Before and After

New front door

new hall bathroom (forgot to take the before shots, but it was BRIGHT YELLOW)

much subdued hall bath

my refurbished beloved old screen door

part of new kitchen--we plan to replace those amber panels with bead board

new kitchen. Those cabinets below were awful--missing trim and very beat up from over 30 years of use.

Someday soon we hope to replace the countertops but they will do for now.

We both just love our new kitchen. It just makes us smile to look at it.

When the sun shines in those windows it just delights my soul.

Dark and old kitchen

Tomorrow I will post the pictures of the new big bathroom. We are just gettin' all gussied up here at the Barlow household. I can hardly recognize us!

Sprucing Up

We are having a home makeover of sorts. This ole girl is nearing 33 years old and needed some overhauling cuz a whole lot of livin' has gone on in this house.
First, she got some outside wounds repaired--rotted boards and such replaced. Then she got a new door upstairs--the outside one into the schoolroom. That side of house gets all the wind and weather so there were some rotting places that had to be repaired and a new threshold to be built to keep it from happening again. Then we got a new front door--for free! We were blessed to be given some brand new doors and building materials from a friend who was selling their business. It looks sooooo nice. No more looking through the cracks like we could in the old one.
But the most exciting part is we got the outside painted. It looks so fresh and beautiful. The main part is a cream color and the trim is a rustic red. It is such a gorgeous, rich color of red and blends in nicely with the garage trim and the barn. And Don spent hours on my beloved OLD front screen door and gave it a complete overhaul--new screen, paint, wood, but the same old scroll work design that I love because it makes it look old. It is beautiful now. The front porch looks so very nice.
And on Friday the new window for Josh's old room (the one facing the driveway) will be in. The current window is barely hanging together as it has been broken by so many basketballs, etc. over the years.
And yesterday, the painters came and scraped all of that yukky, awful popcorn ceiling off of the living room, dining room, hall, kitchen and hall bathroom and put a new ceiling finish on that looks so fresh and clean. And right now, they are working in my kitchen repairing and painting my ugly, used up kitchen cabinets. And then they will repaint the hall bathroom.
So, the whole downstairs is a mess from all the stuff being moved around everywhere and stacked here and there. But all this has given me the incentive to really go through, clean out, and get rid of lots of stuff.
Remember Jenny's recent post where she posted pictures of the inside of my kitchen cabinets where I had old recipes and chore charts and other assorted tidbits from raising kids........I nearly cried when I had to remove all of them for the painters. But I took some pictures and was glad jenny had, also.
While I love the new looks and the sprucing up......change is still hard for me.

I will post some before and after pics soon.