New house

>> Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Things are going well so far, we love our new house (especially our lovely deck and garden - we have a rose-of-sharon tree which is flowering now and a forsythia that has bright yellow flowers in the spring) but we've been swamped with things we want to fix up.

First of all I could. not. live with the flourescent light fixtures, so those are all gone now. I think they had some extra cold "let's do surgery!" style tubes in them, and it was really depressing. We've also been doing unpacking, painting, cleaning, clearing out some things that were left behind and even a little bit of demolition. There's still so much to do but I thought I'd share some of what we're doing with "before" and "later" pictures, although there aren't quite any "after"s yet!

The first wall to get painted was in the bedroom. Here's the before:It's a tiny room, just big enough for our bed, side table, pax and bureau, and the dark blue was definitely not the right colour to make it look spacious. I love our little wooden bed, and even though we've just primed the walls it already looks lots better. Here's the "later" picture:The hallway and front living/dining room were both a caramel colour that was also too dark. It wasn't doing much for our long hallway. The hall closet doors were pretty terrible, one of them was only half height, with a bit of curtain tacked on the bottom. Both of them were thick and awkwardly attached so that they swayed in and out of the alcove. Here's the "before" picture. I painted the hallway a nice creamy white colour (cil "chalk"), and already it's looking much sunnier. We also added a new light fixture to replace the flourescent light, and that made a huge difference. Once the right sized bifold doors arrive, they'll all get painted white to match the trim and will fit neatly into the alcoves. The bureau will also tuck inside the cupboards once we remove the old chest freezer that was left behind. This is the "later" picture:The kitchen cupboards are icky fake wood laminate and the cabinet by the doorway seemed to jut out and we'd both hit our heads on it. We thought it made the kitchen have a bit of a crowded feeling and we actually have tons of cabinets - much more storage than we had before. The "before" picture:So we took out the cupboards by the doorway entirely - ahh! space! I read in a magazine that every kitchen should have one bare wall and it really does make a difference. It feels more like a room and less like a tunnel of cabinets.And I primed and painted two of the cupboards. I like the way it looks - so I'll be doing all of them. They're odd custom sizes so we'd have to replace them entirely otherwise and that's not at the top of our wish list. I also made some swiss dot type sheer curtains. Here's a "later" picture:So that's all I'm going to show you for now. The craft/art studio is in the front room so I'll be sharing that too when it's in better shape!

8 comments:

Hurrayic August 15, 2007  

Congratulations on your new home! What a fun and hard-work-filled time. It is nice however, to paint, to change, to add, to delete the way you want. Sometimes, I wish it would just go a little faster!

Robin August 15, 2007  

Oh, congratulations on your new home! I've recently purchased my first home and it is so much fun to fix things up. I can't wait to get to some painting. Your kitchen cabinets look great with a lick of white paint on them.

Anonymous,  August 16, 2007  

that house looks sweet - i love the feeling of the possibilities, and how satisfying it is when you've done all that work. now, if i could just find a way of not doing the work...
lovely garden too - lots of warm evenings on the deck beckon methinks! xx

Anonymous,  August 16, 2007  

Yay - I was hoping you'd do some before shots! They're kind of initially depressing because it makes you focus on how much needs to be done, but later you'll be so satisfied when you look back on them and how far you've come.

"Let's do surgery!" Ha!

Anonymous,  August 16, 2007  

Looking good! Can't wait to see it. I love "before and afters".

Jannie aka Chickengirl August 16, 2007  

wonderful space! I especially love that little back deck. Big congrats again on the beautiful home. It will be wonderful to see how you take on all the decorating!

Anonymous,  August 19, 2007  

what kind of paint for the kitchen cabinets did you use? Oil or Latex?

Claire Louise Milne August 19, 2007  

I used a high adhesion primer first but I only use latex paint. Compared to oil, latex is of course more environmentally friendly, and nicer to work with due to very little smell and easy clean up with water.

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