Before Pictures

I know I posted this in the previous post, but here's the front of the house again. It's not a very bright picture since we were checking out the house as the sun was setting. But don't you worry, I'll be posting lots of pictures of the house over the next while.


When you come to visit, knock on this door. Or ring the doorbell. Both work. Can you see a red door? I can't even though I want to. Eh well. That will be decided later. These pictures, as I've mentioned before, we're taken in January when I first looked at the house while Ben was in Canada. My plan was to email him pictures just in case I needed to buy a house while he was gone. Good thing I didn't have to!

Anyway, The house had been owned twice when we bought it. The original owners rented the house out, and there's some cosmetic problems with it because of the renters. The second owners, who we purchase the house from, were corporate. They pretty much went in and painted the whole house and maybe fixed some stuff (but not a lot, judging from the things we need to fix- anyway). They purchased it about the time the housing market started to crash in Utah. So- it went unoccupied for a long time. The paper you see taped on the front door basically says that the house has been winterized and not to run any of the water.

I pan to eventually put a small bench or chair to the left of the door.


When you walk in the house, you walk directly into the living room. It's a smaller room, but I like that. It's a more formal room and we won't be doing anything too major in it. Our plan is to rip up the carpet in this room and down the hallway and replace it with wood laminate. We will also replace the laminate in the kitchen (which you will see in a few pictures). Hopefully doing so will actually make the front room seem larger. I hope to also hang a large mirror on the wall across from the stair rail.

Ben has already started to paint this room. We are painting it a pale sand color but keeping the white trim. You'll see some after pictures of the painted room (hopefully with better lighting) soon!


This picture is of the dining area of the kitchen and was taken while standing in the front room. I like the bay window. (realtor cameo on the left!). We will place our round kitchen table in the bay window area.


The wall on the right will be painted the same sand color as the living room, and the wall on the left will be painted red. I'm so excited to have a red kitchen!


The two walls in this picture- stove and refrigerator (which we need to buy) will be painted red.
And the flooring will be replaced.


The picture below is of the master bedroom. The side wall is all closet and on the right is a window. The room will fit our california king-sized bed, which is nice. No walk in closets, which is sad, but it does have a master bath. I can't believe how many houses I looked at did not have a master bath! The current plan is to paint the walls blue but put beadboard paneling on the lower portion of the wall. You can see a sample here but just imagine, instead of yellow, a seaside blue paint! I think it will look really pretty.


This next picture is the downstairs living room. The tile is very nice although not professionally installed. It is pretty though, even if it isn't something I would pick out on my own. This room will be the "entertainment room" and on the far wall there are 10 outlets! I can't imagine needing them all since we aren't too big into gaming or TV or whatever.

In the picture you can see (L-R) our Realtor, Jennifer Gilchrist, and my step-mom and my dad. They came with me to look at houses while Ben was in Canada. When we have more money, we plan to buy a sectional couch and some area rugs.

This next picture is of the same room, but the other side. The open doorway to the far left is the door to go upstairs (where the kitchen, living room and and 3 bedrooms are). The hallway in the middle-right of the picture goes to the other two bedrooms- one of which is the craft room- as well as the 3rd full bath.


Below is the 3rd bath. The shower is a mess, even if it does look pretty. Whoever did it was not a professional and hence did not slope the floor. That means, water does not drain. So, we have to redo the shower. We want to salvage as much of the tile as we can, but we will make it not as deep. We'll tear out the wall on the right- thus extending the laundry room (Do you see that little closet to the far right? Yeah, that's the laundry space.) The tile you see for the shower is just the entrance. The shower goes all the way to the left wall.



This is the craft room closet. The picture does not do it justice! The thing is huge and all shelves. I guess there will be no excuse for the room to be messy, right? :P

This last picture is just one of the corners of our backyard. In fact, it is the smaller corner. The shed was there when we purchased it and we have plans to finish it (before the wood rots) this spring. You can see a peek of the RV pad and "patio" under the snow. Ben plans to build an awning over the cement this spring as well. This picture was taken from the master bedroom window. We are so excited to have a yard in which to entertain and garden!


There you have the before pictures! I haven't taken any pictures of the other bedrooms yet but if I do I'll post them. There are 3 upstairs and 2 downstairs. Our plan is to make one of the upstairs bedrooms an office and keep the 3rd open for now. :) The two downstairs will be the craft room and a guest room. I also didn't take any pictures of the bathrooms. Bathrooms are bathrooms. You can imagine what they look like.

More to come! Thanks for looking.