Remodel is complete!

My husband has lived in our home for his entire life. He purchased this house from his parents when he was about 22 years old.  Over the past 13 years, he has completely gutted and remodeled the entire house. He started with the basement and worked his way from room to room, creating beautiful rooms and learning how to do new skills as he went along. When I met him, he had the basement bathroom completed, but the rest of the house was well known to his friends as the "party house". When I moved in 6 years ago, the basement was completely remodeled, but the upstairs still had a "bachelor pad" feel. I told him that I was done with the party house. I wanted a nice place that we could call our own, one that we could feel at home in. Slowly but surely, my talented (but very busy) husband has finished one room at a time. The bathroom and scrapbook room were finished in 2005, the kitchen in 2006, Anna's room in 2008, and finally (FINALLY!)...I have a completed front room in 2011! Our house is done!

I wish I had a few better "before" pictures of our front room. I'm sure I could find some in my mother-in-law's old scrapbooks. Just imagine dark wood paneling on the walls, thick embossed wallpaper (that I'm sure was really nice in the 1980's, but I hated it!), carpet that was laid in 1987, a once-white fireplace stained black with smoke, and a floral couch circa 1976. Ugh! Well, we finished the east side of the room in 2009, but we didn't have the money to complete the west wall. Then, last summer, Trav finally started tearing apart "the wall". I think he was tired of me nagging at him! This pic is from June 2010.

This past week has been huge! We had the granite installed on Tuesday, then on Saturday the carpet was installed, the final step to complete the front room and the hallway. The carpet looks amazing, although the dye lot is very different from the previous installs. Yes, these two bedrooms and the hallway all have the same carpet...hard to believe seeing that all 3 are different shades. The room on the left is the scrapbook room (carpet installed in 2005), the room on the right is Anna's room (carpet installed in 2008), and the hallway was installed this weekend. Lesson learned...if you want the carpet to be the same throughout your house, have it installed at the same time.

My child thought she had died and gone to heaven when the new carpet was finished. A whole empty room with new soft carpet for her to run around and play "ring around the rosies"? I think she was a little bit disappointed when we started moving furniture back into the room.

She also loved the empty coat closet. She cuddled right up with her blankie and said she was "napping".

So here it is...our new wall! Custom solid alder cabinets, alder crown molding, a new stereo (thanks, Santa!), a brand new fireplace insert, and solid surface granite to surround the fireplace. Eventually we will have a flat screen LED TV to put above the fireplace, but for now, until we save up some money, we will have to wait. I think it is still gorgeous! I am just so excited to have this done, especially since this is the first thing you see when you walk into our home. Yay!

Another view...

So what do you think? Was it all worth Trav's sweat and my tears? 

I will get my new couches this weekend. Then it will really feel complete!