Posts Tagged: Before and After

How We Turned a Doctor’s Office into Our Guest House

January 22, 2020

Home contributor Audrey completely reimagines a former doctor's office in her new house...with jaw-dropping results.

When we were looking for our new house, we knew that we needed a space for guests. My family lives in Texas, and we love having them out to visit. We also have friends who regularly come to Los Angeles, so we almost always have someone staying with us. When we first toured our new house, we noted the detached doctor’s office behind the house, which had three rooms – a waiting room, a bathroom, and a main office. I knew that with a little work we could convert the space into something that would allow us to comfortably host frequent visitors.

Main room, before

DIARY

#Micdrop (a.k.a. My Move To Malibu)

December 2, 2019

You and me both, dude.

I think that what happened over the weekend was that I fell into a fugue state, or perhaps a wormhole wherein the space/time continuum as we know it ceased to exist, thereby allowing the hours in each day to expand in infinite directions. Because that is the only reasonable explanation I have for what just transpired over the course of my move from the Valley to Malibu, which was that I DESTROYED IT.

And by "it" I mean "life."

Before & After Renovations

Play Place

October 28, 2019

Home contributor Audrey Scheck reveals a playroom before-and-after so spectacular you'll want to move into that tent immediately.

When we found our new house, we knew immediately that we would make one of the downstairs rooms into a play space for the kids. Our first house didn’t have a dedicated playroom, which meant that our living room essentially functioned as their play area.

In other words, the toys were everrrrywhere.

Quick backstory here, because I always think it's nice to know a little about the history of a house: The previous owners were both scholars, and they each had their own office in the main house. Her office (which is now our playroom) was downstairs, with an exterior door leading out to the backyard, and his office was upstairs. They also had a library downstairs and a guest room, which became Huxley and Tilly's rooms, respectively. Despite being 100 years old, the house was in great shape - it just needed a little rethinking to make it work for our growing family.

Before & After Renovations

Before And After: Black and White (And Wood and Gold) Bathroom

June 26, 2018

IT'S DONE.

I love, love, love, LOVE my bathroom. I say "my" bathroom even though it's the bathroom in the hall (as opposed to the master bathroom) because from the time we moved in it was the only bathroom with an actual bath in it - and we all know how I feel about baths. So while it was the kids' primary bathroom, too, I sort of adopted it as my own.

When I set out to renovate this bathroom (before and after pics are below, but you can take a look at what it looked like when we moved in, and then it's first evolution before the major renovation here), I wanted to make sure that it worked for the kids...but I also thought, what the hell: I've always felt like my bathroom is my sanctuary. So if I'm going to put in the work to fix it up, I might as well go ahead and make it everything I've ever dreamed of.

Before & After Renovations

Sunset, Poolside

June 12, 2018

I know I already posted about my pool renovation, but these photos have muuuuch better light and show the details so much better. So here they are.

As a recap, here's what we changed:

Removed the dated, curved coping and replaced it with clean, squared-off white coping;
Replaced the plaster bottom with deep blue Pebbletec;
Built a Baja shelf (a 8" deep platform in the shallow end that you use for lounging and such);
Removed the ladder, and built a bench in the deep end to replace it;
Replaced the dated tiles with iridescent tiles in varying shades of white.

Check out the original post (with before and afters) here, if you missed it.

Before & After Renovations

The Pool Of My Dreams

June 8, 2018

dark blue pool with Baja shelf and pebbletec

Everyone says having a pool is crazily expensive. I haven't found it to be terrible so far - we have a reasonably priced pool guy, and the fact that we have solar offsets the cost of heating it a lot - but you know what happens when you have to repair your pool? Like, because the plaster, having reached its expiration date, starts cracking and flaking off?

You spend oh my god, so much money having it fixed.

When we applied for our home equity line of credit, a pool renovation was one of the main things we knew we were going to do (and yes, it spiraled off into more renovations, and then more) - but the thing about renovating a pool is that it's such a major expense and such a pain, what with the draining and pouring of concrete and spraying of plaster and etc etc - that if you're going to do it, you don't want to do it more than once. Which means you should probably just do it right the first time.

Before & After Renovations

I Stole My Three-Year-Old’s Closet, And I’m Not Even A Tiny Bit Sorry

March 9, 2018

This is not my closet; it's Ashley Tisdale's. Mine doesn't have a chandelier, alas.

I was talking to a colleague the other day about a very particular manifestation of mom guilt: the home-and-decor-related type. In short: On top of the other ways that you feel like you have to prioritize your children's needs (all of them), you also feel like you have to prioritize them when it comes to how you set up and decorate your house. And if you don't?

Guilt.

Before & After Renovations

Before And After: How We Turned Our Garage Into A Multi-Functional Living Space

February 12, 2018

Our garage spruce-up was supposed to be exactly that: a spruce-up. Perhaps a coat of paint. Maybe a throw pillow or two.

We did not start out intending to take on a project that would ultimately transform our garage from a cluttered, creepy-ish hole into the most useful (and most-used) room in our home - not to mention one that would add another 500 square feet (at least) to our living space.

It all started in July (SEVEN MONTHS AGO, if you're counting), when we decided that we wanted to move our old couch into the garage rather than sell or toss it. But then once we decided to put the couch in the garage, we thought we might as well redo the floor. And if we were redoing the floor, we might as well paint the walls. And if we were painting the walls, we might as well take down the old shelving. And if we were taking down the old shelving, we'd need some new storage solutions, and oh wait, Kendrick would love to have a dedicated space for his instruments, and shoot, skylights would really make the whole place feel so much nicer, and...

Before & After Renovations

The Dream Room

January 8, 2018

Crate & Barrel 2-Piece Lounge Sectional | Gray Malin "Viareggio Pool" Print

One of my most frequent recurring dreams: I suddenly discover a series of rooms in my house that I've never seen before, and am overtaken by a sense of simultaneous frustration (why didn't I know these rooms were here all this time?!), excitement (new rooms!) and anxiety (what will I do with all these rooms?!). Apparently dreams like this symbolize that the dreamer is discovering untapped potential, or moving beyond what they previously saw as their limitations.

To me, they've always felt slightly more literal.

Decor

The Three Most Swoonworthy Doors In The Whole Wide World

December 5, 2017

kim lewis for rustica hardware door designs

Mood board by Kim Lewis of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Remember my sliding barn door from Rustica Hardware? The one I installed when we first moved in and discovered that the master bathroom sink was located directly next to where our heads would be when we were sleeping (ew)? It remains one of my favorite design features in our house to this day, and so when I decided that I wanted to turn our garage into a multipurpose room that would significantly expand our square footage, I asked Kim Lewis - who recently designed the most spectacular collection of statement doors for Rustica Hardware - if she'd be willing to help me figure out which ones would work best in the space.

What I wanted: An industrial-style sliding door to separate the laundry room from the rec room part of the garage, and then a second door separating the garage from the dining room area (the one there now is just a standard white door, and I felt like this was an opportunity to communicate that what's behind the door is worth seeing). The problem: the two doors will be located in close proximity to each other, so they have to communicate a similar vibe without being...the same.

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