I think I’ll start off by listing some of the house-wide changes that have taken place in the last two weeks.  That will keep me from having to repeat myself on a room-by-room basis (though it might happen anyway, I like to talk and I’m pretty excited about how nice everything looks).

The previous owners had a very eclectic collection of switch-plates and outlet covers.  There were plain metal and plastic covers (in white and various shades of beige), there were decorative wooden covers in several designs, there were also some fancier silver and brushed nickel plates.  Some rooms even boasted a mix of covers.  It was truly a treat for the eyes and an electrician’s nightmare.

However this beauty was easily the pièce de résistance (and Dave’s favorite).

I think it needs to find a new home in the garage.  We’ve already replaced it with a nice, boring, white rectangular plate that matches all the others.  All of the outlets are being changed as well to tamper resistant ones (have to keep our curious little guy safe).  They are so tamper resistant that I can’t use them.  I’m sure I’ll get used to them, but Dave had to plug my laptop and phone charger in for me.

We have repainted almost all of the rooms in the house.  The three bathrooms are the only ones that still need to be done.  Before we started though we noticed something odd about the ceilings.  In most of the rooms the ceiling was painted the same color as the walls.  We had green ceilings and blue ones, there were off white ones and I think even a purple one.  The kitchen and the laundry room were the only two rooms that actually had white ceilings.  So with the help of a paint sprayer, my wonderful, fantastic, amazing (get the idea?) father-in-law repainted them white (he painted the insides of the closets too).  His reward –  our extreme gratitude, the satisfaction that comes from a job well done, and really sore arms.  The end result was awesome though – the rooms look so much brighter and nicer.

It really is incredible how much of a difference paint and proper lighting make.  The rooms look so fresh and new now.  The family room in particular was really dark and dated.  It is probably the room that saw the biggest transformation.  Even something as simple (and inexpensive) as cleaning the recessed lights and putting in the proper wattage of light-bulbs made a huge change in the appearance of the room.

Another design element that contributed to the dark feeling in the family room was the dark brown mini-blinds on the windows.  We’ve taken those down (along with the light blue ones and dark green ones in the upstairs bedrooms) and will be replacing them with plain white ones.  So if anyone has a hankering for some fun colored blinds let me know, I can help you out.

I should probably state here that I’m not really trying to mock the previous owners’ tastes (too much).  They took wonderful care of this house and we’re very thankful for that.  The pride they had in the house was evident the moment we first walked in the door.  We really didn’t have to do anything to the house if we didn’t want to – it was in great shape and we could have just moved right in.  The changes we’ve made were mostly cosmetic and have really made this house feel like our home.