Welcome to our happy and humble abode! Feel free to leave your shoes at the door, and make yourself at home!
Oh, and of course the disclaimer! Our house is ALWAYS "under construction" as many would say. And our "To Do" list never shrinks; it's just keeps growing and growing. So please give my hubs a great big sympathy hug the next time you see him, because he is always seen toting around his tool box and tape measure and I always have a project for that "honey do list".
13 years ago was a very exciting time for my husband and I. We were expecting our first child, we had just rushed to the altar and we were building our first home. Oh! And we were youngsters at the ages of 19 and 20. So although our hearts were big, our budget was small. We had never owned a home before, and didn't have the first clue about what all it entailed. We purchased a sweet little lot in a small Midwestern town and never looked back.
Our home started out as a modular ranch, and the walls were delivered while I was in labor with our now oldest son. I remember getting out of the hospital and heading straight to see our new home and feeling more joy than my fingers are able to type out. With shallow pockets, we ended up selecting the most inexpensive "builder grade" finishes throughout the entire home. But none of that mattered. We had one another, we had our baby and we had a blank canvas.
And that is how it all began! My first favorite memory of our new home was laying on the berber carpet in the middle of our big empty living room, looking at Bryan and feeling excited to assemble our very first piece of furniture. I have always loved to read home magazines and pour my heart into my surroundings, so having our own haven to work on has been a dream come true. Everything you are about to see in this tour has been over thirteen years in the making (and all done while also adding two more boys and two furry friends into the family mix). And what makes us most proud, is that we have done majority of the work on our home with our own two hands. Aside from hiring out help for electrical, plumbing and heating, we have planted our yard, built a deck, installed a patio, painted our hearts out, updated bathrooms, installed tile, taken down and re-built walls, laid flooring, swapped out fixtures and DIY'd furniture galore.
It hasn't always been easy. We are essentially self taught, which means we have made many mistakes along the way. But those mistakes have only fueled our fire. Or have made us laugh.
OK, enough chit chat. Let's take a look at the house already! But one last thing. As much as we love our home and I love to organize, our home is NOT always picture perfect. This blog is my place to share our stories and our home highs and lows, and if you click through to the projects you will notice that most of them will show our everyday messes. You can also find my thoughts on perfection in this post
here. Before I took these photos of our home, I cleaned and scrubbed and cleaned some more. Inviting the world wide web of strangers to tour your home is far more intimidating than having your neighbor over for coffee or even hosting a cocktail party with 20 of your closest friends.
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The front of our home boasts a narrow porch, which for the longest time, the kiddos used as a garage for their bikes and scooters. I decided it was time to reclaim the space, so I painted the ceiling, updated some outdoor planters, painted the front door and added some furniture. Now it is the perfect spot for a cup of coffee or to read a magazine while watching the boys play out front.
I really wanted the front of our home to reflect the interior. We consider ourselves fairly fun and youthful, and we try not to take ourselves or our decor too seriously. In fact, we really love color and have made sure to splash it all over our walls and furnishings.
Let's step inside.
I really love before and after pictures, so you get to see a few shots of our home shortly after we moved in. This blog definitely shows us finding our way and our style over the years. The above was a rag wall treatment gone wrong, and a layout that didn't maximize our home's potential. Today it tells a different story.
As I mentioned above, when we initially approved the blueprints to our home we were a little clueless. The entry is the first example of one of our biggest mistakes/regrets. We made some alterations to the building plans and swapped the location of our stairs, which ultimately took away an entryway coat closet. That required us to get creative with our furnishings in order to make the most of a really small space. We added a narrow shoe cabinet as well as a credenza that our boys use as their school cubbies. The goal was to keep everything super simple to access and put away, while concealing daily clutter.
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Colors: Walls - Glidden's Smooth Stone Sources: Mirror, Shoe Cabinet, Umbrella Stand (similar), Planter, Ceiling Pendant, Wall Art (artist Yangyang Pan ), Rug, Credenza, Credenza Pulls, Credenza Corner Brackets, Candle, Radio, Lamp |
Although our landing is small, the entryway flows into a much bigger space; our living room! Which really is not
that big, coming in at approximately 12 feet wide.
Majority of the changes in our living room have been simply cosmetic. We installed a new floating laminate floor a year or two after we moved in. The walls have been painted about five different colors, and the lighter we went, the bigger it felt.
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Colors: Walls - Glidden's Smooth Stone
Projects: Built-In Bookcase Part 1 & Part 2, Craft Store Storage, Craft Cabinet Organization
Sources: Sunburst Mirror (similar), Lamps (similar), Blue Boxes, Floral Boxes, Lanterns (similar), Bookends, Blue Chair, Sectional, Coffee Table, Gallery Wall Frames (similar), White Tray, Blue Pillows, Coral Pillows, Black/White Pillow, Black White Stripe Throw |
As our family grew, we slowly changed out our furnishings. And the media cabinet was one of our favorite DIY projects to date, simply created out of off-the-shelf white bookcases.
