Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Home Improvements
Once you move into a house you want it to become your own. With our first house in Woodbridge we didn't change much to it and kept the old orange carpet, wallpaper and only did a few changes. In Fairfax we did do a lot of painting, a room or two got finished and finishing touches and we made it the way we wanted, but it took a few years.
I really wanted this house here in Florida to be ours before our 1st year in it... this means we've been busy!
The only rooms that were painted in the house before we moved in were the master bedroom, 1/2 bath down by the pool and the full guest bath upstairs (all dark green). I have painted every room myself now...
Master Bedroom
Upstairs got new carpet through out (it was green before) and a lot of paint...
Kids Bathroom before and after
Guest Room (has a great view of the lake some come stay with us)
Before and After
Our Master Bath had wallpaper that was peeling so it had to be redone... I decided to sponge paint and the results are a bit wild, but I love it. I took on this task of taking down wall paper knowing it would take a while, but I gave myself 2 weeks to finish...it took 3. There was mold behind the paper and holes in the walls...it was a lot of bleach, scrubbing...sweat and tears that went into this! Scott was out of town most of March so I dug my heels in and did it!
before
after
Foyer and Sitting room are a light color green (same green that is in our Fairfax house in the sun room)...
before
after
Dining Room before
after
Before and After of the Office (posted a while back) this was the first room I did in August 2008 since we were getting all new furniture for the office I painted right away.
Chloe's Room and Isaac's Room they picked the colors
Kitchen and Living Room area was just finished in the last 2 weeks. I'm so happy to have it ALL done!
Before
After
Now for the outside...
We took out some flowers, shrubs and mother nature took out a tree for us. With the frost it helped take out some plants too, but we are trying to recover what we had left and plant a few new things. We put in 6 tons of river rock instead of mulch and we are really happy with it. I was back breaking since we did it ourselves, but the job is done and looks great.
Front yard
I made this bed a bit larger and added a palm and shrub for color
This is one of my favorite looking palm trees. It's not very big now, but I do hope it grows quickly. The day we moved it a tree went down here so we finally got one we liked to put in.
This is right outside the sitting area in the kitchen. The hibiscus are coming back slowly and I also planted two other things back there to fill in the area.
This bed was much smaller it only went to the far side of the platform and we brought it out to cover a larger area. Grass does not grow well here so we thought we'd take some out.
To the right of the picture there were 7 hibiscus plants that didn't make the frost so I dug them out...the roots on those are not kind. It took me about 6 hours to get them all out. I planted an array of things to grow tall and stay green to give us a little privacy by the pool and hot tub.
In the pool area there are a couple 'flower' beds. I added a few plants and took out so me flowers. I put in the river rock and also glass colored rocks which look very cool!
Just a picture of a gator Scott took this morning...
Once you move into a house you want it to become your own. With our first house in Woodbridge we didn't change much to it and kept the old orange carpet, wallpaper and only did a few changes. In Fairfax we did do a lot of painting, a room or two got finished and finishing touches and we made it the way we wanted, but it took a few years.
I really wanted this house here in Florida to be ours before our 1st year in it... this means we've been busy!
The only rooms that were painted in the house before we moved in were the master bedroom, 1/2 bath down by the pool and the full guest bath upstairs (all dark green). I have painted every room myself now...
Master Bedroom
Upstairs got new carpet through out (it was green before) and a lot of paint...
Kids Bathroom before and after
Guest Room (has a great view of the lake some come stay with us)
Before and After
Our Master Bath had wallpaper that was peeling so it had to be redone... I decided to sponge paint and the results are a bit wild, but I love it. I took on this task of taking down wall paper knowing it would take a while, but I gave myself 2 weeks to finish...it took 3. There was mold behind the paper and holes in the walls...it was a lot of bleach, scrubbing...sweat and tears that went into this! Scott was out of town most of March so I dug my heels in and did it!
before
after
Foyer and Sitting room are a light color green (same green that is in our Fairfax house in the sun room)...
before
after
Dining Room before
after
Before and After of the Office (posted a while back) this was the first room I did in August 2008 since we were getting all new furniture for the office I painted right away.
Chloe's Room and Isaac's Room they picked the colors
Kitchen and Living Room area was just finished in the last 2 weeks. I'm so happy to have it ALL done!
Before
After
Now for the outside...
We took out some flowers, shrubs and mother nature took out a tree for us. With the frost it helped take out some plants too, but we are trying to recover what we had left and plant a few new things. We put in 6 tons of river rock instead of mulch and we are really happy with it. I was back breaking since we did it ourselves, but the job is done and looks great.
Front yard
I made this bed a bit larger and added a palm and shrub for color
This is one of my favorite looking palm trees. It's not very big now, but I do hope it grows quickly. The day we moved it a tree went down here so we finally got one we liked to put in.
This is right outside the sitting area in the kitchen. The hibiscus are coming back slowly and I also planted two other things back there to fill in the area.
This bed was much smaller it only went to the far side of the platform and we brought it out to cover a larger area. Grass does not grow well here so we thought we'd take some out.
To the right of the picture there were 7 hibiscus plants that didn't make the frost so I dug them out...the roots on those are not kind. It took me about 6 hours to get them all out. I planted an array of things to grow tall and stay green to give us a little privacy by the pool and hot tub.
In the pool area there are a couple 'flower' beds. I added a few plants and took out so me flowers. I put in the river rock and also glass colored rocks which look very cool!
Just a picture of a gator Scott took this morning...
# posted by lizgal @ 4:04 AM 
