House #3 Home Tour

After fifteen years living in a 1970s traditional style house in a older neighborhood, we decided to downsize. (More on that later.) This house represented 15 years of blood, sweat, and tears. Renovating and remodeling and making it our own. Along the way we raised three amazing young men who are making lives of their own with our youngest recently married.

These pictures were taken in about 5 minutes on my phone to sell our house. We were already under contract with our new house and had to sell this quick. The house across the street was having an open house in three days and we wanted it listed and open for that. Whew! House sold in less than a week and the roller coaster ride began!

Typical of a 1970s traditional two story ranch house. Not much was changed in the front that is visible to the eye. We added new porch columns, new garage door, all new windows, shutters, and painted the aluminum siding.

Eating area off of kitchen. Many refreshes over the years. Mostly via paint and a new patio door.

This kitchen. Has gone through several updates, mostly cosmetic. Always wanted to do a total gut but couldn't afford it or have the time. Read the original post On My Way to a Dream Kitchen as well as the Country Wasn't Cool.

Let's be honest, this house had a large but awkward living room. Every. single. wall. had a window or a door or a pony wall. Made it difficult to arrange furniture.

View of the 'family room' a.k.a. my homes office.

View from kitchen into living room and dining room. Note all the doorways!

Master Bathroom (Jack and Jill style). Read about the last refresh Master bath update.

Dining Room. Added Board and Batten several years ago, new porcelain tile floor, ceiling medallion and crown plus paint of course.

My biggest challenge is to learn how to take better pictures!

Thanks for stopping by.

The Big Mistake

A lot has been happening since we moved into our #1951renovation house.
This weekend I tackled the main floor bathroom. Here is a picture of what it looked like when we bought the house.

This bathroom was expanded and remodeled in 2015. T

The previous owner used top of the line custom cabinets and finishes. However she also made some odd choice. In this bathroom is all of the 'cubbies' at the top at the ceiling. There is one over the door as well. There are NO towel bars/rings and nothing to hold toilet paper. Seriously was a bit strange.

So my first mission was to tear down the cubbies and all the shelves. Harder than it looked! We got some down and finally called the contractor that installed them to get the rest down.

Partial deconstruction

Wallpaper is Manhatten Comfort Accentuations.

Super happy with how it turned out. The craziest part? This is NOT the wallpaper I intended to order but boy do I love it! 

#wallpaper #bathroomrefresh #1951renovation #masterbath #ManhattenComfortAccentuationswallpaper

Garden Tours Oh My!

For me, summer is crazy busy! I work hard and lots of hours which means that, before I realize it, August is here and fall feels are in the air.
Don't get me wrong, I love fall! I am not a fan of the high temps, high humidity, miserable hot part of summer. The only bright light of that weather is our pool. Other than that, I am miserable.

But, here we are in August and trees are starting to turn. The nights are getting cooler and I start feeling nostalgic wondering where on earth the summer went! The highlight of summer? Garden tours! Our area has two garden tours of which I always attend. This year, only made one but it was great!

Here are a few pictures:

Marshall Garden Tour

She Shed

AhMazing home in Marshall!

More gardens

Beautiful flowers!

Flowers

flowers

Love this color of cone flower.

Driveway entrance

Bird cage

Cool birdhouse

flower baskets

Sweet patio

Water feature

   

   

This garden was incredible!

Beautiful landscape.

Cute tea table.

Often it's the little things

Most of us already know this but still, I'm always amazed at the difference little changes can make. Especially when you are happy with the basic bones of a room but want to switch it up a bit and do a refresh.

That's exactly what I did by changing area rugs. I moved the dining room rug to the living room and bought a new rug for the dining room. The darker rug was purchased to help blend the burgundy leather furniture that was once in this room. But years later, new furniture, and I was wanting to lighten things up a bit.
Only time will tell how this holds up with our chocolate lab! (Another reason I went with a dark rug!)

Before

After

What a difference!

Six Years Later...

This post came up in my memories feed from 2013 and as I was cleaning my yard this Spring, I realized just how great these stepping stones still look six years later! So, yes I can still say this was my best project yet!

"Stepping stones. Now you might be wondering why this is such a big deal? I have wanted to put a stepping stone pathway from the gate to the backyard and back towards the patio/pool area for eight years. Eight looooong years. You wouldn't think this would be such hard thing to do now would you? But it was either the money (means about 15-20 stones which can get quite pricey), needing a truck or trailer to haul them, needing help to lift the suckers, or just life that got in the way."



Recently I read some articles about quick and easy stepping stones and it got me thinking that I could make that project quicker and easier by cutting a few corners. You won't believe how easy this was!

1. Buy a bag of Quikrete or regular concrete (each bag makes about 3-4 stones)


2. Dig the sod out, sculpting the size and shape that you would like the stone to be. Depth is about 2".

3. Pat down and shape the dirt then stomp on it a little to pack it down tighter.

4. Mix the concrete to a thick milk shake like consistency and pour into the hole, smooth top with a trowel or hand shovel and let dry. Read more about mixing Quikrete.

Add enough water to make it a milk shake like consistency.
Remember, if it is too thin, let it set for a bit to thicken.
Too thick? Simply add more water.

So simple and so happy with how they turned out! If you wanted to get more creative you could add mosiac tiles or paint glitter or tint the concrete. The sky is the limit really!

Stepping my way to the backyard of my dreams!

    

This is Christmas

I am jumping into the Christmas sharing but I have to say that I really hesitate. Especially after I see all the gorgeous Christmas decorating out there. Seriously I love looking at it but I don't have time to do that much decorating here. Wish I did but I am working full time and leading a pretty busy life. I know, just like everyone else, right?

Anyway I thought I would post a couple pictures just to join the fun.

This is more than a Christmas tree, it is a memory tree. So many of the ornaments are full of memories of our life. I love unpacking them!

Yup, truly is the real reason and the only reason that matters!

We don't 'do' santa clause as most do. As we told the boys growing up, santa is a cute story but not real. Why do I want to give him credit for all the cool toys anyway?

Don't you love the 'joy'? Got this and another at Target for $3!

Simple. I like simple.

Including our family gingerbread house.

Merry Christmas everyone!