Change of Heart, Part IV

In the continuing story of the changes that have been made to the house over the past three years, this post is all about the bedrooms and bathrooms. There will be one more post after this one that will showcase the living room and the loft. Without further ado, gentle readers, I give you the master bedroom as it looked before I moved in:


Take note of the bears--the woman who lived here before really liked bears--really, really liked them. Bears. Aren't. My. Thing. At. All. Here's what it looks like now--a view to the east, where the previous owners had their bed:




On the top left, check out my new shelves that I hung up a few weeks ago.

My dressing table:

A view to the west shot just as McKenna came up the stairs. She always rounds the corner and takes a flying leap toward the bed.

Here she is on the bed--I usually don't allow her to get on the down blanket without covering it with a sheet first, but I let it go for a minute so that I could take some pictures for you.

The down blanket is so comfortable that McKenna is falling asleep before she puts her head down:

The master bath before:

The same view today:

A view of the south wall:

The sink area before:

And now:

Moving on to the downstairs bedrooms and bath... When I moved in, the ugly carpet in both bedrooms (the teal atrocity you see below) smelled like cat urine, so I had to rip it all out, except for what was in the closets.

Side note--when I tore the carpet out, I put it at the street for the trash guys to take away along with the dishwasher that died the day I moved in. A gentleman from up the street drove by in his truck and stopped to peruse the pile of stuff at the street and wanted to know if it was okay if he looked at the carpet, which was rolled with the backing on the outside. I told him he was welcome to look at and/or take whatever he wanted, but I did disclose that the carpet smelled like cat urine. He took one look at the teal carpet and told me that he was not interested because the color was so ugly. He did, however, want to take the carpet padding to reuse in one of the bedrooms of his mobile home. I repeated the cat urine information, but he really wanted the padding, so he took it away. In this same conversation, he also told me that he didn't think that dishwashers were ever "a hit" because most people had dishwashers already--their wives. Not a good thing to tell someone who went to a women's college.

Anyway, I don't have any pictures of the downstairs bedrooms before I moved in, but imagine these rooms with teal carpet and hospital green walls and you have a pretty good idea of what I was dealing with. Here's the east bedroom now:

Both of the quilts on the beds in the guest rooms came from my dad's side of the family as did the quilt at the foot of the bed in the master bedroom.

More of the east bedroom:

This bedroom has a lot of pansies in it--they are my favorite flower, so people often get me pansy things as gifts and most of them end up in this room. The small hanging that you see on the left below was made by Grandmother of Ken--it's a gorgeous counted cross-stitch that I love.

The west bedroom (the quilt on the wall was purchased at a flea market in Dallas):

Finally, one of the most drastic transformations--the downstairs bathroom. Bear in mind that this is the only bathroom on the first floor and would be the one that guests would use. And this is what it looked like before:

Bears. Everywhere. Click on the photo to enlarge it and see for yourself. There was a bear/tree border and underneath the border, they had sponge painted the walls. All of the rugs were bears, the towel holder, soap holder, toothbrush holder, and toilet paper holder were also bears. The light switch plate cover was too big for the bathroom, so they put that out in the hallway. After we ripped up the astro turf on the porch, this stuff was the second thing to go--and they left all of it for us. We might have given it as a gag gift to someone on my dad's side of the family ;-)

So here's what it looks like now:

My new shower curtain (sometimes trolling Big Lots pays off):

The sink area now--note the absence of bears:

That's all for now--there isn't a bear to be found in this house, upstairs or downstairs. Soon I'll be posting about the last two rooms.

Change of Heart, Part III

For part three of the story of the transformation of this house, I present the kitchen and the laundry room.

First, the kitchen. This photo is a view into the kitchen from the living room before I moved in. It not only shows you the dining area in the kitchen (on the left), but it also gives you a taste of just how craptastic the decor really was--you'll see this photo again soon.

Here's what it looks like when you walk into my kitchen now:

And the dining area:

A view of the south side of the kitchen before--note the baskets hanging from the ceiling. Last summer, I took my hammer and crowbar to the nails that were in the beams. I removed 35-50 nails and didn't even get them all.

Here's what things look like now:

The north wall of the kitchen before I moved in (those shadows come from all of the hanging baskets):

Today:

And now onto the laundry room.

The south wall of the laundry room:

A detail of my new organizational tools--one bag holder for small bags and one for large ones as well as a special rack for mops and brooms. I love this kind of thing.

On the other side of the south wall, I have my utility area with my toolboxes and my extension cord hung on the new hook that I got just so that Father of Ken would stop complaining every time he comes here about how tangled it gets.

