Before and After

Looking back I don't think I've posted many pictures of the house Jake and I purchased last November. In order to catch everyone up, we purchased a 70 year old little brick house on almost half an acre. The house has been taken care of pretty impecibly, however the decor hasn't really been updated in the past 20 years. Here is the progress so far...

Before we moved in we painted the living and dining room...
Living room (Before)

Living room (After)

Dining room (before)


Dining room (after)


Just last week we painted our downstairs powder room (we've now scraped wallpaper in two rooms - the $40 steamer was well worth the investment).

Downstairs bathroom (before)


Yes, those are gold sea shells stenciled on the wall (we painted over a lot of stenciling):

Downstairs bathroom (after)



I think the most drastic thing we have done so far also happened last week. We had eight trees taken down last week, some of them had lived here for a very long time. In the past 3 days we've had 2 separate instances where random people walking by have stopped us to comment on how much better the house looks.

Backyard (before)


Backyard (after) - It looks a little sparse because the trees on the left have not bloomed yet - we really only cut down the trees on the right hand side.


We're hoping that this tree removal, along with our relocation program, will reduce the number of squirrels in the yard (here's hoping). For those counting, below is a picture of POW number 005. In trying to chew his way out, he got his head stuck in the bottom corner of the cage...he was a little angry.