Our Home Tour and Renovations

We purchased our outdated 1980s home in September 2014 and started throwing paint around immediately in an attempt to brighten up the space. In the process we’ve created a home that we could see ourselves raising our family in and living in for the long haul. Unfortunately we’re an active duty military family, and we know our clock is ticking until the Army says that it’s time to move along.

I hope you enjoy our home tour! Please email me at whimsicalseptember@yahoo.com if you have any specific questions about any of our updates.

I could not wait to say goodbye to that green accent wall! Within a few weeks of closing we painted and caulked the trim (something we’ve had to do throughout the entire house due to the trim pulling away from the wall), and then I painted the walls. I also refinished an antique thrift store dresser and repurposed it as a TV console.

I organized my first gallery wall and created large DIY art to hang over the couch.

Finally, we painted the window and replaced the brown blinds with new white ones.

We painted and caulked the trim, replaced the closet door (straight ahead), and painted the interior side of the exterior front door (to the left).

Our fireplace is in such a unique spot, but we actually really love it! We painted the mantel white, painted the surrounding wall area the same color as the rest of the living room, and finally painted the brass portions of the actual fireplace black.

We love this kitchen so much because it provides the semi-open concept that we love. It has plenty of cabinet storage and counter space, and it flows into my favorite room in the house – our sunroom.

Jamie & my brother-in-law Josh built our farmhouse table as soon as we moved in. 18 months later and it’s still in beautiful shape!

We painted and caulked the trim, painted the walls one shade lighter than the living room, and replaced the older black range with a stainless steel one to match the rest of our appliances.

I can’t wait to slap some paint around on those cabinets. It’s almost time!

This sunroom is one of the features that sold us on this house. We love to spend time relaxing and reading in here. We’ve also caught several of our out-of-town guests taking spontaneous snoozes sprawled out across the love seat. 😉 It’s also paws-down Teddy’s favorite room in the house!

As far as improvements go, I painted and caulked the trim, painted all 12 windows, painted the walls, and painted the interior portion of the exterior back door.

We painted and caulked the trim, painted the walls, replaced our appliances (with a set I actually won in a sweepstakes of all things), and hung an old, spray painted coat hanger.

I also painted the interior sides of the two exterior doors. The one on the left leads to the garage and the one of the right is a door to our side patio.

Because this bathroom is windowless and tucked in the very back corner of our house, we used to forget about it! It was also so dark, so we never wanted to use it.

 

We painted and caulked the trim, painted the walls, painted the oak vanity, and painted the vanity mirror.

This spare bedroom was originally a second guest room, then it was Hadley’s playroom, and now it’s baby Sadie’s nursery (due in April 2016). Click here to see her full nursery reveal! This was my absolute favorite room to work on.

For this room I wanted to create a space that is bright and feminine. I painted and caulked the trim, replaced the door, painted the vanity and mirror, and stenciled one accent wall.

We originally fixed this room up as Hadley’s nursery but decided to transition her out of her crib after her second birthday and gifted her a “big girl” daybed (my old bedroom set when I was little – very special).

Right before her third birthday is when we updated it to it’s current, completed stage.

We painted and caulked the trim, painted the walls, replaced the light fixture, replaced the doors and hardware, painted the window, and replaced the old blind with a blackout balloon shade.

This was the only room in the house that already had new, white trim when we moved in, and it’s still the only room that has crown molding.

For this update we painted the walls, replaced the entry door, and replaced the brown blinds with new white ones. We also got a king bed and a new wingback headboard!

This room was also a selling feature for us! We already know we’ll probably never have a shower this nice again. We couldn’t stand that terrible green color, so we repainted the room the day after we closed on the house.

We haven’t done much to this space yet besides paint and caulk the trim and replace all of the doors and hardware. The storage room/cedar closet, home office, gym, guest bathroom, and guest bedroom are all off of this room, so it’s a high-traffic area. We’re anxious to put some color on the wall and make this a better play area for Hadley and Sadie.

Bringing life to this windowless office required a ton of paint! We painted and caulked the trim, replaced the doors and hardware, painted the built-in bookcase, and painted the walls.

I also refinished that antique thrift store desk to match the accent color in the bookcase and tried my hand at arranging another gallery wall.

I’ve always heard that when you have a bed/place for guests to stay, that they will come! We live over 600 miles away from our family and closest friends, so having a dedicated space to house our company was and is very important to us.

We pulled up the old blue carpet and replaced it with carpet to match the basement living area. We also painted and caulked the trim, replaced all of the doors, and gave the walls a fresh coat of paint.

This bedroom has a huge walk-in closet, but it was quite the eye sore! After we ripped up the carpet I painted the trim, painted all the hardware and shelving, and painted the walls.

I took the “before” picture after I’d already painted the trim and replaced the door (which brightened up the room a bunch all by itself), but you can tell that this bathroom hadn’t had a lick of updating since it was built.

After painting and caulking the trim, I painted the walls, refinished the vanity, and replaced the linoleum flooring with hardwood-looking tile.

This was an obvious selling feature for Jamie. He loves having his own space in the house dedicated to his workouts, and he can’t wait to continue adding more equipment to it. So far all we’ve done is painted and caulked the trim and replaced the door and hardware, but we both have some fun ideas for this space for the future.

After our first full spring/summer of yard work we realized that we had way too many areas that required pulling weeds and extra maintenance, so last fall we starting working on the yard a bit. Jamie hacked away and pulled up the old rotten garden (as pictured above in the first picture) and we worked together for hours on pulling up the landscaped area in the corner of the yard (near the blue house). We planted new grass seed last fall, but as seen below we still have some areas that need to be reseeded. We’re so happy to have some extra yard now that only requires basic cutting and that will let our girls run around.

We recently stained the fence and are looking forward to painting the deck soon!

Shortly after we moved in Jamie trimmed those bushes along the fence line and we pulled up those weeds to the left and right of the bushes. We worked in the area, mulched, and planted new flowers as seen below.

We are really hoping that when it’s time to move we can find a trailer that will haul this house along with us! 😉 Seriously, someone pick me up and hug me when it’s time to go because it’ll be a tough goodbye!