A Kitchen Progression

A few people have either come up to me in person or messaged me in the past few weeks and asked me if I'm still blogging and I have no clue why!!!  HA!

Yes, folks.  Not only have you few made me feel like a million bucks with your gracious cares but also, don't worry.  Typing just isn't a priority at the moment so I might take a few weeks off here and there (particularly around this wonderful Christmas season), but this blog will never die.  It is my virtual home away from home and you can always expect at least one post a year.  ;)  While we're on the subject, let's just squeeze one right in before the year ends...

The kitchen!

Those two words have so much of a punch behind them.  A punch of excitement for how far our kitchen has come plus that glorious vision of where it's going (see the original plan here) and a whole 'nother punch for how slowwwwwwly it's going.  And I know that kitchen remodels aren't typically the hare in the race but I guess I have high (now squandered) expectations after the quick,  jaw-dropping makeover in our last house and after watching a couple of awesome bloggers makeover their kitchen in two weeks...I won't name any names.  #coughcljcough  So, needless to say, there have been a lot of good opportunities for patience and prudence heaped on top of perseverance and persistence over here.

But this, this post will make me feel good about where we are right now, I just know it.  It's easy to feel like you're semi-stalled with halfway mudded ceiling joints and a plywood counter top but when you bring it all the way back to the start... 


darn, we've made some good progress.

Let's see it.

Breakfast Nook "Reveal"

Or really "Breakfast Nook So Far" because, as you'll see, we're not done in here.  There's still painting (doors and ceiling) to be done, furniture to find, and decorating to do but HEY, we have come a looong way from here:



And here:

'Hidden' Paperwork Organization Station

I have been on an organizing kick.  I think it's just being in the guest room/office purging and organizing this past week that's lit a fire under my bum to organize allthethings.  (If you've been watching via Instagram, that room really, really has needed a good pare down.)  And really, while myself and my house can get quite unorganized at times (#blamethekids), I'm overall a pretty organized person...or at least, I try to be.  I function 1000 times better when things are where they should be and there's nary a junk drawer in sight (or not in sight for that matter).  If I'm high-maintenance at all, there's where the bulleye is.  When there's material chaos around me, there's generally a lack of productivity.  I admire those of you who, when surrounded by life's chaos, can still function at a high level and keep your cool.  Truly.  There's a freedom in that that I certainly don't ever achieve.

Anywho, like I said, I've been scooting along in the guest room.  Some things, specifically my organization station at the side of my desk in our rental, got moved into this guest room without a rhyme or reason and I needed to make that right to feel organized again.  One of those things was getting those clear plastic folders* functioning again.  There wasn't a place in the current guest room/office that I could think to put them (there's no desk for them to hang them near) so they just got tossed into one of the wardrobes and all of the paperwork they used to hold got moved elsewhere for the time being...which really wasn't working at all.

But then I had a light bulb moment last week while I was pulling some brown sugar out of our newly made-over pantry.  I COULD HANG THEM ON THE INSIDE OF THE PANTRY DOOR!

Our Fresh Pantry Makeover

You know, I have blog dreams of posting on the every-other-daily - giving the internet a new DIY project often to quell the monotony that daily life (especially that of stay-at-home moms...am I right?) can bring.  BUT, being one of those monotony-living moms means there isn't much room for projects AND blogging everyday.  So, in saying that, I just want to apologize for being absent here for almost THREE WEEKS!  It's not because I don't care but mostly because I've been painting, and painting, and painting some mo...and mostly keeping us all alive and thriving of course.  ;)

But, finally, I have something to show for all the painting.  Huzzah!

Our new and improved pantry:

I don't know that I ever shared what it looked like before but I definitely took a quick pic before I started and...

Breakfast Nook Update

It's pretty boring at this point still but I thought that, since I don't have any fun tutorials to share (yet!), maybe you'd settle for an update on breakfast nook progress.

Like I said though, it's pretty boring.

The walls are almost ready for paint - Anthony has been filling and sanding for the past several days (there were a few spots of troubled drywall thanks to vinyl wallpaper removal) - BUT, the window trim is all painted and you can sort of get a (very small) glimpse of the direction this room is going...the light at the end of the design tunnel.  Light and airy.  It's amazing what paint can do...have I ever mentioned that?  ;)  It take a good stretch of the imagination to envision what a room will look like when it's down to bare drywall but once paint starts going up, things get easier to picture.  It also gets way more exciting!  :D

Our Breakfast Nook - Current Project

October's room of the month is the breakfast nook (or any place you eat if you don't have a breakfast nook).  We should be getting that beam in the kitchen ceiling in the next month or so and then we'll get down with that kitchen makeover but since this room is right next to that, we'll start here and just flow over into the kitchen.

