It's official!

The paperwork was signed early on Thursday morning, effectively ending my search for a home and placing the keys to the Amnesty House in my hands. It's a pretty exciting and overwhelming moment, highlighted by the fact that I was too wimpy to actually pull the "For Sale" sign from the front yard when I actually got there.

The house is absolutely beautiful and gorgeous, but needs lots of TLC and lots and lots of cleaning! In this post, I'd like to show a few "before" pictures before we get too deep into renovations. That way, y'all can appreciate so much more what we've done when (and if) we're finally done making her shine.

Rather than overwhelm you with a million shots, I'll start with before pictures of what we worked on on Day 1 - the kitchen, and the bathroom. (We also painted the laundry room, but I don't have any "before" pics of that.)

The house is sexy from the outside. The bushes need to be trimmed around the front (and I'm going to add flowers, too) and the front porch will eventually be screened in, but even without all of that she's still quite a looker. :)

The pool has the potential to be a lot of fun, and was one of the big draws in deciding on this house. The pool cage needs to be powerwashed (that green stuff is gross) but other than that, everything else is in great shape. Plan to put a palm tree in the corner of the cage to make it more "tropical." Oh, and this picture was taken two months ago before the bank shut off the power. When we got the keys on Thursday, the water was pea soup with spiders and other creepies swimming in it (barf). Thanks to pool guy extraordinaire Richard Graham, two days later we can almost see the bottom again. Hopefully swimming will be able to happen soon!

 

The second bathroom is a good size but pretty foul looking, thanks to its less-than-sexy wallpaper and accompanying wallpapered cabinet. (You'll see a pattern of faulty decorating throughout the "before" pictures.) This wallpaper did not last long in my mom's hands.

The kitchen has the potential to be the most beautiful space in the house (LOVE to cook), but was fouled up previously by some artist/explorer wannabe who decided to turn it into a jungle (yes, it goes up onto the ceiling). I made it my personal mission to destroy this wallpaper as quickly as possible.

So anyway, that's a start! My parents are only here until Sunday so we're trying to get as much done as possible as a team before they head back to Michigan and it's all in my hands. I'd like to think they're working hard because they want me to have to do as little as possible on my own, but I have a sneaking suspicion they know that leaving me alone in a huge house with a power drill, a million screws and 50 gallons of paint will not end well for anyone. (It WOULD, however, be a fun ride!)

More to come...