Our Fixer Upper - Nursery: About Finished!

Baby girl's room is just about complete! To see the complete process to get it here look back at the Before and In Progress post. 

Reese's crib. 

We reused a crib that we had and I made the ruffled bed skirt out of the inspiration fabric for her nursery colors. I also used those fabrics with a few extras for the garland hanging over her bed. 

The accent wall. 

We replaced the blinds. And added the farmhouse trim around the window. 

The gallery wall. 

We added the wire basket for book storage and built the side table. And the lamp to make a comfy spot to read. We reused a dresser that we had and I lightened it up a bit with the girly glass knobs. The pieces I used in the gallery arrangement are so fun and special to me. Reese already loves to look up at those pieces! And I'll continue to add pieces to it when we get her newborn pictures printed and framed. 

The closet. 

I know it's kinda silly to include pictures of a closet in a nursery reveal, but it's kind of a big deal to me! Ha! This was the before of the closet: 

It's hard to tell from this picture, but those are ugly orange bifold doors and shelves on the right and left sides of the closet that stuck out past the closet opening. I chose to maximize that space a different way...

Built in cubbies with baskets for storage and two levels for hanging clothes. 

We updated the doors and added the same farmhouse trim like around the window. I still need to paint the closet doors and trim and put on the door knobs. (That's what Spring Break is for right?!)

We replaced the baseboards. And other little things like updating the ceiling fan and outlets/light switches really completed the new look! One day I'll add crown moulding in here too. 

So there you have it! Reesey girl's room. I found myself just sitting in there before she was here. Just taking it all in. It's good to have it pretty much finished from top to bottom! 

Our Fixer Upper - Nursery

When we bought this house the nursery was very dark and had lots of holes all over the walls. I honestly don't know what they did in there! It looked like what would happen if I let Luke and Parker loose in a room with push pins...

The before pictures: 

First thing I did was patch all the holes. Each dot of mud covered about 3-4 holes. It was insane. And after painting the walls I saw many that I missed!

Then we scraped the popcorn ceiling in there and sanded it down. I tell you what I don't mind the scraping part anymore after all the heck we've been through trying to sand, texture and paint these dad gum things! 

Then Mom added some texture back and painted the ceiling and the walls for me. That oil base paint is way too strong for me to do in my current preggo state :) 

[Mom's going to love that I included this picture of her! Ha!]

In between one of the many clean ups working on the ceiling I noticed the carpet was pretty messed up. I decided to rip up the carpet and buy new flooring. I totally lucked out too because I caught a sale at Lumber Liquidators for flooring $0.89/square foot! Score!! 

Before I laid any new flooring I wanted to finish all the painting. That included the accent wall. When I showed my mom and SIL my inspiration pic they called me crazy. Now that it is all done I can agree with them...but in the moment my pride took over :)

Inspiration picture: 

I didn't have a protractor and the angles on my ruler I did have weren't what I wanted so I had to make my own..

 Once I got my tools worked out it didn't take that long. Just a little difficult getting down low.. haha!

Then came the flooring. We had never laid flooring before so I was a little anxious about it. We also didn't have a table saw or a  jigsaw so that meant we had to get creative when we had to make our cuts around the closet and the length of a whole board. But we did it! And I love the look of it! 

When we laid the flooring, we had to take off all the trim and doors and door frames. Which is fine by me because I was planning on updating those as well. If you can't tell I was on a mission to have this be the first all the way finished room in the house! 

All the outlets and light switches got updated (it's the little things).

The trim went up around the window and baseboards were purchased, painted, installed and caulked. 

We've gotten the new door for her room just have to paint it and install it. And I would love to get her closet re-worked for better storage and hang the new closet doors. I have a few more things to add for the decor to be done. At this point I don't know if the "finished nursery" post will be coming before Reese does! Almost there!

