5 Year House Anniversary

It has been 5 crazy fast years living in our home.  We have been "slowly" making it ours as we fill it full of memories.  It is definitely a full house!  Here are some comparisons to what the house looked like when we bought it compared to now.  We have tackled so many projects with so many more on the never-ending to do list.  

I don't know if the front of the house looks that different, but our grass looks better, many overgrown shrubs that blocked the house were removed, and some new lighting was added.  I would love new shutters and some trim replaced in the future, but that is way at the bottom of the list.  A new roof will probably happen before all of that.  Ha! 

This shows a little more of the close up view of the porch and lighting.  I want to add an accent metal roof over the porch and maybe replace the little bit of siding with a better accent feature. 

DOWNSTAIRS

The foyer was also made to feel larger by making the same flooring flow from the dining room and into the rest of the house.  The addition of the wood barn doors also made the front formal room more suitable as a bedroom for our oldest son. It could also be a nice home office or study.  I actually dream of making it mine one day with some cozy chairs and a home library.  

The stairs were probably our biggest and most favorite project.  I hated the old carpet that always looked dirty.  We ripped it out and found some wood stair treads that just needed some sanding love and new stain.  The stair risers were nothing special and were just bare pieces of wood with lots of gaps since they were just covered by carpet by the builders.  We repaired as much as we could and then covered them with beadboard and fresh white paint.  

The living room has received fresh new paint, new floors and an updated fireplace with a larger wood mantel. 

Removing the useless columns really opened up this space and replacing the old dingy carpet with new easy to maintain "wood" floors was a huge upgrade. 

The dining room is kind of the heart of this home as the main dining space that fits our family.  I needed to just make it lighter and brighter to start with a clean pallet so fresh paint was a must.  Then, we re-painted our dining room furniture and updated the lighting fixture to make it brighter.  I am now thinking I need a "feature" wall for more contrast in here because it just feels so "white."  

The kitchen space has not received as much attention as I would like, but it is good to live in a house for a while before tackling these big projects so you know exactly what you want.  I want to add some additional cabinets above our existing ones with trim to the ceiling.  I also would like to paint the top cabinets.  My ultimate dream is to remove the peninsula that divides the space and makes it small and make a long island that connects the long room and provides more counter space, storage, and seating for meals. 

This front room also saw big changes as we turned it into a smaller but more useful bedroom by stealing some space for a closet and to make our downstairs bathroom larger with a full shower. 

This little half bathroom got the wall opened up so we could add a full shower for when my dad lived with us and also for my older teen sons to use. 

UPSTAIRS

Bedroom 1 - Brody's Bedroom and was shared by him and his older brother Evan when Papa lived with us. 

Bedroom 2 - Mattox and Grayson's Bedroom

Bedroom 3 - Maggie's Bedroom

The kids' bathroom just got some new paint and has also received updated faucets and lighting because their bathroom fan wasn't working well and made the whole bathroom get so wet when showering that the old fixtures were actually rusting.  It isn't even that old of a house.  The inadequate ventilation in this small space was a real problem. 

The loft space hasn't changed much except with new paint and the kids' toys that have changed over the years.  

The color change in here isn't as obvious as it looks in person.  The realtor photos made the darker yellow walls look like light beige.  Our walls are now a very soft peachy pink because I just needed to neutralize some of the browns.  I still want to replace the tub with a nicer self-standing tub and probably will replace the flooring and add some better insulation or radiant floor heating because this room is over an unheated garage, and the floors get freezing cold at night. 

In this picture, not much had changed except some darker stain on the cabinets and new hardware.  I have been trying to create a more "fancy" and elegant bathroom and to lighten up the darker fixtures.  I have since added chrome lights and new white bowl sinks with chrome faucets.  I think the shiny chrome sparkles and looks more luxurious. 

I also wanted our bedroom to have a more luxury feel with a sparkly chandelier, but my husband insists we need a ceiling fan.  So this folks is why "fandeliers" were invented.  Haha!  I still hate how poor the lighting is in this long cavernous room.  I want to divide the spaces into two separate rooms with the other end being an office or workout room. 

Our New House ~ Befores and Afters {Upstairs}

 As promised, here is a tour of our upstairs: 

Loft Area - Before

Stairs and Loft - After

The center area of the house including the foyer, stairs and loft areas are all painted a light green.  It isn't terrible and will be the hardest areas to paint because of the stairs and higher ceilings. For now, I have decorated the stairs with our kids' school pictures and am working on a big project to frame our old family photos of our ancestors along with our family tree.  

I am continuing the kids' school pictures on the other side of the stairs.  Most of this wall will one day hold pictures of the younger kids who haven't started school yet. 

This wall is the beginning of our family ancestors with pictures of my grandmothers and one set of Eddie's great-grandparents.  

I painted this family tree art and each of our fingerprints represents the members of the family.  Mattie is represented by a heart leaf. 

The loft area makes a nice play area for the kids for now since they do not have a designated play room in this house. One day I will be consigning most of these toys, but I am just going to enjoy this stage of my babies being small. It is going so fast.  

The kids' rooms are right off the loft play area. 

This classic Pooh art I had from my childhood just seemed to fit here.  I was always sad that I didn't have the summer season picture to complete the set.  

This bookshelf is a little overloaded right now until I get the built-in shelves downstairs where I can store all of my photo albums and pictures.  

