BPOH: Livin' and Dinin' - and tryin' to catch up!

Ok, so I said I wasn't going to post at all, but I am resting my tired feet from standing over hot pots 'o boiling RIBS!!!! (if you want the recipe, I swear you'll see they're the best you've ever had). So anyway, I was browsing the Blogosphere and I noticed that Shannon put me on her Bloggy Parade Of Homes list, even though I'd told her that I needed to "Opt Out" because I just didn't have time to take pics (or clean the joint for that matter...). BUT - I realized that I had some pics in our home appraisal from last year and I can use those pics at least to get caught up.

I'm going to post before pics also because, well, I'm pretty proud of what we have been able to do all by ourselves. Literally, just us. Hey, we're broke, we can't afford to go PAYING someone to do these things for us, GEESH! lol...

The date on all the before pics is 1/3/04 - our 1 year anniversary! We looked at the house (and only this one house!),put a bid on it - and it was accepted, all on our anniversary. Ain't that a great gift to give each other? A MORTGAGE! lol...

So here is what everyone's done so far:

Week 1: Entry's & foyers. We have an entry (who doesn't???) but not really a foyer. So all I can do is post a pic of the front door, which is in the full house pic only! lol...

Before:

And after:








The canopy in the first "after" photo is covering the flagstone walk, which I was in the process of building. Here's the (almost) finished walk:




Now I believe we moved on to Week 2 - the living room. You will also see our entry/foyer in this pic, as it's only about 3'x3'.

Before:





And a REALLY bad/fuzzy after pic (the appraiser took it and it's the only one I have right now):




And now to be caught up with this 3rd week, the dining room. Now here's the thing - we have a dining room, but we just don't use it as a dining room. We have our table in the kitchen, which you will see next week (that will be my favorite before and after!)...

So here's the dining room before with Hubby showing off his "leaning skills", tape measure in hand (sorry for it being crooked!). The room off to the right is our kitchen, which is under wraps until next week. I've got some wicked before and after pics for that one!

Dining room before, one with hubby, and one pic of me "doin' my thang" as well with the installation of the laminate flooring:






And the after, with Poagie (sounds like Hoagie) struttin' his stuff for the papparazzi (notice the demon eyes):




Ok, so now I'm all caught up in the Bloggy Parade of Homes. I hope you don't mind the before and after pics... looking at them really helps me to justify the herniated disc I got doing it all.

Now I'm off to clean my kitchen... yes, at 11:51pm.