The End of the Beginning.

If you've followed RDR for a while, you may remember that our current house was in quite a poor state when we purchased it. Everything needed some love! We painted every single wall, replaced every light fixture, refinished the original wood floors, installed new windows, converted the "family room" back into a two car garage, and fully renovated the bathrooms and kitchen. When you write it all in one sentence, it feels so simple, but we have really put a lot of time and love into this little house! It was our first home as a married couple. We got our first dog here and brought home both of our babies from the hospital. We've hosted friends and family and made tons of memories. It will be bittersweet to leave our little ranch house, but she won't be far away as we're keeping her as a rental property. We're so excited to get into our new space and start making it our own, but I thought it would be fun to take a little look back at some photos of our current place before we pass her on to another loving family.

Let's start with the biggest room- the Living and Dining area.
The biggest change in this space was the fireplace which was a huge hulking blob of brown when we moved in. It took FOREVER to paint because the rocks just slurped up the primer and paint, but once it was finished, the room vastly improved and brightened up. The space hasn't been arranged as below for quite some time, but I suppose I haven't photographed the entire room since we've rearranged!

 

The dining area had dark wood shelving overhead and the beam was wooden as well. We removed the shelving, painted the beam, and updated the light fixture to open up the space and give it a modern feel.

 

 

 

The kitchen was awful when we moved in. Cabinets: brown. Countertops: brown. Walls: brown wood paneling. Carpet (yes. carpet.) brown. And the washing machine was in there too. I sanded, primed and painted the cabinets and added hardware. We purchased new countertops (laminate), tiled the backsplash, purchased new matching appliances, and tiled the floor. Then we painted that disgusting wood paneling with a bright, cheery blue to bring the whole look together.

The bedrooms in this house are all about the same size. They all had cornflower blue carpet originally, and after tearing up the carpet, we discovered that the beautiful wood floors from the main living space continued throughout the house, but they were COVERED with splatters of paint. A hefty chunk of change later, the floors had been restored to their original glory. After that, we just added the same cheery white and grey to the walls, replaced light fixtures, added window treatments, and tossed a few babies into the mix!

 

Master:

 



 

 

Guest Room (before. Later turned into Vesper's nursery)

 

 

 

Vesper's Nursery:

 

 

 

 



Grey's Nursery:

 

 

 

 

The master bathroom was unusable when we purchased the house due to a leaking shower pan. We demo'd it pretty soon after moving in, but it sat bare-boned for a long time until we could get it renovated. We stuck with our white and grey color scheme (we know what we like!) and threw in some light blue accents. We loved the results!

 

The hall bathroom was quite a project. It was pretty gross. I tried to give it a mini-make-over soon after moving in, but not even a coat of beige and white paint could really make the disgusting "rock-shaped" tile with brown grout and wood paneling look any better. It was bad, folks. Real bad. And to make matters more disgusting, I removed the sliding shower doors to find years (decades, ya'll) of dirt, grim, and hair that had collected under the fixture. Did you just puke? I did. LUCKILY, my handy husband eventually tore out everything and started from scratch. I didn't get to help with this renovation because I was big and pregnant, but when it was done, I was so so happy with my new luxurious hall bathroom in which I could bathe our newborn baby girl!

 

And that, my friends, is the story of our little ranch house. It's been a really great starter home. I'm sitting here in the quiet living room replaying happy memories in my head like scenes from a movie... bringing home a wiggly little black and white pup that was so happy to have a home that she pooped right in the middle of the brand new rug. Trembling with fear as we oh-so-carefully removed our newborn baby girl from her carseat after bringing her home from the hospital... then later giving her her first sponge bath in a bowl on our dining room table, watching her take her first steps, and later shoving cake into her mouth at her first birthday party. Long nights on the couch with a chubby baby boy who only wanted to sleep on momma and daddy and playtime on the floor as he learned to roll over. Everything is etched into my heart here... I even did some of my very first photo shoots in our back yard! But our new house has the potential to hold all of these memories and more! It will be the first house that our kids actually remember! We'll start school there and make friends with the neighbor kids and host more parties than we can imagine...

So here's to beginnings... and new beginnings.
xo,
Chels