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Under Construction …. Almost
It’s finally here! This week marked the start of our HUGE remodel project for which I am equal parts anxious and excited. The control freak DIY-er in me is loathing the fact that I can’t do this myself but trying to work on the house construction whilst pregnant is probably not a great idea. (I may have a small penchant for getting injured when I work on the house. Just maybe…) On the other hand, I am relieved someone else is doing all the heavy lifting and there are things we can have done now that neither myself or the husband would attempt on our own. But before I get…
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Board & Batten – Grid Wall
Morning friends! A few months ago the Mr and I determined it was time for a change of pace and listed our home on the market (more on that to come). Now, despite all of the improvements we’d managed over the past year, I couldn’t help but feel hopelessly underwhelmed with reviewing our living room space. When we first moved in, the entirety of the main level was wall to wall, floor to ceiling, every nook and cranny in a harsh and very unflattering yellow. It felt busy and not in a good way. More like a slept through your alarm, rushed out to your car, and realized halfway to…
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Hiring a Contractor: Our Tips and Tricks
While the husband and I are both DIYers, sometimes it’s good to know when we’ve reached our limits, when it’s time to put down the paintbrush and hammer and call in a professional. Tackling drywall and paint is no issue and while hanging trim isn’t my strong suit, I can still do that with some degree of comfort. But neither of us are trained or licensed in plumbing or electrical work beyond the occasional outlet swap or tightening a joint on a leaky pipe, nor would either of us attempt to add onto our house on our own. Often hiring contractors is due to time constraints. For us, the turning point…
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Board and Batten
When we first moved into our home we found that the dining room’s previous “look” offered little in the way of charm. Initially, I armed myself with a roller and set to painting over the saturated yellow with my favorite neutral, Grey Owl by Benjamin Moore. It’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do and we were left with how we wanted to inject our personality into the space. In our dining room, we found that we had one actual wall, a shared wall to the living room, and two partial walls where the walls had been opened with wide-set archways. Going for a feature wall seemed the…
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A Fresh Take on the Master Bedroom – pt. 1
It’s no secret that our new home was extremely busy when it came to ‘the bold and the outrageous’ color scheme throughout. Managing to be both unflattering and non-complementary in one fell swoop we felt as though each room had been sealed away from the whole. That left us with a myriad of odd and questionable taste within the confusion of color as far as the eye could see. To be fair, despite the menagerie of colors it still held a punch of personality (not ours) versus that of the numerous ’50 Shades of Beige’ we’d seen while touring homes for sale. However, disjointed chaos is the best way I…
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Tips for Buying a Home in Today’s Market
Need vs. Want: Focusing on what’s important to you! Before you feel that itch to start browsing what’s on the market, pump the brakes and take a moment to start by making a list of the features you’re looking for in your new home. Odds are, that list will likely outgrow your budget. But don’t worry, the key to this exercise isn’t to focus on what lies outside your means but rather to hone in on the necessities of what you do need for the daily overall functionality and comfort of your home. I’ve realized that my own ‘would like’ list is quite substantial, whereas my ‘must haves’ list may equate…
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The Living Room: Finally Finished
We finished the living room with barely 2 days to spare before my family arrived. Of course, finished is a relative term since there was still so much to do. The room was painted of course with the not-as-overwhelming-as-I-first-thought blue, but baseboard and crown molding needed to be purchased and hung yet, and the light fixture I had ordered 2-day shipping was, of course, delayed. Panic started to set in but I kept reminding myself to keep pushing through as I channeled my inner Dory from Finding Nemo singing ‘Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming’ as I worked. We did manage to get the baseboard hung and caulked the day…
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The Living Room: Pushing Through
So, there we were – in the living room where we bit off more than we could chew – with new floors and a renewed drive to finish the work we had started (at that point in time) over a year and a half ago. Of course, we should have realized then that our plans never seem to pan out in the time span we hope or expect them to. (I guess we’re slow learners?) The floors may have been finished but there was still SO. MUCH. WORK. left for us to do. In the meantime, we learned how to attach and mud over corner beading, layering spackle on…
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The Living Room: Our Never Ending Project
I wrote about this room early on in this foray into blogging, but I feel like a recap is in order, simply due to how much time has passed. It’s been about 3 years since we started the remodel in our living room. It was early into our homeownership and both of us being somewhat new to DIY, we made what I’ve now come to understand to be the cardinal mistake when tackling a home remodel – we bit off more than we could chew. To be honest, we really had no idea what we were getting into with this room, heck with this whole place. I mean, the house…
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House Hunting: Not your typical rebound
Now I know the saying goes, ‘Don’t always judge a book by its cover,’ but with a great neighborhood, a well maintained lawn, and the overall appearance…I certainly wanted to. Both the Mr and I had long since come to realize that this move was unwilling to compromise on one thing, the surprise factor. Naturally, this suburban hideaway was a ride from start to finish. While we had our list of ‘must haves’ versus ‘would likes’, this listing checked off all of the major boxes for us: open floor plan complete with two master suites, finished basement, converted attic space, two different areas for washer/dryer hook-up, a fenced back-yard, new…
