Goodbye, paneling.. Hello, work

Well, last night was the kick-off of our whole-home reno. Let me first explain our reasons for this huge undertaking..


Our house was previously my grandparents' house. They lived here for many, many years, and had done lots of work to the house themselves. I'd LOVE to see pictures of what it was like when they bought it (for only $10,000! which was big bucks back then) but I don't know that any exist. So this house has a lot of sentimental value to me... but the paneling and broken tiles don't. :) There are a lot of things that just need updated. Josh also is not too keen on the thoughts of mowing this hill for the rest of his days..

...especially since this picture is only maybe 1/4 of the hill, and doesn't include the bottom tier below.

So we know that at some point down the road we'll be moving somewhere with a flatter yard and more bedroom space for kids yet to come. We have decided to redo all of the things we most dislike about the house, making it something that we love, and something that the next owner will love, too. :)

So here's where we started: the 'multipurpose' room... In 3 years, this room has been a spare bedroom, an office, a craft room, a bedroom again, a junk room, a bedroom again (only this time with a crib - talk about cramped), and now a playroom. Our goal is to make this not only a fun place for the girls to play, but also a room that can easily go back to whatever else we may need it to be (keeping my fingers crossed that it will one day revisit 'craft room'). Here's the paint color:

It's Valspar and the paint chip was taken from their website - which, until now, I had no idea you could do. We also picked up some black chalkboard paint to make the girls some built-in framed chalkboards. I'm hoping to tie in the black with some giant charcoal-colored flower silhouettes.. Something like these:

That is if I can paint them to look reasonably similar.. We'll see. :) All the trim will be painted white - a decision I'm totally thrilled about! After months of considering what to do with the trim, Jenny at Anything Pretty has totally convinced me to tackle it with a paintbrush and Ace Cabinet and Trim Paint.  Cant wait to show you the 'afters'! Until then, here are the 'befores':

Here's what is now the playroom.. fully equipped with a Sadie to enjoy it :)

And here is the paneled hallway just outside the playroom:

The light that we totally hate..

The doorbell that will be getting a facelift

So there's what we've got to work with over the weekend! Here's hoping our afters will look fantastic in comparison. :D