UPDATE: AFTER READING THIS POST RAUL INFORMED ME THAT HE HAD A BUNCH OF BEFORE PICS ON HIS COMPUTER THAT I HAD FORGOTTEN ABOUT (GUESS WHEN YOU WRITE A POST 5 MONTHS AFTER THE FACT THAT MIGHT HAPPEN!). THESE PICS ARE MUCH BETTER QUALITY, CHECK THEM OUT!

Soooooo long time, no see right?! We have had the busiest spring and summer! I’ve been so neglectful with this blog but that means that there are lots of new updates and things to share about our house. Looks like it’s been a whole 7 months (wth!?!?) since my last post and even then I was sharing pictures from Christmas 2012. Just last weekend I was sorting through all my decorations for the upcoming holiday which thankfully were all purchased last year when we were preparing for the Holiday Home Tour.  Nothing really to prepare for this year which means less time spent in that dangerous place that they call Hobby Lobby.

We jumped into remodeling the guest bedroom this May. I don’t think I have ever shared any pictures of this room…but suffice it to say that it was hideous. And yellow…which basically equals hideous. The house has a third story partially finished attic that is accessed from this guest bedroom and it is a really cool space so we were torn for a long time about how to use this room.  In the end we decided to go ahead and finish the room as a bedroom and then finish off the attic completely and make it a library of sorts with lots of space for storage and big comfy seating.  If we ever decide to change this room into the master bedroom, the walk up attic could easily be converted into a giant closet/dressing room (drool!) and possibly we could even add a bathroom up there as well.

And so, without further ado, here are some pictures of what we started with:

As you can see the walls are the same color as a banana Starburst.

The middle of the floor was painted.  There also used to be a piece of green outdoor carpet covering the middle of the floor when we moved in (it goes from bad to worse!) The perimeter of the floor was covered with newer hardwood.

All of the trim had been painted white. Since we have worked hard to return all of our floors and trim to wood stain this meant lots of stripping in our future

The walkup stairs leading to the 3rd floor attic were originally enclosed and behind a door (which we luckily found in the basement).

Looking down into the bedroom below.

This is the “turret” that makes up the front of our house. Here’s a pic in case you forgot. I’m nice like that 😉

I love the shape of this nook and the skylight.

Sooo no that is not your eyes deceiving you, the chimney really does get a bit crooked as it goes up. The realtor showing us the house claims that this is “how things were done then.”  Apparently, the builders started the chimney in the basement and built upwards, adjusting the chimney as they built to make sure it came out of the center of the roof.

These two awesome skylights are north facing and let in a lot of awesome light. Can you picture reading your book here?

More chimney crookedness…and a great show of the multiple types of floors that were have to deal with up here.

As you can see we really had our work cut out for us trying to make this space livable and beautiful. Check back next time for the after photos!