Full bath to half bath redo

When we bought the house it had 4 full baths. Great, right?  Not so much for me.  I'm probably one of very few people that thought it was overkill for this house.  I just thought, with no bedrooms on the first floor, why have a full bath (with a claw foot tub, nonetheless).  Sooo,  I remade it into a half bath. I kept the other three baths as full baths, but completely remodeled them - I'll save those for another post.  

Here it was the day we purchased it:

The wallpaper is actually a Currier and Ives-type print from a book.  Each one individual. Glued on.  With liquid-nails.  Seriously.  We had to take all four walls down completely and re-drywall.  No joke.  That should've been our first sign with this house.  Anyway, after pictures coming soon:)

Shabby cottage chic meets french country cottage in my living room redo

The living room is almost finished!  Ok, it looks finished and, right now, it needs to be finished; however, I'm sure there will be tweaking in the near future....Who am I kidding? There will definitely be tweaking (before I even posted this, I'd already changed some things! Look closely and you'll see some differences between some of the "after" pictures!) Anyway, on to the present.

Here are the "befores" and "afters":

 

 Really all I did in this room was paint, clean and move in!  Unfortunately, we ran out of the reno budget sooner than we thought thanks to some unplanned expenses (might I suggest, to anyone renovating an old home, a fairly large contingency fund...) and were not able to refinish the floors.  I've justified it by telling myself we have young children and a large dog, so why bother? They'll just rescratch them.  That worked for about a week.  It's back to driving me crazy. 

My cluttered English-country-cottage-cozy decorating for the window seats under each window flanking the fireplace until I can afford built-in glass door bookcases (or figure out how to build them myself).  

This house is an exercise in patience and decorating in stages.  Not being a patient person, I'm finding it incredibly challenging....  Built-in bookcases are stage 2, or 3.  Translation - we're out of money and it's going to be awhile:(

Where to put the laundry room?

I have SO many ideas for the old house we are buying (2 weeks until closing....)!  The biggest challenge?  Well, money of course, but that's boring!  I'd prefer to live in my unlimited-budget-fantasy-until-the-ranch-home-sells-and-reality-hits-world.  No, the real question is:  Where to put the laundry room?  The previous owners had it in what is going to be my children's bathroom on the second floor.  THAT will never work, not with my kids.... Soooo.....where to put it?  Maybe on the main floor in or by the bathroom?  Hmm.....

Maybe in the basement?

Umm, no probably not.  Too damp and far away from the bedrooms.  Not to mention, my kids will use the "I'd love to help with the laundry; however, it's waaay too creepy down there Mom!"  Or the fall back and ever popular "No, waaaay!"  Have to give that more thought..... on to the fun stuff - the decorating ideas!

 Love the idea of having a sink in the laundry room.

 Great crafting/wrapping/folding area!

We're closing in the back porch for a mud room.  Wonder if we could make it a laundry room too?

I really like this for a basement laundry room....not sure ours would work this well....

I LOVE wallpaper!  I'm going to have to use it somewhere...