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  • Hi, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle.

    You can find me writing for HGTV and DIY Network, follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

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Anniversaries + My Bulleted Home Buying Story

May 13, 2011

This weekend (5/15) marks the two year anniversary of me. Of “grown up” me. Of me living in my home. My very own home. Any of you who knew me when I made the decision to buy a home may recall that it was very much something I decided upon on a whim.

The short version of the story:

  • Gas prices dropped in winter 2008. All of a sudden, I had a lot of extra money in my bank account every week (OK not a lot, but enough to be noticeable since it dropped from $4.30 to $2.40/gallon, and I had been filling my Jeep every 6 days). It was enough to make me scratch my head and wonder what I could do with that money. I pulled out my calculator.
  • About 4 minutes later, I had calculated how much I could save and what I could afford and had made the executive decision to buy a house to live in when my lease expired in August 2009. I am the executive decision maker of me-related things, after all.
  • I began home shopping online about 4 minutes after that (I did make a quick call to sanity check myself with my parents. They were cool. Maybe they know better than to question me. Should have gone to law school.)
  • I had every intent of not moving out of my apartment until August 2009, but I found my home, knew it was the right fit, and stopped looking all together on my second day of house hunting. I think I spend on average more time at Wegmans than I did looking at homes. It was Feburary. I’m an action-oriented kind of girl. Of course I couldn’t stall the sellers until August, so we agreed on May, and that was that.
  • I proceeded to eat nothing but Ramen noodles, plain lettuce, and Wegmans-brand yogurt for 3 months because I needed to save a shiz-load of money in a short period of time. Somewhere in there, the first-time homebuyer tax credit (the one you didn’t have to pay back) was announced, which made me very happy.
  • I found my female roomie a male subletter for the apartment. I am forever indebted to her because it sounds like the dude was a creepster. I had good intentions but of course would never admit that this was a matchmaking attempt. Apparently I’m no Patti Stanger.
  • I closed on the house on 5/15. The 24 hours leading up to my closing was possibly the most emotional 24 hours in my life to date; let’s just say Wells Fargo made me cry a lot (in my cubicle, at work, which was awesome), but that’s not to say I wouldn’t refer you to get a loan through them. And then it was done. And I was a changed girl.

You’ve probably perused the before/after section of the site before. But seriously, when I pull together the photos side by side like I’m about to show you, I’m blown away at how much I’ve done to this place in 2 years.

Please enjoy, and celebrate homeownership pride with me; afterall, forbes.com is – it announced this week that Rochester, NY is the best city in which to buy a home. Frickin’ HIGH FIVE, people.

On to the photos:

Exterior of the house: It was stripped. (Thank you, tax credit.)

Curb Appeal: Before + During Of course, it looked a hell of a lot better once it was finished (it’s just fun to show that the house was temporarily yellow).

Curb Appeal: After (and amidst a front porch revamp)

The front entryway is a work in progress – that front porch should be finished within the next few weeks (it’s been begging for railings):

The deck and pergolas on the back of the house are entirely new. DIY’ed too, just search “deck” on this site (or click right here) and see a whole slew of posts about this project. Impressive change, right?

The Living Room: A dramatic makeover from carpeted drab space to bright and slick (I can’t describe it any other way) happiness.

Living Room: Before + After

The Sunroom: It was storage for children’s toys before I moved in. And it was carpeted. What can I say, anything was an improvement. Yes, there’s a margarita in my photo; call it a grown-up toy.

The Dining Room: It’s more so a workspace for me than a functional dining room, but it too received a nice makeover from floor to ceiling.

Dining Room: Before + After

And I am in love with my DIY’ed built-in-shelves as much as a girl could be in love with something like that. Not in a creepy Taboo kind of way. You can see how I built them here and here.

Dining Room: Before + After The Kitchen: The initial change involved painting it white. It’s hard to tell in the original photo, but each wall was painted a different shade of blue. And then I removed 7 upper cabinets to make way for open shelving.

Kitchen: Before + After From another angle:

Kitchen: Before + After

The stairwell recieved an updo too. Not just paint, I swapped in a new closet door and made a collage of frames on the wall more recently.

Stairwell (looking up the steps)

The view down the stairs is improved too; those horizontal faux-wood blinds are throughout the whole house and really change each room dramatically in a way that plastic blinds don’t. Plus, the hardwood landing looks sexy. People don’t usually call hardwood floors sexy, do they? Just me?

