Progress Update On Our 1960s Fixer

Since celebrating our 1-year anniversary in this house last fall, I thought it was the perfect time to reflect on just how far we’ve come with our home makeover. I’ve been sitting on this post idea for the past five months, so now I have even more progress to share with you, so let me me take you room by room to show you where things stand as of today. I’m even going to showcase two rooms that haven’t been posted here on the blog, so this is an extra special treat for those of you who have been following along with our “light renovation” journey.

As you may know, we’re planning on taking our time with this house transformation, and we don’t actually have any major renovation plans. We would love to eventually swap out hard finishes in the bathrooms and I do have dreams of adding a hardscape and French doors off the back of the house, but for the most part, we’re relying on cosmetic upgrades to modernize our 1960s ranch. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Exterior: I don’t like to show the front of our house for privacy reasons, but I don’t mind sharing some of the features on the back of the house. Take our back porch stairs, for example. Since moving in, we decided to remove some of the really overgrown landscaping, repaint the back screen door black, and we took down the rusted, peeling hand rail. We also pressure washed the brick to refresh it.

I love how much cleaner the porch looks now without railings, but my parents have very strong opinions about the safety of it. If we had kids or frequent elderly visitors, maybe it would be an issue, but for just us two and our very occasional guests, it hasn’t been a problem. John did scrape and refinish the railing that’s up around our basement stairs on the opposite side of the house (seen pictured above), so maybe we’ll eventually refinish the upstairs back door porch railing the same way, but for now I’m enjoying the cleaner look of open air sides to the porch.

I wanted to include the before/after above to show that we obviously still have a long way to go before everything is looking “picture perfect.” I love the refinished black railing and the new outdoor light that we installed by the basement door, but the stairs and walls need a second pressure washing and probably a few coats of better exterior paint. The concrete is actually pretty clean to the touch in that “after” photo, but moss and dirt had stained it badly over the years so it’s very discolored. We’ll get to it eventually!

Entry: The process of putting this post together has been really helpful for me because I’ve picked up on so many things I’d like to reconsider when looking at the before/after comparisons. For example, when I look at the entry makeover pictured above, I’m really excited about our progress (painting over that pistachio green color, the addition of trim below the chair rail, floating shelves, etc.). That said, I’m looking at these photos and thinking that the paint color in the living room could stand to be changed in comparison to the entry. I think the pink-ish terracotta color that I brought in from the entry looks a little washed out in the living room (it needs more contrast!), so now I’m considering taking the dark green color that I used on the opposite end of the living room all the way around the space. Keep scrolling to see the color I’m referring to.

Living Room: BAM! Doesn’t that dark green wall color look so good in this room?! When I scroll back and forth between photos of either end of the living room, it’s this dark feature wall side that makes me feel really good—in retrospect, not so much the pink color on the other end. I think I might repaint the room later this summer to see if it helps add some much-needed contrast to the entry side of the room. Oh, and did you catch my fireplace makeover post last month? Here’s a link in case you want more information behind our DIY faux marble peel-and-stick wallpaper mantle makeover.

Kitchen: Of course, no room in our house has seen more of a dramatic update than the kitchen. We removed the old busy wallpaper, replaced the countertops with new quartz, installed a deeper sink and gold touch faucet, put up new lighting, painted the cabinets, swapped out a bulky cabinet for more modern floating shelves, put up retro-inspired wallpaper that’s more to our taste, and replaced the knobs and drawer pulls on the cabinetry. It has been a long process to get to these “after” photos, but I’m in love with the finished results. Next up? Hiring someone to put in strategic can lights in the ceiling to help brighten this veryyyyyyy dark room.

Dining Room: It’s sort of hard to get a good side-by-side photo of our formal dining room because it’s a small room with tight vantage points, but I hope the visuals above help you see how far we’ve come! We installed a new chandelier, and then painted the room white. I felt like the room needed a little more color after painting the space white, though, so then I put the same dark green wall color from the living room on the lower half of our dining room. That dark color added a lot more dimension and drama, I think. Finally, I installed my own picture frame moulding on the upper half of the room to mimic some original trim that’s on the doors in the entry.

