Haynes' Home Tour: Before

Since I'm always posting about our projects on Facebook, I thought I'd consolidate and add those updates to this blog. We'll still update on Ethan each week, since he is a priority over our house anyway! Remodeling has been a huge part of our pregnancy (I wouldn't be surprised if my son came out with a hammer in hand), so we might as well add those posts.

That said, we've done so much to our house since February 8th that it's almost unrecognizable. Almost.

I love looking back at what it was, and basking in the gem that it is. We still have issues to address, but we have put in more man-hours than I'd like to count/admit (mostly Austin) and learned more than a few valuable lessons at the hands of my father. We find that often the reason we are struggling with a project is because we don't have the right tools. Then in comes dad to the rescue! If he doesn't have it, he knows where to rent it!

On to the tour: several of these pictures came from the HAR site, because we are terrible at remembering to take "before" pictures... but also because we immediately started making changes. If you know me, you know this is typical!

Blue trim! This was gone before we bought the house.
Also, that's the front door! Right there! On the LEFT side of the house!

Can you see the front door now?
That garden is going to be removed very, very soon!

And that's the driveway... on the RIGHT side of the house!
From this angle, if there wasn't a sidewalk, I'm not sure anyone would know where to go.

Jacuzzi tub in the Master. It's really not all it's cracked up to be!
Gorgeous wallpaper (they kindly painted over it before we moved in).

Don't you love that tile? I call this the picture of broken things. Why? Well, with cell
phone pictures (yes, they posted those online) it's hard to tell, but lots of things are broken.

Muuuuch better. Now you can see all the broken things.

Close-up of the cheap cabinet hardware (the hinges were painted over) and the awesome
crookedness. They tried... 

Hey, neighbor! Don't you want to look right into our master bedroom through this
rickety door?

Crowning glory of this house: everything about this living room.
(Notice that there are no air return vent covers in the entire house).

It's enormous! The carpet is brand-new (though a super weird color that grows on you).
And that gold ceiling fan.... yes.

I'm so thankful the former owners took this picture, otherwise we would have no
evidence of the gorgeous floral border that once was.

Ooooh, granite! Wait, why is a seemingly new sink not under-mounted? Ugh

1) yes, the tub is surrounded by 3 walls. This used to be a hallway.
2) yes, there is a mirror there. It's huge, but I am too pregnant to help remove it.
3) no, we have never, ever used this tub.

Doesn't this mauve beauty just draw you in?
We seriously struggled with showering here for a while.
The grout is now white (the original color was gray, but it looked disgusting).
There's a perma-layer of soap scum/residue on the glass and walls.
This bathroom is the bane of our existence.

I like to make fun of our house, obviously, and there have been times (more than one time) that I have cried and wondered what the heck we got ourselves into. However, having recently completely remodeled our kitchen made a few simple, time-consuming updates, I now LOVE our house. We still have quite a list of to-dos, but they feel so much less burdensome. Aside from that master bathroom...

That's it for the "before" pictures (AKA a trip down memory lane). Come back later for some "after" pictures (or progress/during pictures)!

love,