I for one, can't wait for that.  I feel like the kitchen with it's studded wall is the project that's been hanging over our heads in a dark cloud.  I don't mind unfinished things but when a room is unfinished and ready to be finished but has to wait on, in this case, cooler weather, patience is a daily struggle.

But, we'll focus that will to finish on the breakfast nook and maybe we'll forget about the studs...

Here's what our nook looked like right after we moved in:

And this is what it looks like today (behind the aging lens of an old iPhone):

Our Entry Way - The Reveal!

September 1st I set out to makeover our entry way and I announced that it would be the #letsroomtogether space for September but really, I figured I could probably get it done in two weeks.  Ha ha ha HA!

Hellooo Sheena.  Take a deep breath and settle down on those hippity-high hopes from here on out.  Time ain't crawling like it used to. 

That joke was on me but also on the sad state of our entry before we started.  Let's back track...
All the way back (a few months) to popcorn ceilings, wallpaper, and that sad trim.  The ceilings got smoothed over, the wallpaper came down, and the trim got freshened up.

Add a few more throws of confetti here and there and...

Crossing My Ts and Dotting My...Lamp

Let me tell you a little story about a lamp.  I found this one at Goodwill last week:

I went in to hunt for a lamp and came out with one.  Huzzah!  While that probably sounds incredibly lucky; a first-time find, it took me three strolls through different Goodwills to find the perfect one.  Patience and perserverance here kids.

However, the lamp itself 'twas far from perfect, even though it seemed unused.  

That inner layer of cream paint was cracking and peeling, bubbling and shuffling.  But the shape of the lamp is what caught my eye and I knew I could remedy that poor paint situation.  (After all, this wouldn't be my first time taking care of peeling paint inside a lamp.)

Painting Trim - Tips and Tricks

Painting trim is the absolute worst.  I think I've said that about ceilings but now that I'm past the ceilings and onto the trim, I can whole-heartedly shift my opinion.  It's tedious and time-consuming and...the worst.

But, I've picked up a few tips along the way (this is my second time painting alllll the trim in the house after all) that I'll pass on to you in case you're ever staring down the miles of *insert ugly color* trim.

First, a picture of the current sitch in our entry.
Feast your eyes on that painted trim!!  The crown molding is hard to spot in pictures but in real life, it shines against the matte ceiling.  I can't tell you how happy I am to be done with trim in here and moving on to painting the walls!  It's like the icing on the cake!

Back to those tips and tricks though...

Prepping Walls for Paint, Post-Wallpaper

The entry way is September's #letsroomtogether space!  Did I already mention that?  Who knows but I know I haven't mentioned the progress I've made in here.  What looked like this before we touched it:

Now looks like this:


Current Events

We are in the middle of a whole lot of rooms and projects and progress has been slow over here thanks to life.  You probably know exactly what I'm talking about.  School starts and all of a sudden, things get crazy.  You would think that shuttling half of our kids to school each day would free up a ton of time to create and get busy but nope.

So, since I don't have anything substantial to sink into a blog post, here are a few current events I might be able to distract you with while we scramble to find time to finish up some things.

1)  Our kitchen.  Le sigh.  Remember when I laid out all of the big plans for it in this blog post?  Well, it pretty much looks exactly like what it does in that post...still.
Why?  Well, we found out we have to wait to put the beam in the ceiling until the soaring temps turn it down a notch.  Welcome to the Southern United States.  It's something we totally didn't anticipate when we brought the wall down to the studs that one weekend long ago but something we understand.  (But would we have held off on taking that drywall/paneling off, no way.)  The beam work has to be done in the attic and right now, it's a lofty 120+ degrees up there.  I sure wouldn't want to be up there working away either.  So, we're shooting for the beam to go in in October.  Until then, we hope to start on the window side of the kitchen (painting, new countertop, backsplash, etc...) while we wait for the cooler temps.

2)  Along with one side of the kitchen, I've set a (v v ambitious) goal to transform the entry way next week.  September 1st, it's on.  Here's what it looks like right now:

Four Kids, One Bedroom

I get asked often enough how well our kids do sharing one bedroom and if there are any tricks we have up our sleeves to make that transition to bedroom sharing.

Well, we're not pros on the subject (or anything else regarding parenthood for that matter, ha!), but with a year and a half under our belts of successful sibling sleepery, we'll tell you the whys, whens, and hows we've found to make it work for us.



A Shady Master Bedroom Update

As we inch closer and closer to September, we also inch closer and closer to a better master bedroom.  I'll be honest, my motivation has been waning to finish our master but I think it's because I'm sitting over here trying to "finish" one room while there are a ton of other rooms that are still rocking the bare drywall look.  Sometimes I feel like I'm forcing a finish while secretly dying to get to another room.  The entry for example.  I've let several people in that front door over the past few weeks and every time I cringe and have to let out a lengthy disclaimer about why it looks like c.r.a.p.  It's pulled a heart string inside that's dying to slap paint on the walls and swap out that hideous chandelier.  Next month...

