My sister-in-law was moving, so she let us use her sofa for the front room. We had a dark gray West Elm sofa in there for awhile, but I liked how light this one was. Unfortunately, our wall colors matched the old couch and since we knew we were renovating soon we decided not to repaint the walls. I hated how nothing matched in here because of that. We also ended up giving our piano back to Jay’s cousin. We decided that we could have more space in the living room if we got rid of it. I was a little sad, but I know I will love to be able to put chairs in that room.

Our Front Room before our demo:

Our living room has always been comfy. We got the couches when Alexa was three, so it was time for them to go. We ended up listing them on Craigslist for $30 and they went super fast. I do plan on keeping this room pretty much the same, but we are getting rid of the paneling and adding sheet rock.

Our living room before our demo:

I didn’t mind the colors or tile in this bathroom, but there was a huge problem with the ventilation. We kept fighting off the mold from the walls and ceiling. It will be so nice not to have to worry about this in the future and have a fan to clear out the moisture. We are also going to get rid of the window completely to ward off any future issues with moisture.

The girls’ rooms are always fun to do. Maren’s we added the chair rail and the bottom part of it is painted in magnetic paint. It was sad to see it all go. It took me forever to paint those stripes!

We redid Alexa’s room a year ago to a newer color. She was getting sick of pink on the walls that we painted when we first moved in 5 years ago. I let her pick a new color that would still go with her green curtains and bedding. We originally didn’t think we were going to do anything, but maybe change where the closet opens up (her door hits her dresser right now), but we decided to go ahead and put in new sheet rock to smooth out the walls more.

We didn’t do a single thing in this room since we moved in. I pulled down the towel bars and some hooks, but that’s it. We rarely ever used it, because we felt that there was a leak somewhere. We had plumbers come out and say there wasn’t, but I was never convinced. I am excited to finally get my own bathroom.

We loved our huge bed, but we decided that we would get a size smaller to give us more room in our new bedroom. We won’t have many walls to pick from, because we will have a door on each wall pretty much. We decided to put in a walk out porch in our room, so the wall where our closet is will probably be the only place we can put our bed.

One of the things that attracted us to the house was the backyard. I loved how the porch looked and how big it was. However, with this remodel we are changing it all up. We are adding a longer back porch and adding a walkout from the master bathroom. Hopefully it will come out as beautiful as it was before if not better.

We are keeping the front of the house the same for the most part. We love the look of the Cape Cod and we want to keep the same look and feel like the other homes around us. When we first started doing the architecture redesign, we did have a third dormer and a full porch on the front and it never id look right. In the end we ended up dropping the porch and middle dormer and switching up the portico a tiny bit. We also want to redo the sidewalk to have it wind out a little towards the drive. If budget allows, we want to eventually redo the driveway and turn it into a two car driveway.

We put in new counter tops and a sink about a year ago. Had we even considered about doing a renovation at the time, we would not have upgraded the counters. Jay was able to find someone that needed the granite counter tops, so at least it didn’t go to waste. I also resold the washer and stove on Craigslist.
One of my pet peeves about this kitchen was that our microwave was falling apart and even if we wanted to replace it, we couldn’t. It would require us to pull the tile off to get the Microwave out. The cabinets were a little cheap and falling apart, so it was nice to know those were going away. I did save all the pull out shelves, so that I could reuse them other places. They will just need to be repainted and I think they will be back to new.

Our dining room is going to be completely changed. We are flipping the kitchen and dining room and adding a drink area / station in the dining room. We originally had a dark wood table, but sold it months ago. Our sister-in-law let us borrow the table and the other one is lending us the chairs. I am finding the chairs a little to hard to keep clean, so we will have to decide on a table as we are in the middle of our rebuild.

Our Dining Room before our demo: