The Bush's: Our House

September was our 1 year anniversary in our house. I took these pictures in September, but it takes FOREVER to load 140 pictures into blogger. So it is finally getting published in November! One year after we moved in, we still don't have a single room completely finished. Close in some, not even started in others. I have lots of ideas, just not the budget & time to accomplish it! Before we get started, a few disclaimers....

1) There are a TON of pictures. Lots of before & after. After we put a contract on the house, we took pictures of all the rooms. Before Chuck & Judy's party (which was almost exactly 1 year later) I took pictures again of all the rooms. (Because our house is usually not this clean!) I love looking back at pictures, and since this blog is the closest thing to a photo album I have, sorry, you get stuck with 140 pictures. I am also making notes so I can remember things I want to update.

2) Our house was new house, built by the builder. When we put a contract on it, it was too late to pick out anything. We considered building on one of the empty lots until we realized that to build the same exact house (just with different cabinet & crown molding color) would cost a whole lot more, we decided we could just live with a dark kitchen cabinets & tan crown molding.

3) Please excuse our temporary paper blinds. We are so over them (as I'm sure our neighbors are too). But we are still torn between blinds or shutters. We've given ourselves a deadline of end of this year to decide.

4) I am a cheapskate. I find things I love in catalogs & online, and then I figure out how to recreate it myself. Sometimes it works out. Other times, in the end, I spent more money & time than if I had just purchased the actual item I wanted. I'll point out in the pictures below my shortcuts & budget savers!

5) When Robbie reads this post, he is going to realize all of the projects I have lined up for him. (And my dad will be somewhere cheering that he is finally off the hook from having to help me build my crazy ideas.)

6) In some places I talk about things I'd like to change. In NO WAY am I complaining. At a time when times are so tough for so many people (us included!), I feel very blessed that we have a roof over our head. I am very thankful for our house. And a house is just a house. It is the people in it and the memories made that make it a home. And there is nothing that I would change about our home.

The Outside

I'd seen all over the internet these burlap wreaths. The hardest thing was finding the burlap garland & wreath frame. I guess lots of people had the same idea.

Foyer

Looking at the foyer from the bedroom hallway

Looking at the foyer from the master bedroom hallway
So far I have nothing on the walls. I can't decide if they need it, or if it would look cluttered.

Darn you foyer rug. I'd purchased different rugs for the foyer and could not find the right color/size. I was in Big Lots & saw a utility rug for $15. It was the right size & the right shade of gray. I bought it & used a wall stencil to paint the geometric design. I loved the way it turned out, but it was a HUGE pain to do & very time consuming. It feels exactly how you would expect paint on a rug to feel. I don't mind it because to me it feels like an outdoor rug, plus, you don't really want something soft & fluffy in your foyer. I worry how long it will last, but I figure by the time it wears out, I can purchase something I really want. In the meantime, I'm happy with it.

Close up of the paint design

Living Room

Before

After
We had the builder paint that horrible Aztec orange/peach wall to match the rest of the walls. We don't know what he was thinking with that color!

One of my favorites. Robbie had this sofa table before we married. It was espresso like every other piece of furniture we have. To lighten it up, I used Annie Sloan Chalkpaint in French Gray. The paint is expensive, but awesome! No need for stripping or priming furniture. Just paint, & wax.

We already had some antique white frames. I spray painted a few others and made some just out of a block of wood & painted.

One of the most special things to me. My great grandmother's bible. Mamie lived right around the corner from us & kept me during the day until I went to school. She was a very special person to me.

She would write all of our birthdays in the bible

And I added a few notes of my own as a little girl

The bible is full of notes, names & dates

Before

After
I LOVE our tall ceilings. In the living room, foyer & dining room, they are 15 ft. In all other rooms they are 9 ft. I never realized how big tall ceilings can make a room feel. Even if the room is not that large, a tall ceiling makes it feel so much roomier.

After

Budget Saver - we knew we didn't have room for large accent chairs, but we needed additional seating. These are actually dining room chairs. They were exactly what I was looking for, I was shocked to find them in the dining room section. But, that made them much cheaper!

Another dark table that I painted with Annie Sloan French Gray. As long as you like a distressed look, this is a perfect paint to use.

Another budget saver - the pillows are actually napkins. I knew I didn't need a huge pillow, but wanted a little color. I bought a 2-pack of napkins. I just folded the napkin over inside out, sewed it 3/4 together, turn it right side out, stuffed it & sewed together the last quarter. (And mind you, I am a horrible sewer. I can't sew a straight line to save my life. So just don't look too closely at it!)

