The Beginning of the Before and After Pictures:


Living room before


Living room after


To the right of the front door before


To the right of the front door after.  Not much different, just cleared
out a bit. 


Kitchen before:

   

   

and the kitchen after:

 

All of the upper cupboards had doors removed and were painted in Walmart paint, "Black Rose," which is a match for Sherwin Williams, "Black Bean." The cupboard with the dishes in it on the right still needs the inside painted, which will happen this weekend.  The walls were painted a softened green, a border of mossy oak leaves was added and "wallies" of bears and trees were added.  I have beautiful harvest appliqués and I am still mulling where to put them.  The cupboard above the stove had the huge ventilation duct removed to provide more storage area.  A ventless hood was installed.

I hate it.  It has no pull at all, but I do like the extra overhead storage.  The ivy wallpaper was removed and vinyl tiles (from The Dollar Tree, 3 for $1) were purchased and applied using the sticky adhesive on the back of the tiles, supplemented with Liquid Nails.  The tiles were a challenge because the walls are very uneven, but I am happy with the result.  It is very, very easy to take care of and keep clean, as are the darker cupboards.

 

The cupboard doors below are still open because the paint went on yesterday and is still a little tacky.  I still need to do some touch up on the cupboards, which will happen this weekend when I paint the inside of the dish cupboard.

The cupboard over the oven, which previously had baking pans in it, had the door removed and was painted.  The microwave was moved up there.  The upper shelf was then used to store the baking pans, which are now nested together.


This is detailing (albeit fuzzy) of the bears, trees and mossy oak border.   I keep my coffee filters in my big junk pig (it has little geegaws in it) and I like how it makes it look like he's wearing a jaunty little hat.

  
The shelf that was previously up against the refrigerator was relocated (show you in a minute) and only the black, metal shelf remains.  It is now a bread, snack and utensil area.  The mug rack was painted to match the cupboards.  Josh got me that little plaque that says, "Home is where your Mom is."  Awww.


The bottom became overflow storage from the open cupboards, since it will look crappy if I have much stuff up there.    I bought a dark basket that happened to match the paint and it is now my potato bin.

  
Behind the table, the door was taken off of a cupboard that had been previously used to store games that had lost pieces and were no longer usable.  These were discarded and the cupboard is now used to store diet sodas, Capri suns and such.  The shelf behind the table is used for decorative purposes, plus to store the bottled water.


This closet under the stairs was originally basically unusable space where things were tossed.  I moved the shelf from next to the refrigerator and put it into the closet for pantry use. 


All of it together - please ignore my recycling around my trash can.  Of course, the overall kitchen appearance is that it's much darker than it was when everything was white, which I like much, much better.

 
This is a quarter turn from dining room table.  A wicker basket ($4 at Walmart, you'll see a lot of those through the house) was put by the bottom of the stairs to hold shoes.  

Now into the family room, which is to the left of the stairs...

This area was previously the dog room and storage area, as well as my laundry room.  It is still all of those things, but also has Eric's desk in it now and has been cleaned out a bit.  It could use a good sweeping today, but overall, is better.  Here it is after:

The doors used to be at the entrance of the room. The screw that holds one of them up became damaged, so both went down and they are awaiting repair.  See the picture of the tree in the middle between the two windows?  That tree followed me around for years.  I found that tree pictures in thrift shops across the nation.  I love it.  To the right is a (get ready) Beatles decoupage.  I'm a major fan of Da Boys.  That's Aiden's toy box (my grandson) for when he visits.  The mats and rugs on the floor are for my poochies to sleep on.  Jo-Bu keeps eating them.  This room is off of the family room and is still waiting for paint, which Eric will do (I'm too short, even with a ladder, for this one).


My desk area in the family room before, the laundry/dog/storage room in the back...

  
My desk area afterward.  Pictures were changed out, the shelf to the left of the desk was replaced with a printer table.  A file box was put under the printer table to hold a lot of my vital paperwork.  The floral curtains were replaced with bamboo blinds.  Different statues were used.  To the left is my personal computer and to the right is my transcription computer.

The family room before...

 

 

There were 2 6' book shelves end to end across the one wall.

  

...and after

 
The curtains at the smaller window are replaced with bamboo blinds and the green and blue curtain on the back door is replaced with a white set of curtains.  One of the 6' book shelves was taken out to the meditation area and other furniture was distributed more evenly around the room.  The chaise was rejoined with the rest of the couch.


This is a close up of my kid wall over the couch.  This is a collage I made about 7-8 years ago of photos of my boys who are now grown up.  Photos of my little kids (the last 3) surround it.  The collage is about 36x24".

  
My weights!  Yayy!  ...and that's right, a console stereo.  The giant bear in the background by the turtle tank gets dressed up every year for Halloween.  Last year, he was Superman. This year, he has on a convict's outfit.


This is to the left of the collage (window in between them).  That long strip above the blinds and below the ceiling will be painted the same color as the kitchen cupboards...


...as will that strip that the track lighting is attached to and the three shelves you see that are above the doors and above the TV.  I am not sure when I'm going to get to that, but I hope it's soon because other than the kitchen painting I'm doing this weekend, that's the last of it.
NOTE:  11/8 - I  changed my mind about painting the two horizontal strips along the top of the family room.  I am concerned that since I would be using a color so much darker than the ceiling that ANY imperfection (and since the ceiling lines are crooked, there is bound to be a number of them) would be glaringly evident.  Also, it would make the lighter colored ceiling look dingier.  Instead, I am going to paint the outermost edges of the shelves the darker color, as well as the ceiling fan blades and call it a day.

Now for some of the upstairs:


I put one of those famous $4 baskets on the landing and it is the "halfway" basket.  I put things in there that were left downstairs that the boys need to take upstairs and they have been really good about keeping it cleared up. 


This is the before photo of the stairs.  They are now scrubbed clean (didn't think I could get the stains out because I'd tried many times, but finally, I scrubbed long enough), but I didn't take photos of them.  Eric was very dedicated to keeping the carpet and it was less work for me ultimately because each stair has tack strips all around it for the carpet.


This open linen closet got a curtain on a pressure rod to close it off:


The curtain matches the one to my balcony doors.

The bathroom before:
 

And after:

  
The cabinet was replaced out with a pedestal sink ($100 at Home Depot), plus the giant fixtures from Walmart ($20) and a wrought iron shelf to hold towels and some of the crap that had previously been stored in the cabinet.  The wallpaper was removed and walls were painted the same green as the kitchen.  That damned deformation you see on the side of the medicine chest was caused by BLUE PAINTER'S MASKING TAPE ripping the varnish off of the medicine chest when I *gently* removed it. 


The ugly clothes basket was replaced out by one of those $4 baskets, which encourages me to empty it more often.

 
Bear and deer appliqués were stuck up all around.  One reason I believe wallpaper was previously chosen is that the walls were found to be in not great shape, but I just painted over them.  Tra la.

That just leaves the boys' room, my room and Delena's room for pictures. Delena is doing her room and is taking forever, so I don't know when it will be posted.  Photos of my room and the boys' room will be posted soon, likely the beginning of next week.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions!