our home - before and after

Now that we are getting settled in our rental house in Texas and the horrific memories of packing and packing and packing and packing (and moving) are starting to fade, guess what is coming to mind?  Buying a house, of course!  Each Sunday we are going to open houses, trying to determine in what part of Houston we'd like to live.  

We've owned 3 homes in our marriage.  The first was a sweet little tri-level, the perfect starter home, that needed the usual amount of work that starter homes need.  We were both working full time and could devote all our free time (and money) into re-doing that home.  We made it lovely and homey and 9 years later sold it for a great profit (not our intention AT ALL, but definitely a blessing).  

Our next home was the one that I'd always dreamed of.  A 1930 colonial!  Yes!!!!!  As an (older) child,  I would literally knock on the door of the very old homes in my neighborhood and ask if I could have a tour.  Ha ha!  I wonder what those people thought of me!  As a kid who grew up in a 1970s split level I was forever taken with the wonderful spaces in these old homes.  Anyway, we loved our colonial and did a lot of work to make it just right for our family.  I wish I could've packed it up in a moving box and taken it with me.

Our next house was a 1940 Cape Cod that was frozen in time.  And that time was the 1960s.  However the previous owners (not the original owners, but close) had loved it well and had taken very good care of it.  I wasn't in love with this home like I had been with our colonial but we were under the gun to pick something, anything.  Fortunately Jon saw the potential in this house.  However, we're older than we were back when we bought our starter home.  We have two kids.  I may not work full time outside the home, but I do teach our children for 5 hours a day.  Money was tighter when it came to renovations and so was time.  However, we moved in with a vision to make it ours and I think we did a pretty good job!  

Take a look at the before pics:

standing in the dining room looking into the living room

in the living room looking at the front door

standing at the front door looking at the living room

standing at the front door looking down the hall towards two bedrooms

kitchen - I'll never forget all that wallpaper.  Also, the curtains were the same print as the wallpaper!

kitchen and eating area

downstairs bathroom

stairs going to the second floor

playroom

master bedroom

Henry's room

upstairs bathroom

Havalah's room

Havalah's room

going downstairs (that's Henry's room to the right)

Child labor is the best.  Kids are surprisingly good at scraping up 50 year old carpet pad

see what I mean?

I didn't upload any photos of the unfinished basement because it remain unchanged.  If we had stayed in our house a few more years we had big plans to refinish it into a family room. 

So, onto the after photos.  Two and a half years later.  I'm proud of what we did!

kitchen

dining room looking into the living room

standing at the front door looking into the living room

master bedroom

stairs to the second floor

downstairs bathroom

playroom

playroom

Henry's room

upstairs bathroom

self explanatory! ha!

outside the backdoor - unchanged from when we purchased the house

outside the backdoor

backyard - garage to the left, house to the right

the backyard -unchanged from when we purchased it

When we moved in the house was a sickly pink/beige color.  It took a long long long time (I can't bring myself to type how long it actually took) but we painted it ourselves.  I love the dark gray so much.  The roof is a brick-red shingle, not my favorite, but we had to work with it, so we painted the shutters an orange-red (called Fired Brick).  It looked fresh and modern.

There is a lot that we didn't get to.  The backyard, the kitchen, a new deck, a new roof, bringing out the front door so that it faced the street, and the basement.  But in 3 1/2 years we did what we could and we were quite proud of our hard work.  And, as it turns out I really ended up loving this house!  I loved all the natural light and the large kitchen, just to name a few.  It was neat to look back at God's hand in helping us choose this home, the right home for us.

It's exciting to imagine what house is next for us.  I'm anticipating sharing our house looking/buying process.  We've already started praying for our new home and are confident that God has just the right one for us.