So, with that said, waning motivation and all, I have made some progress on getting a more retreat-worthy space in the bedroom.  I'll save a full "reveal" for the end of the month but this corner...

More specifically, that DRUM SHADE* on the fan!  It adds an extra little somethin', right?  Well there's a little backstory about it.  I put drum shades on my ceiling fans, nothing new (and if you want to see how, click here and watch the story highlight).  I wanted something a little more in our master though.  I didn't know what exactly...until I saw this shade* online.  But, the price tag made me sulk a little and move on.  Well, if I'm being honest, I actually tried to copy it a la DIY and that's still in progress.  It's taken a few turns here and there so I'll let you know if I'm successful later (and in that case, write a whole tutorial).  Anywho, it keeps popping up all over the internet in the form of those pesky ads...just taunting me.  But the other day, it popped up at 50% off and, not believing my eyes, I clicked over...and then I bought it.  It's a bit of a splurge for me but only because I'm el cheapo.  But it's amazing in real life.  Truly, truly.  So pretty.  It's made of capiz shells lined with gold metal and just the more I wanted for our master bedroom ceiling fan.


Our Favorite Kids' Apps

A few months ago after we closed on our house we started the daily task of getting her move-in ready (buh-bye popcorn ceilings).  The twins were in school during those couple of months but Seb and Gianna were not and so, during that time that we were working in the house, they were running around the empty rooms and sometimes...dun dun dun...on a screen.



We usually reserve playing on our Kindles for road/plane trips only, but a few hours at a time running around an empty house can get pretty uninteresting (we didn't bring toys over for awhile until we tackled the smoke smell).  We bought our first Kindle Fire*, a refurbished 10" screen, off Amazon a few years ago for a road trip and it was great at keeping the younger three kids (who were much younger) entertained in the back seat.  (Check out how we turned it into a "built-in" TV in our vehicle here.)  The next year, we took advantage of a Black Friday deal and added another Kindle Fire* (an 8") to the fam so that the twins both had their own (Seb was still a little too young to play with it).  Then, a few weeks ago we snatched up another two Kindle Fires* (we got two 7 inchers for $50!)  It seems a little frivolous and overboard in that first-world way, but as the kids get older and technology continues to flower in the way of screens, it's nice that each kid can have his/her own tablet to work on.  (PS, you might've guessed it but if you're looking for a super affordable tablet option, look no farther than the Kindle Fire*...we highly recommend them!)  With that though, we still reserve the screens for special situations - long trips, the girls will do some math on them for five minutes daily during the summer, and occasionally playing on a Kindle for 20-30 minutes will be a reward for doing something good.  It's HARD but I'm a big advocate of limiting screen time.  Believe me, especially when there's been a newborn in the house, we are no strangers to screens but I can definitely tell the difference in my kids attitudes when they've been watching too much TV.  On the flip side, I love watching their imaginations take over when they don't have the option of watching and we try to err on the side of that being the majority.  BUT, like I said, we're no strangers to that glowing, flat surface.  Nor are we enemies and when they come in handy, it's nice that there are apps out there that actually put stuff into their brains vs. just pulling cells from them.  ;)

Most of the apps we use are free and if not free, cheap.  If you're an Amazon Prime member, Amazon Marketplace is a fantastic place to find good free apps.

Here are our tried-and-true faves...

Spotted: Goodwill

I managed to skip the house for a tiny little bit last weekend sans kids to head to one of my local Goodwill stores.  They were having a BIG (and rare) furniture sale and I've been looking for a few pieces so how could I not?  Well, I didn't find any furniture I needed but I found a couple of other things I brought home.  And, like I sometimes do (check my 'Spotted' label in the sidebar) I snapped some pictures of things I thought had lots of potential to hopefully inspire you to go out and find those diamonds in the rough.  :)

My stores here always have TONS of baskets.  This one caught my eye:
It falls more under the tray category maybe but it'd be a great one to sit atop a coffee table or the corner of your kitchen counters.  Minus the handles, it looks a lot like this $40 tray from Crate & Barrel.


I saw this wood lattice square* on clearance at Target a few months ago and whadya know? 

Kids' Room Reveal-ish

The kids' room is...not done.  I spent every chance I got during the month of July to get their room in order (and some of you guys played along with the #letsroomtogether challenge!) but in the end, I couldn't make up my mind about a couple of things and so I'm just going to walk away to the next room (find out what it is here!) and I'll come back to this one later.  That's how I work.  I can't make split-second decisions most of the time.  I mean, I have a hard time making multiple-second decisions.  Haha!  I mull and mull and then usually, all of a sudden, I catch this wind of inspiration and make something happen.  So it goes with this room.  Things take time.

