Renovation Before & After

As promised I have put together a series of before and after images of our home. In this post I will show you the Formal Lounge (I know - no one has these anymore), the entry/stairs, and the 'chill-out zone'. Please forgive me as I am not a professional photographer, none of these images have been 'staged' but show how we truly live. The 'before' images were not intended to be seen by many so you will see the occasional small child - and I don't know how to operate those programs that get 'rid' of things you don't want in them so these images are raw and real.

This first images show the afters of our 'formal lounge' and stair case. I love our David Trubridge light in this room.



As you can see, below, there was lots of pine in the house and the stairwell was built in underneath. When the builder (my brother-in-law) and I pulled the carpet and the risers off the stairs, we did a little happy dance as we found the original stairs were 'open' and made of Tasmanian Oak - that also saved me a lot of money - no need for newer 'trendier' stairs! You will see from the after image above that we installed glass balustrades on the stairs also to give a feeling of more light. We also changed the tiles throughout the house, continuing out to our pool.

Below, looking back towards the entry 'after'. We installed a new entry door and took out a brick dividing wall (lovely) at the entrance. We also installed bi-folds in the formal lounge.

Below, looking back towards the entry 'before' - shows old brick wall and "beautiful" stained glass window (yuk). Sorry, if I am offending anyone, stained glass windows have their place just not in my modern renovation!


Below, 'after' image of our bi-folds in the formal lounge.

Below, 'before' of the silder that used to be in the formal lounge. You can see the ceiling in this image also - we have painted it out white. Forgot to mention - the previous owners had bars on all the windows - don't know why as we live in a very safe neighborhood (of coarse these came off also).


Below is the last 'after' of the formal lounge. This just shows how we took the back off some shelves that were already there - we wanted to keep some of the eighties vibe of the home. This images shows my Marimeko which I have posted about previously here.

Below is the 'after' image of our 'chill-0ut zone' - named this as it is opposite our kitchen and is where my 4 year old watches t.v. while we watch ours in our lounge room (which I will post later this week). This room is great because it leads directly out to our outdoor entertaining area and the pool. The t.v. swings around and many games of cricket are watched while swimming! Anyway this area used to be the kitchen (as shown next).



Finally, the image below shows the 'chill-out room' before - yes it was a yellow kitchen. I hated having to pull it out as it was only 2 years old, however, it was in the wrong place for the flow of the spaces in the house. After a lick of white 2-pak paint it now resides in my sister's house and looks stunning - unfortunately it wasn't the right configuration for us and we couldn't reuse it.

If you are all still with me, I have to let you know that I am really lucky to have a friend with an interior design business who I could run ideas past and could draw up the plans for me. Hope you enjoyed that little tour, later in the week I will post images of our kitchen, lounge, and pool area. Michelle