Getting somewhere

It seems like we have been in the midst of remodel for ages, but yesterday we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here are some before shots I too from my cell phone on move in day.

The left side of the great room.

panning to the left of the fireplace...
right of the fireplace...
and right wall.
The first thing we did was demolish the fluorescent light boxes around the windows.
It felt pretty good to rip those down. At this point we sprayed the popcorn ceiling with water and sent a scraping to a lab to test for asbestos.
Sure enough, we had asbestos. Here we are preparing to move out again and so professional can come in to scrape the ceiling. We decided to have the siding replaced with drywall while we were out of the house, which also meant replacing all the trim. Once they scraped the ceiling we discovered the beams were not structurally sound, so they came down.
Evan and Jack have been replacing the old ivory electrical boxes with white.
We sanded and painted the doors and trim white. I love how clean a coat of white paint feels. We replaced the light fixture over the dining table, painted the window sills white, painted the brass parts of the ceiling fans iron rubbed bronze, and replaced the front and back door knobs (that was functional and not just aesthetics).
Yesterday we finally painted the walls and touched up the trim.
We also installed wall sconces using the electrical from the old light boxes.
The wall sconces are so much prettier than the light boxes, especially at night. I'm not a fan of fluorescent light. The wall color works well with the marble floor and the brick in the fireplace.
You can see the color of the kids bedrooms through the doorway. All the colors we picked for the house seem to be shades of grey, the great room being a beige/grey, the kids rooms a blue/green grey, the kitchen and laundry room are a pewter grey and the master bedroom a blue grey. The flow is nice and there is so much natural light in this house it can handle it.
Now we just need to arrange the furniture, hang pictures, and decorate the room. I also want to paint the wood built-ins white. It isn't good wood, so don't feel too bad. I'll keep the photos coming if you'd like.