House to Home

Every Sunday my mom cooks and our family heads there for dinner. Our family, as in everyone. It's nice, because that is about the only day each week when I get to catch up with my brother and sister.

This past Sunday when dinner was over, we all ventured into my mom's living room. We were talking about redoing some rooms in my mom's house and that led to my brother and I discussing our houses.

Coming from a family where nothing is given to you, we both had to work hard to be able to afford our houses. Being six years apart from my brother, it's funny that we were looking for houses around the same time back in 2006. Brian and I even went to look at the house my brother bought, before he bought it. After our searches were over and we found our houses, we ended up only being a few minutes apart from each other.

So here we were, at my mom's house, and we were talking about improvements that we had made to our homes. What started out as houses had become homes for both of us. My brother was explaining the horrible colors which were painted in each of his rooms when he moved in. He was also discussing the flooring which he replaced.

That led Brian and I to begin discussing our improvements. The sad things was, I couldn't remember most of them. How could we have spent so much time improving the house in the past four years, yet I couldn't remember what it looked like before?

Because, I didn't want to remember what it looked like before. I found the "before" photos today while playing on the computer. Wow, our house looks nothing like it did when we moved in.

See for yourself, before photos are on the left and after photos are on the right.

The Kitchen:
New appliances, entire floor replaced due to it sinking, new ceramic tile floor, wall paper removed and painted, chair rail, new lighting, carpet, sliding glass doors replaced

The Living Room:

New carpet, ceiling fans, wall paper removed and painted (as you can see from the window, the bushes have been removed and a railing has been added to the front porch

Bathroom 1:

New sink, new toilet, ugly cow towel holder removed, new lighting, wall paper removed and painted, new ceramic tile floor

The Office:
Entire center of floor replaced, new hardwood flooring, panel board removed, wall paper removed and painted, new trim

Bedroom 1:

Border removed and painted, new carpet

The Laundry Room:

New ceramic tile floor, wall paper removed and painted, new lighting

Bathroom 2:
Wall paper removed and painted, new vanity and toilet, new ceramic tile floor

Brian did all of the upgrades, I only helped here and there. He never called a company to come in and remodel, nope, Brian did everything. And these photos are only the inside. The outside is totally different also.

We still have two bedrooms, another bathroom, and a basement that need to be finished. But we have the rest of our years to finish them.

So, I guess this is why I couldn't remember what our house looked like when we moved in. Before, it was just a house. Now, it's our home.