Our House when we bought it & Now..

We bought our house in 2008, it was a foreclosure and needed a ton of work.. I am not sure I have ever shown the before pictures so I thought I would share.. I would love to post a page with before and after pics..wish I had taken more before pics now.. darn it..
Master Bedroom- Had carpet and wall paper on bottom. I took the wall paper down and primed here.. Nate and I layed the floors ourselves thru the house.

 Nate wearing my sunglasses as protective wear..

 Master Bath.. horrible shape
Pool getting emptied and look no landscaping at all. The pool was covered with those timbers and plastic yet still full.. it was a black lagoon and we didn't even know how deep it was till they emptied it and did the plaster and pool equipment!

 No paint in stairs and no hand rail..

Oh and love the yellow paint in the living area along with the UT orange wall paper in the rest of house and lack of all lighting ..don't forget the verticals which we lived with till last year!

Both guest rooms were that country yellow but I only have a pic of guest room #2

We bought the house and still had a lease so we took a month to stay in our lease and get this place in liveable mood..which meant to paint, lay flooring, add lighting, add back appliances, doors, toilets, handrailing..etc. We have come a long way! I can't believe all that we have been thru in our marriage but all that this house has been thru!!

Here is the house NOW

Entry way into formal living room, den and dining room..nates office is thru french doors.

Formal living room with pool table..

Guest Room #1

 

Guest Room #2

 

Dining Room

Guest Bath

Master Bath & Master Bedroom

Kitchen Eat In Area..

I have more pics to  add but I think that is enough for now.. if I could only figure out how to add a tab at the top to add a before or after..

Chalkboard Family Message area- DIY Project 18

Nate & I live a very busy life- in between both of us teaching; Nate is a head coach, avid golfer, social butterfly, and sports addict.. I on the other hand am teaching full time, Newspaper Editor at School, in a fulltime Masters Program while juggling a clean house among other wifey duties, DIY Project Addict, and balancing my social life. Needless to say we tried to balance our schedules using appts on our iphones, but it wasn't working and we both would get frustrated when there were conflicts of schedules (Ugh I already told you about this- duh? moment happening alot).  Nate continually forgot to add them to the appt. He keep saying let's just get a traditional calendar and hang it up. Well one I am not a traditional girl, two a calendar each year is killing a ton of trees and I think paper calendars are so 1982.  I loved Pottery Barn's Memo center for the family ..

But each board such as the calendar, chalkboard, and memo board ranged from 40-50 bucks each plus the hanging system is not included. I didn't want to spend  over $100 bucks on a  memo center. Also the way they hang is too industrial for my tastes. I loved Ballard's memo boards too but pricy also. I searched on etsy and found an idea to DIY myself. It took wall decal of the calendar and applied it to the chalkboard so you can use it month after month and no killing trees. So without further waiting here is what my board looks like:

Here it is hung up with our dates and activities for April. I color coded it so we knew who was doing what and on what day- Nate is written in Blue, Tricia is written in Pink and both of us is written in orange. Makes it easier to put activities up!

The hallway is from the kitchen to the 1/2 bath and the garage. It is a long narrow hallway so I didn't just want a calendar there. So I added an E for Embley and a sign about families! This pics is taken down the hallway from the kitchen (that door open is the bathroom).

Here is a close up of the signs nect to the chalkboard:

Lastly, here is a pic taken from the garage angle:

Oh and that dead looking yellow thing in the middle of the floor is the dog's toy..lol. Hey we live here it isn't perfect!! Hope you enjoyed my latest project. My cousin says the chalkboard is very teacher of us to have in our kitchen. I love chalkboards (even before teaching and actual I have a dry erase board at school). I want to add a memo board (think push board) with decorative trim like the chalkboard but I haven't found a contender yet. This way we can post notes to each other, display photos, important papers.. eventually kids art and of course the ole chore list ;)