Our Fixer Upper – Before & After

Hi guys! I think one of my favorite things about HGTV is all the amazing before and after shots of home renovations. I love seeing a filthy, dirty house with a choppy floor plan transform into a beautiful, clean, functional space.

With that in mind, I figured I should go ahead and share my own home’s before and after photos with y’all! I’ve shared a lot about our kitchen, but today I’m sharing more of the general before and after pictures. I’ll warn you – our house was grossss when we bought it in 2018. You’ve been warned!

We completely gutted the kitchen and added an island. You can read all about our kitchen remodel process here. Can you guys believe that we used the original kitchen for almost a year before remodeling it?! I deep cleaned the heck out of it! 😉

As you can tell from the pictures above, we tore out a couple walls and the pantry. Since I was a structural engineer at the time, I was able to verify that the walls were not structural. We did choose to leave the column at the corner of the island though, because it was required for HVAC ventilation – we could have relocated our furnace to avoid this column, but it would have been too much money. Although I don’t love the column, it is a nice way to define the corner of the kitchen space.

I feel like these two pictures above really show how the space changed. Before, the kitchen was in it’s own room. We tore down those walls to create a more open floor plan. The color scheme was also changed from brown and beige to white and pops of blue.

We kept the same layout in the kitchen because it was the cheapest option. That means the sink, dishwasher, oven, and refrigerator are all in the same location. I was so excited to have a farmhouse sink! The hardest part of the kitchen remodel (at least, this is how I remember it) was getting the existing floor removed. There was carpet on top of vinyl on top of who knows what. We had to get a heat gun and slowly scrap up the original “sticky material.” I still don’t know what that was, but I sure am glad to have my wood floors!

More of the kitchen!

I love this transformation so much! We had planned for this accent wall pretty much since the day we closed on the house. There is still some trim work to be done, but I love the overall effect. You can read more about how we achieved this look here.

We gained so much space in our dining room by taking down that wall/pantry! And just look at all that wood panelling ha! The wood paneling on our accent wall actually had wallpaper behind it. It had major 70’s vibes! Rather than retexture the wall and paint it, we chose to install shiplap (which I’m obsessed with.)

Our master bedroom (above) makes me sooo happy. (Can you tell I love shiplap yet?!) Even though it isn’t fully decorated yet, I love the color scheme so much. It cost us about $100 for this wall. Its ~12′ long and 8′ tall.

That about wraps up our before and after pictures for now! Our goal this spring is to continue to revamp our exterior. Once we have landscaping installed, I’ll share more. In the meantime, check out what we’ve done so far here!

What questions do you have for me?! Feel free to leave them below!