Before and After House Renovation in Shoreline, Washington

Before


After


This home improvement renovation just cheered up and modernized this house! We hadn’t had a chance to hang the art properly yet when the 'After' photos were taken, but I think you see the difference in how the lighting warmed, cheered and brightened up the place. Also we re-positioned the sofa and chairs, giving an improved flow into and around the living room. The vintage blue Queen Anne inspired library chairs the homeowner already had purchased and now put to use!

They hung the larger more colorful art in new locations, which is now the first thing you see coming in the front door (on the right out of this photo). It is so welcoming everyone wants to be in this room now, instead of instantly wandering into the media TV room.

The dedicated husband and wife team striped the popcorn ceiling with a pancake spatula and a water sprayer, covering the floor with the plastic you see in the "Before" photo at the top. They wore masks, and carefully mopped up anything which was not caught by the plastic. Once finished the new pot lights and ocular lights were hung by our electrician.

I had the couple purchase matching custom-made, simple oak book shelves for storage (see the "After" picture to the left and right of the fireplace). We kept them short, not going to the ceiling so they would not appear looming over you while seated. We faux painted the white fireplace to look like a pale and aged red brick in under 1 hour.

We also painted the interior of the house a light coral color - changing the color, warming it up made a huge difference. The homeowner was truly afraid of making a mistake color and nearly all surfaces were white, white and more white - painted or otherwise. Calling the color 'coral' instead of 'pink' helped a lot to sell the idea of something other than white.

The torchiere relocated to the media room leaving more space here in the main room where it was needed; the yellow sofa, and large TV set we moved to the completed media room.

The lady of the house told me that no one ever wanted to sit in that cold living room. Now people sit and talk comfortably and you can see everything.

In other major changes we added a dining room, the hot water heater was once in the center of the house, we dropped it into the basement, replacing it with an automatic heat on demand style water heater. This expanded their useful space quite a bit. Since they had no basement the space for the heater had to be dug out and a small concrete floor and utility stairs poured. Diging out the hard packed soil was more difficult than first imagined – but with friends and family, it went fast.

They engaged in a large number of improvements, including adding a new roof. The lights need to be focused in that quick shot I took. We are looking for a suitable living room table, and continually try to pare things down. It’s clean and more than livable now, it is a pleasure.