Not long after we moved in last year, I shared a blog post detailing the project plans I had for our new home. So, going into a new year, I thought I’d share how far we’ve come. The bulk of our downstairs renovation has been accomplished. Although there are still many things to do, we’re so proud and happy with how it’s turning out!
Keep scrolling to see our project before and afters.
Not going to lie, we spent the better part of 2024 wondering what the heck we got ourselves into. We went MONTHS without a functioning kitchen or sink. We washed dishes with a hose outside and spent 6+ months without an oven waiting for a gas range that would never come (so we ordered a different one). We lived with a hole in our floor for far too long and turned our yard into a junkyard for longer than I care to admit. OY.. The dust, the mess, the chaos, the stress. I’ve learned SO MUCH.. And I promise to detail those lessons and advice in an upcoming post!
For now though, let me show you around.
Kitchen Renovation.
Our main focus for our home renovation was the kitchen. But, because it is quite literally the heart of this home, everything we did to it affected the rest of the rooms downstairs. Here is what the kitchen looked like before we moved in:
Removing walls in the kitchen.
The first thing we did was take down the wall separating the kitchen and living room. Now, I am not someone who necessarily believes in open concept. I find compartmentalized rooms can be super charming – when done right. However, the walls that we removed in this kitchen were not doing this space any favors.
Our downstairs renovation was a mixture of DIY and contracted work. This particular wall (the one with the black and white photo on it in the last photo above) removal was something I did on my own. Once we were assured that it wasn’t load-baring, I got to work removing the cabinets and plywood that made up the divider between the two rooms. It’s funny. It wasn’t a wall that was built there with the house. It was added by a previous owner who had custom built the cabinets and covered the backing with plywood and a thin layer of drywall. Removing them all left a big unfinished area in our floor and ceiling – something we would have to deal with later.
The second wall was, in fact, load-baring so we had to call in the experts for this job. To give you an idea, the original owners had added on the sunroom at one point, which means the wall behind the sink was an exterior wall. And sure enough, once we removed the drywall we found a whole brick wall. So, to cut down a little on cost, G and I removed the drywall and bricks so that the contractors could get straight to work building a temporary wall and installing a supporting beam. This allowed us to open up the kitchen so that we could enjoy a large countertop/bar/seating area AND the gorgeous view out to the yard through the sunroom windows. I LOVE that I can see the kids playing while I’m cooking or doing dishes. In my opinion a kitchen view that affords a glimpse of your babies in their yard is one of the best selling points of a house 🙂
Moving Appliances.
Originally – as you can see – the gas stove was in the island and the refrigerator was on the far wall eating up counter and cabinet space. I did not love that. So I was so grateful when everything worked out to where we could move the fridge into the pantry and the range over to the far wall instead.
The fridge relocation really was clutch. We bought the shallowest counter-depth fridge we could find and hoped for the best.. I mean, we measured of course, but knew there’s always the possibility of surprises. Turns out we had plenty of room! I had to widen the opening of the pantry (a closet underneath our stairway) a couple of inches and then just closed in the top portion so that it fit snugly. We had our plumber reroute a waterline up through the crawl space and G installed some electrical to give it power. And.. voila! We had a fridge that was both out of the way and disguised at the same time.
As you can see, there’s still much to do in the kitchen.. AND our floors are screaming to be refinished.. BUT, like I’ve said, the bulk of the work has been accomplished and I’m so happy with the way it’s turning out!! I’ll write a full, detailed blog post about the kitchen once it’s completely finished. Stay tuned!
Formal Dining Room Turned Butler’s Pantry.
I’ve shared this room in the past (you can read the blog post here). It was the first room in our home that was totally functional and I still pinch myself that I get to store and prepare food in here. The previous owners used it as a playroom, but it’s location suggests it was technically meant to be a formal dining area. We, however, are not formal people – in any way, shape or form 😉 Plus, we have a dedicated dining area in the sunroom and a large bar in the kitchen where the kids eat their breakfast so having ANOTHER table and chairs area just seemed redundant for our family.
I love the idea of the butler’s pantry because it’s the area where all of the mess of preparation can stay out of the way when we have people over (which is pretty regularly). They don’t have to see a bunch of dirty dishes (or I don’t have to stress about washing them beforehand), food wrappings, containers, etc. It also serves as a second dishwashing station if Garrett and I ever want to divide and conquer cleanup. Not to mention the plethora of storage it affords for not only ‘pantry’ items, but also glasses, barware, liquor, unsightly appliances, etc. I love love love this room.
This year, I’d like to either purchase or build a custom island for the middle of the room and swap out the light fixture. But other than that, it’s finished!
Guest Room Closet Conversion
As you can see from this listing photo from the MLS before we bought the house, this guest room (now Beckham’s room) had a large indentation which led to a closet.
This is actually the second closet in the room and it shared a wall with our primary bedroom. The other closet in the guest room is a decent-sized walk in closet (for a little boy) with a cute bench and plenty of storage area. So, we decided to close off the extra closet+alcove on the guest room side and open it up on our room’s side. Since our suite’s one closet was fairly small to begin with, this felt like a win-win in all regards. To help you visualize, I’ve included two circled photos of where the new opening fell in our room.
Actually, The newly opened up closet was the perfect size for a desk and chair and, since G works from home and didn’t have a dedicated work space, we decided to make it into a little mini office for him. One day, if we decide to sell the house, I think it will be a major selling point that someone could either work in there and be able to close off/hide an unsightly desk area – OR – they can use it as a his/hers closet situation. Again – win, win! Here’s what it looks like now:
We mulled over a few different options for the doors to the closet, but in the end decided to just use one of the sets of bifold doors that we removed from a couple different locations around the house. It was cost effective and ensured the style of the home carried throughout. We may one day update all of the doors.. but for now, this works great!
