Family Room Before and In Progress...

I thought that I would take a break from my sitting room for a bit and show you some before and afters of our Family Room. When you enter our house you enter into the Living room/sitting room which winds you around to our kitchen. Well there is a semi surprise of a room just past the kitchen. It was a nice surprise too when we first viewed the home. It's a very large family room with nice gas fireplace and a half bath built on. It also has lots of nice big windows that are still curtain-less by the way. Let's take a look....

 Above is a shot looking into the room from the kitchen/dining area. Notice the very green olive walls. It wasn't a bad color it was just a bad painting job. Since the house was a foreclosure I felt like the bank came in and slapped paint on certain walls to make the home more appealing. Just wait till I show you befores of the kitchen!

 Below is the view as if you were standing in front of the fireplace. You can see the door to the first floor/ basement and a glimpse of the dining room. The ceilings are not vaulted like they are in the entrance but the previous owner added a fan to this room. I like the idea of fans but this one is a mini fan that belongs in a kids room not in a big room like this.

 Here is a peek into the half bath. Oh yes and there is that lovely vinyl flooring. When we redo the kitchen floor it too will make and exit from this home. Sometimes I think the previous owner ran out of money when they built this house. There are some really nice features like a jetted tub then there are things like all brass fixtures and vinyl flooring. This house was built in 2006 which means that a lot of the fixtures were super outdated even then. (Side note... I just read a blog where they painted all the fixtures themselves to a darker brushed oil look. The fixtures turned out looking AMAZING! I really want to do it now, however I need a sunny day where I can spread all the fixtures out on our driveway. I live in Astoria so I might be waiting a long while. Boo..)

Ok so here we go... The Before....

And the After..... Nice huh...?

Look how much brighter the room looks with the yellow paint (this is the cheap recycled paint that I have talked about before) and the white trim.
Below you will find our fireplace and mantle. It is a corner mantle and I don't know what to do with it or how to decorate it. If you have any ideas I am all ears. I also, as you can see, got side tracked one day while painting the trim and painted the brown tile around the fireplace white. I love it... white...

Someday I want to knock that tile out and put in a cool shaped tile on all three sides of the fireplace. I also want to add more of a mantle. I've been looking at thrift store but damn mantles are spendy.

This is a view of our TV. We have found an awesome entertainment center at IKEA but it's like $900 so we are saving our beans. We really need something for the TV.  I think it's kinda an eye sore and Lucy loves to stand up and bang on the screen. Cole just LOVES when she does this... yikes

 My white moulding....

And then there is this...The bathroom door and moulding that I haven't finished yet. It gives me the stink eye every night while I watch TV because it hasn't been loved yet....

 Oh yes and I have to share this because it lets you know I am a real person who rarely has a clean house. This is the store all corner for Lucy's toys. I never thought I would be a person with baby stuff everywhere... I am totally one of those people. I need to find a better system to store her toys. Yes that is also a large pile of laundry. I cannot take credit for it because Cole does all of our laundry.. I love him to pieces. And Hurley's butt... Sorry for that.

Ok so lets end on a high note. Here again is a picture of my Family Room in progress. I like it. It is a comfy room that invites anyone in to rest, nap or play.

Lucy's Room

There is one room in our whole house that is completed to our perfection. Of course this room is our baby girl Lucy's room. Long before we ever moved into this house, let alone picked it out or visited the inside, I had a vision for her nursery. I knew the walls would need to be that beautiful vibrant Tiffany blue and and her crib would be dark brown to match her sheet set. From there, everything else just kinda came together. All we needed was a room. After we purchased our house, we received a lot of help. My family made multiple treks from Portland to help get us get situated and moved in. Cole's parents live locally so they were able to come over after work most evenings to help paint or even take care of Lucy so we could work. The home was a foreclosure and needed (needs) a lot of love. Most people that helped us made it their personal mission to make sure that Lucy's room was ready to be lived in long before the others were. The upstairs was carpeted with miss-matched styles. The worst part about the upstairs carpeting was the amount of nasty pet stains. Or what we think were pet stains... So we knew that before we moved in upstairs we were going to rip out and replace the nasty stuff.

Here is a view looking into her room. This picture doesn't give the old carpets the dirty justice they deserve.

This is a view looking back towards her closet and the entrance to her room.

Once the carpets were torn out we were able to paint the room. We also upgraded all the trim by sanding and painting it white. What a pain in the you know what too! Unfortunately, I have no photos of the painting crew but let me tell you, boy did they look good! The dogs have also taken a personal liking to Lucy's room. I'm guessing it's because they think she might throw food at them from her crib like she does from her highchair, who knows. ( pictured: Lola our oldest daughter)

This is a picture looking left from the room's entrance. Lucy's room has become a bird haven. It wasn't intentional but we seemed to collect a lot of bird lovin stuff from others. Personally, I love it. Check out the knobs Cole installed on her dresser. Aren't the awesome! We scored them at this great store locally called Vintage Hardware.

This is Lucy's bookshelf that was given to her at her baby shower. Several of my good friends/co-working teachers threw me the most amazing shower ever. They made the bookshelf and had the guests fill the shelves. Best idea ever!

And the view to the right. Check out the awesome mobile one of my closest friends Molly made me. Homemade stuff is truly the best stuff!

Above you can see a close up of the new carpet and her shoes. I mean, she is my daughter and if you know me you know addiction runs in the family. And below you can see my sass master eating her crib. This picture is an older one. We used to have a super cute mobile in her crib. However, there was a short period when Lucy took up bird hunting and we would catch them laying limp in her crib. Yikes!

Lucy's new mobile, a lovely higher version of the first one.

 

To wrap this post up, Lucy would love to share with you her view. You really can't beat this view.