Back of house total makeover

For anyone who has ever renovated their own home & done ALL THE WORK themselves, you’ll know it’s stressful, expensive & exhausting. When we’d finished the back of house total makeover & stood back, we were so thankful it was finished, chuffed at how much brighter it looked & particularly thrilled to have another bathroom in the house. For me, the biggest thing was the last lot of decades of ugly was gone from the old girl & in its place was bright & airy. Here are a lot of pics of before & after. I’m sure you’ll figure out what’s what in that department.

Everything was very dark back here. The chocolate coloured walls which we painted Campfire Ash – light grey, as soon as we bought the place, most of which were torn down in the renovation. We added shiplap walls back here, moving the laundry wall in to allow a shower to be installed on the other side. And adding a wall so one didn’t walk in our back door & have the washer & dryer right there. We had a small space to work with. And we still need to put up something to hide the washer & dryer but we haven’t quite got that part figured out.

The before pics, apart from the during renovations, were taken at the time of buying this house. As I’ve mentioned before, this house is old & it had some nasty, mainly cosmetic things, done to it over the decades.

One of the greatest things my hubby did during the renovation was to remove one of the windows in the bedroom & install a door. The door now leads out to a lovely big deck, barbie & our pool. Before renos, we had to go out the back door, down steps then up steps to get to the deck & the pool. Now there’s direct access from the house. I love it. I have my herbs in pots out on the deck too for easy picking. The deck is such a nice place to sit of an evening & sip cocktails & a lovely place to enjoy a morning coffee as I recently discovered.

Back here were two closets with an adjoining wall – here is one of them in the bedroom. My husband torn the closets out & added a bathroom as this old house only had one bathroom, so now we had a master suite – much better for resale value, even if it is the smallest bedroom in the house.

The back of the house had a false ceiling, it was low & nasty so my hubby remove the ceiling only to discover a spaghetti-like maze of old wiring. The rest of the house had new wiring, not this part. It was a big mess. He tore down the ceiling, added new insulation & maintained the integrity of the original ceiling which was vaulted. To house the insulation, he had to add new wooden beams too as there was little supporting the roof back here.

This top pic is taken from the same angle as the one above it. We added a walk-in closet on the left with storage above, creating a hallway. And a bathroom to the right from two closets.

Remember, this was once a closet – two closets. It was a bit of an awkward shape to work with & the sink had to be small, but the bathroom is cute & bright. And so lovely to have another bathroom in the old girl.

As these were once closets, there wasn’t a window so my hubby cut out the space to add a window. As no one is behind us apart from rolling fields (that’s just part of our house you can see out the window), window coverage wasn’t particularly important so I just added this fresh, simple half curtain.

The flooring in the rest of the house is the original hardwood we painted white. Back here because of the back door entryway, laundry, bathroom & doorway to the pool, we decided to put vinyl tile down in a light grey marble-look which is much lighter than it appears in these pics. It’s durable & easy to care for. The original floor back here wasn’t during anything with so my hubby put down a subfloor & tiles. I love how they feel underfoot.

A walk-in closet was added here with lots of storage above.

We added this big, hefty shelf over the bed for some interest. The first few nights sleeping with that over me were a little scary but my hubby installed it so I know she’s up there good & proper! It’s the same as the shelving in the laundry & kitchen.

Hallway with closet, bathroom & leading to bedroom. Overhead is a massive amount of storage.

So that’s a bit of a tour of the back of house total makeover. If you’re on Instagram, follow me & have a look at the video tour I did of this makeover. Next time I will have to share with you the dining room makeover. But for now, cheerio, Lovoni xo

To see more makeovers of this old house check out these links: Our kitchen makeover; one of the spare bedrooms & bathroom.