Before and After

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

We love our home, but when we bought it about 7 years ago, it was in need of some major updating. 

Since we've moved in, we've:
re-modeled the kitchen,
refinished the wood floors, 
landscaped the backyard,
installed new front doors
and painted our little hearts out.  

One thing we had put off until a few weeks ago, was getting new carpet.  The old carpet was in bad shape.  After calling every company in the phone book and getting the best price (with the company we wanted to use), we FINALLY got our new carpet a couple of weeks ago.

Here's what it looked like before:

Sick right?

Well here's what it looks like now:


Notice any other change in that picture?

Do you remember how I've been complaining about how busy I've been lately? 

Well, during all of this carpet talk, I somehow got
roped into/"volunteered" (it's debatable at this point)
to paint our 3 sets of banisters.  We knew that if we wanted to get our home updated into this century that we had to do the painting before the carpet was installed.  At first we talked to someone about doing it for us.  But after finding out that the painter would just spray paint it white and then antique it with a dark brown glaze, I knew that it was something I could handle.  With a lot of elbow grease and some help from my dad, we painted and glazed all of our banisters before the new carpet went in.  We saved about $1000 by doing it ourselves (which will hopefully go towards granite in our bathrooms or that new couch we've been needing.)  Of course we're paying our painter/friend for his time too though. 

Anyways, it was a hard week of blood, sweat and tears
(o.k. I might be exaggerating a bit),
but in the end it was worth it.

16 comments:

  1. It looks great! All the hard work has paid off.

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  2. Beautiful... y'all do fantastic work! Love the new carpet too!

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  3. Beautiful! I'm always impressed to see what other people can do for themselves - it's a great way to save money for other fun projects. It's lovely!

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  4. Looks GREAT! Love the antiqued white banisters and LOVE the brown carpet! I can't imagine owning a light gray carpet like you had before! We live in the land of mud and with 2 dogs and messy men in the house, you can't win with light colored flooring! I want to get rid of my mainly-white kitchen and bathroom linoleum floors SO bad! They never look white, even after mopping!

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  5. It looks absolutely GORGEOUS! I love the color of carpet, however the banister is
    B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!! Great job...oh...do you hire out??? :)

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  6. Looks wonderful! Good job on the painting.

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  7. Awesome job! I've been dragging my feet about some updates I've gotta do. You inspire me to get going.

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  8. Beautiful!! I'd love to paint our banister (looks like your BEFORE pic), but Ed can't see painting wood...even if it is outdated! :0
    Good job.

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  9. Beautiful! I would have never thought of antiquing the banisters. Home improvements can be a pain but so worth the sweat equity.

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  10. LOVING it! Tell Papa Davis he did a marvelous job.

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  11. Ambs....it looks wonderful! Such a big change! You and dad make a great team! You need to blog a virtual tour of your home and show the world ALL the updating and changes you've done. One of my favs is the texturing and painting you did to your bedroom and living room. So professional looking! You are probably the most talented do-it-yourself people I know!! Beautiful work!

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  12. Oooh, it looks beautiful Amber! Wanna do some more? I'm just getting reading to get started on ours -- not. looking. forward. to. the. work!

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  13. Amber,
    Believe it or not....I have grey carpet, too. But it's been in for over 20 years.....
    What is the brand name and color of the carpet???? I'll be saving for a few more months for carpet and we definately want to go darker and browner like yours!!!!
    Thanks,
    Holly hollysquilts@comcast.net

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  14. I love this quilt...and all that green...it sort of brings my irish heritage into play here. Like you I find meaning in all that I do...I don't do things just for the sake of doing them...time is to short...so i always look for a connection to my life and those that I love.
    Thanks for the chance to win your pattern.

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I ♥ to hear from you so please feel free to leave a comment. I read each one and try to respond as often as I can. Thanks so much for stopping by! ~Amber