Well, we’ve lived in our house for one whole year, so I thought I’d update you guys with some before/after photos! There is still SO much we want to do to this house, but in the last 365 days we have made a lot of progress. Much of the difference has been in simple paint – we painted most of the trim, ceilings and walls in all of these photos (I get tired just thinking about it)! We also replaced a lot of the older light fixtures and outlets. As John puts it, if I can paint it (or buy it) in white, I’m a happy camper! I think the brighter colors (and added lighting throughout) has really opened up the entire home, and made it much more bright and airy – just what I love! So without further ado, let’s take a little stroll down memory lane:

Entryway

New paint everywhere (we did hire out this job since it’s a 2-story entryway)! We added can lights and a new, more modern light fixture. Oh, and we replaced the thermostat with a Next (John’s favorite). We also took down the stair banisters – but that was more us being lazy and not ever putting them back up after painting. Eventually I’d like to open up the stairway more and add hardwoods throughout!

Trim & Doors: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Ceiling: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Walls: Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (60% strength)

Living Room

In the living room, we added can lights and repainted top to bottom! Eventually I’d like to put hardwoods throughout this room, and possibly knock down the wall to the right in the photo below (which would open up the living room to the kitchen).

Trim & Doors: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Ceiling: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Walls: Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (60% strength)

Dining Room

Again, we painted every nook top to bottom! Fresh white paint on the ceiling, fresh white paint on the trim, and a lighter color on the walls. We removed the dated chandelier and installed a larger, more modern light above our table. Added curtains and can lights throughout!

Trim & Doors: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Ceiling: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Walls: Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (60% strength)

Kitchen

This room still has a LONG way to go. John and I painted the ceiling, trim and walls (all by ourselves) before getting burnt out. Our next step is to just paint the cabinets white (shocker) while we save up money to hopefully redo the entire kitchen! In the first photo below, I’d like to remove the wall to the very right (with the cabinets) to open up this room to the living room. It will make our kitchen larger and more open, and will also let in a lot more light since most of the light in our house comes from the front windows! The kitchen and back rooms are much darker, so we did add a lot of can lights which helped a ton!

We also replaced the refrigerator after moving, which made the kitchen look a little better. Funny story, the brown island in the middle of the kitchen is not placed well, so the boys had to literally lift the old fridge out OVER the island, and then do the same with the stainless silver fridge to install it! My hope is that eventually we’ll have a bit more room so that won’t ever be necessary again! Haha, but it sure was funny seeing 5-6 guys trying to maneuver a refrigerator over it when we moved in!

Trim & Doors: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Ceiling: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Walls: Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (60% strength)
Cabinets: not painted yet

Upstairs Hallway

This was one of the darkest areas in the entire house when we moved in. With no windows, one light, and dark paint on the walls, I knew this needed some TLC. We installed can lights throughout this hallway and painted top to bottom. It can still be a bit dark, but not nearly as bad! We also replaced all the old doorknobs and painted the doors with a fresh coat of white paint!

Trim & Doors: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Ceiling: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Walls: Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (60% strength)

My Office

In hindsight, I kind of wish I’d chosen another room as my office, since this room gets the least amount of natural light in our whole house. Painting the ceiling, trim, doors and walls a lighter color (pink!) made a difference, but we also added can lights in here to help out even more. Eventually I’d like to install a new window to the left of the patio doors to let in even more light – but it works for now!

Trim & Doors: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Ceiling: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Walls: Sherwin Williams Faint Coral

Master Bedroom

This is for sure one of my favorite rooms in the house now! Like most of these rooms, we painted every inch of this room! John also removed the old intercom system between the closets, and we got a more modern fan. We recently hung white curtains (we still need to get them hemmed!) and now I’m itching for a king-sized bed instead of our queen! We also need to put one more coat of white paint on the closet doors and install knobs (should be happening this week, hah)! I love that this room is so large yet homey. Eventually we want to replace all the carpet in these bedrooms, but for now it works just fine and we love it!

Trim & Doors: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Ceiling: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Walls: Sherwin Williams Sea Salt

Nursery (work in progress!)

More to come on this room since it’s literally a MESS right now! We are painting everything in here top to bottom, so it should start looking much better in the coming weeks! Stay tuned.

Guest Bedroom

A fresh coat of paint, a new ceiling fan, and this room is JUST FINE. Haha, not my favorite room but it is a good landing spot for the rare out-of-town-guest we have. I actually bought this paint for the living room and decided I didn’t like it, so we just painted the guest room this color so that we didn’t waste paint. It’s a little purple to me, but it’s fiiiiiiinnnnneeeeeeeee! Eventually I’d like to invest in some better guest furniture, but this is good for now!

Trim & Doors: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Ceiling: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Walls: Benjamin Moore Pale Oak

Guest Bathroom

This room has painted wallpaper (insert eye roll emoji here) and John & his mother tried for HOURS to remove it. Finally we just gave up and decided that we’d eventually gut this bathroom and redo it. Hah! So we just painted on top of the wallpaper again (I can’t even bear the fact that I’d admitting that, I hate it so much), painted the ceiling and trim, and also spray-painted the mirror. Instantly better!

Trim & Doors: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Ceiling: Benjamin Moore Simply White
Walls: Benjamin Moore Simply White

You can see the rest of the house if you go back to my original house post, but we haven’t done much to those rooms so I decided not to re-shoot them. It’s so much more satisfying to just pretend we’ve made all this progress and forget about the rooms we haven’t touched! Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed a little update on our home-sweet-home! We love it so much and can’t wait to keep improving on it over the years!