house to home | the guest bathroom

It all started on Black Friday last year. We are anti-Black Friday sales, but we ventured out late in the afternoon to Home Depot and found an awesome vanity for $100. We bought it and planned to replace the broken main floor bathroom back in January.

Can you tell why I was hesitant to get into this project? It's now 10 months later and we are just getting around to finishing it. But Brandon was right about it looking 1000% time better, so I'm glad we did it.

Wasn't it pretty before? Look at that awesome sink! It was definitely a conversation starter.

Brandon ripped out the tile and did some wall repair. We primed the yellows and gave it a good coat of paint.

We planned to hire out the tile job, but Brandon felt ambitious and decided to do it himself. Thankfully, Dean and Andrea were in town and showed up one night to help. It went much faster with around. Truth be told, Andrea and I did supervsising while the guys worked. Dean took his job seriously. I found some of his notes after he left. So grateful to have such real friends. And it gave us an excuse to go to dinner at the Mandarin before they left town for helping. 

Don't tile yourself in a corner-- a new Mormonad? :) 

We drew this on the floor before the last pieces of tile went in. 

And here it is! 

My dad kindly wanted to do a little more repair and we happily obliged. 

After a few more weeks, Brandon found the time to get the toilet and sink back in. I'm so proud of him for doing it on his own. We saved a lot of money that way.

And here is the bathroom complete! Didn't Brandon do such a great job tiling? I absolutely love this floor. And since there is no natural light in this bathroom, these are the best photos I could get.

Sources:

• Tile- Lowes
• Paint- Revere Pewter @75% with 2 extra ounces of white
• Vanity and faucet - Home Depot
• Stool- Target
• Shelf- Ross
• Mirror- $3 yard sale find

house to home | the master bedroom & bathroom

Our master bedroom was a complete bonus to the house. It is much bigger than we ever hoped it to be. However, the paint color was a pukey dark green. The lighting is terrible in the room at night (due to just a few overhead lights. So when we first moved in, we planned to paint it light to brighten it up. It was one of the first rooms we taped for painting. 

But then months and months went by. Life hit. My indeciveness could not choose a paint color and so it stayed like this for a long time. Green tape and all. 

In May of 2014, we caught a huge project bug and decided to get going on some of unfinished rooms. Our room was at the top of the list. We primed it twice I think to cover up the dark green, including the dark green accent wall in the bathroom.

All primed: We slept in our room for a few weeks like this.

We got all 3 big walls painted when I got the  brilliant   crazy idea to do a planked wall behind our bed. I found some easy tutorials online and we got to work. It took us a week of working at nights after kids were asleep to put in in, but it was probably our most fun house project to date. It's far from perfect, but I love that we did it together.

Here's the progress. Not like you care, but still.

^we bought big sheets of wood and had Home Depot cut them down for us. that saved a lot of work! 

^we should have primed twice to hide that green paint coming through, but oh well. the first board was the hardest. we had to get it level. from there, we used a nickel to space the planks and pick our pattern. 

^I did all the spackling. 

^brandon did all the cutting. our bathroom made a good workshop. :) 

^and it's finished. well, except the paint. 

And after. Our furniture and decor has all been thrifted except the headboard we scored at Ross for a good deal and the bedding that was on a huge sale at Target.

Before:

And after:

I love how peaceful and empty it is. Well, when there aren't toys scattered anyway. Got to keep the children occupied somehow while I shower!

The Bathroom: 

We haven't done much to the bathroom except paint the back wall that was green, yuck! I'd like to repaint the whole thing, including the closet to freshen it up. Someday.

And for the record, it's never this clean. :)

And there you have it. Only a few years in the making.

house to home | the dining room

Here's the dining room on the day we moved in. I would have loved the red walls in 2008, but my how my tastes have changed since then. We weren't quite sure what this room would become...although I've always dreamed of having a formal dining room and this room definitely added to the pros of this house. 

Since then we have used it for parties and special dinners. I really like getting away from the stress of the kitchen to enjoy dinner as a family. And while maybe this room will evolve into something else someday, for now, we are using it as a dining room. And heavens knows I love that I can set up for parties days in advance ;) 

Before: 

We painted the top to match the kitchen and entry way. It took 2 coats of primer and 1 coat of paint to cover up that red. 

The only photo I can find after we painted it was from our Halloween party: I scored the large rug at Goodwill brand new for $40 in May when we went to California for my cousin Becky's wedding. Yes, we hauled that all the way home from California. :) But we have since moved it into the family room.

After saving up, we decided to add wood flooring in there as well since it's much easier to clean than carpet. We love that the floors are seemless into the kitchen now. 

Here's handyman Brandon prepping the floor. 

After the floor was installed: 

After waiting for good deals and finding pieces from thrift stores, this is how it looks now. (I still want to change out the chair rail and maybe add some board and batten, but someday.)I love this room. We actually eat dinner a lot in here and so I'm so glad we have made it a room we love. Who wants to come for dinner??

With the help of my dad, we made this frame for the map for Brandon for father's day. My dad was so kind to help me do it because I definitely couldn't do it alone. We've always talked about having a map we could pin and after years of thinking I would do it for this holiday or that, I finally got my act together. 

We've had so much fun pinning the places we've been. Plus, it's already spurred many conversations about the world from Blake, so I think it's a winner. And the great thing is that it's easily removable when I want to decorate for a party. Important things, right? :) 

I found the buffet at Savers for $20 and painted it and added new hardware. The table is the one redid forever ago. Maybe someday we'll switch it out, but there's no budget for that right now. 

And that's the dining room! I'm so happy to have that one tackled...for now. Brandon knows I'll probably switch things around again.