first look: my upstairs (BEFORE pictures)

i have been holding out.
i have been waiting and waiting to take some "good" pictures of the finished upstairs of my house to show y'all....
waiting for things to be perfect. or at least really, really clean.
and waiting until my "good" camera got fixed.
waiting until the kids were out of the house playing and, of course, remembered to clean their rooms and make their beds before they left.
waiting until the last boxes were unpacked and i had at least one or two things on the walls.

well, guess what? i realized this morning that those things may not happen for a very LONG time.
so, here are some really terrible phone camera BEFORE pictures of the upstairs...complete with kids still sleeping, temporary paper shades, toys on the floor, boxes stacked in the corner, messy couch cushions, and unfinished construction details. i hope you can manage to see (like i can) the POTENTIAL of these rooms!
ok.

here we go.

the stairs:

 i mentioned this before, but we ended up carpeting all of the stairs. one day (in the far, far future), we will pull up the carpet and install a fun runner on the stairs. i thought the carpet on the stairs might bother me, or look boring, but i am actually really happy with the way they turned out.

 the plan for the stair well is to add some type of trim or paneling going from the base molding to the ceiling. this will add a lot of architectural interest and help protect the walls from scuffs and marks. we already have QUITE the collection after moving in and being here just a few weeks!

 i realize this picture is terrible, but the camera on my phone is pretty limited. i had the electricians install three lights in a slightly random arrangement. i plan on having three moravian star fixtures hanging at different heights here. one day. 

the door at the top of the stairs leads to a mechanical and storage room.

 the upstairs hall, looking towards the bonus room. i am standing in the doorway of charlottes room. the first door on the left is olivias room. the second is the girls bathroom, and the third is gradys room. the door to the right is gradys bathroom.

charlottes room:

yep. she's asleep on the bed! i have some big plans for this room that include a new day bed with a custom head board and canopy, stenciled walls, painting her light fixture and current dresser, new bedding and adding a hinged bookcase that opens into a secret room. can you see that cut out in the sheetrock? it leads to a little area that is about 3.5 feet wide and 6 feet deep. charlotte has never had a room decorated just for her, so i promised her room would be one of the first that i worked on when we moved.

olivias room:

the two front bedrooms (olivias and grady's) are quite large. everyone who comes in comments on how big these two bedrooms are.  i still have some curtains that i had custom made 7 years ago for her bedroom in our last house in tennessee that i plan on using agin. i will also paint the walls, update her bedding a bit and possibly make a seating area to the left of the door. her bed and dresser were purchased when we lived in knoxville as well, and need to stay due to budget. the mirror was a semi recent purchase from anthropologie and will also be staying. the light fixture is from world market.

the girls bath:

 we finally got their drawer hardware installed! still a lot to do, but at least it functions...

gradys bedroom:

yep. there he is, curled up on the bed in his favorite footed pajamas. 

we bought his bed (from jc penney) and dresser (from the furniture mart in hickory, NC) when we was three, and while i still love both of them, he is slowly out growing them. i did a mini makeover of his room when we lived in our last rental house that included new bedding and new art, but in a year or two, i would love to update his room again. his room can handle a larger bed and dresser, and those items will be on the priority list when i am ready to tackle it, but right now, we need a yard and about 765 things more than we need a new bed and dresser!

the bonus room:

we were not going to finish this room when we first started building, but i am SO glad that we did! it is the place where my kids hang out, play with friends, watch movies and play with toys.

right now, we have a sectional that we bought from craigslist, and old dining table and a few chairs that we use as a game table, and the top part of a dresser that we are using as an entertainment center. (the bottom part of the dresser is in our master bedroom)

the door leads to a room that we call the "toy room". 

its where all the legos, games and toys are kept.  i LOVE that the toys stay in this room and if it gets too messy, we can just close the doors.

this is the only room that we had the painters paint!

the color on the walls doesn't look as green in person as it does in these pictures.

it is called "deep creek" by benjamin moore. it is a deep grey/brown color, and i really, really love it.

the room is nice and large, but because of the slope of the ceiling, and the location of the door, it has made the furniture placement a little tricky. i finally have the sectional, tv and table arranged in a way that works really well for us.

from the bonus room, looking back towards the stairs and into charlottes room.

i hope you can see what the spaces can become! i view them as "shells" right now---empty and void of character, but waiting to be transformed! i am really happy with everything, and so thrilled to be in the house! there are just SO many things that i want to spend my time and limited budget on...it is so hard to zero in on a room!
i think i am going to start with gradys bathroom...can you already see that i have some samples up on the wall? more on that soon...
thanks for sticking around!