Kozell Home Update

It's been awhile since I shared an update on the house. If you follow me on Instagram then you have seen glimpses of our truly incredible progress. Get ready for lots of pictures - before & after!

First of all, we finally popped open the bottle of champagne we had been saving since last Christmas for when we bought a house. We made mimosas with Rick (my FIL), MJ (Dad's GF) and Bobby. Jokes on me, while being pregnant got me out of painting and heavy lifting...I also missed out on the champagne celebration. However, sparkling cider + OJ = delicious! Who knew?!

I think one of my favorite things about our house is the fireplace. I have always wanted a fireplace and a mantle to decorate. It was one of the features we were really hoping to get when house shopping but living in South Florida, I didn't hold my breath. We want to get the fireplace checked and cleaned before we make a fire so unfortunately it's been all for show thus far. I decorated it for Halloween with the super cute $1 Target "Trick or Treat" and "Happy Halloween" signs. Then I switched the signs out for the tall glass vases. I was thinking of getting some faux fall leaf branches to add some height since we have tall ceilings but I never got around to it. Plus, we are trying to budget and I didn't have a good sales pitch for the Hubs on how faux branches were must haves. Maybe next year! We have future plans to refinish the fireplace with brick and a new mantle to warm it up. I cannot wait to see our stockings hanging up there shortly. Eek!

Okay, are you ready for some before & after pictures? You may want to sit down. I am convinced these people were on crack or maybe just plain stupid. They did a lot of really weird things and their decorating choices were some of them.

{BEFORE: Family Room connected to the kitchen and breakfast nook. I called this the merlot wall. Check out the dull, cold, dated tile. Yuck!}

{AFTER: Family Room. TV wall is Wythe Blue by Benjamin Moore and french door wall is Hazelnut Cream by Behr. The hazelnut color is our base color for most of the house. We love it. Our rental had 20 ft construction white ugly dull paint. We were allowed to paint and did not have to paint back to white when we moved out so we did bedrooms and accent walls but we were not going to pay to paint 20 ft walls in a rental so I suffered for 5 ½ long years. Only slightly dramatizing that. LOL}

{After: Family Room. These floors are perfection. This was our biggest splurge as the whole house had various ugly tile throughout. While we were thrilled to not have to deal with disgusting carpet, we could not wait to redo the flooring. I am in awe of my husband. He has never put in laminate wood flooring before and he took on an entire house. Our house is 2251 sq ft under air. The only room not redone with the wood is our master bathroom. My brother-in-law, Bobby has been over at the house almost every weekend helping with flooring as well as some cameos from Bri's friends, Matt and Jose. Brian's dad has been coming down (2 hour drive each way) almost every weekend since we closed in late August as well. He did majority of the painting as Brian hates painting so that has been a real big help!}

I know what you're thinking. Ashley, a merlot wall and some dull tile. Not.that.bad. Oh, I was just easing y'all into the "beauty" of this place before we worked out magic.

{BEFORE: Ahh! What were they thinking?! Spare bedroom #1 aka the USA room as we fondly referred to it as for several weeks. Let's just say they did not include pictures of any of the bedrooms in the listing of this house. Surprise, surprise. LOL}

{AFTER: Spare bedroom. So.much.better. and it doesn't even have baseboards yet! Walls are painted Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore. Originally, this was going to be the office or guest room or craft room when we painted it. We have since decided it is most likely going to the Baby Boy's nursery. Yay! We are going to keep the gray which I think makes my father-in-law very happy since he painted this room.}

{BEFORE: Spare bedroom #2 aka the South America room. What were they thinking? Mustard and like a dark teal accent. And there's more of that tile. See, I told you they were on crack. ;)

{AFTER: Spare bedroom #2. Walls are Cool Mint by Benjamin Moore. As you can see, the color changes with the time of day but the photo on the right is the most accurate. It's bright. I am not going to lie, it is brighter than I thought was going to be. Luckily, the flooring really warmed it up and helped to balance it/tone it down. This has clearly become our catch all room. Right now it is the office/tool storage/library/craft and holiday decoration storage room. Once the "Red Room of Pain" aka office is done we can hopefully get some control on this room. Both spare bedrooms are approximately 11' x 12' so they are decent size rooms which is nice.}

{BEFORE: Red Room of Pain aka our future office as well as an AFTER: Pantry. Before we moved in we were planning on making the red room the nursery because it is right next to our room and the spare bedrooms are across the house. For a number of reasons we have decided we will make the gray room the nursery and register for a 4moms Breeze which has a bassinet feature to use in our room in the beginning. Who knows, that plan could change too. The pantry is now in full use and we just love it. I think I can speak for both of us when I say we are so happy to not have the wire pantry shelves like in our rental. Like I said earlier, I am in awe of my husband. He is truly so talented. I cannot wait to see him working on projects with our little man. I mean, babies come out knowing how to hold a hammer, right? ;) The funny/slightly scary part is that if you know me, you know I am so clueless when it comes to babies so I can just see Brian reading this, thinking to himself: 'Oh no, now I've got to make sure she doesn't think hammers are newborn toys.' Come on, give me some credit. I know a hammer is a traditional 1st birthday gift. Duh!}

As you can see, we are still under construction but we really have come so far. It is really fun to see the progress and I think it will be great to document and look back on this crazy time. I could keep going but I think you need to recover from the USA and South America room photos. I will have to do another post on our master, dining room, kitchen and fireplace room in the coming weeks. What do you think? Doesn't it looks like a totally different house?

Happy Weekend!