Do you like to see before and after pictures of room makeovers? I LOVE it. Especially when it's my own house!!
Just to back up a little--we are moving sometime in January. We got a tudor-style home built in the late 1970's that has some fun character and charm, but needed some paint, a little new flooring, and lots of wallpaper torn down. So we've had the home about a month now, and ever since, our family has hardly seen Jeremy, who's working extremely hard and long hours between his job and fixing our new home. Can I just say again how amazed I am at him that he can do everything from plumbing to carpentry? Also, many, many thanks to our parents and friends--Backus', Olsons--who have given up hours, even days to help out at our house.
Nothing is exactly completed yet, but here are some 'before' and 'during' pictures to show until I get some 'after' photos!
Bradley's Room Before: Small room, lots of wallpaper. 
Bradley's Room Now: Still a small room, but feels lots bigger with wonderful built-in bookcases framing the window and five-foot wainscoting (moldings). I bought a cute little bench from IKEA that will sit under his window and he'll have Pergo flooring to help the space feel larger, too.
Miranda's Room Before: A fun room with some character (like Miranda herself :)
Miranda's Room Now: A fun room with lots of charm (also like Miranda) 
Here's a fun one--Main Floor Half Bath Before: Dark 1970's cabinets, tiny broken tiles, old and also broken countertop.
Main Floor Half Bath Now: Same sink, new faucet fixture. BEAUTIFUL travertine tile. Painted cabinet. New mouldings, even framing the window so nicely. New light fixture (sorry no picture). Ceramic floor tiles the previous homeowners generously left us that match the kitchen tiles (sorry, no picture of that either...) This bathroom looks completely different for so cheap--it makes me giddy! Jeremy will probably have this bathroom completed or nearly completed today!
Dining Room Before: Beadboard, mouldings, and chair rail all unpainted. This room was an after-construction addition, and I love this room. It will fit our huge kitchen table so well. It has lots of windows and french doors that lead out to the fun side yard. All this room needs is some paint to those moldings!
Dining Room After: So much better! And it still gets one more coat of paint.
Family Room/Play Room Before: HUGE room, technically bedroom upstairs. This is a really fun room, too, and it doesn't need tons of work. Well, it could use new carpet, but with little kids soon to be crawling all over it, why waste the money? 
Family Room After: Minus the wallpaper. Okay, not a huge change, but I HAD to include this because it's the only work I've done myself on the house. That wallpaper was so stubborn and Jeremy and his mom gave up on it. So I borrowed some official Wallpaper Remover chemical from my cousin, and said good-bye to those to those rosy flowers!
Finally, the Master Bedroom/Bathroom Before: Wallpaper, stained carpet, small bathroom. This bedroom is actually larger than our current bedroom, but the bathroom was anything from exciting. It was actually my least favorite part about the house. The shower was newly redone, and not bad, but the two closets were small and odd and it had only one old sink. 
Master Bedroom/Bathroom Now: You know how some people can look at a house and see all the potential there? Jeremy is very good at this, luckily for me. He has fixed all my concerns about the small bathroom and lack of closet space.
Here's what he did: He knocked out one of the closets that was next to the sink so that we could have a double sink vanity. See that little towel holder on the right wall? Same one that was there before. This sink area had carpet under it before and will soon (this week) have tile there.
Then, he made me a built-in wardrobe in the large bedroom! I'm excited about my new closet. And it's going to have lots of shelves at the bottom for lots of shoes--which I may or may not happen to have... 
Oh, yeah. He also knocked out an empty space that was at the end of his closet to make room for some shelving in the bathroom--perfect for towels.
And yes, the toilet is currently in the shower.
I made robes for Miranda and some of her cousins. I got the idea because my one sister just moved to a new house with a community pool one block away from her house, so they go swimming all the time in the summer (who wouldn't?) These swim robes are perfect for wrapping up the little ones as soon as they get out of the pool and they stay on better than towels for the walk back to the house.