But, in saying that, we've come A LONG way.  Let's start at the very beginning...

When we bought this house, the kids' future room was allll pink:

Our first line of business was to get those popcorn ceilings scraped but amidst getting those down, we were also slowing ripping the wallpaper off the walls in here.  We took down the chair rail too to make things less formal.  

Unlike all of the other wallpapered rooms in this house, this wallpaper fought, and fought, and fought me coming down cleanly.  I tried every method I could find - the steamer, white vinegar, fabric softener, actual wallpaper remover, a paper tiger, and mixtures of some of those...you name it, nothing helped.  I mean, the wallpaper itself was coming off but it was taking the primer behind it with it in parts, leaving us a pock-marked wall...not pretty.  
It was definitely not a texture we wanted to see when we went to paint the wall.  The awesome part about all of this was that this room also won 'The Most Wallpaper' award in the house.  Perfect!  The most wallpaper with the most problems.

We had a few options after we got all of the paper off.  We could either take the steamer and carefully steam and scrape off all of the primer (which we actually think might just be paint...aka a poorly prepped wall) but that would literally have taken weeks.  We'd probably still be scraping and the kids' would be roomless.  We also thought about finding some new, thick wallpaper in a neutral pattern and just wallpapering over the walls.  But then we started the search for wallpaper and holy moly, we were looking at spending, on average, $500 just for the wallpaper for the entire room.  Yipe.  And nope.  In the end, we laid plastic over the carpet, taped it to the baseboards, and took a palm sander with coarse-grit sandpaper to every square inch of the wall.  

Yes, it made a MASSIVE mess.  Anthony sanded and he looked like he just walked through a severe dust storm upon leaving the room.  In the picture below, you can see the left wall sanded and the right not sanded.  You can also see all of that fine dust that kicked up when sanding, all settled nicely on the floors and every other flat surface.

Anthony sanded a wall a day for four days (it took him 30-45 minutes to sand one wall) and I won't talk about how our sander died halfway through the last wall on the last day.  RIP.  No worries though, a quick trip to Walmart where we picked up this el cheapo sander* (which, surprisingly, seems to work just as good as our more expensive, now dead sander) brought our spirits up and the rest of the texture and dust down.

Here are the walls, sanded and smooth to the touch:

String Light Nightlight | DIY

It's the very end of July and therefore, finishing up the kids' room is first on the agenda.  I've got one tiny little thing left to do and then I'll snap some pictures and get those fun afters up here!  I'm going to sneak ahead of myself quick though and show you one little corner.  This one:
That, of course, is what it looked like prior to a whole bunch of wallpaper removal and wall sanding, popcorn ceiling removal, you know, alllll the things.

Here's what it looked like a few days ago (and ha!  It's even changed since then with the addition of some new art!):

I'll get the current situation up with the room reveal but let's talk that lit star on the wall.  In our rental, the kids had this big lamp on their dresser that was uber cool but also, uber heavy.  It was great for awhile until they started thinking they could turn it on (the knob to turn it on was on the very top of the lamp and pretty much out of their reach) and started reaching and pulling the cantilever part down, down, down.  Not my most kid-friendly piece of functional decor, that one.

Kitchen Plans

While I am hustling in the kids' room (more on Insta), WE have been BUSY in the kitchen.  And when I say busy, I mean we took down a wall a couple of weekends ago and now we're just waiting on contractors.  So really, we were busy.  And now we're waiting to get busy again.  Which is why I can take this "down time" to tackle the kids' room...just wanted to clarify for anyone thinking we can do alllll the things at once.  Nope, not here.

Here's what this side of the kitchen looked like right after we closed:

And if you had walked into the den/living room and stared at that wall from the other side, this is what you'd have seen:

Or maybe it's what you wouldn't have seen.  That's what we're talking about.  From walking through this house on day one to now, we've dreamt about possibly taking this wall (halfway) down to open up the kitchen to the living room.

Finishing Ceilings After Popcorn Removal

So, those unsightly popcorn ceilings are gone thanks to lots of scrapage (tutorial here) and arm strength but now what?  You've uncovered bare drywall and all of the drywall mud (those white stripes) but the ceiling isn't exactly smooth...yet.


If you just painted over the ceiling at this point, you'd see lots of ridges, lines, and shallow craters - the lines of the mud and the craters left behind from halfway filling in the screw holes holding the drywall up.

Not pretty and definitely not the result you want after spending all of that time scraping.


Note:  The following method of finishing the ceilings came after some trial and error, very unfortunately.  We spent a few extra hours doing things the wrong way...or maybe just a less efficient way that I won't get into because it's worthless.  Just so you know...  ;)

Here's how we finished our ceilings - the most efficient (and least messy) way.

#letsroomtogether

So I started something...

