House Tour

We remodeled our house the summer of 2009. We set foot in the house at the beginning of April and thought that we'd only have to lay new carpet, paint the walls and maybe a few other little things over time so that we could live there. That thought was quickly out the window as soon as we saw the peeling old linoleum, the dirty bathroom and the condition of the house as a whole. We started demo work and gutted the house down to the 2x4 framing. With the help of a lot of family and friends we gradually put in new walls, electrical, insulation, duct work, plumbing, new drywall, windows and a new roof. We had to finish quickly so that the guys could get in the field for harvest and so that we would have a place to live. In October we started moving our furniture in and making the house our home. I'm always working on little projects but most of the house is finished with fresh paint and new woodwork and we couldn't be happier with the progress that we've made.
I'd like to share as many before and after pictures with you as possible so that you can see the changes that we made. Know that the rooms are not necessarily decorated as I see them in my head yet but it will all come about as time goes on. For now, we love to relax here and call this home.

Outside

 

Kitchen 

 

Dining Room

 Living Room
The living room used to be an old bedroom for 3 kids when Chad's Grandma and Grandpa lived here. We really wanted our main living area to be open so we knocked down the 2 walls on the ends of the room. We put up a beam between the living room and dining room and the rooms were very open to each other then. The first set of pictures is the living room facing the dining room and the second set of pictures is the living room facing the bathroom hallway.

Bathroom

The bathroom was a disaster when we first saw it. There was one door going into a hallway and that hallway was open to the bathroom and then had two doors that went into each of the bedrooms. The bathroom was pretty empty and dirty and at the back there was another door that went into the basement hallway and to the door leading outside. Basically, there was no privacy in the bathroom and you had to wait if you were wanting to get to the bedrooms and someone was in the bathroom. It's much better now that we closed off the bathroom and opened up the hallway. We shut off the door going into the basement and moved the shower to the back where the window was. The closet is now inside the bathroom as well and has great storage.

 

Master Bedroom
This room used to be the living room. The door in the corner goes down to the basement hallway that also has a door leading to the outside. We knocked out the old chimney and put in a closet to make it our master bedroom. It's very large and hopefully one day we can put a king size bed in there.

Office

The office used to be the dining room. Yes, we really moved around the purpose of the rooms because it just made more sense to us, especially with the walls that we knocked out. Anyways, there used to be a door behind the short computer desk that went into the kitchen and another door where the TV sits that went into the dining room (which is now our bedroom). There was also a walk through closet where the new closet and door are now. It was very strange to go in one side of the closet from the dining room and then go out the other side into a bedroom. This room is definitely Chad's room in the house because it is completely full of Husker pictures and memorabilia. I get my little desk and computer so I'm okay with that. It's nice when one of us wants to watch something different on TV too because we just go hide in here.

Laundry Room

The laundry room also used to be a bedroom for 3 or 4 of the older kids. It's on the very southwest end of the wrap around porch so we though that it would work great for a laundry room since it was right by the south entry door. We re-used some of the old kitchen cabinets and painted them white. There are definitely more improvements in the works but it looks a lot better so far.