I'd love to share some "before and afters" of our house but nothing is really quite at the official "after" stage! There is always more to do, but we are taking our time. It seems like we are changing things on a weekly basis, which is fun. . . and exhausting. So our house is not perfect, but we love it and are proud of the changes it has gone through since we first bought the house. I haven't styled a thing for the pictures and I didn't even bother to fluff the pillows or get the dog off the couch! This is just our life! Sadly my iphone has a much wider angle than my good camera for the sake of perspective, all of the 'afters' are taken with the phone.
I'll start with the living room. When we bought the house, I loved the view out of the front room's four windows, but that's about ALL I liked! Wood paneling, small doorways, and heavy drapes made the room look small and dark.
The room is long with windows on one side and a fireplace on the other. We decided to open up the wall where the cabinets are to the kitchen on the other side.
We also decided to take the paneling off the fireplace to expose the brick fireplace we expected was hiding behind it.
Here's a view at the height of the demo with the cabinet portion of the wall removed down to the studs and the paneling stripped from the fireplace. You can also see part of the casing into the dining room (to the left of the fireplace) which came to a point. We had it squared out to match the new cased opening on the right of the fireplace.
The doorway you see below goes into the entry way. The doorway was SO narrow - I think it used to have an actual door on it. We had that enlarged as well to help with the flow of the house. The downside of enlarging the doorway was that it no longer perfectly framed our the stained-glass window, but I think the trade of symmetry for flow was worth it.
Before:
After!
The angle below is from the new opening into the kitchen, and no, Moose is not allowed on the couch.
In the picture below you can see the squared out opening on the left to the dining room and the new opening on the right to the kitchen. The panorama makes the kitchen opening look much smaller than the left one, but in reality they are pretty close to the same size.
And, just keeping it real, our fireplace is completely unfinished! We need a new insert, hearth, and have to decided what to do with the brick. Should we leave it red, limewash or whitewash it, or paint it solid? This fireplace seems really narrow so it is unlikely that we will burn fires in it. But I would love for it to be a more attractive focal point. We'd also like to add a piano, at least one bookshelf, a proper coffee table, some end tables, maybe change the layout (again). One thing at a time! We just got the cowhide rugs (a dream of Matt's) and I'm glad to say I love them!
When we bought the house, the entryway was basically a hallway into the family room. The doorway actually had a door on it, but when it was open we could see all the way through the family room into the laundry room/back door. We decided to wall in the doorway to make a proper entry way that would lead guests into our living room and keep the family room slightly more private/hidden. I'm so glad we did!
Note the series of doorways!
Here's the entryway in Fall:
And decorated for Christmas:
So there's a little glimpse into our home! More soon!
