Making a house a home

When we first moved into our home approximately 14 years ago, everybody wondered and voiced their concerns as to what I was thinking and that "boy do you ever have vision".  The reason they said that was because the house we bought was totally neglected when it came to the upkeep and a complete decorating disaster.  Imagine muddy dark pink walls, navy blue floral borders throughout the whole house including doors. Mismatched casings.  Light blue family room with a dog border through the middle of the wall. Little houses on a border in the kitchen.  Oh, I could go on with the decorating horror stories.  I don't think the owner ever cleaned.  There were cob webs on the walls as old as the house.  Food spilled in the kitchen cupboards.  I think you are getting the picture. They basically lived in the house. Period.

So why do you ask did I want this house?  It had good bones, the layout was what I wanted and the other thing that was a must, which the Mister insisted on, was that the property had to be bigger than a postage stamp.  So after two years of searching we finally found it.  Something had to give right? I was up for the challenge and anything we bought we knew we would rip apart and make it our own.The ideas were already swirling in my head.

Since I was 5 months pregnant at the time we took over the house, I was very lucky to have a team of people helping us move, clean and settle us in.  I would have never been able to do it without them.

The first thing I wanted to do was settle in Big Sister.  I wanted her to adjust well and feel like it was her home and space, so the first thing I did was paint and purchase bedroom furniture.  Since the previous owners were smokers I wanted to paint the whole house to get rid of the smoke smell, so we quickly painted ceilings and walls.  Since a baby was on its way, I knew I would be spending a lot of time in the master bedroom  feeding, sleeping, changing, etc. so that was the next room to paint.

Fast forward 14 years and we have accomplished a lot of renovations in our home from new hardwood floors that we sanded and stained ourselves to new kitchens and bathrooms.

After we finished a complete kitchen reno about 8 years ago we were burned out and everything came to a halt.  We gave ourselves a break and only just a few years ago have started up again and have been working on the landscaping in the backyard, installing new windows.... and began to slowly redecorate and repaint some rooms.

I'll be back soon.  Hope you'll follow along on my re-decorating journey.