Labor Day weekend marked our one year of owning and living in our wonderful home. So I think it is time to give a little tour and to show all of the changed that we have made, and there are plenty of those. It has been one busy year filled with lots of work both inside and outside. We've had lots of help from our wonderful families and we've enjoyed the work.
First off, here is the front of our home. This is what it looked like when we moved in. The previous owners did not take good care of this house at all. The yard was fried and although this picture doesn't show it, the planting areas in the front were completely grown over and out of control. Also the garage door was all smashed and bent because apparently when they were kicked out they got angry and rammed their car into it as they were leaving. So we had to buy a new one of those.
This spring we planted new grass and just a week ago over Labor Day weekend my parents came and helped us paint our trim, shutters, and door. I love how it turned out! I feel like it has completely updated the look of or home.
You might notice all the trees in the first picture and how they are missing in the next. There is an apartment building behind our house and when we moved here they had a bunch of huge trees growing on their side that almost completely blocked the building from our view. Unfortunately a few months after we moved in they cut them all down and now we stare right at that apartment building.
Now for a tour of the inside. The house is a split level and has 4 levels. You walk into the main level which has a living room and kitchen. If you go upstairs there are 3 bedrooms and one bathroom. Downstairs from the main level is a family room, another bedroom and a bathroom. Downstairs from that is unfinished but is basically two rooms.
Shortly after we moved in we, along with the help of both of our parents, painted every single wall in our house. The colors they had were old, out dated, and some of them just plain weird looking. The main level and upstairs we painted a light gray and downstairs we painted a little bit darker gray.
When you walk in the front door this is the room you walk into. I didn't get the best before pictures...
This is what it looks like now. This is my favorite room of our house. I love the color of the accent wall! I know in the pictures it just looks blue, but it's actually a blueish greenish color. Annette and I re covered that adorable little couch you see. It used to be an old fashion, floral, grandma looking couch. We had tried selling it for $30 but no one would buy it. So we re covered it and I LOVE it!
Here is what it used to look like…see what I mean.
I made that little yellow table and although it didn't turn out perfect, I'm still pretty proud of it!
We have been looking for a good soft rug to go in this room the whole time we've lived here. Just a few weeks ago my Mom found this one in Idaho for only $35 dollars. So she got it for us and it is so wonderful to have and completes the look of the room I think.
Next is the kitchen. Here is the old outdated kitchen that we moved into.
After peeling off that wonderful wallpaper and a new paint job, here it is now. We had to buy a new oven and one day we will update the old oak cupboards. But for now, I'm very happy with our kitchen.
That light has definitely got to go, but unfortunately it has not gone yet…soon.
Here is the upstairs bathroom before and after. I went to visit my parents for a week and when I got back Ryan surprised me by tiling the floor while I was gone!
(A lot of these before pictures are hard to see because the electricity didn't work yet so we didn't have good light. We also took them with Ryan's old phone, which didn't take very great pictures.)
Here is our bedroom. It's hard to see but the walls were a weird ugly brown color.
We like the gray a lot more.
This is Jaxton's room. Before and after.
There is a sliding door between his room and Cami's room that you can see here.
Here is Cami's room.
If you go downstairs from the main level you walk into this family room. One wall used to be painted this bright red.
This is it now. The perfect place for our kids to play!
The bedroom downstairs used to look like this. It was bright yellow and the black that you see is all a chalkboard paint. Also the floors were just cement.
We turned it into our guest bedroom. The paint alone made it look 100% better. We did decide to leave some of the chalkboard because we thought it would be fun for the kids. We have still yet to actually buy any chalk so they can use it. We also carpeted it ourselves. Our brother in law Chris had all the equipment and the expertise so he and Ryan did the carpet themselves. Jaxton calls this Grandma and Grandpa's room :)
This is the bathroom downstairs. I cannot even tell you how gross it was! The entire house was so incredibly dirty and smelly, but this was by far the worst room! It was so bad that I wouldn't let Jaxton go in there, and when he would he always wore shoes and couldn't touch anything. The problem was this is also the laundry room, so unfortunately we did have to use it quite often.
This bathroom ended up being quite the project with unexpected setbacks, but eventually it turned into this!
I can't even tell you how many hours were spent on this room alone, but I am so grateful for every one of them. Ryan ripped out the tub, took off the toilet and sink and then he and his parents tiled the entire floor and made a shower. Ryan had to do some framing on the inside of the shower so he could make a shelf/bench. We ripped off the wallpaper and painted the blue walls white. We bought a new sink and switched out the pedestal sink. Above the washer and dryer we hung up a wire rack. We still need to get a bigger and better mirror, but in the mean time the one in there works fine. I now love this bathroom so much!
Here is the unfinished basement before only. Now it looks the same except it's a cluttered mess :)
Well, that is our house. We've been here one year and have made many changes. It's been a ton of work but so worth it. The back yard is huge and I will show that in it's own post since this one is already so long. Overall we have loved living in Santaquin and loved owning this wonderful home! A huge thanks to all who have helped with it's improvements!
