In 2008 my husband and I bought our first home. It was 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1650 square feet, and we paid $133,500. It was far from perfect, and for eight years we lived in it, slowly fixed it up on a tiny budget, and scraped our pennies to pay it off as soon as possible. In 2016 we sold it for $210,500 and used that money to build our dream home.

So how about a tour? Here are the before and after photos of our fixer upper.

Exterior

Front Porch

Entryway

Kitchen & Dining Room

Boy’s Bedroom

Guest Room

Laundry Room

Boy’s Bathroom

Living Room

Hallway

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Keep in mind that these are just before and after pictures….my house never looked this good all at once in real life. Most of the time we lived here was spent in the messy middle, with multiple unfinished rooms all in different stages, tools everywhere, general day to day chaos and clutter, and my four young sons keeping things interesting. The messy middle is what this blog is about! Here is a random sampling of messy middle photos …