I am going to show you some of the before and after pictures of a few houses I have restored over the years. The 1st house we are going through I would like to give a large warning!!!! When this house was purchased it was a 1970's disaster. We had a very small budget to bring it to modern day living plus every wall and floor had to be touched. These pictures are 5 years ago and the house is still evolving, which I think every house should always be a work in progress. The main point I want to make is that I never felt I was decorating this house, I was simply making it an updated space because it was very overwhelming for me to set up a creative concept for the whole house at one time and I did not have the budget for it. You will see many nutrual colors, which all my houses in the past had tons of color. This journey took me a different direction and I really needed an easy.... soft feel that would be timeless. It has worked out great because I did use accents to bring color in the rooms and I could change them out as trends changed. However.... I am now after 5 years ready to update and actually start taking the plunge to actually DECORATE some of these rooms as I did with my houses in the past. I will upload those photo's next week and I think you will see the difference. Styling / staging a home just makes it feel so cozy, inviting and high end. So lets start looking as some of the easy updates we did on a tight budget.
OK, here are some of the kitchen photo's I found. Beware the kitchen after photo's are not complete, as you can not see the travertine backsplash and a few other updates. I still think most of you will agree that it is an amazing trasfermation and when I tell you I did it for just under $2000.... I think we will all agree I worked a miricle. This is a perfect example of how a small budget can really trasform a kitchen. So what did I do, I painted the cabinets, I ordered new knobs & hinges ( don;t forget the hindges tthe small thins really make a difference.), I ordered them from ebay and saved a ton of money. 75% less than lowes. Also just do a simple brush nickle knob..... don't get sucked into the crazy knob ilse at the store and lose your goal of a simple update. Knobs can blow a tight budget and they do not give you the funtion & impact that the room is going to need. OK, we also painted the walls, hung a great bamboo blind, cute Fluer hooks on each side of the sink for towles(great function tip), then we added two small lower cabinets from Lowes and had an island countertop made to form the island in the middle, then extended the countertops throughout the kitchen. The countertops where the main purchase and because I had restored kitchens in the past I was able to skip the middle man and called the countertop contact directly and saved 30%, bringing my countertops in at $750, a bargin because you also do not see the counters behind me in this photo. A new kitchen faucet was purchased from ebay $75.... I had to have the pull out spray from the spout(not sure what that is called, but I love it, remember function is the key) I really wanted a flat drop in cook top, but it just was not in the budget, $400 for the cheapest , but I did get rid of the mustard cooktop and bought a brush nickle one for $75 again on ebay. The hood top was a bargin I found on a clearence rack for $89 at home depot, The fridge. $150, from a discount appliance store off morgan ave, I made them an offer & they took it, this does have a dent in the side but I have kids & dogs so I am not looking for perfect....even though this fridge is small , it works and I have the old yellow fridge downstairs plus a huge freezer. We tiles the floor with discount ceramic tiles $180, put travertine backslash up (not in the pic above), clearence rack $60. And finally two beautiful lights from Lowes, the most expensive lights I put in the house $70 each.
More pic's of kitchen below, ignor us cooking cookies, were talking about the room!! I really wanted the colors to be coffee colors, soft creamy nutrals.
Ok, I am not going to lie, this was the last room I did, I was exausted.... out of money and at this point I just really needed all the fish decor to go away. This house has 3 full bathroom and this is the downstairs, familyroom bath. So here is the sad truth. We scraped the popcorn from the ceiling. Painted the walls with leftover paint ( too tired to take down the wall paper, so I broke my rule and painted over it. Bought new lights from Ebay $15 for both, painted the cabinet black, bought a new toliet seat ( but had to keep the awful toliet, UGH), new knobs for cabinet $2, new hinges $2, used a left over carpet remnient to cover this darling 70's tile, yes it is still under the carpet!! New faucet ebcay $30, painted the mirror surround black. The one thing we did spend on was the granite countertop $100 and drop in sink $25. So this was around a $200 update. We hope to do it alittle more justice in the future but it works for now !!
Entryway, After is on the right above and before on the left ( I hope you knew that one). Well we painted the walls , trim, tiled the floor ($60) bought a new light from ebay $25. We have also now painted all the oak railing white. Much better!!
OK, this is a picture of what I have now done walking up the entryway stairs. I love this photo wall. They are very easy to do, here are a few tips, I used all black and white photo's that I loved, You have to use all different size frames in the same color. Not only should you use different size frames, but please buy a few different styles, that is the key to the vintage elegant look!! Black spray paint is your friend if your on a budget. After you have your frames, measure the wall space you want to cover. Then take tape and tape off that size on your floor, layout your picures in frames before you hang them and figure out how you want it to look. This was the fun part, I could play with the design till I loved it. Then hang each pucture and you can measure the spacing from picture to picture so it turns out perfect. Enjoy!!
OK, Main large bath upstairs, Ugh this room was tough. I had ugly wall paper on the walls when I pulled it off it left a VERY rough sand feeling, I tried sanding it with a power sander and it did little to smooth the walls, I have never seen anything like it, so I had to come up with a plan B. Home Depot sells a Ralph Lauren paint that is called Brushed suede. It is a gritty paint that leaves your walls looking a beautful suede look, that has an old world charm. I bought a carmel color and I got to work. You roll the 1st coat of paint with a rollar in big X patter, then when dry you have to go over all of it with a 2 inch brush aking tiny X that overlap by hand. You really have to know what you are doing, Chad tried to help me but, he could not because, well how do I say this nicely...."his work looked Jacked up". So I was in full paint mode for a few days and my wrist were screaming ( because I also had to do this to my dinningroom, but that is anouther story), I love the finish product, and $60 in high end paint was much better than a demo to all the walls and new drywall, (not in the budget and really not needed now). New countertops $200, 2 new faucets at Walmart (yes I said Walmart, who knew) $29 each.... great price. Painted the cabinet brown , new knobs, 2 new lights $15 each ebay. Tiled the floors $89... ceramic discount tile. The last thing we did that was major cost saving was the mirror. I really wanted 2 large mirrors to replace the aweful larged one, but not in the budget, so my solution was buying some really cheap light molding, painted it the brown I used on the base cabinets and then we liquid nails it up on the ugly mirror and bam.... we have a much better looking Ugly mirror that I can live with. It works.
Before,
After,
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