Don’t you just love a good before and after photo shoot? The art of transformation – it’s so appealing to me.

Long, long ago, I made a pact with myself to blog our renovations. Then I could have my very own before & after gallery. Considering we have been finished the inside of our home for at least a year, there are not many adequate reasons why this hasn’t happened yet. So, with the last of today’s winter sun streaming through our freshly scrubbed house, I embraced the opportunity and quickly snapped some shots. I almost forget how much this house has changed since we bought it. Living with it everyday, we kind of become used to its finished state. But change it has!

I have decided to show you Abbie’s room first, because it was my least favourite room when we bought the house.

Abbie’s room had been shut up for years, had a leak in the wardrobe that had gone unnoticed, and consequently it was damp and mouldy. There was also a big brown mark on the asbestos ceiling where the old roof had leaked years before. (As if asbestos ceilings couldn’t get any uglier.)

The before:

The chocolate brown wardrobe doors were the icing to top the theme off…

Fixing the roof and ripping out the rotten carpet was the very first job we did.

Followed by getting the pros in to discard the asbestos ceiling.

After that a bit of paint and some new lighting helped freshen it up immensely:

 

The after:

Nowadays it is a bright, cheerful, and clean room, fit for a rainbow loving princess.

We decided to leave the wardrobe doors off in the children’s rooms, to give them more floor space to play, and give it an open, airy feel (not to mention that I ran out of steam painting doors!)…

After our curtain fabric fail, I spent months trying to find a curtain fabric that lived up to my initial plan.

In the end, unable to find anything that met my vision, I gave up. In order to get rid of the hideous loan curtains we had up, we moved the voil nets to the front track and had some curtains made from block out lining for the back track.
It works well, giving the rooms a luxurious feel, at a fraction of the price. So that was definitely a win. I just wish it didn’t take me so long to think of it.

Here are the before & after pictures side by side…

Can you believe it’s the same room?

And this is Miss Abbie showing off her room with pride…

As you can see, she’s quite chuffed with it! Amazing what a bit of elbow grease, paint and fabric can do.

Back again soon with another room…