Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Adventures in Home Improvement

This blog entry will serve as my forte into the world of html on myspace (or anywhere else for that matter. My point here is to display a few of the pretty things we have been doing to our house. I am hoping the pics come out okay, so this blog will be a work in progress, just like our house!

I first painted Anneke's room, because she is the main reason we took the plunge into home ownership-- I just didn't like the idea of her growing up in the country, with all of these trees around, yet not having access to her own yard. My husband felt the need to tell me that the last statement didn't make sense, so I will explain a bit more. We live in Durham, NC, which I consider to be very rural. If we lived in a large city, like New York for example, there wouldn't be as much open space available, and quite probably my desire to have a chunk of it for my daughter wouldn't be a great. Anyhooo-- the before photo of my daughter's room can be found here:Photobucket

We then decided to paint it a lovely shade of lilac, hang proper curtains (because it is so friggin bright in there!) and pile it full of girlie things:Photobucket

I then painted the kitchen, because I couldn't stand the look of the off-white walls and the off-white appliances. When we bought the house, the kitchen looked something like this: Before moving in

And I had an entire can of the lilac paint left over from Anneke's room, so I took the can back to the store and convinced the guy to squirt some black and lots of blue into the can. He was very worried, but the color turned out better than I could have every picked myself-- check it out: After painting

I couldn't decide on the livingroom color, and my husband came up with the brilliant idea of a pale sage. I was a bit unsure, but when I figured out what he was talking about, I promptly stole credit for the idea and painted the livingroom!
Here are a few pics of the before and after on the livingroom paint job. Here, Andre and our realtor are checking out the front of the livingroom before we even bought the place.Photobucket I am still not thrilled with the quality of the curtains, but quality is always a crap shoot when you order online. The other huge improvement shown in this photo is the replacement of the previous digusting miniblinds with 2" faux wood. Photobucket And a shot of the ceiling fan in trasition between incandescent and flourescent lighting! Photobucket

Here are two more views of the livingroom after we painted. My AMAZING friend Kelly gave me those black and whites when Anneke was small. I am absolutely in love with her photography, but I digress...

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One more shot from another angle:

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The most recent true adventure happened when Andre and I got in an arguement. I have no idea what it was over, but all I could think to do was replace the sink the bathroom, so that night, I went to Lowes, and bought a million things for the house, but after painting it a bright, cheery shade of yellow (well before the fixture changing began), the fixtures were exactly what the place needed, as you can see in the next few pics.

We began with the run of the mill bathroom for a house built in 1998

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And I can't forget the toilet shot! Photobucket

Nothing too bad here, it is only slightly dated, but we have been very blessed so far in not having to make any major repairs. The paint job went miles as far as making the look completely different:Photobucket, also I painted the cabinets white (they used to match the kitchen above, and I couldn't STAND them) Photobucket Replacing the fixtures was something I wanted to do, but was well down on the list of little fix-ups-- now that i just did it, I absolutely love the effect, and I am so glad I just bit the bullet and did it! We got a new faucet for the sink: Photobucket And we changed the towel ring, and toilet paper holder: Photobucket Photobucket As you can see, we still need to touch up the paint from switching over the fixtures. I have just loved creating this house with my husband. It is an integral part of our family.

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