This was one of the project we started tackling first after moving in and I’m so glad because I hated having G’s big ugly monitors and work mess out in our bedroom 24/7. I LOVE being able to close the doors and forget that the workspace even exists 😉
You can watch me work on this cloffice renovation via this highlight on my Insta!
Fireplace wall.
I wrote a DIY fireplace transformation post here, if you’d like to know how I did this!
This is what our mantle and fireplace wall looked like before we got here:
I’m not sure if you can tell, but above the fireplace is really the only place in this room where the TV could go. And if you zoom in, you can see the cable management stickers along the wall. While it pops and is noticeable, I don’t blame them for the way they did it since it was either that or let cords dangle down off the mantle. In person, the TV sat up pretty high because of the height of the mantle and it really wasn’t conducive to comfortable sitting-and-viewing in the intimate size of the room. All this led me to dream up an alternative.
Here’s what I came up with:
Can you believe that’s the same wall?! I covered the brick with Venetian Plaster and built a small box with studs to give the TV something to hang on and the wires something to hide behind! The wires run down through the framing around the fireplace (behind the stone) and out to the bottom left behind the black cabinet.. so you can’t seem them at all! The concept is very similar to the Venetian plaster mantle that I built in our last home – I just finished the fireplace itself with stone veneer this time! In the photos below, the one on the left is from our previous home in Atlanta.
Creating a separate playroom.
Here is the space we’re talking about for this project:
I knew early on I wanted this area to be a playroom/media room. Some place the kids could call their own downstairs and be able to play/store toys/watch TV/do homework/draw/craft/etc. where I can have them close by. However, there was a lot that needed to change before that vision became a reality.
The corner built-in cabinet was nice in theory but held VERY little. Its shallow shelves and odd shape barely held the kids craft things and, while shelves were nice in the form of the bookcase, the unit itself was in poor shape and a large wall of shelves that could fall at any moment was less than ideal for a room with toddlers running loose.
Also.. the sound. The sound of kid chaos happening right next to the living room and in close ear-shot of the kitchen/entertaining area made it very hard to have grown up convos with friends while our kids and theirs played in the ‘playroom’. But luckily.. I had a plan.
I had come across some beautiful french doors in the perfect size and price on Facebook Marketplace just after we moved in. The moment I saw them I knew I needed them and had the perfect place to put them. So, I got to work.
You can watch the process of me closing in the playroom by building a wall and adding new built-ins here.
Here’s a list of what I did in the playroom:
- Built a wall and installed french doors
- Removed the bookshelves
- Closed in the wall at the top of the shelves
- Installed cabinets and built new bookshelves
- Removed the corner cabinet
- Built a corner bench which opens up with storage
- Added 3/4 shiplap paneling
- Bought an entertainment center with storage
- Installed wallpaper
PHEW! I’m not sure I realized that room had sooo many components but it makes sense knowing I worked on it for.. well… many months, lol! Here is what it looks like now:
This room could still use more in the form of window treatments and wall decor, but I love that it went from a formal area we would’ve only used a couple of times a year (at best), to a functional space that our family uses day in and day out. What do you think of the transformation?
Dysfunctional laundry room turned organized mudroom.
Oh boy… our laundry room/mudroom. This is the one I most recently finished and it feels SO good to have a functional space to not only do laundry for a family of 5, but also have a place for the kids and adults to drop their stuff and take off their shoes when they come in the house. This room sits right behind our kitchen and is the buffer between the rest of the house and the garage (the main way we get in/out of the house).. aka, the perfect place for a mudroom area.
Here’s the listing photos:
This room… well, to put it bluntly, was a mess. It had some storage options but the bifold doors were CONSTANTLY in the way of the garage door.. The pipes in the corner of the wall were a huge eyesore and the two different types of flooring made the already cramped space feel unnecessarily compartmentalized. The first thing we did was remove the bifold doors and then we had some extra tile flooring from our Butler’s Pantry that we had our contractor install. Having just ONE type of flooring in here gave it a much more cohesive look and feel.
Then, our plumber, when he came to move some things around for the kitchen and pantry, was so kind to remove those pipes sticking out of the wall. After that, it was all up to me.
I started by removing EVERYTHING.. cabinets, shelves, etc,, and widened the opening of the former closet so that we could use that area as a little mudroom/drop-zone. Rather than worry about patching aaaall the different holes and matching the weird texture of the walls, I then opted to cover the whole room with shiplap paneling.
I’ll have a whole blog post dedicated to the mudroom/laundry room combo, but for now, here is what they look like finished:
Our home feels SO much cleaner and more organized with somewhere to fold laundry – not to mention a place for the kids to drop all their junk and put their shoes away when they walk in the door!
Looking to the year ahead.
I’m excited. Now that *most* of the hard/messy/crazy renovation stuff is behind us, this year I can shift my focus away from the hard stuff and more toward the fun stuff: decorating and making things pretty!
I still need to finish the kitchen. There’s a whole cove to build above the stove and lots of finish work to do. The walls, trim and doors still need a final fresh coat of paint. The floors need to be refinished. And there are SEVERAL light fixtures that need replacing. But we’re cooking with gas now, my friends (literally, LOL). I hope you’ll come along this year as we really start to turn this house into a home 🙂 Cheers!
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