photos of our home "before"

several people have asked for "before" photos of our new home and since it will be awhile before we have any "after" photos (lots of "during" to follow if i'm up for it) i thought i'd at least post photos we took right after we closed escrow (no, they never wrote "sold" on the sign...guess they didn't really believe it would go through, either)...

we live on a one way street heading out of the cul-de-sac so the neighbors across from us are actually below us with an island in between. we have neighbors on both sides but our view out the back is across highway 8 looking at SDSU. this first photo shows most of the house (you can see the driveway in the bottom right which leads to the 2 car garage)

this is the far left side of the house (sea and story's bedroom on the left and hall bath on the right)

these are the two front doors in the middle and the entry way with tile (that has since been removed), story sitting up in the middle of the living room, a half brick wall dividing this room from the dining room to the right, and a 14 foot window that takes up most of the far wall looking out into our backyard (an olive tree and fountain/koi pond are what you see here)...we plan to paint these doors bright red and you can see the 70's circular glass in the door windows...

this is the other half of the house on the right side of the two front doors...you may recall this was where the 2 love birds were perched when we were in counter-offers...you can read more about this on my first post about this house (also gives more details of what i like about the house)

so now i'm going to go a little out of order and start the tour from the door between the garage and the house...this is the fourth bedroom (the one with the separate entrance for my mom or cousin or whoever to possibly live with us someday) and this view is inside the bedroom, of the closet, looking through the hall (garage to the right) and in to the bathroom

if you continue down this hall so that the garage door is behind you, you come to the washer/dryer and separate entrance shown here (supply closet would be in the hall behind you in this photo)

here is the view looking back down the hall to the garage door

so once you come through this door (you can see the washer peeking through the doorway) you enter our front room just in front of the kitchen...lovely nature mural wallpaper is gone i'm afraid...

here is the view of the sliding doors leading to the back yard...fireplace to your left and kitchen behind you to your right

ahh...here is the kitchen...we kept the 70's lights in this room and the dining room...there is a whole house fan in the ceiling in the kitchen

this is the dining room which is just on the other side of the right wall of the kitchen...you can see the pass through in the wall...eventually we want to move the fridge to the left side and take out the top half of this wall so there will just be an island between the kitchen and this room...the brick dividing wall is also gone...and all the carpets are out of the house so you can kind of see what the hardwood floors look like in this photo...the mail comes through a slot in this wall which i think will be exciting for the kids waiting for the mail man/lady to arrive each day...

this is the view through the kitchen into the dining room with the orange light and through the family room door into the living room (see the brick wall through the door) just to help orient you...

so if you go through that door, this is the living room with another dividing brick wall in between (also gone now)...here is story a couple months ago sitting on the carpet and you can see the 14 foot window and the brick fireplace on the right...the dining room is behind you to the right and this is the view pretty much from the front doors...

ok this is the opposite view so you can see the dining room and the tile in the entry way...the tile is now gone and we are trying to figure out how to match the hardwood to make these areas flow together...i wanted to keep the wood siding on this wall but there were big gaps once the walls came out so that, too is gone...

here is one last view of the two walls we took out...you can see the mural in the family room through the doorway...also, we took popcorn off all the ceilings...

so if you continue heading east with the garage, hall, family room/kitchen and living room/dining room behind you, there is this second L shaped hall (it curves to the right once you pass all these cupboards) that leads to the main bathroom on the left and then the three other bedrooms on the far left side of the house...sea's room would be in the left corner, story's in the middle and our master bedroom in the back of the house to the right...

this is the main bathroom just across the hall from those cupboards...we kept the 70's swirly counters but lost the ivy wallpaper and dividing glass to the toilet area...

so continuing down the hall, if you turn left, this is sea's room...appropriately aqua or sea colored complete with very bright aqua carpet (we kept this to make in to a rug but hope to have hardwood floors throughout the home). i love this little window seat for all her animals and friends to play in and hope to plant bouganvilla or a jacarunda tree just outside the window...

here is story's room...a little smaller...closet is to the right in this photo...

i didn't take very good photos of our room...once you enter, this window is to the left (facing east so the sun will come through this in the morning)...our two closets begin right behind manuel on the right and once you pass those you enter our bathroom...

you can see this carpet was even brighter...wallpaper is gone and we have replaced this sliding door...these are right across fromt the window you just saw...(bathroom is on the other side of this wall)

this is the view of part of the back yard (garage on the far left, laundry room window and then the sliding door to the family room. sea is by some birds of paradise plants and an olive tree that you can see through the living room window...

sliding door on the left, olive tree and fountain in the middle and the 14 foot window (our master bedroom is that wall on the right)

ok...that is it...here is sea running out the front doors...they will be painted bright tomato red at some point and these are two cammelia (sp?) bushes that should be blooming soon...it is an exciting process!! will post updates when we have time...can't wait to have open houses, entertain, have kids over to play, garden, etc...