How we spent our summer: Home Renovations (Part I)

I guess we did other things, too, but I feel like home projects consumed most of my brain-space this summer.... planning, buying, ordering, returning, redesigning, repurposing, repainting, shuffling things around.  I think just about every single book in this house has been moved at least once, some multiple times, and just about every large piece of furniture has been moved (other than bedroom sets).

We started out wanting to create a couple of new spaces, but then that extended into a major shifting of several rooms -- 8 rooms, actually.  We officially tried to do too much at once.

The whole family got into the action.... .although most of the work was done by Pete, or the professionals.

But now that the sawdust is beginning to settle and the paint is mostly dry, we're beginning to see the results.

The first project areas were:

Flooring in the 2-story foyer


This is what it looked like BEFORE:

                                                                         

And these are the 2 rooms we have now!
Upstairs we have our new "study:"

We moved about 80% of the household books up to this room, thereby decluttering a few other rooms.

My favorite part is that as I sit at the computer, here is my "lake view:"

Well, you can't really see the "lake" in this picture, I guess.  But I can see it from here!

And this is our new foyer downstairs:

New Mudroom:

I have no "before" pictures for this one -- just imagine a very chaotic and full garage.  Inside our garage, we walled in a space about 5 feet by 11 feet (still leaving room for 2 cars, if one of them is not bigger than a Corolla -- should anyone ever actually want to park cars in that garage again).

So here is our new mudroom, already collecting plenty of stuff -- and even mud:

A friend from church framed in this room and the new room above the foyer, and did the electrical and drywall.  But Pete took it from there, laying the floors in both rooms, building the shelves, hanging beadboard, painting, etc., all to make my wishes come true.  I love having such a handy man!

Dining room makeover

Since we were having the foyer repainted, we decided to just paint the main rooms of the downstairs and hallway upstairs as well.  It was well past time to do this. So everything now seems much brighter and cleaner.

In the dining room I also re-painted the table and chairs; the room has a pretty different feel now.

Here is what it looked like BEFORE:

And this is what it looks like NOW:

Still in progress are the kitchen, living room, bonus room, and conservatory.  It looks like our fall may largely hold the same activities our summer did.

 Part II of the renovations to come soon (hopefully!).