Before

After

Oh how I wish I would have taken a before picture of this candlestick. It was a horrible yellow/black crackled ceramic. But I loved it because of the large chunky size. So I spray painted it and distressed it.

Before
Please note the doggie side table beside the door

Before

After

Before

After
The wall with the secretary needs help. I need something for the wall and I can't decide on placement of the secretary. The coffee table needs to go as well. I want a large square rolling fabric ottoman with storage. (Robbie project #1) Also the rug needs to be moved to the bedroom. It is too high for this high of a traffic area. I'd like a large neutral seagrass rug.

Breakfast Nook

Before
(Builder's decor furniture)

After
I need something to go on the wall. I want some plates, but I can't find exactly what I have in mind (which means they probably don't even exist).

After
The baker's rack in the corner looks sad. It just has overflow junk on it. I need to work on it. I'm also unsure about the table. I LOVE my table. It has been passed down in our family so it is special. The problem is it is so dark. With the kitchen cabinets & floors being so dark, I feel like we need something lighter. I was going to put a table cloth over it, but then that hides its large beautiful base (which is my favorite part of the table). I don't have a problem painting other people's antique furniture, but I can't get up my nerve to paint my own. So for now, it just looks like we live in a chocolate factory.

Kitchen

Before

After
The house didn't have a pantry, so we had the cabinet maker make one to match and install it at the end.

Before

After
We had the builder put in a gas range stove and decorative hood. Therefore, he had to move the microwave & cabinet.

The cabinets being so dark, threw off my decision on what color to paint the hood. I couldn't decide between black or ivory. Of course every day, I wonder if I made the wrong decision on the color.

My attempt to try to lighten it up

Before

After
We had the microwave & cabinet moved to by the refrigerator

After

Dining Room

Before

After
We are missing my benches (Robbie project #2). I want just simple benches that I can cover with fabric. Because I want both a buffet & china cabinet, I knew there would not be much room left! So benches will hopefully be a space saver.

Before

After
I LOVE our table. It is a knockoff of the one I found at Restoration Hardware. It has 2 sleeves (that easily add on to the ends) so it can sit up to 10 or 12 when needed. (Not that we have that much seating). We found it at World Market. I need a rug for this room as well.

After
I still haven't found a china cabinet to restore

Before

After
I still need something to go above the buffet

In another post, I'll do some before/after of furniture we've redone. This piece was a cherry finish and had brass knobs. I painted it Annie Sloan Antique White and we replaced the knobs.

My proudest budget saver
I knew I wanted long puddled curtain panels in this room. Our ceilings being so tall, to afford long enough panels, Jake was going to have to forgo college. Even buying fabric & making the panels was going to be expensive due to the amount of fabric I'd have to buy. Then one day I was walking in Target & saw these tablecloths. They caught my eye because they were the exact print I wanted in fabric. Then I got the idea to just buy the longest tablecloth (120"). I sewed some gathering tape at the top (to give it the "scrunched" look & then hung it from my bar by tiny sharp hooks.

Another budget saver...
I don't use curtains for anything other than decorations, so I knew I wouldn't have to worry about opening & closing them (and I could puddle them). I didn't want a huge curtain rod going across. So I just used an 18" towel bar for each side. Much cheaper!

Master Bedroom
(Note: We have not even started redoing our master bedroom. I pretty much want to redo everything, so hopefully next year, it will be a completely different looking room!)

Entry Before

Entry After

We have a shadow box on each side

This one is full of items from our honeymoon

This one is full of items from our wedding

Before

After
We had the builder replace the carpet with hardwoods in the master. That means that almost every room in our house is continuous hardwoods. God forbid the day we have a problem, because that means EVERYTHING would have to get ripped up. I love the look of hardwoods, it just takes forever to clean when they make up 75% of your house.

The highboy will be replaced with a painted tall chest of drawers (that I haven't found yet). I also want tall curtain panels between each window, move the rug from the living room into here, and get a new bed. See, I told you we have not started in this room!

After

Before

After

After
We will keep the white bedding, but everything else will go & we want to go from a queen size bed to a king.

This is the look I will be going for. Project # 3 for Robbie - make me this headboard
Source

Master Bathroom

Before

After
We had them replace the mirror
And my grass in a vase looks like a pineapple. I'm going to need to fix that.

