Justin's House Before and After

I figured it would be fun to show some before and after shot's of Justin's house before all the furniture and that is moved in. I will show bathroom and kitchen as well as both those rooms also got a renovation. It truly amazes me what hard work, paint, stain, and a vision can do to transform a space.

I will say the before pictures actually look better than the true room did in person. The floors were pretty banged up, dirty, and gross. The woodwork was a mix of blue, pink, or wallpaper....The walls were dirty and crazy colors. I was in charge of stripping all the woodwork, sanding, painting and staining woodwork, painting ceilings (least favorite job of all), and painting walls. I am obviously a messy painter.... The boys did the hard stuff like tearing down walls, redoing the bathroom, new lights. The floors were hired out. 

The bedroom had horrible wallpaper, like several layers of wallpaper and then paint on top of it. 

 Here it is after wallpaper before we painted and all that.

After with no wallpaper, fresh coat of paint on the windows, refreshed woodwork, new light, and refinished floors.

Realized we forgot to strip paint off the closet door - ooops. Although a good picture to show just how bad the paint/woodwork situation was prior to us starting.

Dinning room before. It was closed off from the kitchen, several shades of pink, to include floral wallpaper on the woodwork.

After. The boys opened up a wall so now the kitchen and dinning room flow together and seem bigger. New light fixture, new window paint, remainder of woodwork was stripped and re stained, refinished floors.

Living room before. A whole lot of blue paint, yucky old light, bad floors.

 After. Fresh new paint, new window paint, rest of woodwork stripped and re stained, new light, and refisnihed floors.

This is a bonus room of sorts right off the living room. I think he is going to use it as a gym as we have a cool old sliding door that can open and close. it must have been an office before as had lots and lots of outlets and more blue paint.

After. No more blue, new paint everywhere, re stained woodwork, new light, and refinished floors.

Hallway before wasn't awful but the floors were in bad shape and all the woodwork was a beige color.

Refinished floors that look amazing, fresh paint (it is more white just bad lighting I think in this picture) and the railing/banister has been stripped and re stained. Clean and fresh.

Obviously there will always be things that can be improved. The ceilings are still textured, a few rooms still need finished, and I keep questioning if we should have stripped the paint of all the windows and stained that woodwork as well. Overall though it looks amazing I think. It's so cute now and truly looks so much nicer than the day he purchased it. Once he moves in art, furniture, rugs it will be even better.

Would love feedback!

Justin's Farmhouse Progress

I have been slacking on the pictures of Justin's awesome farmhouse. I really need a nice sorta sunny day where I can take some pictures of our three finished rooms (the master bedroom, workout room, and living room)! Until then you are stuck with random Iphone pictures of in progress rooms. Right now I am tackling the stairway. Brutal  but will so be worth it in th end! You can already see a huge difference in these few photos with just the little bit of paint I removed.

Last night I actually got most of the paint off all the railings - but still some work to do. Thinking a nice crsip white for the walls. Also debating stripping that window you see down to wood instead of painting white like we did the other windows. What would you all do?

So wish I could devote more time or have a team of helpers for this project as the "to do" list is always way longer than the allocated time. I'm sure my brother is getting quite anxious to move in.

Stripping Doors

I have been spending whatever free time I can muster up (not much) out at Justin's awesome farmhouse but the progress feels slow. The living room is a lot larger than I imagined so stripping wood was quite the chore. But totally worth it once done. These are all blurry Iphone pics taken late at night when most work gets done. One of these days I'll take real pics of finished rooms. For now a door rehab project - before it was an awesome baby blue and white combo. (the woodwork was that same lovely baby blue as well) Fancy:

Obviously not really the look anyone prefers these days. We were going to just have the doors professionally dipped but turns out this is quite spendy and my brother is on a budget. I decided to give the ol stripper a try since I had some left anyway.

Voila!!!! Amazing the difference right?!? Or at least I think so. It took several hours but wasn't awful (other than all the window panes). It is FAR from perfect but it looks aged and clean. One more coat of poly a lil steel wool and the door will be ready.

Try not to be insanely jealous of that awesome pink dinning room and woodwork. I have a major love affair with pink but that color and combination doesn't even appeal to me!

Justin's Winter Wonderland

A few pretty pictures of Justin's new acreage. It's so peaceful and pretty at his house and the snow made things even prettier.

I love that he even has a clothes line! Not sure how much he will use it but I have wanted a clothesline for years and they seem hard to find anymore.

Slow but Steady

These aren't the greatest pics as all Iphone pictures taken late at night with no natural light. But seems that is the only time my schedule allows work on my brother's house right now. Progress has been slow due to limited free time but we do have progress. The "workout room" now has crisp white windows (hardware is ready to install as well), and original woodwork free of paint and restained. Next up walls and ceilling.

The bedroom has the same progress - with the bonus that I tackled the lovely ceilling last night. Nothing as fun as painting ceilings right? I was covered in splatter by the end. I am one messy painter! So hope it turned out good.

We did have one slight fail - my brother picked out a very cool stain color but sadly on his woodwork it turned out looking more burnt wood than rustic (so we started fresh and ended with a more light honey color you see in the first picture)

Slow but Steady Progress

I have been trying to help my brother renovate his house as much as possible. Sadly there are never quite enough hours int he day but we are making progress. Thanks to a painter friend I have learned the easy way to strip wood of layers of nasty paint.

Can't wait to sand it down and see how much richer the rooms look with freshly stained pretty wood! Guessing a huge improvement from blue or pink painted woodwork....We did give the windows a fresh coat of a nice bright white for now as tackling the stripping of all windows seemed overly optimistic (plus my brother and his girlfriend like the somewhat more modern mix of wood and white)



Thanks to HGTV I learned a trick for removing caked on nasty paint off brass hardware. Soak it in ice water! I was skeptic but it truly works, a bit of time in ice ice icey water and the paint will scrape right off. A little cleaning with steel wool and pretty tarnished (Justin didn't want shiny brass so I left it a bit aged) brass hardware! Magic.

Sorry about the blurry Iphone pictures

I never could have predicted I would get excited over power tools, sanding, and paint stripper! Maybe with a bit of time and practice I can have my own show on HGTV like the chick from Rehab Addict!!!

A New Project

My little brother closed on a his new house last night. I am so proud of him and super excited. I have a bit of house envy!!! If this house was in the city limits I probably would have snapped it up myself!

It’s an amazing old farmhouse on a little over three acres. Heavenly I tell ya.

Yes it needs some TLC, but the bones are great and I can see the potential. Plus he has ZERO neighbors and lots of room for a garden, chickens, whatever he fancies.

Lucky brother. We started renovations and I can’t wait to throw on my overalls and start working away beside him to make this place a home for him.

By the way don’t you love all the wallpaper and funky colors – totally normal to wallpaper woodwork right? Sadly several rooms have layers of wallpaper covered by layers of paint. One we stripped already several more to go.