Before and After

When we bought this house in February 2005, we knew it was the house we had always wanted. It just felt right. We were very excited to move here and really create a HOME.

We owned the home before this one also - but in the 12 years we lived there, we did very little to personalize it. It had quite a lot of wall paper throughout the house, but we never really did much painting. We left it all the original white. I think we were afraid of choosing wrong colors with the wall paper. We added vertical blinds in the den and some additional covering to the arches of the windows in the master bedroom. We never even put up drapes until the house was on the market for a year and then we made some simple changes which really "warmed up" the house and got rid of the "sterile white" feel to it.

I was determined when we moved here that we wouldn't live in a house with 3500 SF of white walls everywhere. Slowly, as the last 4 years have elapsed, we have been painting and adding things to this house that are really warming it up and making it feel homey. Yesterday, we decided to use a gift card Mike got to Home Depot and buy knobs for the kitchen cabinets and hand pulls for the drawers. This before picture was taken before we had even closed on the house, thus there is nothing on the counters except dust. It is also prior to painting the kitchen.

This picture is after Mike installed all the hardware on the cabinets:

This is the fireplace and mantel. Again, the picture is taken just prior moving in. You can see that the hardwood floors are covered with cardboard still.

This picture is after I painted the room and we added artwork above the fireplace.

I have learned not to be afraid to add color to the house. The worst thing that can happen is we don't like it and would have to paint over it. I think Mike is beginning to trust in our abilities to make changes too.