"Oh my gosh, it's beautiful!"

That's the phrase I expect to hear when you see the results of our latest remodeling project.

But before you can say that, you'll want to know the story...

There's a room off the front of our kitchen. We've generally referred to it as The Nook. I don't mean to indicate a dining nook, as it's too narrow to comfortably fit a table; rather, it's just an extra room. A cubby-room. A nook.When looking at it from the kitchen, it use to look like this:


And when standing at the end of the room, looking down the length of it, the room looked like this:


Disgusting elements I would like to point out:
- Dark wood paneling
- Dark, unattractive, stinky-smelling cabinets with old-school hardware
- The light fixtures. omg.
- Permanently stained carpet (which was baby blue and matched nothing)
- Wood shutters for...
- The completely mismatched windows.
In fact, from the front of the house, you kinda felt like the room was winking at you because of the funny windows:

One thing you can't see in the pictures of the room is that the floor sloped. Over the 8-foot width of the room it dropped 1.5 inches (which is a pretty drastic, obvious slope).

So the floor needed to be leveled, and everything in it had to go. We wanted to use the space as an office for now, and someday turn it into part of the kitchen. BUT the project wasn't a priority - just something to work on in our (ha!) free time.

Meanwhile, Nate moved his computer into the living room so we could slowly demolish the Nook. No big deal... until Mike and Amy moved in, and Mike's computer desk (et al!) was added to my living room. Suddenly the Nook remodel became priority #1.

So we set to work. Leveled the floor. Replaced the two crazy windows. Paint. Trim. Carpet.

I should have taken more in-progress pictures. I've got quite a few good ones. But I will spare you...

The outside of the house, which is not quite done, now looks like:

And the INSIDE of the house, in the room formerly known as the Nook and hereafter called the Front Office, now looks like...drumroll please...