This is the old front porch light.
Just starting at the front door a little change can breath new life to a place, and since this is the first thing you see when you arrive I wanted it to look good.
That is so much better! The cost? The light was free, another item scrounged from my garage that was originally from my dad's (I did have it hanging at my house but found something I liked better so this was just looking for a place to be used and it was too cute to donate). We only had to buy the house numbers for the total cost of $8. Now both sides of the duplex have matching address signs and lights that almost match.
When you first enter the apartment there is a bathroom and I wanted to remind you what it looked like before. Linoleum flooring, classic bar light and basic builders mirror but it was sectioned into 3 parts, I have no idea why there was 3 mirrors in a bathroom this size. It was a pretty blah bathroom.
(Please ignore the women in the mirror). Now it has a beautiful tiled floor, framed mirror, and a new light. The light is another spray paint makeover, the cabinets were painted black, new faucet, new towel ring, and I hung a framed mirror. Total cost: $110. We will be adding knobs to the cabinets but they had not arrived when I took the pictures.
To the right of the door is a large family/dining room. We replaced the wire mesh fireplace cover and hung a new light fixture.
I did paint the fireplace hearth with a black gloss oil based enamel paint. It was nice to paint with because there were no brush lines but I hate cleaning up oil based paint so I wore gloves and used a foam brush so I just tossed it all. The previous tenant installed a gas fireplace log so the beautiful new fireplace cover now makes it much safer, that small hole on the right is the gas shut-off. This fireplace opening is extremely large so my dad actually framed the sides of opening in steel that I painted to match the frame and even up close it looks like it is meant to be that way. I am becoming a professional spray painter, I even used high heat paint on the inside of the fireplace. It looks so much better. Also notice the beautiful custom blinds in those very narrow windows. Yes, the blinds were on sale!
I did spray paint this light too, it is the one that hangs in the dining space ($35). The most challenging task for me was rewiring it so that it was long enough because the ceiling is VERY high, it wasn't hard to actually do the wiring but it was something I hadn't done before. For my husband the hardest job was hanging this light! He is 6' tall and stood on the very top of our 16' ladder and could barely reach high enough to hang the light for me. The only reason he did it was because I had told him my idea to get the ladder high enough for me (5' 7" tall) to reach and he felt that him standing with no support on the ladder was safer than my plan. My plan involved putting the ladder on 2 tables and using bricks to make sure it didn't slide off, I figured if I did it while my 5 year old was there he could use my phone and call for help if anything went wrong. I do realize it wasn't very well thought out but it did seem like a good idea at the time. As I write about this plan now I can't believe my sweet husband wasn't more shocked by the idea, and then it occurred to me that I probably have more "plans" like this than I realize and he has just learned to help out in order to keep me safe from myself.
If you were to go to your left from the front door you come to the stairs and the breakfast area. Yes, another painted light hanging in the dining area ($25). The tiles in the entrance, bathroom, and kitchen were $1.19 each for a 20 x 20 tile. They were left over tiles from CHASE bank remodels. The beautiful hardwood floors make a big difference in how large every room looks, previously there was carpet. I did lay a few feet of flooring but it is very slow work when doing it on your own. It works better to have 1 person lay out the flooring and another staple it down. I have always wanted to learn to lay hardwood floors and now I know how to do it. It is almost as fun for me as painting.
The kitchen is the biggest change we made on the main floor.
We put in all new oak cabinets, tiled the back splash, and opened up the wall to create a breakfast bar. The original kitchen had a 3 foot square window opening. It now is a 6 1/2' wide opening and it goes all the way to the ceiling where we installed 2 can lights. There will also be knobs on the cabinets but they also had not arrived yet. The counter tops are a HD finish laminate. Total cost (excluding the cabinets): $1511. I also replaced the hall lights and put in all new blinds but there are no pictures of these. I painted the exterior of the french doors leading to the back yard, it was the first time I was able to use my new paint sprayer, I guess it is as good as anything to learn on. All in all it is now a very beautiful and livable space.
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