It's been something I've been wanting to start for a good long while now and the timing has never been right.  And to be completely honest, I'm a little overwhelmed with the thought of moving forward with it right now but it's all going to be ok, right? 

It's called...


Why?

I've had this nagging feeling for the past couple of years that I've just been in a mode where I complete a room and then I write up the big reveal, throw a few tutorials in there, and call it a blog.  And it's all great!  I know so many of you have found inspiration in my ideas (said as humbly as I can) and it's motivated you to get down and dirty with some DIY in your own space but still, I feel a lot of the time like I'm just "showing off" what I did and because I'm a big secondhand buyer, I can't always jot down all of the links and sources for you to do the same and so sometimes it all feels one-sided.  It's the same with Instagram and sharing over there...even more so sometimes.

So, I wanted to come up with something to involve YOU more in what I'm doing over here.  Something that will provide inspiration and support and just a whole lot of fun.  With our new house and all of the rooms needing attention, it's the perfect time to get everybody in.  :)

Removing Popcorn Ceilings - How We Did It

Popcorn ceilings!  It only took me forever to write about these but hey, the post is here and maybe you care and maybe you’ll just move on but either way, let’s talk all about them!  Specifically, let’s talk about getting rid of them!


It only took us three weeks of plugging away but our new house has 2300 square feet of smooth ceilings to add to it’s resume.  I’m going to tell you all about how we went from popcorn to smooth but first, let’s do a quick Popcorn Ceilings 101. 


What are popcorn ceilings? 

A travesty, that’s what.  Hehe…kidding.  They’re not really that bad and some people probably like them way more than we do and that’s a-ok.  To each his own, right?  Right.  Popcorn ceiling refers to the popcorn-like/cottage cheese texture that some ceilings are covered with, especially in houses built in the 70’s, 80’s, beyond.  Really, they just look like someone sprayed a mixture of teeny-tiny pieces of popcorn stirred up into thick chalk paint up onto the ceiling.


Apparently they have functional value in that they up the acoustics of a room – they make sound stop in it’s tracks and not bounce all over the place (though I can’t say that smooth ceilings really make sound in a room louder).  They are also somewhat of a short cut on the building-of-the-house side in that ceilings don’t have to be “finished” quite as much as walls if they’re just going to get sprayed with popcorn texture.  It covers a multitude of drywall imperfections and we. would. know.  We recently finished (well, almost) making amends with those imperfections and THAT will be a whole ‘nother post.

Why get rid of them? 

Well, there’s nothing super bad about them.  Aesthetically, they’re just not the most pleasing.  The texture creates lots of shadows on the ceiling which in turn makes a room darker.  Light just kind of hits them and stops instead of bouncing off them to what’s below, like it does on smooth ceilings.  They’re also great at holding onto dust and cob webs AND they can harbor allegens.  Oh, and cigarette smoke (lots of fingers pointing to our ceilings).  Let’s not forget about that.  Awesome, right?  But, here’s the thing, they’re almost impossible to clean.  Any amount of light scrubbing or on-contact vacuuming will most likely ruin them/create a ruined spot.  You can attempt to fix spots but getting them to match the original is no easy task.  The main reason that we are getting rid of ours (followed by aesthetics in a v v v close second) is because the previous owner of our home smoked inside and they were stained and held in that ashtray smell.  Case in point, our master bedroom:

How do you get rid of them?

First of all and VERY importantly, if your home was built prior to 1980, your popcorn ceilings might be made with asbestos.  Make sure you check first (you can buy test kits like this one* that note a lab fee) because if they are made with asbestos, you’ll have to leave the removal to a pro or learn to live with them.

You can have them professionally scraped and removed…but it’ll cost ya.  We looked into this in our old house because the popcorn ceiling in our kitchen was discolored and we wanted to remedy that before we put it on the market.  It was sort of a fiasco but in a nutshell, we tried to paint the popcorn, it started falling off with every roll of the paint, and in a panic, I called a local drywall specialist to see how much it would cost to have them removed.  He quoted me $3/square foot so almost $600 for just our kitchen and dining nook.  Ouch.  We ended up scraping what we could and then spraying a knock-down texture instead so we solved our dilemma but, just so you have an idea of pricing, our house is around 2400 square feet so we’d pay $7200 to have our popcorn ceilings removed down to those smooth beauties.  Not a handful of change by any means and in our case, not worth the cash when we knew we could try it ourselves…with success, I might add.  ;)  Cha-ching…in our pockets.
Which leads me to option numero dos – scraping them off yourselves.  I’ll be honest, it’s not nearly as bad as I thought.  I’ll get more into that later.

You can also just cover them up.  Cindy did that with hers and the planks add a lot of character to her space.  (Spoiler alert, we have some covering up plans for the bathroom that had painted popcorn.  I’m dreaming of geometric tiles.)

