House stuff!

So this weekend I had an unveiling/housewarming party at my house! It was so fun to have people over and show them around and discuss all the projects we took on. I loved getting to play 'hostess' in the new place! The company was perfect, the food was great and we all had a really good time.

I know I've kind of been hinting around about a major before and after post on this house project and today I will begin! I had to do lots of cleaning before having people over so it was a good excuse to take some really good 'after' pictures. I do have to preface these 'before' pics because they are a MESS! The house had been vacant for about a year and was just trashed when we first looked at it. So they're all pretty bad! Makes for quite a transformation though...

I'm going to start with the living room and dining room today and then move to other rooms throughout the week and also post about all the yummy food we had at the housewarming party! I had so much fun cooking and planning everything and it meant a lot to me that my friends gave up their Sunday evening to come hang out and see what I'd been up to with this big project. I can't wait to have people over again!

Here we go!

The pictures above are of the living room "Before". As you can see it was quite a mess! The living room was carpeted and sunken in about 6 inches. One of the first things we did was rip that carpet out and fill in the 'hole' with concrete to make the whole house level.

Big change from before! My brother is quite the handyman and did all the carpentry/cabinet work in the house...here's how we got from the 'before' to the 'after' in the living room...

The stairs were another huge undertaking. We weren't quite sure what we wanted to do exactly but we did know that this was not the look we were going for...(I apologize for the dark picture!)

We toyed with keeping the stairs open but then ultimately decided that wasn't the best idea. We were all really pushing for the stained banisters/wrought iron look but weren't sure how that would work out with the budget. One day my dad just decided to go for it though and we walked in to find that he had removed the banisters!

Not long after that, my brother learned how to build a staircase all on his own and started this huge highly detail oriented carpentry project - lucky for me that is what he is best at!

And finally......TA DA!!!

This staircase really added a big 'wow' factor to the house - I LOVE it!

I think tomorrow I will move on to the dining room and kitchen - we did a LOT of work there!