i promise that i'll someday stop flooding the blog with house updates.

but today is not that day.  though i'm starting to think i need to back off on the house crashing a bit and focus on bringing this baby home in like a week and a half.  washing (after first locating) and putting away baby clothes is probably a more urgent matter than painting trim, but i just can't stop.  i'm having a lot of fun making this a 'home' for us. 

 

as todd pointed out earlier this week, we have put more effort and more of our personality into this home in the last three weeks than we did into our old house in the entire two years we lived there!  the transformation process is seriously addictive - every time i get a project finished, i'm fueled to do something else, just because it's crazy what a difference just a little more work can make.

so i figured i'd show you some 'in progress' shots of our living room.  here's a photo from our inspection.  (please forgive my creepiness in posting a photo with the previous owners' stuff; we forgot to take shots of the room empty before doing any work to it, so these are our only 'before' pictures.)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

(these were taken with the same camera and lens, although i should have compared either two vertical photos or two horizontal photos.  i hate it when it the quality of before/after comparisons are drastically different; so, sorry about that.)

and a few more...

 

that basket on the console table will eventually be turned into a big honking ol' drum shade hanging in the middle of the room.

 

 

 

i still have a long way to go - we need to hang the new light fixture, get some different throw pillows on the couch, add some lamps and curtains, hang art, get a matching little table for that one in the middle so we can push them together and make more of a coffee table...and on and on...but i think the difference is remarkable already!  it temporarily soothes some of the stress that comes from knowing that a newborn will be wreaking havok here shortly.