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  It was like the rest of our house...depressing, drab and outdated.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  The wall...the outdated doors...the old windows...the shag carpet...it all had to go!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"!

I Love Goooooold.

And I love Tar-jay.  I can’t go in there without spending two times the amount I thought I would when I first decided to go there.

Case in point?  I went to look for a lamp shade to replace one in our bedroom that I mayyyy have splattered with paint while hammering a lid shut after painting our bedroom for the millionth time.  As I navigated my way through the store towards the lamp aisle {I’ll get back to lamp shades in another post ;)}, I had to pass by numerous pretty things.  I forced myself to stroll on by the first time around, but I caved when passing them by for the second time.  This shapely lady ended up in my cart.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the plastic-ish black frame, but I knew that could easily be fixed with some gold spray paint I already had on hand.  {Yup...the same paint I used to make this cheap art for our bedroom.}

The conditions around here aren’t ideal for spray painting, but one Saturday the temps happened to reach the mid-40’s, and I decided to live on the edge and set up my spray painting shop on our back porch.

One quick coat of a spray primer...

Then two quick coats of gold...

And I was left with this.  I’m.  In.  Love.

Not too long ago, I would have never thought mixing metals would be my jam...now, I’m obsessed.  I love the un-matchy-matchy feeling of it.  Anyone else enjoy mixing it up?

I'm linking up to:

http://www.thisthatandlife.com/2013/06/bling-it-out-link-party-link-your-gold/