Stairwell (looking down the steps) The Bathroom: Teal just wasn’t for me. Not shown: A rubber duckie shower curtain. Neutral gray, new curtain rods, and soon to come, a new vanity really make the space… bearable.

Bathroom: Before + After Master Bedroom: It’s bright in there; even dark gray works well without making the space feel small(er than it is). The refinished floors and blinds are wonderful in here.

The Nursery-turned-Walk-In-Closet: Animals were painted over, and the room was neutralized and made highly functional with the help of some big IKEA shelves. I was lacking closet space in every single apartment I lived in, so you could say I’m making up for it in a big way.

The Basement: We built workbenches over the winter, but the biggest change was the installation of glass block windows. Let there be light!

Thank you again for all of your support, encouragement, and kind words about the projects you’ve seen so far; lots more to come.

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Casual Celebrations  / DIY

Emily
I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. I've been a freelancer writer for 10+ years and you can find my work on popular home and garden sites, like HGTV.com. Follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note.

14 Comments


Irene
May 13, 2011 at 9:10 am
Reply

What an amazing transformation! You’ve done a lot of work to make the house yours and it looks fantastic. You should be proud.



    Emily
    May 13, 2011 at 9:28 am

    Thank you, Irene; I appreciate your support! :) I am quite excited and proud when I see the photos side by side.

Brigitte Lyons
May 13, 2011 at 10:35 am
Reply

You’ve accomplished an amazing transformation. Seeing it all in once place like this really shows off all the work you’ve done. Wow!



    Emily
    May 13, 2011 at 11:08 am

    Thanks for the nice comment + ongoing support, Brigitte!

Ashley @ DesignBuildLove.co
May 13, 2011 at 11:48 am
Reply

amazing changes Emily! Way to go! We’ll hit our 2 year mark in November, right at Thanksgiving and we’re stoked… so I really know how you feel and am SUPER stoked for you! Look at all you’ve done!



    Emily
    May 13, 2011 at 1:13 pm

    Thanks Ashley! I hope you post a similar B+A story to recap your progress! Happy 1.5 years to you!

Erin B. Inspired
May 13, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Reply

Oh, wow! That looks great, Emily. I’m jealous at how much light flows through your house. We have a lot of windows but it never seems like light flows through very well. Love how much light is in your master bedroom. Beautiful!



    Emily
    May 13, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    The amount of light I highly attribute back to those awesome white blinds. Something about the effect of the heavy white 2″ blinds makes light reflect the same way it reflects off snow. And consequently, the house is just streaming with light whenever I have them opened. The bedroom is especially great, because I can make it REALLY DARK too just by closing them up and being in a dark gray space. Thanks for your nice comment!

Cait @ Hernando House
May 13, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Reply

This post makes me love your house even more, which I didn’t know was possible!



    Emily
    May 13, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    Too sweet, Cait! Thanks for stopping in and “celebrating”.

Erin-richmondthrifter.blogspot.com
May 14, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Reply

WOW! You are amazing! What an incredible amount of work you have put in! I love every transformation! But I think my fav is the stairs! We did that to ours too! It makes such a difference! So classy!



    Emily
    May 15, 2011 at 9:26 am

    Thanks Erin! I love the stairs too; sometimes I wish for a runner, but when they’re all nice and shiny like in the picture, they’re just too pretty to cover.

Katrina
May 18, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Reply

I can’t believe how much you’ve accomplished in such a short time! You inspired me to look back at some of our “before” photos and it’s given me a new sense of motivation to get to work on some of the projects we have planned for the spring & summer. Congrats on being all grown up :)

Just a few things that made me laugh – I totally call furniture, floors, wall colors, and other things related to DIY “afters” sexy – those hardwood floors are FAB. Also, we had the same exact linoleum floor as you in our master bath (not too bad, but now gone in favor of the marble tiles I showed you) and painted walls a similar shade of gray (I love it).



    Emily
    May 18, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    This is the nicest note ever, Katrina! Thanks for checking the post out. I’m DYING to tear out those linoleum tiles; I’ll have to stop by Mr. Seconds and see if I can find myself anything as nice as your marble… what a lucky find for you.

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  • HI, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

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