We lived in our first house for two years before we moved for work. It had a fabulous floorplan and lived so much larger than its 1540 sq ft. We still miss it!
 This is the only known "before" pic. We didn't have a digital camera when we moved in, so this is it. Note the carpet, the white walls, the big ugly mirror and the stained fireplace.
PS - all the clutter is because this is before I got home from Iraq and DH is home alone :P
 This is the after. I did hire a decorator, so I can't say that this is my own creation by any means! I liked the room, but I was intimidated by her and didn't speak up enough when she chose elements that I didn't completely love. My advice if you're thinking of hiring a decorator: speak up!
The budget was $5000 which included:
~The purchase of the entertainment center (consignment shop) and leather sofa (floor sample) ~The reupholstery of 3 chairs ~The creation of the ottoman ~Custom window treatments (wal-mart curtains with details added) ~An assortment of little accents ~Sherwin Williams paint in "Blonde". See Nesties, professional decorators don't have to cost tens of thousands! She found really great furniture pieces I wouldn't have found myself and I have a perfectly coordinated room with great fabrics! We found a local mom & pop company to install engineered HW floors. They did the entire house except for the kitchen & baths for $5000. Quotes for just the LR/DR space from other companies were much more expensive - Lowe's was $7000, Empire was $16,000!
     Many nesties would probably consider the kitchen horribly out of style, but this was a very nice kitchen for our price range in this town. The town really isn't all that "with it", so they're still building brand new houses with these same cupboards! Crazy!
  I had a consultation done at Lowe's in January 2006 and here's what I found out: ~For the cream cabinets, I chose KraftMaid maple in bisque something (sorry lol). The lady said they were great quality, but reasonably priced. They have price levels from A being cheapest up to J the most expensive. Mine were level C. Cost for our kitchen: $6400. I didn't choose any special cabinets other than a pull-out trash can. ~For the countertops, she said the best product is Zodiaq by DuPont. It looks like granite but it's actually quartz. They don't scratch and you can set a hot skillet down with no harm done. Cost: $55-$67 per linear foot. The original solid surface, Corian, is $50-$60 per linear foot. The price depends on the color of the product, and of course all the good colors are more expensive. I have 42 linear feet of counterspace, which equals $2000-$3000 for countertops alone! ~The cost of the cabinets does NOT include installation (have fun, DH!), but the cost of the countertops DOES. ~It took two hours for the woman to enter all the data into the computer to get drawings and estimates. Make sure you have time when you go! Definitely set up an appt if you can. PS - the kitchen design associates work on commission, so go back to the same person when you place your order if you liked them. My first "grown up" furniture was this bedroom set. Would I buy it again? I don't know, but I can tell you it was a fabulous feeling to buy the house by myself and choose the furniture by myself.
  Details of the furniture - the corner of DH's dresser and the bedpost. The bedroom suit is from Ashley Furniture. This grouping was the first furniture I bought when I closed on my house 2 years ago. I don't know if I'd buy it again; there are some places where the quality is questionable. The longer I've had the furniture, the more dings I've noticed that the warehouse colored in with furniture marker. I ordered 7 pieces of furniture from Ashley in one shipment and I had to reject 2 of them because of major defects. They actually had to deliver one of the dressers three times because they kept bringing it to me with serious damage. Dealing with the warehouse was headache-inducing. Everything is stamped "Made in China" on the back. The set is very pretty, I love the two-toned wood and the curved lines, but for what I paid, I'm not totally satisfied. The next time I need furniture, I'll either buy antiques or Ethan Allen.
One of the guest rooms. This color might be Cincinnatian Hotel Nichols Taupe from Lowe's. (I'm not completely sure - it's either for this room or an apartment before this house - but the rooms were similar in color.)
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