Our Rancher: Before & After - The Fireplace.

At first glance, you'd think our fireplace was hopeless.  It was like the rest of our house...depressing, drab and outdated.  I was just thankful to have a fireplace and knew, with a little effort, it wouldn't be so bad!

Truth be told,

Our Rancher: Before & After - The Kitchen.

Sorry for the mini-break I took to reveal my DIY jewelry organizer...but it's back to the before and afters! (Insert round of applause here.)

This series has been a blast to put together!  I hope you guys are enjoying it too.  If you've missed the intro, part one, part two or part three, make sure you catch up!

Our Rancher: Before & After - The Dining Room.

I've talked about the inspiration behind this little series, posted part one, posted part two and now it's time for the dining room.  Like our living room, this space needed less walls, new windows, no more shag and some serious lighting.

I'm sure you can guess the next stop will be the kitchen! ;)

Our Rancher: Before & After - The Living Room.

The curb appeal and entrance were certainly not the only areas of our home that needed a total overhaul.  In part two of my little "before and after" series, it's all about the living room portion of our great room.  The wall...the outdated doors...the old windows...the shag carpet...it all had to go!

If you missed the intro and part one of the series, you can catch up here and here.  Next up is our dining room "then and now"!

Our Rancher: Before & After - The Entrance.

I know the title reads "before and after", but the series of posts coming your way are truly more of a "then and now".  Why is that?  Well because I'm never done re-decorating and styling our home. I mean, you already heard my dreams to renovate our 1954 cabinetry.  Yes, one day I will see my kitchen dreams come to life!!  But, anyway, I digress...

Back to the fun stuff...the transformation thus far!!

Our home was a little...ummmm...frightening when we bought it.  "Hot mess" is a phrase that also came to mind.

Ahhhh, our diamond in the rough!  Our home was so far from welcoming.  We took it from dark, overgrown, stained, cramped and closed off to happy, light and bright!

Much better, don't you think?!?

Next up...the living room portion of our "great room"!

Labor of Love

{Be prepared for a ton of pictures in this post!!}

Just like our kitchen, our main bathroom has gone through a major transformation.  When I look at pictures, it’s hard to believe where we started.

Our cramped main/guest bath used to look like this…an awkward space…with way too deep of a vanity.

Soon…we busted through the walls and took over the too-small-to-be-functional master bath that backed up to the main bath…as well as a small part of the “large” master bedroom closet.  {See our “Floor Plan” page for more clarification.}

Once we had the space we needed, it was time to put things back together, and create a bathroom where guests and future kiddos would all feel comfortable.

And the journey does not stop here.  I know the main bath looks very boring as is, and there is a reason for that.  I always planned to put thick horizontal stripes on the walls, but it just wasn’t a priority to get done.  Other things were “must do’s”…and once those were completed, I got an awful sinus infection that set me back a of couple weeks.  Well I finally got better, and I no longer had any excuse as to why I wasn’t tackling my stripe project {except for the fact that I knew it was going to be the biggest pain in the butt…so I was being a baby and dreading it.}

I finally manned up and got to work this past Saturday.  I started at 2:30 in the afternoon and finished around 1:10 in the morning.  I had to take a break halfway through taping the walls because I RAN OUT OF PAINTERS TAPE!  Yes, those capital letters mean I'm yelling about it.  I was uber annoyed, but it gave me an excuse to take a breather, go to Home Depot and pick up some dinner with the hubby.  I think I told myself and my hubby “what was I thinking” and “I’ll never do this again” about a million times, but I know myself, and since I loveeee the results, I will most likely do it again…or some sort of variation of it. ;)

So here is my labor of love to punch up our former very-neutral-for-a-reason-because-the-base-stripe-color-was-the-only-thing-up-on-the-walls-bathroom.

And this bathroom is definitely not finished yet.  I still need to add some pops of color, some décor, and the current bath accessories will be replaced with some fun ones that are being shipped to me, as I type, from West Elm.

Anyone else tackle major projects on their to-do list this weekend?!?!?!