Guest Room/Study Update

Wow, it’s been a while y’all since we have updated this blog! Our newest renovation project was converting our study to a guest room/ sitting room/ study. Honestly, I don’t know what we were thinking between both of us working, the kids being kids, and Michael’s MBA program.. We barely found the time. But, every night after the kids went to bed, we made a little progress until we finally completed it!

Before & After

   

Before & After

 

Step 1: We measured our wall and tried to find a couch that would be the perfect length. I wanted a dark blue velvet couch because well, why not? It had to be dark blue AND velvet AND a sleeper sofa..

Luckily, I found one on wayfair! The width was 70 inches so now I was on the hunt for a book case that would fit on both ends. We got lucky that the besta ikea system fit perfectly. This was with hours after searching btw…

Step 2: Buy ikea furniture and paint. Alright yall – here is my tip on this.. DO NOT BUY IKEA FURNITURE AND PAINT IT. We thought it wouldn’t be so bad, but we were wrong.

Step 3: Assemble. Once we painted the furniture after multiple coats using a special primer, we tried to assemble it. Since the ikea pieces are made to fit perfectly together, there was really no room for extra coats of paint that layered each piece. This made it incredibly difficult to assemble. yall – it took us hours….

Here is a photo of us using a car jack to try to break a panel free after it getting stuck from paint.

Step 4: Decorate! I was hoping to save some $$ and just paint some photos. I enlisted my Juliette and Michael to help. Juliette practically painted the photo on the left. Of course, I helped a little and edited, but for the most part, she did it! Michael painted the one on the right and ta-da, $ saved!

Alright yall – that’s it for now! We love it and can’t wait to add some more in the coming weeks 🙂

xoxo

 

Our DIY projects!

Michael and I have been working on a couple of projects lately around the house and I’m pleased to say that I think we are finally done with our master bedroom, 75% done with our living area, and 50% done with our nursery! Here is a little sneak peak on all of our do-it-yourself projects (many inspired by Pinterest, of course!).  I will say, although the DIY concept is supposed to save some $$, sometimes these projects weren’t always the cheapest! But, nonetheless a cheaper alternative to a really custom item.

Let’s start with our master bedroom!
1. Curtains ($120) : We bought 25 yards of this Storm Gray Raji Duck Cloth from Hobby Lobby . This was $10 a yard and we purchased about 4 yards per panel + a 40% coupon! I didn’t do anything fancy here, but sew the edges up per panel!

2. Curtain Rod for bay window ($80): We bought some wooden dowels, curtain hooks with clips at the end, and brown spray paint! Ta-da! Michael cut the wood at an angle to fit our bay windows and now we have custom curtain rods!

3. Bedding: Duvet and Quilt from Pottery Barn ; I had left over fabric from the curtains so made these cute pillows! I also made the bolster pillow from left over fabric from Hobby Lobby  from our master bathroom valance project

4.  Slip Covered Chairs ($40 total for both chairs): You can’t go wrong with some fabric from Joanns or Hobby Lobby, especially when they have coupons going on! This DIY project was hard! I failed on my first attempt at this, but luckily my mom came to the rescue with her expert sewing!

5.  Artwork over the headboard ($50): I bought the frames from Michaels. I think there was a buy one get one free offer with the frames! I hand drew the artwork, completed inspired by Pottery Barn’s artwork here and here!

6. Headboard & Nightstands: Our headboard is from Crate & Barrel with 20% off during a sale and our nightstands are from Kirklands – they also always have sales in case you are on the hunt!

1. Window Treatment for the Living area: This DIY project was quite the endeavor, but was really worth it! We bought some curtain panels from Tuesday Morning ($60) and re-sewed them to be faux roman shades. We bought the long window panels from Pottery Barn and the rod from Home Depot. Check out here for a tutorial! I can’t remember all the detailed costs involved in this, but i think we saved some $$ making these ourselves instead of going through buying them custom somewhere.

1. Cushion($7): Our mud area has a little sitting area so I sewed a cushion with left over fabric from our bathroom window valance! The cushion inside cost $7 from Hobby Lobby (of course, this cost includes a 40% coupon!)

1. Window Valance ($25 for two!): Our nursery is going nautical! This window valance or cornice board project had no sewing involved! Tutorial here. We had left over materials for another valance so I made one for our master bathroom window! I love this project since it has high impact with little cost!

 

 

 

 

Before & After Photos!

Hi yall! I have had these saved on my computer for a while now, but haven’t had a chance to upload them! Well, here they are! These were taken when we were on the cusp of moving in! The next fun stage is DECORATING! We already got some great pieces already so can’t wait to show you guys what we found and our deals/steals! Enjoy! We hope to show you sometime in person so we can give you a real tour of some our favorite details not shown (e.g., see our closet turned desk, deep kitchen drawers for our plates and more, etc.)

Home Sweet Home – we removed the blue and stuck with a more neutral color! The before photos were taken from a professional photographer so some of these before photos might even look better than our after photos, which were taken from my iphone (hah!), but I promise, there is definitely a change!

