First off, for those who know me well, yes this is probably the fourth or so blog I’ve created. I’ve always had the best of intentions to follow through and continue posting in every single one of them, but, well, to be honest, life gets in the way! It’s a little overwhelming sometimes raising a crazy three year old, baking a little baby, keeping up with the adorable little boys I babysit for a living, and keep this whole selling our house/buying a new one/closing/moving thing straight! But as I’ve packed boxes and started the process of leaving our first little home to move to our forever home, one thing I’ve found myself regretting is how horrible I’ve been at documenting the projects we did and changes we’ve made over the past two and a half years. Sure, I have a bunch of photos on my phone, computer, old phone, and camera, but they are in absolutely no order nor do I entirely know where they all are (I’m a picture hoarder- for example, I have 1,562 pictures currently on my iPhone… Yes, it is a problem!). Then through the wonderful world of Pinterest I found the amazing 12 Oaks Blog and knew that Amanda had the perfect solution to my problem (not to mention a super cute house and tons of great ideas which, yes, will be my inspiration for many projects in the new house!)… As long as I follow through!
But enough about me slacking…
Until we close on the new house, which (knock on wood that it’s not delayed AGAIN) should be Wednesday, I don’t feel comfortable posting pictures and such of it. So that means y’all get to take a trip down memory lane with me and look at the photos I have readily available of our first little house that we will be saying a bittersweet goodbye to…


The outside before (above), and after (below).


The living room… It didn’t change a lot, but you should still be able to tell the before and after…


The downstairs bathroom… It was one of the rooms, if not the room, that changed the most. We changed the layout to be able to fit a bathtub (before we only had a shower in the house) and to add a closet to Tate’s room next door (which previously had a door accessing the bathroom). We also added a laundry chute while we were at it…which I will miss dreadfully!

Not the best picture, but you can get the idea of the before above. And the after pics below…



Which sorry for the janky looking uploads and different picture sizes… I’m on Corey’s iPad because I’m lazy and don’t want to go upstairs to the computer… But that means little to no editing options. What can I say? This pregnant lady’s behind is firmly planted to the couch!
Okay… Now for our pride and joy, the kitchen. A bit of backstory…my grandpa used to flip houses for a living. This house is the last one he did. He was getting a bit burnt out by the time we came into the pictures as newlyweds needing a cheap place to live. We got to put a lot of input in how to finish it up, and actually did a lot of the work ourselves. Originally, grandpa planned to put our kitchen where our dining room is. It’s a tiny room and could fit one strip of cabinets, which you couldn’t even completely access because of the oven. The dining room he had planned however was HUGE… So we asked if we could switch, and he agreed! Below, the first picture is the original kitchen, the second is the makeshift kitchen we made when we decided to switch using what we had, and the last few are the final product that I love and will miss dearly!




Again the spacing wasn’t cooperating… I promise better pictures in the future!
And now I’m just going to add the remaining after photos of Tate’s room that we didn’t really do anything to except add the closet, our dining room which was really just painted, and the upstairs that we also really didn’t do anything to!




So there you have it. The only thing missing is our half bath upstairs, but we literally did pretty much nothing to that and it isn’t exactly pretty now so I decided to skip it! And just to make it a third time as a charm, I apologize for the crappy picture quality/sizing/spacing. Stay tuned for the real fun- the new house!
P.S. My darling hubby rocks at DIY, but you may notice a few flaws in some of the photos. We knew this house wasn’t our forever house, and we also knew we had a certain price point we wouldn’t go over no matter how gorgeous the house was. Wrong or right, we did cut a few corners and pick cheaper finishings and items because of this. However, the new house, as our forever house, will be held to a higher standard! Hello more growing pains and family fun! :)
And now end hugely long first post! :)