before / after

We're moving this weekend.  Finally.  I want to jump up and down and celebrate but, honestly, this past month has left me so emotionally drained that I can't even muster up the excitement for that.  I'm just ready for it to be over.

The house still isn't done done.  But it's done enough for living in, which is almost impossible to believe.  In three short (LONG) months we have fixed and sanded and replaced every square inch of this house.  Literally.  Ceilings, floors, doors, trim, kitchen, bathrooms, drywall.  Everything.  We lived a real life HGTV show.  Only there were no teams of burly fellas coming in to help lift things and no product placement freebies.  It was pretty much just my husband and a few friends that came by for a few hours when they could.  In my opinion that makes the results pretty impressive.

Here's what the living room looked like before.

And here is what it looks like without the crusty popcorn ceiling, cedar paneling and clunky fireplace.

We may need blinds on those windows.  We may need to build a mantle around the firebox.  The floors need a Cinderella-style washing but I'm going to wait until we are moved in to do that.  No sense getting on my hands and knees to sweep and scrub when we're just going to track more dust in during the move.  We also need to paint/seal the concrete hearth we made but can't until the 28th (since concrete takes 30 days to fully cure for painting).

That little shiny bit in the lower right hand corner is the top of our new kitchen sink faucet - I took this photo from the kitchen looking into the living room - and I'll get photos of the rest of the kitchen once all of the tools are out of the way.  It's pretty.  I love it.

So that's where we are.  Exhausted.  Creatively worn out.  Ready to move in and get back to our lives.  There are worse reasons to be tired, though, so trust me when I say that I am SO grateful.  So so so so so grateful.