Another option is to spray or have a professional spray them to create a knock-down texture look.  My sister and her hubby had this done to their entire home and it cost them a small fraction of the cost it would have been to get them scraped.

Let’s get to the fun part though, shall we?  DIYing those ceilings off.  :D


High & Wide

I feel like we're just exiting the "getting settled" part of this move and moving (very excitedly) into the tweaking part.  AKA, everything is moved and, at the very least, everything is in the room that it's going to permanently reside.  But every single one of those rooms is unfinished...very much so.  As to be expected though, right?

We are SO excited to start making this house our home...on the usual small budget, of course.  Our priorities have changed just a smidge since we moved in but I'll update you on that in a different post.  And finish the post(s) about the (now gone) popcorn ceilings.  And get a moved-in house tour up.  Add a few etcs and I think we'll be good.  ;)

Today though, let's talk curtains.  One of my favorite things to do is hang them.  In my opinion, they are the best way to warm up a room.  By just putting up a rod and some fabric, you can change the feel of a whole room - from stark to homey - just like that.  But how you hang them matters.  And really, I'll never tell anyone they're hanging their curtains the wrong way (because once upon a time, I was hanging them "wrong"...check out the master in our first house) but there's a better way - high and wide.  For me, this PSA I found pinned changed my entire curtain-hanging life once upon a time and I'll never look back.

Let's take this window in our master bedroom:


A few things...

Hi!

Once again, I feel as if I've been neglecting the blog.  But really, any neglect isn't intentional and it's just that life has been crazy lately.  Let me explain...

1)  We moved.  Yep, you know.  We are still not completely settled and probably not even halfway there because...

2)  The morning after we moved we got a call that Anthony's grandfather had passed away.  :(  Up until that morning, our kids had been able to walk to, talk to, and hug all of their great-grandparents.  Pretty amazing, right?  So, we loaded up a few days later and made our way to North Carolina where we celebrated his life and got to spend a lot of good time with his entire immediate family.  Bittersweet was the word. 

3)  When we got home and walked into our new house, the flood gates of Overwhelming Dam unloaded on me.  There is A LOT to do.  Anthony keeps having to remind me that this is not a short-term flip.  It's a long-term homemaking.  ;) 

4)   I've since resolved myself to taking it a room-a-day instead of hopping around from this one to that one while thinking about that room three over that really needs a good organization.  Today I tackled the dining room. 

It's hard to see the bare drywall where in my mind I see paint on the walls with a fun wallpaper under the chair rail and art on the walls and curtains and a new chandelier and wood tile floors and and and...

5)  It's a long-term homemaking.  Breathe. 

6)  Last, the writer I used to write my posts with that I absolutely loved went caput on me and so I've been having to publish from Blogger's platform and it's been much less than fun.  Writing a post sounds fun until I remember I have to fanagle with Blogger.  But, I'm weighing my options so hopefully I'll have a better avenue soon.  Don't worry though, I promise it won't keep me from posting.  ;)

7)  I have a really fun idea to share that involves you, yep, YOU, so stay tuned! 

A Modern Farmhouse Entry - Guest Feature

Yep, I’m stillll working on that popcorn ceiling post.

And, we’re still working on the house.  I’ve been trying to post updates on Insta so if you’re inchin’, a scratch is over thataway.

There’s nothing pretty to look at in our new house at the moment but thankfully, there is beauty to be found elsewhere.

For example, my friend Mary’s DIYed entryway.

This one is for all of you modern farmhouse loving folk.  You will LOVE this.

Mary and her husband semi-recently built a house to hold their cute little family and in that house was a small closet in the entry that had been bugging Mary because it just didn't seem to hold its weight of family life.

Curb-Side

Well hiya!  A month long blog sabbatical is NOT what I intended!  A blog post about popcorn ceiling removal is what I did intend, a few weeks ago of course, but I don't have full control over the schedule over here...even though I like to think I do.  That's just life though, isn't it?

While that popcorn ceiling post is sitting pretty in my drafts almost ready for thine eyes, I thought I'd come on quick and give you a glimpse into what, we think, is our most exciting project prospect...that is, what we're most excited to move in and tackle.

Zee front of zee house.



Progress Update

We have been spending almost every minute of free time we can over at the new house scraping ceilings and so far, about 65% of the ceilings are popcorn-free.
(All the plants for all the air cleaning!!  I got this palm yesterday at Sam's for $14!!)

