Final House Tour – Before and After

Yesterday marks a momentous day. After 3 years of living in this house and spending countless hours renovating and upgrading and refreshing and cleaning and staging, our home is finally on the market. It’ll be bittersweet to leave this little abode we call Sooter Cottage, but the time is right to move on to bigger and better things! We are so excited for what the future holds but we will always hold this little casa in our hearts with fond memories.

This petite cottage needed quite a bit of work when we first moved in. Who knew that lots of things break or are outdated in a house from the 70s? 😉 We worked tirelessly over the past 3 years to turn this house into a home and we’ve loved our time here. Hopefully somebody else will love this home as much as we have!

To be sentimental, and reminisce, I’m taking a look at where our house was when we bought it and all the changes we’ve made. It’s really come a long way! Take a look at our house tour 🙂

Front Yard

BEFORE

• 3 giant trees that blocked light, dropped needles everywhere, and broke up the sidewalk
• Lots of fiddly plants in the garden bed that were overgrown
• Dirty and mossy driveway

AFTER

We took out the trees in the front and made a nice even flower bed of bark. We probably would’ve added more grass and plants if we weren’t moving! We also ripped out a lot of the overgrown plants, had the driveway powerwashed, and put little touches out front like flowers in the windowbox and a wreath on the front door 🙂

Entry Way

BEFORE

• Pretty boring and blah
• Art hung on random nails that were left in the wall by previous owners

AFTER

I painted a chalkboard wall and decorated it with a calendar and some organizing tins for a functional and eye-catching entryway! I really love how it sets the tone for the rest of the house and is a friendly reminder to everyone who stops by!

Living Room

BEFORE

• Barf/baby poop green painted half wall
• Sponge painted red/orange fireplace
• Random smattering of decor and an old rug

AFTER

I think this is my favorite room in the house that we’ve made over to date and I love that it’s the first thing you see when you walk in the house. We covered up the horrid paint job on the fireplace and made the walls beautiful and interesting with a Stikwood feature wall. I also made a wood slice fireplace insert to block drafts, a cute entry way table, and some DIY art to make this room really special.

Kitchen

BEFORE

• Orangey shiny wood cabinets
• Black uneven tile countertops
• Outdated bar pendant lights
• Behemoth black ceramic sink

AFTER

This room definitely took the most effort (and money!) to makeover. We painted the cabinets with gray chalk paint, installed some new hardware, subway tile, and had some new quartz counters installed. We switched out the pendants and streamlined wherever we could. I wish it had been in the budget to change out the flooring!

Dining Space

BEFORE

• Weird random section of tile
• Too-small table and chairs

AFTER

We couldn’t do a whole lot to this space since changing out all of the floors in our house was never in the budget, but we did get an appropriate-sized table and added some fun stuff like a custom lazy susan, some EAT letters, a bar cart, and a Fixer Upper-style Super Market sign.

Family Room

BEFORE

• Out of tune baby grand piano and houseplant that came with the house
• Cheap Ikea TV console
• Yellowed curtains leftover from previous homeowner

AFTER

We didn’t really do a lot to this space either. It was next on our list if we planned on staying in this house, but since we aren’t, we just left it as-is. We did sell the piano and upgrade some of the furniture to create a little reading nook and place for games, as well as switching out the curtains to something a little more fun.

Computer Nook

BEFORE

• Lighthouse and boat wallpaper
• Scuzzy beadboard
• Weirdo light fixture

AFTER

This space got a nice little refresh with some paint, some leftover Stikwood, and a new pendant light from Wayfair. Muuuch better than the nautical hole it was before!

Laundry Room

BEFORE

• Orange beadboard
• Washer and Dryer from the 80s
• No storage

AFTER

When our washer and dryer crapped out after I tried to wash our king-sized down comforter, I knew it was time for a little laundry room refresh. We painted the beadboard white, installed new machines, a light fixture, and some clever storage ideas. Much more functional!

Bathroom #1

BEFORE

• Landing place for random stuff
• No storage for linens

AFTER

Not much was done in here other than a good clean up. The little vine things really aren’t my style, but I never put in the effort to scrape them off or paint over them. We did add a clever way to store all our linens in here without using a closet, though, which was a big help.

Craft Room / Guest Room

BEFORE

• Random/Ugly yellow/purple/green/orange paint scheme. I mean YUCK.

AFTER

One of the very first things we did the second we moved into this house is paint over that random assortment of circus colors! This place became my office and a place for my nephew when he stayed over. It was nice to give this place a little refresh! The built-in bed and bookshelves is actually really cool.

Bathroom #2

BEFORE

• Scuffed up walls and sponge-painted blue ceiling
• Weird gap under the sink with no way to hide things

AFTER

I recently gave this bathroom a refresh as part of our Monthly DIY Challenge! I stenciled the ceiling after getting rid of the blue, gave everything a fresh coat of white paint, improvised a curtain system to hide under the sink, and bought a few new accessories to finish the look.

Middle Bedroom

BEFORE

• Baby blue beadboard everywhere (which when ripped off revealed 5 or 6 layers of random 80s wallpapers, and holes patched with scraps of plywood and painter’s tape)
• More nautical boat wallpaper
• Dumping ground for random stuff

AFTER

We turned this room into a cool lounge/getting ready area since it connects to our master bedroom via French doors. We built some triangle shelves, installed a gallery wall, updated a dresser, and used pops of gold to make this space a truly fun space to hang out in.

Master Bedroom

BEFORE

• Patchy paint job on the beadboard
• 80s style green tiles around the fireplace
• Popcorn ceiling
• No real style

AFTER

Since this is the master, we wanted it to feel cozy and welcoming. We covered up some of the popcorn ceiling with these cool DIY canopies, Covered up the green tiles with awesome and easy-to-use SmartTiles (which you can see a close up of below), painted the beadboard, installed some shelves, and really made this space our own. We’ve loved this room!

BEFORE

AFTER

Master Closet

BEFORE

• One bowing wood pole for all our clothes
• No storage to speak of
• Weird half wall wallpaper thing in the way

AFTER

We gave the master closet an overhaul that made it look better and function better for us. We Added our own pipe clothing racks, brought in a shoe cabinet, and some other homey touches that made it a great place to get ready in the morning.

Master Bathroom

BEFORE

• Orangey cabinets
• Yellow and white striped wallpaper
• Half-painted mirror frames

AFTER

This room needed help SO bad. We painted over the wallpaper with an oil-based primer and Behr paint, painted the mirror frames, used the same chalk paint from the kitchen to paint the cabinets, and installed new hardware from Hickory Hardware to match the pulls in the kitchen. Seriously SO much better now! Less of a nightmare, more of a relaxing retreat 😉

Backyard

BEFORE

• Random pond filled with salamanders, frogs, and MOSQUITOS
• Toooooooo many fiddly high-maintenance plants, gravel, water features
• Breaking down fences

AFTER

We took out the random salamander pond, removed a TON of fiddly bushes, trees, and plants and simplified with grass and easier-to-maintain flora, put in a new fence around most of the property and generally just made everything simpler and more enjoyable 🙂

Well now you’ve seen it! The full house tour of befores and afters. It’s been a wild ride to get here and I just pray that someone buys this house (quickly and above asking, am I right??) and can enjoy it as much as we have. Thanks so much for joining us on this journey as we’ve spruced up this house – I can’t wait to see what our next house has in store! 🙂