The Great Room – Here are several shots of our great room! We love an open Concept! Don’t you love that orb chandelier? Completely inspired by Restoration Hardware!

  

Kitchen – Come over! Michael can’t wait to cook you something in our kitchen!

   

Master Bedroom and Bathroom – Can you tell we love grey? We actually love our faucet and shower selections. They are so quiet when you are running a bath!

Bathrooms – Hall bath turned into two full baths for guests! Couldn’t wait to take that yellow paint down. 

Bedrooms – goodbye to 1970 style and hello 2014!

  

Study/Bonus Room – We are still figuring out how we want to design this room! We’ll show you more once we get more furnished!

     

Outdoor living – Thank goodness for a new fence, new grass, and more! We love the lamp on outdoor patio. We have three matching ones that are all around the house! They came from a renovation project in Memorial and a family was getting rid of them since it didn’t match their style. We were able to use them! If you look closely, we turned them all upside down so they could fit perfectly in the space.

  

Almost there!

We are in the final stretch! One of the most stressful, but exciting things about the home is that we had a chance to pick out everything! Some of the decisions we made were the following:

– Shaker style cabinets; we struggled with the paint color – we originally went with accessible grey by Sherwin Williams and switched to white since it complimented the granite; you can see all the different colors we were considering below!

– Granite: Super White in the kitchen and Moonlight in the bathrooms; we went to several different granite yards, but this was our favorite by far!

– Subway tiles in the kitchen with a chevron back splash behind the stove

– Hot water dispenser by the sink: I love me some hot tea so we had to add one by the faucet 🙂

– Built in desk in an old closet

– Chef’s Kitchen – Michael wanted a HUGE Island! it’s 8 ft x 4.4 ft.

Backyard Living

Michael couldn’t wait to take down the aluminum cover! These are photos of them tearing up our patio and installing the stamped concrete!

The Bare Bones

and.. it’s ALL COMING DOWN. We broke ground the first week of March! We spent January and February meeting with architects and designers to finalize our floor plan. We played around with several different ideas, but we finally agreed on the following:

1. Make this home an open concept; we tore down the walls that separated the kitchen from the living room and dining

2. Raise the ceiling 18 inches

3. This home was initially a 4 bedroom and 2.5 bath. The bathroom configuration was 1 master bath, 1 full bath with a double sink and shower, and 1 0.5 bath in the hall way. We demolished the 0.5 bath since it was so small and gave some of that space to a hallway and built a utility room. We took the 1 full bath with a double sink and split it half, stole some square footage from the other rooms so that we could make 2 full private baths and full walk in closets for each of the guest rooms. We couldn’t be happier with the result!

4. Change our Master bathroom; create a walk in closet, add a bath and shower, close up 1 of the doors to the mater bath and need i say add a rain shower??

5. Demolish the old patio and take down the aluminum cover; replace with stamped concrete (and hopefully a pergola some day!)

 

Before Photos

Hi All – It’s been a while since our last post! A lot has been done to the home so we thought we would give you a couple of updates! Here are all of our before photos together!

 

 

We LOVED these beams!  But, along the way, we discovered, we wanted to pitch the ceiling. It was the BEST decision we made! Good bye cute beams and hello taller ceiling!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, it’s ours!!

Here are photos on the day it officially became ours! We signed our paper work on December 17 and received the keys December 21st!

Backyard Potential

I am actually very excited about our backyard! We have a beautiful tree and a huge porch area. We hope to have french doors open up to the back so that we have seamless outdoor and indoor living! I know Michael is really looking forward to a potential hot tub in the future 🙂

Inspirational Living

One of the things we love about our home is the living area. The wood floors and open space make it a very inviting area. Here are some photos of it’s current state. We plan to demolish the walls of the kitchen and replace that space with a huge kitchen island (8×4). Michael wanted an open concept floor plan so we wanted to make that happen!

 

I would love to expose the wood panels at the top, but we’re not sure if the wood there will be presentable or not. We will see!

Another hobby of mine, other than, playing soccer or watching endless hours of the Homeland tv show with Michael is Pinning on Pinterest! Here are some inspiration photos!

 

I love the paint color in both of these kitchens! One of the kitchens uses the grey in the walls of the dining room, which I like! But, it looks like the other living area transitions to beige, which also looks good. Can’t wait to decide on the paint colors. Michael and I have been toying around with painting them a light grey. I think i’m going to use the colors in this kitchen when we go to granite yard!

Ignore the photo above of the sink, but I love the built ins. Michael is not really for it, but I think if’s affordable, we may consider it! This living space is a great inspiration pin since it has a great open concept look. We love the section and the coffee table. I like the blue ottomans, but the blue chairs are a little excessive.

 

I love everything about this dining table! I love the wing back chair at the end and even the two other chairs. Michael doesn’t care for the long bench so I could do without it. But, everything else looks good! I think the rug even is great!

More to come soon!

Michael & Mimi