Things Are Looking Up

Here’s the thing about moving in to a rental and spending a little over a year taking it from dated to 2019 – the thought of rehabbing another house next carries with it some high standards.  High standards meaning, well, we completely turned this house around in a year (with lots and LOTS of paint) so surely we can do that again with the next house.  And even though you know this next house needs a lot more work and you have bigger dreams for it because it’s “yours”, that feeling of rushing to the finish line is looming.  Basically, what I’m getting at is that we’ve owned this *new* house for a week and already, I feel like we’re behind schedule…even though there really isn’t a schedule per say and really it’s just those high standards creeping in like a thief in the night.  I’m finding myself having to constantly remind myself (and Anthony always reminding me) that time is on our side.  It’s not hard for me to love our house where it’s at and even embrace it in all of its dated glory, but it IS hard seeing all of the glorious potential and not being able to reach it all at once!  You feel me?  It’s like having a newborn who is the boss of your schedule and sleep and even so, loving that baby with your whole heart feeling as if it may burst but also longing and dreaming about the day when that baby grows up just a little and sleeps through the night.  Sometimes, it can’t come fast enough.  :)

New House Tour

IT’S THE NEW HOUSE, HOUSE TOUR!!!

I SAY HOUSE, YOU SAY TOUR! 

HOUSE…

HOUSE…

Ok, simma Sheena.  But we goin’ have a house tour on the blog today and it’s goin’ to be filled with allllll the before shots.  You ready?

Good.  You may enter through the front.



Basket Case

Last week, a random situation presented itself and after I dealt with it I thought, “Hey!  I should write about that!”  So I will and here it is.  It’s a story of some woven baskets I found last week at Dirt Cheap for $3 each.  I’m pretty sure you can still buy them in store at Target.  I’ve seen them in the Dollar Spot and they’ll run you back $5 a piece there.  Somehow a few of them trickled down to Dirt Cheap…well, somehow in that they were very misshapen from being smooshed somewhere along the line.  In their condition, they could barely stand on their own much less be a drop zone for something. 


But, I tossed them into my cart at Dirt Cheap because I had a plan to take these baskets back to their original glory…a plan I was 95% positive would work.

The Story of a Footboard

Right after our wedding and honeymoon eleven happy years ago, we moved into our first house together and slept on a twin mattress on the floor together because that’s all we had.  I still wouldn’t mind sleeping on a twin mattress with Anthony but I doubt it would be as comfortable now as it was then, with the high probability of a toddler sandwiched between us.  A couple of weeks passed during which we were on the hunt for a queen bed and mattress and that hunt ended with a bed/dresser set we found at a local thrift store in Ohio.  We bought our dining room table and chairs at the same time and paid $100 for one set and $150 for the other.  I can’t remember which was which.  Then we bought a mattress at Big Lots for $500 and finally cashed in on adult status. 

We painted our master in our first house pale blue and then I got to work adding some white – curtains from Walmart, lamps from a clearance rack at Ollie’s, and bedding that was wedding gifted.  It was simple and serene and perfect for us newlyweds.



Master Bedroom: The Reveal

Now that we have our eyes and minds on our new house, it’s good that our current rental looks like the home we wanted it to be.  I am calling it finito.  We are done tweaking this place and patiently (well, usually not so patiently) awaiting our closing date in mid-March.  Even with the closing of our new house though, we’ll still be living in our rental until we can get a few big things done before move-in day (which will probably be May-ish).  While we wait, I’m happy to report that we’ll be sleeping in a master bedroom that no longer looks like a cardboard box with the kind of swag (ahem…curtains) that’s not so appealing…


but rather one that is full on SWAG:


Before I dive into the details, I just want to say that this room is an excellent example of decorating with things you find on sale/secondhand.  As much as I’d love to run into a store, buy a bunch of gorgeous things that all swim together in the same interior design sea all at once, and come home to put a room together in a day or two, that’s just not in the cards for our budget over here.  It takes time (and patience!) to hunt things down that all fit together and make a room feel polished.  But the end result, both the room and the contents of your wallet, are worth the challenge the hunt can be.  Remember that the next time you’re staring longingly down Pinterest’s endless boards of rooms decorated to perfection with the latest and greatest trends.  I know I need to.  ;) 

The very first thing we did to break out of the box was paint the walls white and add a bold green accent wall, which made all the difference in the world in this room.  Or maybe it was taking down those curtains that made all the difference in the world.  Or both.  Yep, probably both.

We Have Some News…

We have some news…






It’s kind of big…







Not too big but big enough…

Master Bathroom Makeover Under $100

Hello!  Who’s in for a master bathroom reveal?  :D
This one won’t win any awards for most jaw-dropping transformation but nonetheless, it’s a transformation for the better and that’s all that really matters, right?  ;)
Before, our master bathroom was laden with that tan paint that coursed throughout the house (while not bad persay, not the best color for this house and it’s characteristics), some frilly curtains, baby blue fixtures, and horrible lighting.

