Before pictures of my house

I don't know why I didn't post the "before" tour closer to the beginning of this blogging adventure, but for the morbidly curious, here is the house on the day we moved in (although unfortunately you guys can not get the full effect without the lack of virtual scratch and sniff technology, if you know what I mean):

 

Luckily, the front and the back were OK, some may even say a little bit charming? We felt lucky to get a two story house in this neighborhood for our first home.

The front hall, dining and living room; these rooms didn't require much but desperately needed new paint and light fixtures (those beauties were sold on kijiji even before I found new ones). It was really dingy in here because the previous owners painted over brown without priming, and were not the most clean people in the world.

 

This tiny room off the dining room was going to be my office, but is now the playroom. Once filled with a dingy pee-smell carpet covered with bugs and awful paint, it is now the happiest room in the house as it has the most colour + natural light.

Ahh, the kitchen. My husband and I were planning on being savvy first time homebuyers and living with it "as-is" for a while so we could save up. Unfortunately, the last homeowners uprooted an awful smell when they emptied (barely) the cupboards that no amount of bleach or pine sol would cure. So the demolition began a week later (we're still not sure how; someone just got out a crowbar). We discovered various dead things and other unmentionables, so I was happy to have a (shell) of a healthy room. Of course, this meant living out of the dining room for the next 4 months eating things that could be microwaved or toasted (chicken toast, anyone?).

The lovely, poo coloured Master bedroom...

Holly's room, again with the pee carpet (ripped up when we moved in).

Finally the bathroom, not too disturbing thank goodness. This may be a summer project if we can manage to get the detail work done in the kitchen.
There you have it! The full before tour! I hope you will stick around to see what we can do to transform it into a happy family home.