Upstairs Spare Bathroom - Before

This bathroom wasn't in bad shape, but I did go ahead and update the paint to the blue gray color so it would match our bathroom decor. 

Upstairs Spare Bathroom - After

We have been using this shower curtain since our first house we purchased in 2005.  It barely got used in our spare bathroom until the boys got old enough to shower in their own bathroom. 

I had found this blue and orange dinosaur bathroom art a few years ago at Hobby Lobby, and it matched the shower curtain perfectly. 

Spare Bedroom 1 - Before 

I was a little nervous that this room seemed pretty small with such huge furniture, but it was surprisingly a nice sized room.  

Spare Bedroom 1 - After

This room became Maggie's room because it is the closest to our room. It has a large double window that lets in a lot of light.  Her crib will likely be converted to a toddler bed this year and then in a few years can become a full size bed for her.  

Her little doll cradle was mine as a child.  She has been loving her baby dolls lately.  

I finally got some art framed above her dresser that are some special printables that were in her sister's nursery and one made by her big brother for his rainbow siblings.  I have some more shelves to hang with that one shelf, but I need some different brackets.  Those balloons have been up since her birthday in January.  It is crazy how long balloons will last if you don't fill them with helium.  I just blew these up with regular air.  

Maggie's dresser was mine as a child as well, and we painted it pink for her.  I do plan to buy her a full length mirror for the closet door so she can play dress up.  She already likes trying on clothes.  

Of course, getting Maggie a doll house for Christmas was my dream come true, and she does already like playing with it.  I know it will grow with her into Barbie doll stage.  

Spare Bedroom 2 - Before

Spare Bedroom 2 - After

This bedroom became Mattox and Grayson's room.  They love their shared space.  Their beds aren't always that neatly made, but I try to do it every day. 

 

They can play games on their Wii-U or watch some kids' shows on Netflix occasionally.  Their furniture has lasted well since Evan's nursery.  

Mattox's bed.  He likes to sleep with his head this way because there is a vent in the ceiling at the other end that was blowing right on him.  

Grayson's bed.  I love the simpler bedding and mixing it up with fun sheets. 

We had found their awesome bunkbed online when we were expecting Mattie so that Evan and Brody could share a room.  I like that it has tons of built in drawer storage both under it and on the side of the stairs.  I also liked that it had stairs and not just a ladder.  

They have a bookshelf full of children's book treasures we have collected through the years. 

I love their little gallery wall of their baby pictures and some special printable art. 

Their baby mobile I made still hangs in the corner, and I hope it always will. 

Their closet is plenty big enough for all their dressier clothes. 

The bottom of the closet holds a lot of their big boy toys.  

Spare Bedroom 3 - Before

Spare Bedroom 3 - After

Brody's room is another room painted in the same blue gray color, but it looks a little different here.  Brody's room does get the least amount of natural light with only one smaller window so we added a new fixture with multiple bulbs for more light.  I didn't apparently take a picture of that though.  This wall contains some of Brody's baby pictures.  

We did have to purchase him a new dresser since he was getting his own room after sharing with Mattox in our last house. 

Brody's bed was actually Evan's convertible crib.  When we first transformed his room to a big boy room, we purchased this space bedding set for him from Target.  I still love it and wanted a chance to use it again.  

Brody's new television he received for Christmas is one of his favorite features.  He loves that it has Alexa with his built in Amazon Fire TV.   We still need to purchase him a new desk so we can set up his desktop computer that was in Evan's room.  For now, they haven't needed it since they have school Chromebooks to use.  

Master Bedroom - Before

Since this bedroom is so long and is really like two rooms in one, the previous owners used half of the bedroom as a private sitting room with a large screen television.  We had to remove that monster of a wall mount.  

The bedroom area is still quite larger.  

Master Bedroom - After 

We haven't painted the walls yet, but I did use a little test paint sample of their wall color they had left to cover these large unpainted squares on each side of the bed.  It was like they didn't remove their art from the walls when they painted and just painted around them.  The squares are less obvious, but I can still see them since the sample paint was not the same quality as the paint they likely used.  We plan to repaint the whole room soon.  These colors aren't terrible, but I think a lighter color will work better with our headboard and other decor.  We will also mount our headboard higher once we finish painting.  

We want to actually put up a wall dividing this room into a bedroom and an attached private office or workout space for our equipment.  Our bedroom would still be fairly large, but I think it would make more practical sense.  

I still want some curtains for our bedroom and a new light fixture. 

I had created this little wall gallery in our last house and just still love it.  It has a baby picture of each of our babies and this printable of all of our special dates.  

This poem was given to us as a wedding present, and I included a wedding picture of us with it.  

I also keep my wedding portraits in here since it is kind of my boudoir.  

The wall art theme is all about our love story. 

Master Bathroom - Before

Master Bathroom - After

Not much has changed yet, but painting is definitely on the short list to replace the blinding bright yellow with something more calm and relaxing.  Hopefully, it will also tone down the brown tones. 

We also want to replace the towel bar with some shelves and storage above the tub. 

Nothing much has changed on this side, but I hope a new paint color will be a pretty drastic change.  Eventually I may want to replace the brown sinks with more subtle glass or ceramic ones. 

The lighting could also use some work as well.  Maybe some clear globes instead of milky ones so the light is more clear and bright. 

The only other rooms I didn't share are the closets which are mostly functional and the toilet room which needs a major paint job.  I hope these posts will hold us accountable to continue tackling our to-do list.  It is nice to see progress being made.