While we weren’t going to dish out the money to change the tile, painting the room white (Pure White by Sherwin-Williams) was an easy way to make the blue feel a little more intentional.  The curtains came down as soon as I could get them off and, since the window itself is frosted, there really isn’t a need for window treatments but I made some anyway.  The full tutorial on that roman shade is here
After all of that refreshing plus some decor on the walls and new gold hardware (leftover from the kitchen makeover) on the cabinet, we are here:

Entry Way - Before & After

I know I said I’d be back with a master bathroom reveal but I’m hop, skip, and jumping over to the entry way today instead…because I’ve been procrastinating taking those after shots of the master bath I so desperately need to ring up a true reveal.  In my defense, we’re fairly certain one of the twins has the flu so I’ve been hunkered down with her.  We’ll get there, right?  You know it.  :D

Anywho, the entry way.  Entry ways are one of my favorite rooms in any house.  Just like I wrote about a back entrance awhile back, they can make or break first impressions of a house being the spot that's seen first.  They can also make or break your mood when you walk in from wherever it is you’ve been.

Here’s what ours looked like before we moved in:
I didn’t take this picture in the brightest part of the day in this room so it was feeling a little dark already and obviously, a pile of boxes doesn’t do much for aesthetics.  It was a real Debbie Downer for sure.

But, BUT, look at it now:

Custom Roman Shade - DIY

While I was in the middle of our master bathroom’s mini-makeover about a month ago, I got this (what I thought was a) great idea about how I could easily make a custom roman shade to liven up the window in there without any sewing.  Fast forward to one morning last week, when I got around to tackling that idea.  All was going swimmingly and I took a ton of pictures to show you and then I hung it up the finished shade and, well, if there was a soundtrack to go with my life, the sound bite at that moment would go something like *womp womp*.  Let me tell ya, it’s one thing when your plan fails halfway through the process and you can just ditch it for Plan B or just ditch it all together.  But when you complete the whole process AND THEN at the very end, when you’re expecting a firework of good emotions, things don’t pan out, it’s heart-breaking (in the most superficial way possible, of course).

Le sigh.

But, there is a good ending at the end of this even though my sorry roman shade had to be jimmy-rigged.  I’ll explain later.

Here’s that finished roman shade:

It looks real good in pictures but as we all know, pictures can lie in a social media world.  #amiright  #oramiright

The window in our master bathroom is frosted and our backyard is large and very private so there’s really no need for curtains or shades or anything like that except for aesthetic reasons.  And I like aesthetics so I decided on a shade.  After hunting around on some secondhand sites and online for a small, bamboo shade and coming up empty, I found this little guy* on Amazon Warehouse.  I was trying to find something under $10 and he rang in $3 over so not too bad but the magnetic feature was super cool, I thought, especially since this shade wouldn’t need to function.  The magnetic feature assured there wouldn’t be any strings to hide so I was sold.  Plus, I had further plans for it.  Read on.

One way I like to add color and pattern to a space is in the window treatments.  When you get tired of the current pattern you can swap them out pretty easily and somewhat affordably (especially if you’re talking sewing your own or using no-sew hem tape to make some).  I wanted to add some fun to our bathroom and the magnetic shade wasn’t going to do that on it’s own.  Nope.  It needed a little help. 
After a little bit of a search, I found this fabric and knew it would be the perfect match to our new shade.

A little bit of hot glue later and BAM, pattern right where we needed it.


Let me go into the process of how I went from plain to patterned because the process is gold, and then I’ll dive into where it all went wrong and how you can take the successful route instead.


Upcycled Hanging Planter - DIY

I’ve been using plastic bottles to make wall decor again – guilty.  Instead of a body spray bottle this time though, it’s a lotion bottle.  I’ve been holding onto this empty bottle of baby lotion for a good long while so that I could repurpose it and I just got around to it last week.  If you want me to write a post all about how you can idealize a project and not actually DO IT for months, let me know. 



Can you spot it?




A Lighter & Brighter Laundry Room

Hi friend!  I kind of took an unintentional blogging break (but intentional social media break so I guess it just kind of follows?) over the holidays and so now here we are toe-deep into 2019!  To backtrack, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!  We stayed home this year (our usual has been to travel to family every year) and we just had a grand old time.  It was care-free, so very peaceful, and so good for us in preparing for the celebration of Jesus’ birth.  How was yours?  Did you travel?  It’s always a brave undertaking to travel during Christmas, right?  We did get a few things around the house done too – we painted our master bedroom and bathroom!  I’ll have more updates on them later but things are looking so much better!!

Today, I’m just going to jump right back into it and show youl what’s changed in our laundry room. 

Here’s what it looked like right before we moved in:

IMG_6827I took this picture in the afternoon, when the lighting is the darkest in here but even so, this room is bright for the first part of the morning and darker throughout the rest of the day.  We brought our own washer and dryer with us and the two that were left were pretty old and dirty so it was nice to get ours up and running again (our previous, temporary rental had a washer and dryer so we stored our beloved Frigidaires in the garage for that six months and I missed them dearly).