New year, new beginnings

One of our biggest goals for 2013 is to transform this house into a home. 

Forget spring cleaning - we're talking total reformation from top to bottom.  We're going Exorcist- style on this house. 

Already I have to take a deep breath, because it's a b-i-i-i-g job.  BIG.  We have a lot of work to do, and that's on top of the fact that, although it doesn't exactly look like it, a lot of work has been done already. 

The project we've started with is re-working our entry so that it actually, well... works.  This is still very much a work in progress, but I am so excited with how things are beginning to come together.  I suppose that's a slight exaggeration, but they're showing signs that one day they might come together.

 

Here's the before. 

 

Drab woodwork, a giant (*giant*) mirror hanging on the wall, and don't even get me started on the fact that there were holes in the wall, and someone had allowed kids to take their crayons and nailpolish to the walls and go at it. 

 

Ick.

 

Here's the after.

 

Please pardon the ladder, and the fact that we're clearly not done.  I told you, this is a work in progress.  The point is, it's getting there...

 

 

A fresh coat of white on the stairs, and new color and accent color throughout the entryway. 

 

Casey showed of his mad skills in the electrical wiring department. 

 

 

 

And patched the holes in the wall.  The paint was soooo refreshing.  I can't tell you how satisfying it was to paint over all the tragedy that had been inflicted on our walls.  Crayon?  Meet my paint roller.

 

The best part might be that the massive mirror - which made you do a total double-take when you walked in the door and saw full-size "people" walking around ahead of you - is GONE!!  All that mythology about breaking a mirror being bad luck? 

 

Yeah, I'm feeling like one lucky girl. 

 

Now, when you walk into our home, you see this:

 

 

Oh-ho soooo much better!

 

I have to brag on my own creativity for just a minute, because I was particularly impressed with this idea:

 

This one came to me because... well, truth be told, my family is a bit slovenly.  We're never going to be those people who neatly place our coats, shoes and bags in the closet every time we walk in the door.  We're more the "just dump it" types, which creates a big, heap-y mess that no one can walk around. 

 

These hooks give us a place to hang things so that they're out of the way and slightly organized.  And the big girl is quite excited to have her very own special hook within her reach.  It's coupled with a storage bench which contains our shoes and gives us a place to sit while we put them and take them off.  Picture coming when all the paint accessories currently stashed there find their way back into the garage... ahem.

 

I know it's not exactly Home and Gardens perfect from a design perspective, but it is functional, and works for us and our lifestyle. 

 

We still have a substantial amount to do: paint the rest of the wood and moldings, finish the patches and the paint, paint the front and closet doors...  But we're getting there.  And this feels like a HUGE step in the right direction. 

 

 

Be prepared.  You'll be seeing a LOT of remodeling posts this year.  Game on.