Before

After
We loved these windows when looking at the house. We loved them when we moved in. We loved them until the point until we had neighbors move in next door and had to figure out how to cover them. (Right now they just have temp blinds folded up on them.) We finally decided on a roman shade. Now I just have to find the material to have it made.

Not sure why I added this picture

Hall

Very special gift #1 - our friend Lara gave us this photo as a wedding gift of the church where we were married.

Very special gift #2 - our friend Kimberly gave us this gift as a wedding gift as well. She painted it & it is the outside of the church Robbie & I were married in.

Message Center. Budget Saver - I found a bulletin board in Ballard Designs that I loved. But there was no way I was paying $200 for a bulletin board wrapped in linen. So I made my own. I just bought the corkboard at Hobby Lobby, covered it with a linen/burlap fabric & then inserted nailheads around the edge. Complete copy cat! Plus, on mine, I was able to add key hooks & a letter holder.

Laundry Room

Before

After

After
This room will have some big changes in it (maybe one day). We want to put a counter top over the washer & dryer and remove the white shelving & replace it with an actual rod that is higher up. On the back wall (not shown) I want a fold down ironing board and on one of the side walls, I fold out hanging rack. I've got about 50 that I loved pinned on pinterest. But I want the master bedroom done first, so laundry will just have to wait!

Half Bath

Nothing special here. No use doing before after pictures because nothing has changed! I would love to wall paper the half bath, but I figure by the time I actually pick some out and put it up, wall papered half baths will be out of style. Then I'd have to figure out how to get it down. So we'll just stick with the paint. I do need something for the wall(s), I just don't know what yet.

Guest Bedroom

Before

After
We have done nothing in this room except throw a bed in here for guests. (I was even too lazy to fix our paper blinds.) If we could ever have a 2nd child, this room would become the nursery and we would move the guest bedroom upstairs. Until then, this room is just where we stick stuff.

After

Hall

Before

After

Photo wall. I want to expand it over the years until it takes up the whole wall.

Bathroom #2

Before

After

Before

After
One thing we loved about this bathroom, is it had 2 sinks, plus the toilet & tub are separate from the sinks. Again, if we could ever have child #2, we felt like this would be helpful in the future, since this would be the bathroom they would share.

Jake's Bedroom

Before

After

The panels are from Jake's nursery

Budget Saver - I wanted the valance to have a boxed custom made look. So I bought a $5 plain valance at Target, monogrammed it, and had Robbie just build me a simple frame to staple gun the fabric to.

We used Jake's crib & just converted it to a toddler bed

The bed skirt is from his nursery as well. The bed can convert to a full bed as well, and we talked about going ahead & converting it. But Jake seems happy in the toddler bed & I didn't want him to loose all that room in his room, by going to a larger bed. So until he seems uncomfortable in it or he turns 13, we'll stay in the toddler bed for as long as possible.

This is just fabric cut into triangles & monogrammed. I safety pinned them hanging down from the rope. No sewing involved!

Before

After

The train table Robbie made for him & storage bins underneath

Another Robbie creation. He made Jake the chalkboard.

And the chalk board holder

I stole the idea of hanging artwork from a rope from our friend Summer. In fact, we stole the chalkboard idea from them too!

Before

After

I love large wooden frames, but I hate the price. I bought a large piece of wood from Lowe's & had Robbie cut it into 12x12 squares. I painted stripes the large squares & purchased $1 unfinished wooden frames from Michael's and painted them a solid color. I attached the small frame to the large block of wood via Velcro, so I can switch out the pictures when I want.

Before

After
We still need shelving for above the chest of drawers (and I have to get rid of the bow frame!). That will clear off the top of the dresser.

Stairway leading up to the bonus room/4th bedroom/office space/craft room

Before

After
Ha! Still looks exactly the same!

The Everything Else Room

Oh my, this room. I use it for my office & craft supplies, we use if for storage, Jake uses it for some of his toys and we will later use it for the guest bedroom. It is in very sad shape right now.

Before
Oh how nice & clean

After
Let the mess & boxes lining the walls begin

Before

After
All my craft supplies just pushed up along the walls. I cannot wait to get all of this organized, but that is at the very bottom of a very long to-do list!

Before

After
(I don't know why I keep putting Before/After on these pictures. Like I won't be able to tell in a few years which were the before & which were the after?)

Upstairs Bathroom