Living Room

Our living room is kinda like the random catchall for the house. The maroon couch and chair is on loan from my aunt. The bookshelf was an apartment warming gift from my parents for my first apartment. The coffee table is a hand-me-down from my parents. I stained the top and painted the bottom black. The desk is a hand-me-down from another aunt and the chair is from my brother. The standing light was an apartment warming gift from my mother-in-law. This is one random room, but I love it!
It has always bothered me that we never did any living in our living room. It pretty much was a wasted space. I wanted to fix that problem, so April, John, and I moved one of our two hand-me-down desks downstairs into the living room. We put our hand-me-down desktop computer on the desk and now we just need to get something to make the computer wireless. The desk is in a cheery spot to work, because it is right in front of a window looking out to my garden. Now, I feel like this room is a lot more practical!

I have to say that I love this room, because it makes me think about all of the family members that passed something along to me.

I laugh just thinking about all of the random things in this room! :)

Family Room - Happy One Year Anniversary!

We spend most of our time in our family room. There is so much I want to change, yet at the same time I enjoy spending time in the room.

Before: Here's the family room before we moved in.

I made the ottoman out of an old coffee table from CCA. I spray-painted legs brown, put foam and batting on the top, and covered it with beautiful durable brown fabric. For Christmas, Brian got me a brown tray, which provides a flat surface for drinks, books, etc. I've had these green couches for over five years. One day, I look forward to replacing the green couches with a neutral sectional. When we moved in the house, I found the perfect carpet that pulls in the green, brown, and tan color scheme.

Here's another chair that used to be my parent's chair. While I hate the leaf fabric; it is durable, comfortable, and it does match the room's colors. Thank you mom and dad!

I found the sofa table at a garage sale for $10. I spray-painted it a bronze color and made a table runner out of an old shower curtain.

There's a lot I want to do, but I do love this family space.

Master Bedroom - Happy One Year Anniversary!

I love our master bedroom! It is bright, relaxing, clean, and sentimental.

Before: Here's a picture of our old apartment's master bedroom. Our old bedding was pretty, but it was scratchy. Our bed didn't have a headboard and that was one of the first projects I wanted to tackle for our new master bedroom..

Before: Here is the blank slate.

After: Here is our master bedroom now! Our new bedding is cheery, crisp, and comfortable.

I made the headboard out of plywood, foam, batting, a table cloth (that's the fabric), and some button makers. I made matching white pillows to go with the headboard. I love my headboard because it is classic, classy, and affordable.

Here's my favorite piece of furniture... my great grandmother's vanity.

One of my future summer projects is painting the room a light gray and making some thick gray draperies. John and I can't wait to have curtains, because the sun wakes us up at 7:00 AM!

A recent addition to our room is the blue recliner that used to be my mom and dad's.

Instead of bedside tables, we have two small bookshelves. They are great for storage and they display our parents' and grandparents' wedding photos that we displayed on our wedding day.

After the addition of drapes and light gray walls, our master bedroom will finished!

Kitchen - Happy One Year Anniversary!

We are celebrating our one year anniversary with our wonderful home! I can't believe it has been a year! I am going to do a series of blog posts to document our updates and changes. Here's my first post...

John's favorite room in the house is the kitchen! I love our kitchen, because of all of the spacious cupboards, the bright and cheery colors, and the size. Eventually, we would like to do some other updates, but we still love our current kitchen!

Before: Yikes! The old kitchen had flat painted cupboards, yucky goldish walls, gross grout, and no personality or style.

After: Now, our cheery kitchen has a green, brown, and white color scheme. It has soft green textured walls, crisp white cupboards, clean white grout, a beautiful floral valance, a cozy eating area, a soft brown rug, and just enough accessories. Take a look!

I love our kitchen!

Possibilities for the (far off) Future: a new faucet, new countertops, recovered chairs, painted back door, a new white dishwasher

The Dining Room - Using What I Have

After redecorating the guest room, I gave the red tulip painting a new home... the dining room. It really ties the room together now. I got some new red candles and gold candle holders from my favorite store, Home Goods.

The cross from the guest room looks nice above the two plant stands from the family room.

The red flowers and picture frame look cute in the butler's pantry.

I love to reuse and re-purpose what I already have. The dining room is almost completely. I still need to trade out a light fixture from the stairs and make a table runner. It looks great for now!

The Half Bath

Before: Here's our scary Half Bath!!! It was a very dark, gross, and was loaded with outdated brass fixtures. This was the first big project and room we finished and we are very proud of this bathroom now.




After: Here's our cute little Half Bath! We painted to walls a light green, which helped to make the bath brighter. We updated the light fixture, the toilet paper holder, and the towel bar. I bought a little wall planter and used it as a towel holder. I framed my mom's beautiful wildflower painting to add a bit of cheeriness and color into the room. I just love this bathroom now!

In the beginning...

Since the age of 5, I've been dreaming of being a HO (Homeowner)!

When I was little, I would draw pictures of a dirty room and then a clean room on the other side. All my time playing Barbie's was spent on creating and decorating my house, not playing with the Barbie dolls. Before TLC and HGTV's shows got big, I got addicted to home improvement shows. I've been watching them ever since and along the way I've picked up countless ideas and techniques to use on my own home. John and I accomplished one of our biggest dreams, becoming a homeowner and finally, I have a place to use all my creative juices on... our casa!

These are the first pictures taken of our house. Good ole' Marcelo documented our entire home on the day of our home inspection. (Click on each picture for a bigger view!)

Welcome to our home!

Our kitchen needed some freshening up, but there is a ton of storage space.

Our backyard looks out to a creek and green belt. There is a walking trail with a small park at the end of the street. This was the selling feature. As soon as we saw the backyard, we knew it was THE house!

Here's a picture of the greenbelt. I just love it!

Here's my excited family in the backyard. Wait until you see our green grass now!

I LOVE our family room! It's right next to kitchen and it's super cozy.

Here's our scary half bath. My mom swore she would never set foot in it. It looks a million times better now and every time the woman sees it, she comments on how great it looks now.

Our living room has a huge vaulted ceiling and it's right off the front door.

I just love having a dining room. I was excited to have a place to feed my family and to tutor my students during the summer.

The butler's pantry is between the kitchen and the dining room.

This is the view from the front door.

Here's a picture of foyer from upstairs.

This is our upstairs guest bathroom.

I love our master bathroom.

This is the BEST part... John has his own sink...

and this is MY sink!!!

Our master bedroom looks out to the greenbelt.

This is our guest bedroom.

Here's our study.

Here's a picture of the backyard from the study.

Our garage was nasty, but we were thrilled to have a place indoors to park our car. I love the fact that I can walk a few feet to take in the groceries, instead of going up three flights of stairs.

I can't wait to show you all the things that John and I have done to our first home!