Prima e dopo...

So now that school has ended, and it seems as though I would have all the time in the world, how is it that I have so much LESS time to do things??  To explain my absence from this blog, raccontarvi la storia breve di mia vita...

A couple weeks ago I had this brilliant idea to do a blog post of  "Befores and Afters" of our house project...

If you don't already know the story, here is the short version.  

In 2008 we "bought" a house in the hills about 2 kilometers from the place where we got married.  A nice view. A big garden, we were in LOVE.  A perfect place to start our little family.  Then that all started crumbling apart when we discovered through the rumour mill in the area (remember that our town is 4,000 people...everyone knows everyone else's business) that there was more to the house than they were telling us.  Lawsuits pending, illegal constructions, issues with insulation, etc etc.  We confronted the owners about it, and thus began a 21 month standoff.  Technicians, lawyers, and a whole lot of balls-ache.  We had a lot of help from friends and acquaintances on the matter, but every day was up and down.  We never actually knew if we would EVER get this house, if we would lose the deposit, or if we would go crazy during this whole process.  I got pregnant and managed to even gestate an entire human being during it all...that is how slow and painful it was in getting to where we are today.  One day it all clicked into place and we fixed the appointment to sign the papers and get into the house.  I packed up my 2 month old child and pushed the heir to the throne over to the office where we met my husband (feeling slightly under the weather after a 7 day work trip round the Middle East) to finally close this thing up...2 years earlier we sat as a newly married couple in a realtor's office, Henry with a broken wrist and in a cast up to his armpit, me clutching my little chihuahua.  And here we finally were, new baby in tow and a few more wrinkles and gray hairs.

(Henry lays sole claim to those gray hairs - just a clarification...)  

But life was not done with us there, after this whole long process, she had just one more surprise for us.  Henry had waited all this time and had worked and worked so diligently to get this thing done, but as things would have it, he was unable to even step foot into his new house for another WEEK.  Thanks Salmonella.  Husband in hospital. 2 month old baby. Wife in new house trying to clean 5 years of settled dust.  It was not exactly the hurrah I had expected upon entering the house for the first time...but hey.  We had made it.  Now begins the work...

So we arrive to this point.  Befores and Afters.  

As I said I wanted to do this post for a while, and started to think about the pictures I could put on here.  But then I realised that around here there are a LOAD of befores and not so many afters...so I have been spending the last couple of weeks remedying that.  So here goes...

The Befores of Casa Hart...

Kitchen before...Mountainy.

The beast of a fireplace and the randomly placed safe...

No, not the Rain Forest...but rather the bottom part of our yard.

Front yard/forest. 

Laundry room and front patio...

And the Afters!

I tidied up especially for you all...

No more gaudy marble...and it is functional too! Bonus!

New flower beds...

More grass.  Less jungle.

You can actually see the entire yard!!

Terrace + sleeping chihuahua...

Much much tidier...

 So, as you can see, a year and a half later we have not done too badly.  Still so much to do and pretty much all the afters are "in progress" and will have an "after the after" photo as well, it is a great place and we have loved the project...no matter how stressful it can be sometimes!!!!

So, sorry it has been so long, but it was definitely well worth the wait...all of it.

xoxo sjkh