BEFORE:

As of today:

Man, even though we bought the house of our own free will, I look at these original pictures now and think, “ew.” The “before” pictures look so unappealing, so cold and impersonal. Now that we’ve made a few changes, the place is starting to look like a home and the stark contrast is really amazing. And believe me, we didn’t spend a lot. I picked out some cheapo tile ($1.89/sf at The Tile Guy), got rid of the ugly cheapo light fixtures in favor of more modern cheapo light fixtures, put some paint on the wall and “splurged” on a bit of a backsplash–glass mosaic that only appears on the focal wall of the kitchen. Voila, Chez Callan instead of Generics R Us.

And I’m not even finished yet. I want to add hardware after I paint the cabinets with a pop of color–what color I have in mind shall remain nameless until I have pictures because I’m afraid you’ll revoke my designer card if you can’t see it the way I see it in my head. It’s gonna be great, and hopefully, a bit unexpected.

In person, the yellowish paint in the kitchen looks more like what you see on the dividing wall, and not the bright greenish-gold on the far right. I didn’t take time to light everything the way I would if I were really shooting “after” pics. Just wanted to illustrate with a couple of snapshots how you can make some minimal changes that have great impact. We won’t be spending much more…maybe a gallon of paint for the cabinetry, and maybe $2-3 on each door/drawer pull. We’re trying to be mindful of overimprovement, so I created room in the budget for my one splurge (the glass tile) and hacked the budget on the rest.

Moving day is (hopefully) Monday, so I’ll be taking a breather for a couple of days to power-pack and try to achieve some semblance of “settled in” before I go back to work in earnest on Tuesday!