The biggest accomplishment of the new house!

Before my Mister got deployed, he really wanted to do some work on our den. It's basically going to be our 'rec room', which he will be calling his man cave. Unfortunately, it is also where our laundry is, and it's the door we use to come in and out of the house, so it still had to be functional for every-day life. He basically told me when we moved here that I could do anything I wanted to the rest of the house, as long as he could decorate the man cave, pick paint colors, approve or disapprove photos, furniture, etc.

I grudgingly agreed. I am a bit of a control freak, but I figure, what's one room when that gives me free reign over the whole house!! He picked out paint colors and told me his ideas: Tan walls, dark brown trim, and our folding doors would be the same with the inset tan and the border dark brown. I've never seen that combination before, so I was very nervous, and really wasn't into the idea... At all. We went to the home improvement store, looking for colors, and he made his choices. Holmes cream for the main walls, and  Cowboy Boots for the trim. I still was not sold on the idea. I am much more into the cool colors, blues, greens, etc. Both of these colors were very... yellow. But I had agreed to his choosing the colors, so I bit my tongue and said "okay, lets do this."

We also decided to take out the carpet, because let me tell you, the previous owner had dogs, and those carpets did not smell like roses.

Here are the 'before' pictures. PLEASE excuse the mess... We really didn't like the room, so we used it more as storage than anything else, so... yeah... Mess. :)

Our first step was to prime the walls: (My brother in law came to visit. He was 'helping')

Then we started in on the painting:

Little Mister trying to figure out what I was taking pictures of...

Then the carpet got ripped up and new floors put down:

And finally, the trim got painted, the doors got put back, and the room got cleaned!

It turned out WAY better than I thought it was going to. :) I actually kind of love it.

We still have some work to do on it. Mister wants to put a rug down, get rid of our blue couch and replace it with some recliners, and change the fans to something a little more... manly. All in due time, I suppose. I also want to do something to the fireplace and mantle, but I have no idea what, so it'll have to wait.

How about you? Have you had any projects that you weren't crazy about in the beginning, but turned out to be great? I would love to hear about it!