2 Year Home Anniversary

Hello friends and happy Friday! I hope you’re all staying well and enjoying the start of summer even though it feels a bit different from what we are used to. We’ve been finding new ways to keep entertained at home since we haven’t been able to go to all of our usual summer hangouts like the zoo and the splash park. I’ve been creating daily crafts for them to make and science experiments to try and so far they seem to enjoying this new normal. I’m sure these days will be remembered forever by them!

So it’s official–this month we are celebrating 2 whole years in our new fixer upper! It’s honestly hard to believe how quickly these years have flown by. Two years ago we had just wrapped up renovating just about every square inch of our first home and we decided to sell it to buy this house. People thought we were absolutely nuts and we were super nervous about taking on another whole-house makeover.

It hasn’t been easy and we’ve faced our fair share of struggles, but despite that I feel like we’ve made some major progress since the very beginning. Last year I went around and snapped some before and after shots so I thought that would be fun to do again this year to see what we’ve accomplished this past year!

Front Room

Not much has changed in here over the past year, yes we are still missing baseboards haha. I plan to start the board and batten before fall so hopefully this view will be a little different by next year if all goes according to plan.

Steps

A few months ago we got started on the stairs but only got about halfway through before I decided to switch to the playroom. It’s a bit more work than we had anticipated (you can read about our process in this post) so I figured that a small break was needed. Last week we actually started on the flooring upstairs so as soon as we wrap that up we’ll get back to it and try to finish them up.

Kitchen

Last fall I participated in the One Room Challenge to give our kitchen a whole new look. The details can be found in this post here. Everything outside of the quartz counterops was DIY’ed–the farmhouse sink installation, painting the cabinets, the island makeover the range hood cover and the subway tile backsplash.

It’s amazing how much paint and hard work can really pay off. I would still like to eventually add upper cabinets, but for now I’m calling this room done!

Living Room

The only change that’s happened in here over the past year are the window pane mirrors that I added. I still plan to add board and batten on the side walls and shiplap to the back wall. I also want to limewash the brick on the fireplace and build a new mantle.

Oh–and can you spot my major photography fail? If you look closely at the mirror on the left you can see me in all of my quarantine glory–no makeup, messy bun and pajama tee. That’s how I’ve been rolling almost every day since the beginning of March haha!

Hallway

No major changes to the hallway this year although I love the comparison shot so much that I had to share! Can’t you just imagine how pretty the board and batten wrapping around these walls is going to look?

Mudroom Nook

Let’s not pay attention to our couch that’s sagging thanks to our new dog that likes to plop on top of the cushions. Instead, let’s focus on what used to be the pantry on that wall behind it.

Last summer we tore out the shelves, built a storage bench and added a shelf to make a little mudroom nook. The full tutorial can be found here. This space gets a lot of use, especially in the winter when we have coats, boots and mittens galore!

Playroom

The playroom is getting a makeover for the current season of the One Room Challenge and it’s juuuuust about finished. I have some minor touch ups but this is a little sneak peak of where it’s at today. I’ll have the reveal up very soon and I can’t wait to share all of the cute details with you guys!

Backyard

In early May I finally found motivation to get started on our backyard which was somewhat of a mess when we moved in and had only gotten worse over the past two years. This before picture below was after I went through and took out the weeds out of the main yard and before I had gone through the flowerbed edging.

This is where it’s at today. I’m still working on weed control and slowly but surely the grass seed that I planted is starting to fill in.

And that wraps up all the big accomplishments over the past year. It’s nice to look back and see how much it’s changed since day one–if you’ve ever lived in a fixer upper you probably know what I mean when I say it feels like we’re going nowhere fast!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, I’ll be back next week 🙂

(Affiliate links may be provided for convenience.  For more info, see my full disclosure here.) 

Linking up to these awesome parties!