Revamping a Rental

Last weekend was pretty productive. Since we decided to keep renting our current house for the time being and put house hunting on hold, we decided to make this place more of our own.We painted the ENTIRE house, excluding our master bedroom (for now). I say we, but really the credit goes to Ryan. I helped with the nursery (which I ended up NOT getting the decor that I wanted), and I helped a bit with the living room but that was about it. And don't worry, I sported a sexy mask the whole day.

Evidence of said sexy mask - those things are really hard to breathe in!

 I've always kind of hated this house. Not because it's not a nice house (it's actually pretty nice...just needs a little sprucing up), but because most of our furniture is hand-me-downs. We had sold all of our furniture 2 years ago when we thought we were moving back to the east coast. When our plans changed, we decided to hold off and buy new furniture when we bought a house, but we decided (aka I convinced Ryan) that we might as well bite the bullet and get the things that would make this place feel like ours.

 Not going to lie, I was being sulky (I blame it on hormones) at the fact that I would be on mat leave for a year and really didn't want to spend day and night cooped up with a newborn in a place that I hated. We've lived in this house for almost 2.5 years but somehow it still doesn't feel like home. If I am going to be cooped up in here, I want to at least be proud of where we are -- even if it is just temporary. Thankfully we have some pretty wicked landlords who let us do whatever we want and told us to fill our boots; revamp the place and make it our own. So that is what we are in the process of doing.

The house is a bi-level with the front of the house having extremely high ceilings, which our landlords had painted the front wall a really pretty deep red. I love it; it makes the house feel warm and welcoming -- it gives the house character. The rest of the walls in the living room, kitchen and dining room were a bright beige color (almost white) that was coated with years of dings and stains. Try imagining this next to a deep red -- although it wasn't necessarily horrid, it wasn't really that flattering either. We chose a warm beige that had a tinge of brown in it so that it was dark enough to offset the red, but light enough that it didn't make the rooms look dark/small.



Ignore the mess - we still have to hang more photos, curtains, and re-arrange the room once the love seat comes in

Our old couches (I will spare you their horridness by not posting pictures of them) were taken from our friends basement and were straight out of the 80's. Think white and floral. I had to actually go and buy couch covers so that I didn't have to vomit every time I walked into the living room. We ordered a new couch and love seat last weekend (unfortunately our love seat is on back order). Below is a better picture, only difference is we got them in chocolate brown as per above photo. The reclining seat in both pictures was a pure coincidence.




Our dining room has always been a cluttered mess. We don't have a whole lot of room in this house, so not only do we have an ugly white hand-me-down table, but we also had our computer desk stuffed in the corner as well. Last night we took off the hutch and extension part from the desk so that it wasn't so big and clunky. Since the walls have all been painted, all that's left is to strip, sand and re-paint/stain the kitchen table and top of the computer desk this weekend to match the rest of our furniture. Oh, and to buy new dining room chairs. =/

As for our bedroom, we are just going to re-paint it since all the furniture is new. I have some ideas for the color but they aren't official yet. All I know is that the back wall is going to be wallpapered as an accent wall and that the color of the room is going to be a soft neutral color.

Lastly is the nursery. I had planned on having grey, white and aqua for the nursery but hubs wasn't having it. He felt like it wasn't boyish enough. We compromised and he got to choose the color and how to paint the nursery for this house, and when we move I will have total reigns of the new nursery. I'll post pictures once it is done, but so far all we have done is the walls painted, and the crib/change table is set up. We don't even have curtains up yet so there isn't much to see.  

I can't wait for everything to be done - after this coming weekend, we should have most of the house completed aside from the nursery and waiting for our love seat, but I am still super pumped. I think it is safe to say that nesting has officially come a few months early for this prego.