Home renovations update

It has been a busy few weeks since the Christmas. In old married couple fashion, we spent NYE demoing and laying down new hardwood floors. It was quite the task, especially considering I decided to get a bad cold part way through - rendering me completely useless for almost a week. 

But we are finally finished and they look amazing. 

Next up, new baseboards. We had plain-jane 1994 builder grade baseboards that were a little beat up, plus we never loved them. We figured it was the perfect time to upgrade those downstairs since we were ripping off the old ones. We are looking at getting taller ones, maybe around 4". This is the look we are going for:

More photos to come as we keep on trucking with our DIY!

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Christmas Recap and Renovations

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. I know that we really enjoyed ours.   We baked cookies

We looked at lights

We decorated cookies at home and with friends

I maintained my sanity

 

We remembered the birds

 

Santa came

 

...and then, when the tree came down we started ripping up our floors! Yes, we are insane. I've been wanting wood floors since we bought this house 6 years ago and we are finally getting around to doing it. It's a TON of work but I know it will be worth it in the end.

 I wonder if this beautiful linoleum is original to our 1994 house?

We are doing the whole downstairs, which includes the foyer, kitchen, dining room, living room and a half bath. We chose a darker pecan wood in varying widths. I'm totally ready to not be living in a construction site with 2 dogs and a 2 year old. More pics to come as we keep rolling on!

Happy New Floors Year!






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Our Weekend

Fall is in the air and I couldn't be more excited! I gets super motivated when the weather starts to cool off, so we spent the weekend cooking, watching football and tackling some home improvements we have been wanting to do for an eternity. Every time we do a little weekend warrior project, we sit back and ask ourselves why we didn't do it 5 years ago. This most recent project was one of those. We love that our house has a front porch, but we have never been in love with the white spindles and how it cuts off so much of the porch space. So this weekend we ripped them out (see them laying on the ground? Bye Felicia..)

I like to pretend that I live in a 1930's craftsman style villa, so we went that direction with the new "posts" we built. We left the original posts and boxed them in with cedar:

 Then we stained them a deep rich walnut, that I LOVE.

More pics to come once I get 900 pumpkins, mums and a new wreath! We have plans to remove the vinyl siding and replace it with brown concrete board and also add some rock to the facade. But it's coming along! A quick and painless way to add HUGE impact.

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How does your garden grow?

I've always enjoyed gardening and growing my own food. It's so rewarding to till up the dirt and plant seeds or little sprouts and watch them grow and feed you and your family. I love being able to have my own organic produce all summer long. I always try and choose what I know will be happy in my yard along with what I know my family will like. This is what our garden looked like:

Mostly weeds, some bricks that were given to us that we are using to build other planters, and some green onions that have hung in there since last year that are in dire need of a trim.    After an hour, we had this:

We are going to tackle the weeds you see in the yard surrounding the bed. That's a whole other battle!

We decided to do a couple of basil plants. They love sun and should do well. I love adding fresh basil to pasta dishes or whipping up basil pesto. We also have cucumbers and a bunch of kale. I'm on a huge kale kick lately. I have never attempted to grow it before, but I'm hopeful that it will thrive and provide us with lots! At the end next to the trellis, we put a few tomato plants. Those usually do well and provide us with more than enough tomatoes for the summer.

What do you like to grow?

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Quick, Inexpensive and Easy Fireplace Update

When we were house shopping 5 years ago we didn't have too many crazy requests, I didn't feel. Especially if you watch a few episodes of House Hunters. Some of those people are a little wound up in my opinion! One thing we were hoping for (though at one point I was starting to loose hope) was a wood burning fireplace. For us, there's nothing like the glow of a crackling fire on a dark cold day.

Ever since we bought the house, I've never been real in love with how dark that wall was. Dark mantle, dark brick and brass.

 

A while back, we removed the screen/doors and spray painted the brass a flat black with a high heat spray paint. A few screws are all that hold it in. We just taped off the glass part and viola:

It was an improvement getting rid of the brass. But, the wall was still so dark. This photo doesn't really do it justice because I've got the spot lights on and my camera flash. We both agree that one day, we want to do rock and a new mantel, but in the mean time I had come across this post of a low cost way to drastically change the look of the fireplace. I must say I LOVE IT.

Such a HUGE difference and it took me 1 hour by myself and $25 to complete! I just can't stop glancing at it. I wish I had done this DIY YEARS ago.

All you need is:

1.  A cheap or old paint brush
2.  A container to mix paint/water in
3.  Some white latex paint (I bought a new small can of the cheapest at Home Depot)
4.  Rag or old t-shirt to keep drips at bay.

I mixed equal parts water and paint in a small bucket. To get the look that I did, I pretty much just painted in the grout lines and smudged it around with the rag. I did some light brushing over the main part of the brick to lighten it a little. It gave it an old aged look that I was very pleased with! It has drastically lightened that end of the living room!

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone has a safe and spooky Halloween! We've got a forecast for rain down south. I'm glad my little pumpkin isn't old enough to know all the fun she would miss not getting to trick-or-treat!

I've waiting a long time to have a little one and get to make Halloween costumes! I made her a little ghostie this year!

I bought a plain white onesie and some black felt for the face. I cut it out freehand and stitched it on by hand, only took like a half hour. The tutu, on the other hand, took a little longer! I used this tutorial to make the tutu. I made a bow on the front of the tutu and a bow for her hair to match (it's sewn onto a lace headband I got from Pick Your Plum). Her tights are from a Mud Pie outfit, but any tights or leggings would work!

Protecting your investment

I took the plunge this past weekend and bought an expensive tote bag. I tried, I really tried to find something less expensive that I liked as well but I couldn't find anything! This bag makes a great diaper bag, I must say! SO since I did spend a pretty penny, I want to make sure this puppy lasts and looks good. Here's what I did:


I picked up some ScotchGard for fabrics. Since the band around the top is silk, I covered it with masking tape so the spray wouldn't ruin it. I took it outside and sprayed the heck out of it. I hung it up and let it dry a bit, then did another coat, making sure to pay attention to the bottom.

Voila! Remove the tape and you have a protected canvas bag! The ScotchGard protects from dirt and water. Canvas bags do tend to be washable, but they look their shape badly and never seem to be the same afterwards. Now get out there and protect your investments!