A view that stops me in my tracks each day is looking from our living room back towards our dining room. Hello beautiful blue storage hutch!
The dining area was another blank canvas I couldn't wait to personalize. It is where we come together as a family each evening, and I really wanted the space to be special.
Stripes, curtains, a little Craigslist shopping and mixing and matching pieces for our new dining table and the space truly smiles for us now.
The hutch wasn't always the beauty she is today. Purchased second hand from a stranger, I couldn't wait to liven it up with paint. I know I shouldn't play favorites, but this piece tops my list.
The dining room acts as a bit of a connector of the entryway/living room and the kitchen. And why does everyone in the Midwest have a love affair with oak? I think some oak can actually be quite lovely, but the oak that we put in our home - not so much and
waaaay too much. (I was initially outvoted on white cabinets, trim and doors.)
After living with the oak for a few years, I finally convinced my husband that everything would feel much lighter and brighter with the help of a few coats of paint.
We have giant plans for our kitchen, but the paint was a nice temporary fix until that day comes.
Just inside our garage entrance and tucked behind our fridge, we installed a little wall message center. LOVE doesn't begin to describe it.
Heading back towards the hall now, there are a few bedrooms and our main bathroom.
The first door on the right is our main bathroom. Three little guys share this space each day and it also has to suite our guests. Although, I apparently tried to claim it as mine when we first moved in... sigh... that is a lot of purple.
The bathroom received quite a few mini updates courtesy of paint, but nothing more than that until 2014. After 12 years of full time use, both the vanity and toilet were no longer fully functioning. So we updated the floors, vanity, lighting, mirror, toilet and walls. The room instantly felt bigger, which was no easy task considering it is only a five foot box.
This past year we added some life to our hallway with playful dipped frames filled with some of our favorite memories.
As much as we love our home and have completed quite a bit over the years, there is still a lot of fun to be had. One room I have been working on extremely slowly, is our oldest son's space.
He is growing faster than I like to admit, and suddenly his room needs to be tailored to a teenager! I
don't have the first clue how to design a teenage boy's room, and he really is content with just about anything which means he doesn't provide me with much direction.
So for now I just let him do his thing and the room is nice and livable , it just needs a few finishing touches. Fingers crossed we have those done before he heads off to college!
Our other boy's bedroom is a different story. This one was much easier for us to update and although it has already been a few years since we finished it, we still love it oh-so-much. Decorating for younger kidlets is stree-free - can't go wrong - get to play with colors and patterns - kind of fun!
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Colors: Walls - Behr's Windsurf, Pittsburgh Paint's Cityscape
Projects: Wall Map, Painted Stripes, DIY Upholstered Headboards
Sources: Wire Airplane, Pouf, Bedding, Sheets, Throw Pillows, Airplane Posters, Cabinet - Frame/Door, Sconces |
Although we have one more bedroom on the main level, our younger two boys enjoy sharing a room for now. The majority of the room was DIY'd, and our boys provided us with a lot of their own visions and input. Because we don't store too many toys in the space, we didn't have many storage issues in the main sleeping area. However, when it came to two little guys sharing a single small closet, it required me to get creative with the storage plan.
We divided the closet with an inexpensive bookshelf and paired it with two sets of closet rods on either side. It has been functioning big for the boys (and us!). We also added an additional rail of hooks behind their door to add extra hanging storage.
Across the hall is the guest room, however, it initially started out as the master bedroom when we first moved in.
Another project that I have always adored and now wish wasn't tucked so far away in our home, is our guest room desk nook. That wallpaper gives me giant heart eyes!
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Colors: Walls - Behr's Burnished Metal
Projects: Closet Desk Reveal
Sources: Bedding, Duvet, Mirror, Lamp, Side Table (x2), Headboard (DIY), Wallpaper, Pen Cups, Swing Arm Lamp, Craft Drawers, Craft Paper Slots, Clear Chair |
The guest room has an attached bath, which once again started falling apart, even before the main bathroom did! Here is a before of the finishes we selected when the home was first built.
We lived with it broken down for awhile, but when we found out we would be hosting a guest, it was time to get it fully functional again. A week long makeover happened with a mad dash to the finish line.
Now, let's head downstairs.
We have finished our lower level twice now, due to an unfortunate flooding that took place a few years back. The second time around we installed a waterproof vinyl laminate flooring and moisture resistant trim. We hope those updates will safeguard us in the future should our sump pump fail during a power outage again.
Before we finished our lower level, our laundry room was originally just framed out and carpeted with scraps from the original living room flooring:
There are some spaces I enjoy making over more than others. Kid's rooms and laundry rooms rank at the top of the list. Home Offices are typically right up there as well.
