Continuing on with the before and after-ish photos... feel free to offer up any decorating suggestions as we still have miles to go in that department.

The living room used to look like this:

Now it looks like this:

Actually, that photo was taken a couple of weeks ago, before the dining room table was built (see the top leaning against the wall on the left.) But this was the only decent photo that I've taken from this angle in over a month, so it'll have to do. Excuse all of the bags-- we were packing up to leave for a bit. Bye bye to the wood stove in the middle, the linoleum floors, the broken pull out couch. Hello wood walls (which will be white, eventually) a bigger stove, little windows on the left hand wall and a big new door made from the same wood as the floors. Still to come are the new (old) couch, a rug maybe, and other stuff to make the room into a real room.

The old dining room looked like this (and you can see the stairs in their old incarnation)

And now is more like this:

Again, a slightly older photo as we now have the big table in place. And a cuter door mat from Crate and Barrel. But you get the idea.

Here's a great photo that Josh took of the whole downstairs space just a few days ago. It gives almost no information, but it does convey the mood of the space really well:

Again, imagine the walls either solid white or a whitewash, and consider the chairs for a minute... do you guys think that the chairs work? we were thinking it might be better with higher backed seating. But I'm not sure (as usual.) Decisions, decisions...

Now for the guest room... I only have this really uninspiring "before" photo of the room-- we'd already gotten rid of the mattress and the room is so small. But here it is:

This is my favorite photo of that room, taken maybe two weeks later, once the demo had started.

And here's the room now.. bed's not made, but you get the idea.

I love the cedar planks as the walls... we were going to whitewash them, but now I'm not so sure about that. And the raised ceiling does so much to make the room feel larger. As does a second window on the right hand wall.

Upstairs comes next....