Our Fixer Upper - Kitchen/Dining/Entry Part 1

I really love doing these blog updates on the house. Mainly because it's all the progress photos from one room altogether. You should know that I am ADD when it comes to demo and working on the house. I get a part functional, then skip to another room and start another project. These posts make it look so organized and summed up. Ha! Anyways...on to the kitchen/dining/entry room!

This was the biggest transformation room in the house. It will also be the most extensive and most expensive when we are completely finished. 

These are the before pictures:

 (looking from the living room into the entry and dining room)

 There were a couple of things that had to be done before we could move in and buy new appliances. This range was original to the house (1985). It was skinnier than any range they make today and it was built in. So we removed the range, the bottom built in piece and the side piece to make room for the range and fridge to fit there side by side. 

When we did that we realized that it was hard wired and so was the vent above it. My new range was electric and my new microwave had a built in vent so we were going to install it above the range. So my amazing uncle came over and converted both of those to outlets for us! Yay!

Mom had to do some finagling for our dishwasher hookup as well. Then we had to cut down the cabinets above the range to make room for the new microwave. Because we didn't want to domino us into a whole kitchen renovation right then, we popped off the trim pieces, cut it down to size, removed the vent, installed a new shelf and then finally reinstalled those original trim pieces. We haven't cut down those cabinet doors yet because, let's be honest, it's functional now and I've moved on to tearing up the next thing...

 ...the fur down and the upper cabinets blocking our view from the kitchen to the dining room! Jonathan's brother and his family came out the weekend after we moved in (after they came to help us move in!). One of the things that I wanted gone the day we signed on the dotted line was this upper cabinet. With some extra man power there Jonathan agreed. The cabinet space in the kitchen has been a little challenging now, but I do not care. It has really opened all of this up so much! 

We also removed the wooden trim pieces over the windows because no. 

Next was ripping down the blue wallpaper and removing the spindles in the random cut outs of the wall between the entry and the dining room. My dad's side of the family came out for a work weekend and they were a huge help!

The wallpaper was all down and I had scraped the popcorn off of the ceiling. And then I was just staring at this random wall that divided the entry and the dining room. I wanted it gone. But to convince Jonathan... 

We really weren't sure what we find behind this drywall. A header we assumed, but would it be a header that was necessary to holding up our house?! Wouldn't know until we ripped into it. I was all too happy to get started on that. 

We asked a friend, who knows a thing or two about houses, and he said it's fine to come down without having to move a header up into the attic! Hallelujah! Our first miracle in the #ladydianereno! 

We found this out the Friday that Jonathan and the boys were going to leave for their annual Mitchell boys camp out trip. One of the last things Jonathan said to me before he left me alone for the weekend was, "I do not want you tearing down walls while you're pregnant and home alone." Dang it! After getting that great news!? He did approve of removing the drywall. So I did that and I wanted more... 

I did get permission before I knocked out those bottom 2x4s while I was home by myself... The other side of the wall had a random low light switch for the dining room. All that did was encourage Parker to make the dining room light into a strobe light. I was ready for that to be gone. My nephew was coming over that Saturday and I thought it might be best to keep the wires covered while he was there! :) But that afternoon after family left I got back to work. 

You'll notice throughout these posts that some of my pictures are at weird angles. That's because I'm pregnant and exhausted by the end of the demo. I never claimed to be a photographer. Just a girl who loves making a mess. 

When Jonathan got back from his boys weekend, he helped me take down the rest! He's such a goofball, but he keeps me laughing through all of this! 

Then we removed the header in between the dining room and the living room. And made jut-outs into flush corners and walls. 

Before:

 After we removed the header:

Moving the 2x4s back into the wall to make the walls flush: 

So a little recap on where we started: 

And where we are now: 

Still very much in construction zone and lots more to do. But so much openness!! And I'm loving it. 

Entering my third trimester this week has forced me to focus purely on the nursery until I'm completely done. With holidays in there it's going to go by quick and February will be here before I know it!