Before and Afters, Part one.

Here's a recap for those of you who might be here for the first time...
We moved to Orlando two years ago this past June because my husband took a job as a campus pastor.
A parsonage came with the position, which is a home given to some pastors to live in.


I saw it once when my husband interviewed for the position, and it had college students living in it at the time.
Needless to say, it's not ours, and we can't do exactly what we'd do to it if it were,
But, you'll never hear me complaining because there were major renovations done before we moved in.

{thank you, God.}

It's been six months since I started blogging, and I realized that I've never shown you before and afters.
So, while I'm waiting on the Fall weather to show up, I thought I'd show you a few rooms.

The picture above is our family room.
When you walk in our front door, you can walk through an open doorway into our family room
It is as open as you can get to our kitchen. They're basically just one big room.


The house was in bad shape, so it was going to get a makeover regardless of whether we took the job.
I'm just grateful that we were hired in time to get in on a couple of the decisions.
Basically, we were able to ask for fake hardwood floors, and we were able to choose paint colors.

Fake hardwoods because the other option was tile throughout, and I'm not a "tile throughout" kind of gal.
Real hardwoods weren't in the budget for the church doing the renovations, so I got the next best thing. fake.

The problem with choosing paint colors in a house you've only seen once is that the color can possibly be a great color on a swatch, but when it goes on the wall, it can look completely different.
This was the case, of course, with the color that I picked out.
It turned out way too yellow for my liking due to all the sunlight from the many windows in this house.
My husband actually repainted a few weekends ago to a more neutral color, and we like it so much better!


Below is a picture of what we've done with it.

 We moved from a much more spacious house, so we had to make our furniture work.

This would be the reason that our sofa is in front of the huge bay window.
We've stayed up all hours of the night trying to find a better way, and there isn't one.
This is our version of "making lemonade out of lemons!"

We had a Berber rug in the room, but our sweet little 6 month old Yorkie, Max, ruined it.
I'd never trade the rug for him...he's essentially our fourth child.
There are a ton of windows in the house, which is a great problem to have.
The downside to it is that we have a boat load of books, so our solution was the shelf above the window.

The only thing I really want to do in this room is add one of Pottery Barn's chippy-white, chunky floor lamps.
And, some more pillows to the sofas.  Merry Christmas to me, hopefully.

 
This is the chest on the wall opposite the black armoir.
Do you see that very boring creamy pillow?
It used to have three buttons across it until my dog child or one of my three human children destroyed it.
pardon the imperfections.
Nester says it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful, so I'm going with it.

Well, that's it for the first before and after.
We love this home even though it isn't ours.
It's actually been very freeing to live in a home that we can't change.
Being content with what you have and making the most out of it when you have to is essential to growing up. Right?
I think that might mean I'm officially grown up.

Next up...
the foyer, dining room and living room, which are all part of another big open space.
it is called the living room, right?
the one with no tv.