Being a short gal, I was excited to upgrade to front loading HE machines. I have never once felt regret. We also finished the walls, installed flooring and hung floating shelves (with decorative corbels) to make the most of our vertical space.
The functionality of the room has been evolving over the years, and recently also turned into the room where we store all of our paint supplies. That required some special storage, so we built ourselves a pretty fabulous cabinet.
And do you also see that wall to wall storage to the right? We also built that completely from scratch. Definitely one of our biggest building projects to date, but we gained some pretty fabulous storage as a result. It now acts as a cleaning closet, beach gear storage, a place to sort, dry and fold laundry!
Not only do I really like to make laundry rooms look pretty because so many chores take place there, it is also the room I sit and look at all day while I work in my nearby studio.
This room has been through change after change after change. I am not sure I will ever get it "right" or feel as though I am finished with it, because I really struggle working in an area of the home that doesn't receive any natural daylight. And I sit in this space A LOT. So I think I am raising the white flag until we can move it someday. I am pretty happy with how far it has come however. And the amount of storage I have is pretty gosh darn incredible.
Not only have we built in a lot of cabinet storage, we also finished the closet under the stairs with flooring and walls, and now it is a storage haven.
Another completely untouched room in our home is our family room. We are talking complete blank slate to play with! And I have big plans for this space someday! (Can you hear my evil, scheming laughter?)
Our lower level is a simple horseshoe shape; the family room marries the studio and our playroom.
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Colors: Walls - Behr's Reflecting Pool Sources: Entertainment Center (craigslist), Green Poofs, Rug |
This space is by far the happiest of them all. Bold color, a lot of pattern, and endless days filled building legos, playing games and entertaining lots of little pals. Without investing a lot of money in expensive furniture, we have pieced together a few IKEA pieces and Craigslist finds to create storage for a variety of playroom toys, games and crafts.
A bench pieced together from two narrow bookcases now has the room to seat many little bottoms. And the best part is all of the easy-to-access toy storage below!
Our three boys have received Legos as gifts since they were tiny tots. And they also inherited bins of Legos from both mom and dad (yes, I loooooved building Lego houses as a kid as well). They helped devise a storage plan and even sorted them down with me.
I get asked all of the time if we still love the Lego storage and the answer is YES! The key is to be super flexible about it and have a large bin to hold in-progress builds and random pieces. We only tend to re-sort that holding bin every few months.
One last bathroom which located directly off of the playroom and extremely close to the master bedroom.
Last but not least, let's take a peek at the master bedroom.
Our master bedroom, although in the lower level, receives an abundance of amazing natural light. It feels soothing yet still has a little personality at the same time.
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Colors: Walls - Behr's Frozen Pond
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When we initially built our home, we dug out a large portion of our front yard to fit appropriate sized windows and allow us to create livable space in the basement. Therefore, all of the lighting is in the front of our home, the back half is all under ground. That meant that we had to get a little creative with the layout. Our master bedroom was divided into a bedroom and a dressing room, as by code we were not allowed to add another bedroom without a proper window. Say what? A dressing room?! At first I was frustrated about the loss of a functional bedroom, but now I believe it was a blessing in disguise. It makes me feel so very spoiled and I am so grateful for the space now that it is done.
Someday we may install a dream closet system, but knowing the major expense it would have been we decided to find ways to make the space feel super glamorous and luxurious, on our budget. That meant dividing the space and storing all of our clothing behind closed amoire doors. I love that I don't have to worry how organized Bryan's closet is, because I don't have to look at it.
Once again, a lot of Target and IKEA paired with pretty decorative hardware. Oh! And another stencil that makes a wow statement!
To organize my accessories, I covered a simple cork board with linen and DIY'd some Kate Spade inspired storage boxes. We also added a few Closetmaid towers to hold boots, handbags, accessories and travel sized toiletries.
And the last little corner of our home is where all of our clothes land until put-away laundry day. I mean it is where we run our little hearts out. Once a year. Shucks... I really gotta start using this spot!
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Colors: Walls - Behr's Frozen Pond
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When the DIY and organizing slows down for the day and we need a place to relax, grill and spend time together as a family, we head out back to our patio.
And since we are outside, let's finish the entire tour with one last project that we are extremely proud of, the garage.
Looking back on our 13+ year home adventure, there have been times we have felt frustrated, burnt out, overwhelmed and even have tried to sell a few times... But at the end of the day, there is no where we would rather be and feel like it is just meant to be our little happy spot. It has been so exciting problem solving ways to maximize our 2200 square foot abode, and I have especially loved having y'all along for the ride this past 5 years of blogging.
Hold on to your britches my friends, because we are about to take on one of our biggest DIY adventures yet. The kitchen!
A special "Thank You" goes out to my father-in-law, who is always there to help answer questions and lend a DIY hand. This house wouldn't be the home it is without him.
