Kids/Guest Bathroom Re-do

The beginning of this month, we had one of the guys from our ministry move in with us until he gets married at the end of this coming September. Since the bathroom he is using is the one place we haven't touched since moving in except for replacing the toilet, we decided that it was time to make some improvements in there.

Here are a few before pictures:

This is the nasty fan that didn't work at all...
It was so caked with grime and junk. I was thoroughly disgusted when I was cleaning it out. I thought if we cleaned it, then it would work...I was wrong. We ended up replacing the motor and fan blades (which was much cheaper than replacing the whole fan)

The medicine cabinet was broken when we moved in as well, so we decided to remove it and Phil built a built-in to replace it.

I don't have a before for the mirror that was up there, but it was a pretty standard
gigantic mirror that stretched from wall to wall. We removed it.

Here are the after shots:

In this shot, we still didn't have a mirror...we do now, which will be my next post...but here, you can see the new paint color (which is the wrong color, so eventually we're going to re-paint the bathroom a shade darker)

Here you can see some of the wainscoting behind the toilet

We put up wainscoting all around the bathroom. We think it makes the bathroom feel so much more fresh and clean.

We put in a new low-flow shower head (which, by the way, we did in our bathroom as well). We just got our latest water bill and have already saved $10 off our bill just from our shower usage alone!

Here is the built-in Phil constructed. We still need to put shelves in, but I think this is a huge improvement from what was there...

Overall, this took us about 2 solid days and a few nights to complete...not bad considering what we did (new lighting, new shower head, built-in medicine cabinet, paint, and wainscoting). I still have new drawer pulls to install as well.

Front Yard

We've put a lot of time and energy in fixing up the front yard to the best of our ability. So we've tried to use our money wisely to do what we can. We've been chipping away little by little and we're finally finished...

BEFORE

AFTER

What we did:

• Gigantic pine tree removed and palm trees cleaned up
  
• New roof (thanks to the the previous owners, i.e, the bank)
• Seeded the lawn (for about $70! We saved about $400 by seeding rather than sod!)
• Took out concrete and stone work that was done by previous owner
• Added plants, bark (we have a TON in the backyard, so I just moved it to the front) and solar lights
  

Kitchen Lighting

A while back, I posted pictures of our kitchen and some of the changes that we made, but I thought I'd add detail pictures of the lighting...


We ripped out the broken florescent lighting that was up
in the ceiling and added can lights, textured, painted and added the molding.






We added a pendant light above the kitchen sink...




Here's a before as a reminder...

Spring beauty

I love tulips and thought they would look beautiful this spring on our window separated in little vases instead of putting them all in one big vase.

"Mud Room"

I recently was introduced to a website called This Young House and it has been inspiring in many ways when it comes to home decor ideas...so I copied or shall we say I was "inspired" by their How-To: Create an Instant Mud Room idea. We have a really odd space in our entryway that I wasn't quite sure what to do with. This is the view from the front door. As you can see, there are stairs going up to the right, going down to the right and going down to the left. There isn't really anywhere to put your purse or hang your coat, so I saw the idea and was wooed to recreating it! :)

Here's my inspiration: http://www.thisyounghouse.com/2007/11/hooked-up/

We have some catching up to do...

I haven't been good about posting lately. Things are in full swing again at the Ward home and we are busier than ever. We are so happy here and we've been busy with the ministry and with our home. We've been so blessed to have a lot of visitors lately. We've always wanted to have a house that we could open to who ever needed a place to stay and God's blessed us with just the house.

Elijah starts preschool on Tuesday! We're so excited and he's thrilled. Everyday he asks me if he can go to class. We also signed him up for rec soccer for 3-5 year olds. We're excited to see how he likes it.

Savannah is taking a few steps without holding on now and I'm sure she's getting close to walking. She has spaghetti for the first time and if a baby could lick a bowl clean, she just about did it.

I've been loving my Tuesday morning Bible study and co-leading a Bible Study for the college students on Monday nights.

Phil's been busy with ministry and many projects around the house. He's been trying to play basketball on Saturday mornings with a few of the guys and is speaking for the high school group for the next few weeks as well.

Phillip's dad, Mel, has been such a blessing and has helped us with most of the projects around the house. My dad's been able to come help us too. What would we do without our dads?!

Here are a few pictures of what's been going on...(I've posted three separate posts so make sure to keep scrolling down).

Our huge pine tree getting chopped...

The tree was so big that it covered up most of our yard but now that its gone, it's opened up the front of our house so much...(look back to the before pics of the house).

Savannah's hair is so long that we have to use a headband to keep it away while she's eating.

The men in my life...

Savannah is getting close to walking...

Savannah and Niah hanging out under the stools...

Kitchen Re-do

We've done some work on the kitchen. Look at the previous home picture post to see the before...

The House

A view from the kitchen into the family room

Entry Hall and look up the stairs
I didn't take a before but just imagine white walls

Master Bedroom After

Master Before

After
Family Room

Before

Before

After
(new roof) we also had the pine tree taken down
but no pics of that yet...

We are still missing pictures of the kids rooms and the living/dining room but that will have to wait till later. The kids rooms are painted and finished for the most part. We haven't done anything to the living/dining areas yet because we don't really have any furniture so its hard to paint when there's nothing in there... Also, since the house was a foreclosure the front and backyard are dead, so we have to redo them too, which we are going to do in early spring...