Welcome to the Manor!

The very first time I drove by the Manor, I knew we'd be lucky to get it!  It was so cute and had so much charm.  Unlike these newer housing tracks with a minimum of ten houses an acre and absolutely no yard to speak of and each looking like the next, this charming neighborhood consists of individual uniquely styled homes.  The Manor was built in 1964 so you know it was built well.  After speaking with the neighbors, many a family have lived here.  We purchased it from a ninety year old grandpa who liked to sit in his chair in the dark and paneled living room and cut out pictures of sexy women to hang on his wall.  He just got too old to take care of the property but we could tell that he had until he couldn't.

     From the sandstone rock fireplace to the stained blue carpet to the paneling on the wall, this place needed work but we never let that fool us.  We could see the potential this place had!  Okay, so maybe I had to convince L a little bit but, luckily, she bought into it and here we are!  While there is still so much to do, we've come a long way and we absolutely love it!  There's work to be done but so potentially incredibly marvelous!

With that being said, here are pictures of the very first project we started the night we got the keys -

There once was a wall between the family room...

...and the dining room.  The dining room was a cave between the family room and the kitchen.

EWWW GROSS!  Let's lighten things up!  Off with the paneling!!

Let's see what's behind wall number 1...

...the makings of an open floor plan!  Sarah would be so proud!

The room then required a beam because there once stood a load bearing wall.  Isn't it cute?  BTW - this is all on the backside of the house.  That cute little door there goes to the backyard.  If you look straight back passed the fireplace, you'll see a white wall with black spots.  That's the master and those are tar spots that held up the wall o' mirror!  Note the disgusting blue carpet and the naked fireplace.  More on that another time.

Before

 After

As you can see we've made a huge difference already and THIS party has only begun!  Stay tuned and we'll show you how we transformed our hideous 1964 fireplace into the magnificent gem you see here!

For additional photos of the family room project, visit our online photo album.