Thursday’s Top Five

Before I get to this week’s top five (I love my new little series!), I must say I had the most wonderful Mother’s Day weekend! I will blog about that tomorrow.
This week’s Top Five is about my favorite home improvement projects. We have been in our house for just over three years now. It’s not a big house, and definitely not our dream home, but we have done several upgrades to it and I feel as if we have put our “stamp” on it.

The first picture I took of our little abode! I don’t think we even owned it at this point!
This is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in:

WOW! I almost forgot how horrid it was! White appliances in terrible shape, “wood” countertops, icky hardware, wallpaper border, and scratched cabinets.
1. Painted countertops

Everyone thought I was crazy when I said I wanted to paint our countertops, but I had nothing to lose. The fake butcher block was getting on my last nerve. You can read more about this project here, here, and here! It was an easy and cost effective project. I would do it again in a heartbeat. It’s not something I would want in my forever house, but it did the trick for the time being! Other updates in our kitchen: new paint, new appliances, new skirt above the sink, and new hardware.
2. Dining Room (or really dining area) Light

You can barely see our old light in this picture. It was just a standard, builder-grade light. Nothing special. My mom, or maybe it was Brandon, bought a new light for my dining room.
Ta-da!

Love!
3. New Doors
Brandon’s parents bought us new doors for Christmas last year. They made a huge difference!

4. Bathroom

This is really the only picture I have saved from our old master bath. Almost two years ago, on my summer vacation, I started to pull up one of the sticky tiles in our master. The shower was leaking, so I pulled the rest up. After walking on the concrete slab for almost 6 months, we decided to completely gut the shower and remodel both bathrooms.

Hallway bath:

5. Blinds
Before:

And I don’t have a current after shot… but this will give you the feel.

Brandon recently installed blinds on our back patio door. It gave us some much needed privacy! I always felt like I was being watched… Creepy.
As much as I long for a bigger, nicer, newer home, I am going to miss our first starter home SO much. So many wonderful memories!