As for future plans, like I said in the beginning of this post, I have dreams of installing some kind of hardscape patio right off the back of the house situated adjacent to our dining room. I’d love to install French doors and steps down to the hardscape so we can put out a grill and small outside dining set. I can picture it so clearly in my mind, but I think we’re probably years and years away from being able to do that. You’ll be the first to know if we’re able to fast-track that project, of course!

Sunroom: The sunroom updates have all been purely cosmetic and also almost entirely based around new paint. All we’ve done so far is repaint the once-neon-yellow room a bright white, replace the dated ceiling fans, and put up new curtains around the windows. Other than that, it’s all about furniture selection and art. Everything came together really easily and, frankly, I don’t have any big plans for this room other than to continue playing with new furniture and art as we add to our collection over the next decade. What would you do to this room? Let me know your ideas if you have any!

Hall Bathroom: Here’s a big sneak peek into a room I haven’t revealed yet! Our hall bathroom takes second place for biggest transformation since we moved in a year and half ago. We took down the old wallpaper, replaced the counters with new quartz to match the kitchen, and then added new gold faucets and mirrors. We replaced the dated light fixture, and painted the room teal blue before ultimately landing on the soft purple-y/gray color you see in the “after” photos above.

Finally, the most dramatic update has to be the addition of new mod wallpaper in our favorite terracotta-and-blue color palette. I just installed that late last month, and couldn’t possibly love it more. I put it up just on one side of the room so we didn’t overpower the space with pattern, and I think it’s the perfect pop of personality in this bathroom.

Home Office: Those visuals above offer a peek at progress on my home office, which is another makeover I haven’t shared about yet here on the blog! I have a few key swaps planned for later on in the spring/summer, like a new custom rug, and possibly an updated paint color, but I’m loving the art, plants, and furniture layout that I landed on. It has taken me a really long time to settle on the design of my office (square rooms are harder to put together than you might think!), but this space finally succeeds in inspiring my work and motivates me on a daily basis.

Guest Room: Like our sunroom, I don’t have too many changes to report in our guest room, other than furniture updates and art placement. We’re a little bit restricted in this room because of the vintage wallpaper that’s on the walls, which I love. It’s really hard to see it from far away, especially in pictures, but all of the walls are covered in this lovely cream and white floral wallpaper that I think is original to the house. I don’t want to take it down, so, instead, I’ve filled the room with color through the bedding, art, rug, and furniture. We did also update the curtains with newer, longer versions, although now that I’m looking at these photos, I think I should have gone with something a little more colorful…What do you think? Keep the white curtains, or go for something patterned and/or colorful?

Primary Bedroom: Looking at the before/after of our main bedroom makes me smile from ear to ear. Yes, I was sad to say goodbye to the original wallpaper, but it just wasn’t to my taste. I tried designing with it for about a year before finally deciding that its time was up earlier this year. It took an entire week of daily work, but the walls are now crisp and clean, painted a new creamy white color, with blue/green limewash below the chair rail. I’ve since added a little bit of color back into the room through art and pillows, but do you think I should have gone with a bolder solid paint color above the chair rail? I’m open to ideas here!

Primary Bathroom: Our main bathroom has also gotten a few cosmetic upgrades over the past year and a half. We removed the old wallpaper, hung new lighting, replaced the dated vanity faucet, swapped the accordion shower doors with a pretty striped shower curtain, and painted the room a soft, spa-inspired shade of blue/green. It’s not a huge update, but I think it’s just enough to modernize the room so it feels more refreshing to step into.

And there you have it! A room-by-room tour of our home then and now. I have so many things I’d still love to do to the house, but, if I’m honest, my motivation for house projects has stalled a little bit since last year. We went through some pretty tough things as a family with our two cats passing away and then adopting a special needs kitten who needs constant attention. All of my energy is being poured into our household of humans and rescue pets right now, and that just feels right. I’m sure I’ll get back into home projects soon enough, though. It’s my passion after all! Let me know in the comments what you’d do to our house if it was your space to play with.

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