And...Indoor Stuff

Our indoor improvements were at a standstill for a while because of illness, travel, changing jobs, and working outside. But no more! The past couple of weeks we've been doing a lot of work. Here's the proof.

Breakfast Room: To refresh your memory, here's the before before:
After:
And after with drapes:
It's a subtle change but it makes a huge difference in how cool the room stays during the day. All those windows can really make it heat up. We kept the custom fabric blinds that came with the house - it's nice to be able to open the drapes and let some light in and still have privacy. Our table looks smaller in the last picture because it is - that's what it looks like without the leaves in.

I also put up some art and a new entry rug by the back door. That's Penny's bowl on the floor, it's not usually there but I had to move it temporarily because my soapmaking oil buckets are blocking the usual spot in the kitchen.

Our next big project was changing the sewing/craft room upstairs into a bedroom. The previous owners had cabinets and counters installed on two walls. We'd like it to be Sawyer's room (it's the biggest room other than the master) so we can use the two additional rooms as guest rooms and an office.

Before:

And after, but obviously still incomplete:
Eric and I took down the cabinets and managed to keep them in pretty good shape so we can sell them on Craigslist, although so far they're just sitting in the basement. A few days ago I took down the track lighting and filled in the holes in the drywall left by the cabinets (dozens of them on 2 walls and the ceiling.) Today I sanded and discovered 1) I don't look all that bad with gray hair and 2) duct taping a piece of sandpaper to a Swiffer actually works pretty well when sanding the ceiling.

A project I did a while ago but is still incomplete: replacing all the doorknobs in the house. They were all bright brass and we're swapping them out for oil-rubbed bronze.

Before:
After:
All the closet/pass-through doors have levers and the privacy doors have knobs:

The bathrooms have brushed nickel.
I'm now realizing that changing the knobs was the easy part - now I have to change all the hinges, one by one. Ugh. It's taking longer than I expected.

I've halfway through changing hardware in the bathrooms to match the doorknobs - previously all the drawer pulls were the same brass ones as in the kitchen.
Oh, how I hated those! Especially next to the chrome fixtures (which we're also changing, but that's a bit further down the list.) This is in Sawyer's bathroom. Before:
After:
And our most recent change, taking down the brass light fixtures upstairs and putting up oil-rubbed bronze ones. We've had them for months but just got around to installing them.

Before/in progress:
After:
Still to do upstairs: Paint everything, get new carpet in Sawyer's room and the tiled room (photos forthcoming), replace the ceiling fans (they are HIDEOUS), change bathroom mirrors and fixtures, finish replacing all those hinges (ugh), and get new furniture for Sawyer's room, guest rooms and office.

In progress downstairs: Replace carpet in family room with hardwood, paint foyer (we'll have to hire someone for that because it's 2 stories), install new chandelier in foyer (ditto), paint living room and dining room, move piano from my grandfather's house into living room, repurpose chandelier in dining room (I'm going to try painting it), mount TV over fireplace and install in-wall home theater system, install built-in bookshelves in living room/dining room, buy new couches for family room, change fixtures and mirror in powder room.

And that's just off the top of my head.