Before and Afters- Bluebells Sun Room

We are a bit snowed in at Cowfeathers today. Well, mostly iced in. The snowfall was fast and furious, but then it was followed by rain. So, encased in a layer of ice, if the sun had come out (which it did not) we would've been a diamond.

In honor of sunshine and light, I thought today's Before and After should be of the Bluebells sunroom. Bluebells original building was your typical two-over-two. Central front door and stair, living room to the left, dining room with kitchen tucked in behind on the right, and upstairs big bedroom to the left and bedroom with bathroom tucked in behind on the right. Sometime in the 1950s, the Bells put on a room across the back of the house, a big room, with jalousie windows and real pine paneling. Aluminum jalousie windows being amongst the greatest conductors of cold, they added a behemoth of a wood stove at some point, covering over a window to the backyard behind the stove. Then, after that addition, they added the sunroom with 8 sliding glass doors around the room, opening it right into the tidy, sweet back yard. I am a fan of indoor/outdoor rooms. These rooms feel outside but have some protection. For starters- a roof. So, this was a big selling point for me. The optimist eyes of mine could overlook the actual covering of the room to see what it would be- later. The pragmatist knew that the transformation would require a LOT of paint. And, pregnant ladies shouldn't do this overmuch. So, Huz gallantly stepped forward to do the painting in this room- the room I chose for the first makeover. While he painted, I eliminated layers of butterfly wallpaper in the big bedroom...but I'll show that B&A another time. 

Before

 Here is the sunroom on move-in day. As you can see, I wasted no time taking down dusty outdated window treatments. I think my darling realtor was alarmed at my focus on ridding the house of it's vacancy dust, so arrived with staple groceries for my children, and paper plates, making them PB&J's. Which I then served on the brown indoor/outdoor carpeting- my goodness, was there not someplace cleaner?You can see the ho-hum clamshell moldings around the doors and the closet behind Middlest (who, at the time was Youngest). The closet is built in front of a window. Nun-uh. Not staying. The door at the back of the room leads into the pine paneled big room- which will become a mudroom, dining room, and master suite after I get done building a baby.

 I had forgotten about the hanging stained glass lamp-on-a-swag-chain. I wonder what I did with it?
Probably what I did with everything else I could rip out. Most of the time I try to salvage stuff, but sometimes I just get in a "get-rid-of-it and get-it-done" frame of mind.


So, Huz painted. And painted. Ceilings, walls, all those moldings, and the floor. The closet was demo'ed and left plenty of room for sunroom dining.

After

With the windows all open, it was a breezy, divine place when the weather was nice. With them closed, and a space heater, it was cozy and bright on winter days. And, when you enter the house, and make your way to the back, it was an unexpected surprise. I do like surprises!