The New Stomping Grounds

I've been super busy the last few weeks renovating our new house.  Last October we sold our house in town.  We didn't find a place we liked right away so we moved out of town thirty miles to my family's horse ranch.  And the next month we didn't find a house, and the following month we didn't find a house, and the next mon- well, you get the idea.  But at the end of June we finally closed on a house we absolutely love!  The real kicker is it's on the same street I grew up on.  In fact today driving home I took the left turn towards my childhood house instead of a right to go to my actual house.  I was zoning out & muscle memory just took over.  I'm sure the neighbors are already wondering about me.  That & the fact that my son ran around buck naked in the yard for 20 minutes before I saw him & made him put some shorts on.

Back on track, it's a great house up in the mountains, but only 5 minutes from town.  There is wildlife everywhere & the neighborhood is wonderful.  The house was in good shape but needed some revising to fit our large family of six.  There were only 3 bedrooms when we bought it.  The upper floor is our master suite & my hubby's office.  The main floor is the living area, kitchen, & bathroom/laundry room.  The basement has a family room, the other two bedrooms, a tiny bathroom & a large storage area.  The storage area made this weird "L" shape around the bathroom & behind on of the bedrooms.  So our major project is moving the bathroom back & making it bigger to accommodate 3 girls (& someday teenage girls) & adding a fourth bedroom.  We also are putting a shower on the main floor bathroom (which only had a sink & toilet) so our son can have a bathroom to use as well.  I could just picture my kids as teenagers & my poor son never getting a shower or being able to brush his teeth because his three sisters were constantly in the bathroom.

So for the past few weeks we've been bouncing back & forth from our new house & the ranch.  I've been painting, wiring, replacing light fixtures & tearing stuff down. Here are some before & after pictures.  Let me know if you have any cool ideas for stuff.

There was way too many variations of wood grain in our great room.  So I had my husband stain the fireplace wall white.  I think it really enhances the fireplace & adds some good contrast to the room.

We had to bring the banisters up to code before we closed, lenders requirements.  Which was fine because we would have done it anyway.  We decided to just make it a wall.  It made a spot for my piano & also will cut down on noise from the basement.  We are installing LED lights along the stairway for the dark hours.  They are light sensitive & will automatically illuminated once it gets dark.

We also had to have the outside deck railings brought up to code.  It amazes me that people have lived in this house since 1975 & no one has ever had railings on this deck.  I was afraid I was going to fall through the gaps were so big.  I love how it looks now.  Next year we will do some exterior painting.  Shoot me your ideas for colors, I'm not so wild about everything being pea green.
I'll post more before & afters as we move along.