0We didn’t mind the white appliance but slowly they started to lose their working power and eventually we upgraded.<\/h3>\n

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\"Kitchen<\/p>\n

\"Kitchen\"<\/p>\n

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\"116<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Yankee built a new ceiling-height cabinet for our new stainless oven, and we added an Ikea cabinet\/island where the previous owner had a small table.\u00a0 We ate all of our meals in the dining room.<\/h3>\n

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\"DIY<\/p>\n

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This corner of the kitchen was bare, but one time when I was away, Yankee surprised me by building this mini-mudroom which was a perfect surprise.<\/h3>\n

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\"Backyard<\/p>\n

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If you look closely at this picture you will not see one blade of \u00a0grass in the backyard. \u00a0Well, this is the project that caused us blood, sweat and tears. \u00a0We thought hmm…… this won’t be hard.\u00a0 Let’s move all the rocks, and the rock gardens, put down grass, and build a patio. \u00a0We did it, and I think I am stronger, literally, because of all of those rocks.\u00a0 We gave the rocks away on Craigslist.\u00a0 It was a great way to not have to haul them away after we shoveled them out of the yard.\u00a0 It was also worth it as we enjoyed every minute we could in our backyard and on our patio. \u00a0We joke that one day owners will not like the grass or patio and put in rocks. If that happens I just don’t want to know about it.<\/h3>\n

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\"Backyard-<\/p>\n

\"Patio\"<\/p>\n

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\"Fall<\/h3>\n

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The porch was unfinished and unpainted when we moved it.\u00a0 Mom and I painted it the same color as the house, and I painted the ceiling the same soft blue as the kitchen.\u00a0 Then we bought this set of outdoor furniture.\u00a0 It will fit perfectly on the back porch at our new home in North Carolina.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0\"House<\/p>\n

\"House<\/p>\n

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As far as the three bedrooms go, we ended up just painting each of them.\u00a0 (I don’t have before photos.)\u00a0 This is the master bedroom.\u00a0 It was large and bright.<\/h3>\n

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\"House<\/p>\n

\"House<\/p>\n

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\u00a0This is one of the guest rooms.\u00a0 The area behind the big curtain was my craft space.\u00a0 The previous owner removed the wall, and we never replaced it.\u00a0 If we had not moved, this would have been a child’s room, and we would have done something about a wall then.<\/h3>\n

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\"Bathroom<\/p>\n

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Just last winter we painted the only full bathroom and added a new heated tile floor.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we hardly got to use the warm floor.<\/h3>\n

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\"Laundry<\/p>\n

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Our washer and dryer were in a corner in the basement.\u00a0 Mom and I did our best to make it a nice spot to do laundry.\u00a0 I painted the walls and made a fake wall on three sides using Ikea curtains.\u00a0 She painted the rug out of a children’s play mat, and made curtains for the shelves that had no doors.\u00a0 It was a huge improvement.<\/h3>\n

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We had a wonderful five years in our first home and are looking forward to what life has for us in our new place in Charlotte, NC.<\/h3>\n

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Cheers!<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi everyone. As I write this the movers are loading up their truck, and I am trying to finish up this post before I need to return our modem to our internet company. \u00a0We have so many new readers that I thought it would be fun to do a before and after of our 1928 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28701"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28701"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28756,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28701\/revisions\/28756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}