Friday, January 9, 2009

The Transformation

Well I finally started the blog that I have been thinking about for a year or so. I wanted to share with you the transformation of the house that has been going on for about a year now. When David and I started dating the house was very much a bachelor pad. David had only had the house for year at that time. The floors were all vinyl flooring except for the bathroom and master bedroom. The bathroom had been upgraded to ceramic tile by the previous owners and the master bedroom had an ugly gray shag carpet. It needed to be cleaned. I remember coming into the house the first time and seeing a stack of boxes as high as the ceiling (8 or 9 feet) and about 4 feet long in the living room. I asked David what was in them and he continued to tell me that he was going to be moving in about 5 years so he just saved his boxes. He wanted to move back to Altamonte Springs where he lived for 8 years prior but he bought the house in Lake County because Orange County was too expensive. So his plan was to get some equity in the house then sell and move.


Well, he did not plan on getting married, "adopting" children, having 2 dogs, the housing market, or the economy. Also I told him that it was a cute house and I loved the property. Our house sits on a little over a 1/4 acre with a fenced back yard with a double gate along the back of the property so we can easily access the back yard through the side street. With all these things he began to look at his house differently.

So the house was becoming a home. A little womanly touch and a lot of patience on David's part.


First we painted the bathroom because it was originally white with blue squiggles on it. I have no idea what this was all about but the previous owners had it. I saw this bathroom set at Walmart; it is kind of a kids bathroom scene but David and I loved it. It is a jungle scene with all kinds of colors. I loved it because the first thing you see is a lion. Which most of you reading this know that my maiden name is "Lyons" so we bought the set and painted the bathroom a jungle green.

The biggest part of the problem with the house was the floors. David and I looked at every option. We went to many places and talked to many installers. We received quote after quote with the lowest being around $6000.00 dollars installed carpet and tile. We received the largest quote around $13,000.00 for wood laminate. It did not mattered we were amazed at the prices. Our house is only 1000 SF. Well around Christmas 2007 we joined Sam's club. As we looked around the store I noticed that they sold flooring. We left that day not looking at it because we were in a hurry and it was the holidays and did not want to purchase anything large at that time. About a month later David and I returned to the store to look again. The laminate flooring was reduced in price for a certain color because the were not going to carry it. We loved the color. It was a brazilian cherry. We calculated how many boxes we would need and bought the flooring. Now David and I had no idea how to do the flooring so I researched it online. That following weekend we started in the backroom. We borrowed a circular saw to cut with a began. It came out great. The only thing that we had to do was purchase 1/4 round to match. Well we quickly found out that brazilian cheery 1/4 round was being discontinued. Also Sam's did not carry this so we had to find it at Home Depot. We called several Home Depot's to find out if they had any of the color. Some had 1 or pieces but finally we found enough at the Home Depot way in Orlando. With all of the tools and materials we spent under $3000 dollars for doing ourselves.

All of our floors in the house except for the bathroom are beautiful brazilian cherry. David and Dominic and some help from my brother in law finished it in 3 weekends. They worked on it sometimes till late at night. After it was complete David and I could not believe how much it changed the house.

Then it was my turn. Let me just start by saying that we purchased a yellow lab the April after we were married. His name is Jack. He was a chewing machine and suffered from separation anxiety. All of the furniture was his snacks and toys. He had chewed my Thomsville couch and ate David's lazyboy recliner. I decided to take Jack to training and do some hard tough love. Jack is now a great, loving, and loyal part of our family. With all of this said after the floors were done I started looking for furniture. I found a couch and loveseat set that I liked at a local family owned furniture store and we bought a new kitchen table at Sams. With all of this new furniture and the new floors the house was very different. Then my sister Roni gave me the antique armoire that I purchased for her several years ago. She loves it but she needed the space in her house. So now we decided it needed to stay in the family. From there we have not done anything since about November of 2008.

I needed to paint. The kitchen had a cow themed wallpaper border from the previous owners and all the walls were stark white. Also when David and I married; David had one of the rooms totally filled with toys and our bedroom was lined wall to wall with action figures. Yes wall to wall; most of you know that David is a star wars nut. He collects mostly Star Wars but does have batman, superman, GI Joes, Xmen, and some others. After telling him I could not continue to have Darth Maul looking down at me any longer he graciously started to sort out his favorites and went down to one wall in the bedroom and pack up the all of the toys in the spare room and put all of it in the garage.

In November we painted the main part of the house a Golden Tan. The Kitchen, Dining Room, Living Room and hallway are painted the Golden tan with the trim and interior doors (they all were brown and two of them had to be patched because they had holes) a Vanilla Almond. We could not believe the difference. The house feels homey and warm. David was very excited and I really was happy with the result. I could finally put up pictures. I have been living here for almost 2 years by that time and had not put up any pictures. All David had up was some pictures of his college football team and two pictures in hallway of his family. Funny thing about the pictures in the hallway is that the normal height person could not see them because he hung them so far up on the wall. David did not notice it until I told him not everyone is 6'4" we had a laugh on that one.

The best part of this transformation is that the room that was the toy room is now a office/toyroom. I felt bad for asking David to going down to one wall. So I came up with an idea to reinvent his toyroom. I bought wood, white paint, brackets and had Dominic put them up. I kept the walls white because I knew David would be covering them with toys. So the toy room is complete and looks great. David says it is his favorite room. David has lots of ships that were loose in his collection of toys so I bought the fishing line and hooks and he put up the ships from the ceiling. It is a big kid toy room but also very useable for an office. I told him this is the way to do a room. He agreed and smiles every time he goes past that room.

So the house is really coming together. We have not finished painting the bedrooms but we are starting in our room this past week. We are painting it a mute gold color to match the bedding set. I will post pictures after it is done.

I know that some of you have not been to the house and I wanted to share. Later on in the year we will probably paint the outside and finally put some new landscape. The outside of the house is a ugly dark eggplant color with a shade of burgundy shutters. Again, this is the color of the house from the previous owners. David says he sees nothing wrong with it. FIGURES!!!

Well enjoy the pictures and God Bless!!!!

1 comment:

  1. I really really REALLY want to come to your home. I am sad that I could not go today.... I love you!

    ReplyDelete