Nate and I purchased a home in August, and we've been making some fun updates that I wanted to document! I love a good before and after! Where are the all my HGTV lovers like me at?! :)
Originally when we started looking at homes, we thought we wanted a new home (we actually put down a security deposit with a home builder right before the COVID shutdowns began, but decided to wait out the pandemic instead!). Like many home buyers currently, we had to rush to get an offer in. Nate and I were on vacation in Okoboji and we saw our now-home pop up on the market. We had recently lost out on a different house in a bidding war, so by that time we knew exactly what we were looking for and how quickly homes were flying off the market. We sped back to Des Moines and our realtor (and my aunt!) met us at the door saying "there's an offer on the table and it expires in 30 minutes, so if you want a chance at this house you have 10 minutes to make a decision". Talk about PRESSURE! Nate and I already had a pretty good idea that we wanted the house just from the pictures, comps and historical data on the house. Luckily, after a quick breeze through of the house and some fast docu-signing, the sellers accepted our offer and it was officially ours soon after.
Now, as you can tell, we had to make a pretty quick decision, and thankfully we're still totally in love with the house! We knew when we bought it that it needed some cosmetic upgrades, so we quickly got to work on securing vendors to help us with making some changes. One of the biggest changes we made was painting some of the woodwork in the house! Nate and I both love the look of white kitchens and woodwork, and our house originally had all golden oak trim and cabinets. Instead of replacing the woodwork and incurring the high cost of all new, we decided to paint it. We decided on Sherwin Williams Alabaster for the woodwork. It's a warm white, which I'm obsessed with! It's not too stark white and it gives off a warm look without it looking yellow. Additionally, we painted most of the walls in the house. We painted all the main rooms and our bedroom Sherwin Williams Worldly Gray, and in our office we used Sherwin Williams Naval. The office is now one of my favorite rooms in the house - I love the moody vibes in there!
Additionally, all of the carpet in the home desperately needed updating, since it was all original (our house was built in the 90's). The carpet was originally white in the house, but after 20ish years the carpet wasn't white anymore! Picking a carpet was harder than I anticipated. The most important thing when choosing a carpet was finding a nylon option - it tends to be more comfortable and holds up better than polyester. I wanted something unique for our stairs in the entryway since it's a focal point, but also something that was classic looking and comfortable. Ultimately we decided on using Shaw Floors Find Your Comfort II in "Chill in the Air" for most of the house. We love the gray color and how comfy it is! On the stairs and in the office, we decided on using Anderson Tuftex Stroll in "Shoreline". We're really happy with our selections so far!
Thank you to Scott McVay and his team at Premiere Painting, as well as Corey Mohr at Royal Flooring for helping us with our selections and executing our vision. We still have many projects ahead of us (inside and outside!) and I'm excited to document them to remember all of our progress!
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