Keeping my promise!

I have been promising pictures all summer long, and here they finally are!

I am going to show you pictures of each room/area from before we started any work plus pictures of how it all looks now, so you can see the differences! There are a lot of pitures, so bear with me!

Let's start with the front door...      Here it is before we did anything with it...It needed replaced because it didn't latch anymore, due to it being 30+ years old.

And now here is the brand new door! Notice the new light? We found out pretty quickly that it was almost impossible to see enough to unlock the door when coming home after dark, so my dad was awesome enough to install a new light for us!

And here is a picture of the new door from the inside. See the tiled entryway? It was carpet before...

Oh, and I do have a rug to go there, but it's currently being washed. Plus, I wanted you all to be able to see the tile. :)

Next up is the kitchen. Here is the before picture.

And the after picture, from almost the same viewpoint....

Quite a difference, huh? Here are a few more pictures of the rest of the kitchen. Notice the brand new stove that my wonderful brother, Kaleb, bought for me? :)

Next we will do the living room. 

Here are a few before pictures...two taken from the kitchen area and one from the hallway.

And the after pictures...

Doesn't it look great?

Alright, next we head down the hallway. Not much to see in the hallway, but things did change!

Before...notice the floor, walls, and curtains (hard to see, I know)

Notice the back door on the right...again, hard to see, but it got replaced as well!

And now, the after pictures!

New curtains!!

The mirror you see on the wall was actually there before, I just didn't get a picture of it. This will come a little bit later, but notice the laundry room doors on the left? Brand new and "professionally" stained (by Dad).

Here's the new back door...a twin to the front door.

Next, the laundry "room". 

Before...

After....

Doesn't look like much of a change, does it? Notice the shelf is gone, and the new doors, and in the second picture, you can just barely see that we replaced the floor, too.

The floor is still linoleum, but you can hardly tell, right? It almost looks like wood laminate. :)

We have to backtrack a bit...going back down the hall towards the living room to Kaleb's room.

You can't tell in these pictures or in the living room ones, but we actually tore down the inside walls to Kaleb's room and moved the one that adjoins the living room out another 16" into the living room, to make Kaleb's room a bit bigger. :)

Here are the before pictures...

And the after pictures....Quite a change, huh? :)

Next up is the bathroom. This is the one room/area that we did absolutely nothing with the floor, due to the fact that it was recently replaced. 

Before...

And after... I am in love with my bathroom :)

And now, the last room of the house...my room!

Before....Sorry, the before pictures aren't the greatest...can't see much.

And after! Beware of bright colors! :)

Compare this next picture with the first before picture....see what's different? 

We tore out a whole half of the closet! Since this was designed to be the master bedroom, there were two closets along this wall...I decided I really didn't need THAT much closet space, haha. Plus, this gave me more wall space and more furniture space, since it doesn't work very well to put furniture in front of a closet door.... :) We affectionately call this area "the nook". 

Well, that's it for pictures! I told you it was a lot! We did SO much work, it's hard to point out everything that's different and/or new. Just believe me when I say, we did A LOT of work to make it look like it does now. One thing I haven't mentioned yet...remember all the new curtains? Without the help of my grandma, my mom, and my sister, those curtains would not exist! Every single curtain had to be adjusted in some way, shortened, widened....or just made in general! Remember Kaleb's curtains? The bright orange ones....those are actually a flat bed sheet! I would never have been able to make a bed sheet into curtains, but with the help of my sister and my mom, they were made! Also, the bathroom curtains were made from a pair of pillow cases...pretty awesome, huh? We had to get creative because we couldn't find matching curtains for either of those two rooms! 

Did you notice how EVERY SINGLE ROOM got a new coat of paint? Or rather, new coats of paint... :) The ceiling also got a new coat of paint...hard to tell in these pictures, but every square inch of the ceiling was re-painted as well! After 30+ years, it really needed it. 

I know I already did a post thanking everyone, but after looking through these pictures again, I just have to say thank you again to everyone for their help!! I absolutely love it all....I know it was hard sometimes getting me to make a decision, but we got through it and the results are amazing. :)

We made it!

We officially made it to September, when we said we were going to move in, and guess what? It happened! Everything is not done yet, but we got to a point where the things left can be finished once we are moved in, so last Saturday we packed up all our stuff and moved in!

It's so great to finally be in the place that everyone has been working on so hard. The first month to month and a half was spent tearing out old things and replacing things like the sub-flooring that you can't even see now. Finally though, we got to the point where we started putting things back together, so to speak. Actually making it look like a place that could be lived in, eventually. Bit by bit, it started to look more like a house, and less like a construction site. A fresh coat of paint in every room, new curtains, new wood laminate flooring throughout, new doors.....all of this stuff slowly made it look more like a house.

It wasn't until we actually moved in, though, that it really started to look like a home. I've been trying to picture how everything would work and what each room would look like once all the furniture was moved in. My mind could not do the place justice, though. Everything looks even better than I imagined it would.

I know you all want to see pictures and I promise, they will come soon. At the moment though, most of the ones I want to share are at my parents' house. Plus, we are still trying to finish getting settled in...once we do, I will be sure to take pictures and share them with you all!

I know most of you only have a limited idea of how much work went into getting this place ready. Many of you helped with different parts of it, some of you helped with all of it...or even DID all of it. I just want to thank everyone for their help with everything. Thank you for taking time out of your own lives to help me. I could not even imagine doing all that was done by myself, hiring contractors or other people to get things done. I am blessed by God to have a dad who was able to do so many different things...to have a mom who was willing to be here almost every night with my dad, helping him, supporting him....to have a younger brother who was willing to give up his nights off to work on his sister's house, when he could have been spending it with his girlfriend...to have a brother, sister-in-law, sister, and brother-in-law who were willing to give up their weekends to come help work. Thank you all so much; there is no way I could ever repay you all. I love you!