Front Yard Clean Up

Our yard has been a hot mess since the day we bought the house. Well, the yard was OK, it was more of a flowerbed issue and a bad paint choice issue. Now that we've lived here for over a year, we have made a bit of progress to the exterior of our home.

Here's what our house looked like when we purchased it:

Step One: A while back we replaced the nasty, puke-green paint on the shutters with a bright blue. 

Step Two: Then we painted the front door a very happy aqua blue. (Forgive the Christmas picture...it's the only one I could find and I'm too lazy to take a new one. It's enough to give you the idea.)

Step Three: Thanks to my amazing father, all of our low tree limbs were trimmed. It was a big task to take on. Just check out the massive pile of limbs he left behind.  I still can't believe he did all that work. I guess he felt like he needed a project while he was in town after Fisher's arrival. Works for us!

Step Four: After my dad made his yard efforts, Brent got the bug to knock out some yard work as well. He basically gutted our front flowerbeds. The beds were full of weeds and random, unorganized plants. Thanks to Brent, they are now nice and clean and ready for new plants (eventually). The front of the house looks oh, so much better now.

Not a bad looking house, huh? 

Until next time...

Mini Kitchen Update Revealed

On this previous post, I showed some "in progress" work of our mini kitchen update. Well, we finally completed (for now) the changes thanks to Brent's mad spray painting skills. Here's a look at the "new" kitchen. (Keep in mind we plan to do a full renovation one day, but it needs to be cute and functional along the way and I think we've accomplished that.)

Here are a couple"before" pictures to remind you of how it all started out...

• We started with the white kitchen table.
• We spray painted our old wooden chairs in a bright color to spice things up.
• We added new storage under the floating upper cabinets. 
• We updated and moved the pendant light fixture. 
• We painted the trim white and painted the walls a fresh blue. 
• We added the floating shelves and chalkboard to the wall above the table to help make the upper cabinets look a little less strange. 

Much happier, don't you agree?

Until next time...

In-Progress Weekend Work

My parents headed into town this weekend to help us tackle some house work before the baby arrives. It has been wonderful. I am so spoiled. 

First, my parents arrived last night with not one, but two wooden nightstands for us. My dad (an absurdly busy man) built them both. One to match the original he made for us back in July for our master bedroom and the other for our nursery. Amazing.

My parents and husband were hard at work today painting our kitchen, the baby's armoire and both the nightstands while I shopped. Seriously. Due to my pregnant state, I was banished from the house so I ran errands and took the food orders. 

I say it again, I am spoiled.

Anyway, here are some in progress shots of all the work including some of my purchases.

I'm sure you noticed the new fixture for the kitchen...super cute and now centered over the table instead of where visitors can hit their heads on it. The other items are for the nursery and you'll have to wait to see how they come together. 

I'm excited!

Until next time...

Planning Exterior Updates

After a little hiatus from home updates, the hubbs and I decided it was time to get moving again. Yay!  (Probably more exciting for me than for him considering I'm blogging at the moment and he is painting.)

First, I wanted to add a little "fall cheer" to our front steps so we headed out to pick up some mums and a couple pumpkins to set out. While at Home Depot for the flowers, we decided to also go ahead and pick out some paint colors for our front door and our shutters since I HATE our  current puke-green shutters and door. 

We grabbed our super bright yellow mums, a dark blue paint for our shutters, a bright blue paint for our front door and a few paint supplies.

As you can see, we enjoyed our visit to Home Depot. It was especially exciting when we went to check out. Our cashier dropped our quart of bright blue paint top down onto the floor. The paint slowly started pouring out and she couldn't get a hold of the cap to pick it up. Instead, the entire can of paint poured out onto the floor and into her hands. It was terrible. As we went back to get our paint order refilled, all I could think was, "Thank goodness I didn't  drop it."

Brent is painting the shutters as we speak and although it is brighter in color than we expected, I think it will work. We'll post photos later so you can help us decide.

Until next time...

My Weekend: There's Always Something to Paint

Our bookcase went blue this weekend!

I've been dying to paint the back wall of our built-in and we finally knocked it out. It's the first thing you see when you walk into our house (via the back door) and I really wanted it to bring your eye past that giant t.v. and welcome you into the room. We decided on a dark blue which was pulled out of our old Pottery Barn accent pillow in the room and it worked perfectly. It's the perfect balance of a bold color without being overwhelming or too dark. 

After painting, I rearranged all the items on the shelves and changed up some of the existing elements. Although I would like purchase some new items to display, I used what I had in new ways to make it work for now. Here are a couple simple ways I changed the look of my bookcase:

• I took book covers off the hardback books to display the monochromatic binding and grouped the like colors together.
• I wrapped the softback books in butcher paper to neutralize all the different patterns and to build a common thread throughout the shelves.
• A few of the books I even wrapped together with a piece of twine I had sitting around the house.

We also painted the bedside table my dad built me, but that's waiting on a nice coat of poly so I'll wait and post it once it's fully ready. 

Did you do any house projects this weekend?

Until next time...

The Wonders of Paint

With the help of many wonderful friends and family, we have been able to paint an absurd amount over the past nine days. Although we love this new home, the paint choices of the previous owner were a little out there. I just don't think a pink hallway fits everyone. 

My husband/editor has told me that I must (as if I wouldn't) post before and after pictures of all the finished rooms. I'll be doing that room by room so I can share more of the details, but for now here are some in progress photos for your viewing pleasure. 

Note: For best effect please view the original photos by clicking here. 

The paint cans we started with. We ended up with tons more.

Living Room paint going grey.

Living/Dining Room

Working on the Living Room trim.

Our very happy helper, Dwayne.

Living Room - Looking pretty good, huh?

Th happy Homeowners.
(This is still early in the day. Not sure how long the smiles lasted.)

Check out that sweet dining room.

I have no excuse.

Taping out is the worst, but it's super helpful in the long run.

The newly painted grey hallway.
I just love that our step stool matched the old hallway paint.

The green tiled toned down a bit with the Wood Smoke paint.
It looks much nicer with our new shower curtain. 

New floating shelves above our toilet. Thanks, Doug!

Mom and Dad our amazing.
They tackled our dreaded wallpapered guest room.

Go, Momma, Go!

Doesn't that look like fun?
I vote no.

After the wallpaper had been fully demolished. 

The AWESOME new guest room color.
LOVE!

Another look at the guest room walls.

Strangely enough, the doors have taken the longest to complete.
Such a pain.

Getting started on the master bedroom.
That paneling had to go.

Paneling be gone.

Looking much better.

I love how much brighter this room became with the
white trim and painted paneling.

Super Mom

The start of painting in the "den".

Lauren, another wonderful helper.

The bookcase needed to brighten up a bit.

The bookcase looks SO much better with a coat
(or many coats) of white paint.

We opted for a two-toned look in our den.
It is looking fabulous.

So there's the start. I can't wait to show you all more. We'll be moving in next Saturday so we'll finally have some furniture in our newly painted rooms. How exciting. 

Until next time...