Pretty curtain hung on the new window:

The shelves on the north wall, newly organized:

My pretty new washing machine that I had to buy when the transmission died in my old one from c. 1980. I just couldn't have this lovely machine in a dingy, disgusting laundry room, so I knew I had to paint it.

I found some old hooks that I think I took out of a closet in one of my Hood College dorm rooms and screwed them to the wall to hang my aprons and my wood gathering coat.

And there you have it--another taste of the amazing transformation that has happened here over the past three years. There's more to come, though, so keep coming back!

Change of Heart, Part II

Note: You should read Part I before you read this post.

I'm starting the tour of changes with the exterior of the house because frankly, the interior is not very clean right now. Once I clean, I'll take photos inside the house and post them. The before photos were taken back in the spring of 2005 when Mother and Father of Ken came to NY to find me a house. The after photos were taken today.

The front of the house before:



After:



Another view of the front of the house before--click on the photo to enlarge it and check out all of the crap in the yard, especially to the right of the house in the "Bermuda Triangle":

After:

A few more views from today--here's the entrance, where I now have a porch thanks to Father of Ken and his skills. I also painted the window trim and both the metal door and the screen door. The paddle with my house number on it was a housewarming gift from Mother and Father of Ken.

I also ditched the original mailbox cover, which had birds on it. I don't care for birds. This barrel used to be near the front door, but I filled it with flowers and moved it to the street.

The new grass in the "Bermuda Triangle" is now filling in. If you looked at the previous photo of the front of the house, you would have seen all of the stuff that was in this area. There was a fake well, a bunch of yard art, nasty evergreen plants, white rock paths, and that lovely plastic sheeting and border stuff that people use that looks nice for about five minutes and then looks like crap. It generally looked like crap. When I moved in, the Disgustingtons had taken most of this stuff with them, but left behind the crap that was too awful to move.

Finally last year, I had Bill the Yard Guy rip up the plastic sheeting and borders, I hauled the rock away, and planted grass seed, which I am excited to see actually growing. I can't tell you how many people have walked by and told me that the house looks a lot better now that there is so much less stuff in the yard. I guess there was some kind of trellis thing near the front walkway that one neighbor in particular hated. He thanks me for removing it all of the time, but the truth is that the Disgustingtons must have liked it enough to take it with them because I never saw it.

The rest of the yard:

And now for the back of the house. The Disgustingtons certainly crapped up the front of the house, but that was mostly "decorative" stuff. The back of the house was crapped up with actual crap. The back of the house from the north, for example, before I moved in:

What do we have here? Well, from what I can tell, an appliance or two, a grill, some tables, a scary cat clock or possibly a Pink Panther decoration? Trash, garbage, and trash. A hammock, a rain gauge, and more garbage.

Now it looks like this:

That's my little red wagon from when I was a kid that I use to haul things and the ladder I use to water the window box. Right after I moved in, I painted the trim on several of the windows white and painted the window boxes red to contrast more with the house. Also, notice that the stairs have been removed and the posts have been reinforced with something more sturdy than random blocks of wood.

There was more crap in the back, though--here's another view of the back of the house before:

And now:

If you thought that was all, you were wrong. The Disgustingtons really knew how to make a mess of things. Here's a view from the south before:

I asked them to remove the pool before they left. I was later informed by a gentleman who stopped by to peruse my trash pile on the weekend I moved in that they gave it away to whoever wanted to remove it. He was disappointed that he didn't get there sooner. I am glad that I asked them to remove the pool, but I should have been more insistent that they fill in this area or put in a better retaining wall. I ended up with a retaining wall made of hay. Needless to say, that disappeared in about two months and now I have to fill in the "sandbox" that is left.

Here's what the area looks like now:

Check out the new stairs that Father of Ken built me last summer, allowing me to have the other ones removed.

Now, the only piles of crap left around here are the ones I put by the curb today. All of this fantastic stuff is free to the first person who wants it. I've got pieces of my old stairs, a slab of marble that I found under the porch, parts of the original porch floor that was removed last week, and some fabulous furniture.

I also have some paneling and a trash can--the dog isn't free.

Last weekend, when I was putting the laundry room back together, I put an old wood cabinet out here. I told Father of Ken that I was planning to put a sign on it and put my old shop vac out there as well, but he didn't think that was necessary. So I made him a deal that if no one stopped by the next afternoon, I would put a sign on it. Until then, I agreed to wait and see. No more than ten minutes later, a gentleman in overalls knocked on the door and wanted to know if he could have it all and, of course, I gladly gave him leave to take it away. It's always fun to see how long it takes for someone to want the things you have discarded. So far no one has stopped for this lovely pile of crap.