Before and After

The long awaited BEFORE and AFTER pictures of the Cottage Cheese Cottage! It isn't totally finished yet, but we got our new windows and blinds (for most of the rooms) and I feel like the house is FINALLY to a point where I'm willing to say that it is "finished." I've realized that with a house there will ALWAYS be some project that needs to be completed.

So... drum roll... after three months of hard work, numerous marital squabbles, way too much dust, and several unexpected set backs.... HERE IS THE almost COMPLETED COTTAGE CHEESE COTTAGE! (if you don't understand the name, click here and here)

The Living Room

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After:



This room had casino style carpet. It was so old and nasty that when we pulled it up to refinish the hardwood floor, the carpet pad had rotted to the floor. It was a PAIN to scrap off. Also, when we pulled off the wall paper we also discovered that the original walls had been painted the same color we were already planning on painting them. That has actually happened several times, we feel like we are just restoring the house back to how it originally was!

The Dining Room

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This room had the least work to do on it, we just refinished the floor, painted the walls and added the antique wood burning parlor stove-- which I consider the BEST CLASSIFIEDS FIND EVER!

The Kitchen

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After:



I swear that the previous owner of this house NEVER cleaned-- EVER. When I pulled the stove out there was about an inch of grease and grime caked on to it. The cupboards were disgusting and it took a VERY long time to clean them and paint them. We just painted over the wood paneling on the walls.

The Bathroom

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We decided to keep the purple tub, 1) because it would have been too hard to get it out, 2) because it would have been hard to find a new tub that fit, and 3) because it is actually a really neat old tub. It was the ultimate test on our interior decorating skills (which I have to admit are pretty sad), to try to find colors and tile that didn't' clash with the purple tub. The sink stand is an old sewing table we found at an antique store. Oh, and we got rid of the purple sink and the half hot pink/half purple toilet-- which sounded like a train engine when it flushed. They are outside in the backyard and next summer I am going to plant flowers in them!

The Master Bedroom

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I think this is the room that has transformed the most. I really don't have a good picture of how HIDEOUS this room was before. You can kind of see in the top picture the awful closet (that they used as the laundry room) and the red shag carpet. The carpet was SO nasty, I don't think it had ever been vacuumed and I am certain it had creatures living in it. We basically had to tear this room apart. We tore off all the lathe and plaster and put up new sheet rock, and rebuilt the closet, doors and windows. We still need to finish painting the closet doors and build the top ones. We moved the laundry room to the basement. Don't you love our beautiful window treatments!

The Spare Bedroom/Office

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This room had blue shag carpet, which once again I don't think had EVER been vacuumed. The wallpaper was fused to the wall and I couldn't get it off. We ended up just painting over it, which worked REALLY well. You can't really tell in the picture, but the paint color is quite different from the other blue in the house. I couldn't decide what color to paint this room; so when were at Lowes I held up three different color samples to Asher. This is the one he grabbed for-- and that my friends is about the extent of my interior design abilities!

The Nursery

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I don't have a good picture of what this room looked like before, but it looked alot like the Office room. It had the same blue shag carpet with creatures in it, and some of the same wallpaper (most of it had already been painted over). My little sister suggested this color and I really love it. It just happens to match his crib set perfectly.
Oh, and the dresser is an antique that the previous owner left. They also left the antique bed that is in the office. Our stairs are REALLY narrow and steep and I don't think they wanted to try to get the down the stairs. We sure didn't mind!

The Basement

Is not finished and is kind of scary and creepy.
We are going to set up a laundry room down there, and hopefully sometime will get a food storage room and sewing room set up. It will definitely be a future project. Oh, but we have found several treasures in our basement. Like old, old, old Mason canning jars, an old bug sprayer, some really neat old locks and keys, and a NEW pressure cooker! It is really fun to learn the history of our house. It was built in 1916 and lots of the people in our ward have lived in this neighborhood their whole lives and can tell us about the people that were here before. I guess one of the original children who grew up here was nick-named Squirrel! I think when I get the chance I am going to interview people and research a bit so I can write a history of our house.

TA DA!
And that my friends, is our new house!

Like I said it still has some work to do, but it has come SO far. It is funny, but when Jon and I first looked at this house, we thought it was nasty and gross (which it was) and couldn't see how anyone in their right mind would buy it. But when we got home that night it was all we could think about. I think the real estate agent was surprised when we told him we wanted to make an offer on it. It just felt right, and it seemed like miracle after miracle kept happening so that we could get it.
Despite the stress of the last few months, it has really been a lot of fun working on the house with Jon. I think my sister-in-law, who has remodeled 2 houses with her husband, gave me the best advice "Try not to hate each other." I pass that advice along to anyother couple who undertakes a remodeling project. :) I told Jon that we are staying in this house long enough to get some good equity on it-- so that we don't have to buy a fixer-upper next time!