Oh what a weekend we’ve had! It’s a cloudy Wednesday afternoon, and Laryssa and I are sitting in our living room looking at all of the upgrades we’ve made over the last weekend. Three days of DIY projects means lots of joy, laughter, and the occasional cuss word…installing crown molding and recessed lighting really brought out the best in me. And as we’re sitting here, we’ve also realized that it’s been almost a month since we’ve updated you on the Beck Street House. We also haven’t spilled any of the before shots we have of the house. So without further ado, here’s some shots of the front half of our downstairs the day we moved in way back in January.

OUR FRONT PORCH

Before we head inside, here’s a few quick shots of our front porch. And yes, in case you missed it, that is a tree.

The pictures don’t show it very well, but it’s a huge front porch! As much history as the tree has with this house, it’s missing the top half from a storm a few years back, so we’re hoping to remove it down the road [but we have some cool plans with the lumber]. We’d love to fill in the ceiling and the boards, and make the deck even bigger. We also plan to paint the front door this summer. Also on the list is some patio furniture. [We love the idea of morning coffee on our front porch. Except for the coffee part. We hate coffee.]

OUR FOYER

Okay, welcome to the Beck Street House! Imagine Laryssa and I standing here greeting you to our fancy dinner party. Thanks for bringing your nicest bottle of your classiest white wine [red is still nasty – we aren’t that old] that we’ll probably never drink. Our butler will take your coats. And don’t mind our dog, hopefully you’re not wearing all black and don’t mind adding a few white hairs to your ensemble. Anyway, here’s our foyer.

The previous owner told us the brick floor came from an old brewery in our town that closed in the 60’s. The bricks have random stars carved into them, and we love everything about them. The pebble wall? Not so much. This summer, we’re hoping to cover or replace it with a plank wall, a big gold circle mirror, and a skinny table. The only thing we’ve done so far is paint the register, but we can’t wait for summer to hit to really make this room shine.

OUR LIVING ROOM

A step up from our foyer brings you into our living room, which is one of our favorite rooms of the house. Just like the brick floor in the foyer, this room hosts a tin ceiling which was salvaged from an old high school building a few blocks away.

True to the house, this room was filled with ducks and other water fowl. It also had a grass-like wallpaper, which just wasn’t us. Our real estate agent tried telling us it was “back in” and we could paint it. Since we’ve moved in, this room has probably changed the most – new paint, thick crown molding, new lights, the whole five yards – and we can’t wait to share it with you! Although this room has changed the most, the previous owner was nice enough to leave her furniture for us, which we still use. This was a huge help as we let go of our college-grade furniture when we packed up our apartment last fall.

One of the projects we are most looking forward to is adding a set of french doors in between our living room and Laryssa’s office, which will replace the single door in the picture above. We knew as soon as we moved in that we wanted to do this, so it seemed like fate when we found a BRAND NEW set of Anderson French Doors for sale on Facebook a few months back.

It went from me showing Laryssa the post on Facebook, to hitting the road and picking them up 30 minutes later. They’re brand new and haven’t been stained yet. And the best part? We spent a whopping $45 on these beauties. We can’t wait to paint and install them [which we won’t even try to attempt ourselves.] From what we know of him, we like to think that the previous owner would be proud of us for this thrifty move.

LARYSSA’S OFFICE

Our future french doors will open up to Laryssa’s office.

And as much as we’d love to tell you everything we’ve done so far in this room, that list is limited to bedding, putting one of Laryssa’s favorite chairs in the corner, and storing some of our odds and ends in the closet. Eventually we’d love to rip down the wallpaper and paint the walls, add a desk in the middle, and take down the funky ceiling above the closet. We’d also love to make the wall in the picture above a huge corkboard wall (around our french doors) to hang prints, pictures, and other inspiration for Laryssa’s graphic design business. But until then, it serves as our guest bedroom. Someday!

And as much as we’d love to share pictures of the entire house with you in this post, our local ice cream shop opened tonight, and we have some serious priorities to take care of [And yes, we are suppose to be on Day 17 of Whole 30. Oops!]

Ciao!

Alan + Laryssa