8 Years Ago Today

We bought our house 8 years ago today.  If you've gotten the chance to read my first post, you can see how we happened upon this old 1955 house.  We are totally in love with it and have dreams to be here forever, if we can add on to the house (unless we can afford to live on the water, then I will be willing to sacrifice).  So today, I will be showing you all the lovely before pictures of the main living areas of our house. Later this week I'll do the rest.  Get ready, it's scary.

Here's our living room.  This was the view when you first walked in the front door to the right.

This was the view to the left.  You can see our hallway to the bedrooms and bathroom.

During the remodeling.  We took off all the slate and tile.

We added a niche wall.

As you walked through our rather small living room you entered the kitchen.  A lovely collection of slate and rust colored Formica were there to greet you.  This was the view from our front door.  This area is now our dining room.

This is what it looked like when we bought it, missing cabinets and all.

Here is the area mid-construction.  This half wall that divided up the living room and kitchen was eliminated.

As you walked through the original kitchen, to the right was this den.  We knocked down walls and closets and moved our kitchen to the den.  It seemed like a better flow and we weren't too sure about having our kitchen be the first thing people saw when they walked in the front door.

This is the view to the old kitchen, now dining room, from the den.

The next room that is entered through our now dining room and kitchen is our family room.

That is the wall we knocked down to get into our current kitchen.

What do you think?  The house went through a major remodel in 1977 when the previous owners bought the house and it stopped there.  The house was disgusting. When we removed the tile, there was years of dog hair accumulating under it, the linoleum had moldy cat pee, there was a rats nest in the family room, and I can keep going.  I still occasionally find a can of Old Milwaukee lost in the bushes in the yard and it makes me smile.  If you are thinking of buying a fixer upper, GO FOR IT! Just expect a lot of work, money spending, and some fights, but when you look around and you know every inch of your house was touched by you, it makes it all worth it.  I would think about doing it all over again...well, as long as it's on the water.