For years now Adam and I have said we should start hosting big family dinners at our house once a month, and for years now we have come up with excuses not to. Either we were too busy, or the old house was too crowded, or the new house was too unfinished, or a variety of other things. We ran out of excuses after laying sod a few weeks ago though, and decided that Mothers Day weekend is going to be the start of a new tradition. Once a month, every month, we will have a giant potluck and hang out …
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The State of the House, 2017 – The Exterior
I feel like I need to give y’all an honest-to-goodness overview of the whole house. The entire thing, not just the pretty parts that we have finished, or the parts we are currently working on, but the whole house in all its unfinished glory. So today I’m starting with the exterior, since blogging about that part is quite a bit less intimidating that blogging about the entire inside.
So here we go, this is what the house looks like right now, May 2017. I didn’t clean it up for the internet, I …
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Master Bedroom Progress and the Nicest Draperies I’ve Ever Owned
Progress has been happening in the master bedroom! We haven’t done any big projects (there still isn't a ceiling or a floor) it’s mostly just been me shopping and dreaming, and its been fun. Last month I posted the plans for the room and showed you these before pictures -
This is the design mock-up I came up with (it’s not great, but you get the picture) -
And here are some of the updates I made -
There is still plenty to do, but it is certainly a huge improvement. The …
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Simple Faux Leaded Glass and Our Rustic Pantry Door
There's nothing better than character in a house. Old houses are unique and tell a story, and my goal is to make our new house look anything but new. I think the pantry door and transom accomplish that goal pretty well.
I bought the door from the antiques fair in Round Top a few years ago (not the failure of a trip I blogged about, but a previous one) and paid $80 for it. Even though the green on my cabinets and the green on the door don’t match (or maybe because they don't) it works …
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The Most Organized Pantry in the World
Okay, that title might be a biiit of a stretch, but either way...the pantry is complete! I posted the first part of the pantry redo months ago, and even though we finished a majority of it soon after I refused to post it until it was 100% complete. Adam and have a problem of only finishing things 90% of the way and moving onto the next project (I even wrote a post about it years ago) and I’m breaking the cycle.
So as a refresher, here was the before...
(Yes, my house is messy. It’s …
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How to Hang Outdoor String Lights
When Adam and I were designing our home we purposely enclosed the backyard, making it a courtyard that is surrounded by the house and garage on three sides. We plan to put a tiny little irrigated lawn in that area (the only way to keep grass alive in Texas) and have the rest of the property be native.
Over this part of the backyard I wanted to add pretty string lights...because no one looks at the photo below and thinks “no thanks”.
I originally wanted them romantically swagged …
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Plans for the Master Bedroom
In the last house I never finished our master bedroom, the entire time we lived there it was an unfinished catch-all for everything in the house that didn't have a place. We basically slept in a storage unit. Adam and I would crawl into bed night after a long day, and instead of feeling relaxed we would just look around and think “Ugh...there is so much stuff we didn't get done today” (even if we had each rocked the socks off our to-do list).
I know I'm not alone in this. I know the master …
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One of a Kind Double Barstools
Alright, let’s skip the fluffy intro and get right down to it - I’ve been on the hunt or barstools for the island. Originally I had my eye on these from West Elm...
They cost $199 a pop and I needed four, so with tax and shipping came to nearly $1000. I stalked them for awhile, but even with the best sale + coupon + rebate combo I couldn’t justify spending that much money. Besides, I had and idea...
Instead of getting four barstools that will never be pushed in just right and …
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Planning and Building a Pantry (Part I)
A few months ago Adam and I finished our master closet, which became the first finished room in the house. It was so organized and amazing that we decided to skip some of the bigger projects we had planned and instead pick another tiny room and finish it 100%. We debated doing a bathroom, the office, or the pantry, and eventually landed on the pantry.
The pantry is 3 ft by 7 ft and is situated under the stairs, which means one of the walls is shorter than the other. It’s a tiny little …
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Master Closet Reveal!
It’s master closet reveal day! I showed y’all the fully installed but empty closet over two months ago, then I had a baby, the holidays came, things got crazy, and the final reveal has been a long time coming.
First and foremost, I am so in love with it. I’m not usually one to gush over things, but I’m also not used to awesome organized spaces. It’s always a goal of mine, but it never really fully happens. Not only is the closet really pretty to look at, but it’s also extremely …
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Industrial Pipe Kitchen Shelving
From the time we started designing our house I knew I wanted some open shelving in the kitchen. Not all open shelving (because it would look cluttered), but just enough for our everyday dishes. We put open shelving in our last kitchen and really loved it, I liked having the dishes out in the open, and since we used them everyday dust was never an issue. So Adam and I designed the sink wall in the new house to have a big window with a view and shelving on either side.
I’ve always loved …
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Planning and Installing a Closet System
*This post is sponsored by EasyClosets...and by that I mean that I received the closet system for free in exchange for blog posts about the closet and my experience. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.*
When we bought our last house, the master closet had a single rod and shelf around the whole thing. From day one we planned to rip out that rod and build an actual closet system that utilized the space and gave us the storage we needed. A couple of months ago we sold our house after …
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The Search for a Vintage Farmhouse Sink
From the time I started sketching up our new house on graph paper nearly two years ago, I knew I wanted a vintage farmhouse sink for the kitchen. Not a modern apron front farmhouse sink that are popular today, but an antique one from the 20’s or 30’s. Those weren’t my only demands though, no...I also wanted it to have a single basin, high back, and double drainboards. I was basically searching for a needle in a haystack....a very expensive needle, as it turns out.
SOURCE - $2,695.00 + …
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Kitchen Progress – Dark green cabinets, a rustic wood countertop, and lighting
Last time I did an overall kitchen update we had just installed the cabinets and it looked like this....
Well now we have not only moved in, but I’ve painted the cabinets, we poured our concrete countertops, added a wood island top, bought appliances, and installed our island lighting.
First thing first, the cabinet color. I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how I went from wanting a light airy green to something dark and dramatic, and I have to say that I’m pretty pleased …
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The Boy’s Room – Then, Now, and Future Plans
So today let’s talk about the boy's room.
The room is 12 x 15 and will be shared by my older two boys. If you regularly read the blog than you’ve seen pictures of it while under construction...but here they are again (mostly to remind me that we’ve already come a long way and aren't just beginning...because it’s true, but I forget).
We have been in the new house for a little over a month now, and here is what the boy's room looks like today.
It’s nothing …
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A Corrugated Metal Ceiling
I know I keep talking about the hailstorm that hit earlier this year, but that dang hailstorm seems to have led to a lot of other things...like rustic beams instead of fake ones, a quick sale of our old house, and now a practically free metal ceiling in our living room.
Since day one Adam and I have planned to put a metal ceiling on the living room and master bedroom of our house. We have always loved the look, and we were so sure about it that we even had the sheetrock crew leave the ceiling …
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How We Sold Our House in One Day
This post started off as a simple “tips to sell your house quickly” post...but then it just couldn’t stop writing and it kinda turned into a brain dump on everything. So keep reading if you want to hear about how we sold our house in a day (for over the asking price!), how much profit we made, the final house tour, and other various thoughts on the subject.
So as you may have guessed from the title, we sold our house is a day, which is crazy. What’s is even crazier is that we had multiple …
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DIY Concrete Countertops, Part III – Sealing
If I’ve learned anything about DIY in the last 5.5 years of writing this blog, it’s that it’s all about the sealer. You could do the most awesome job ever on a project, and if you don’t seal it correctly it’s all for naught.
I knew I needed an amazing sealer for my concrete countertops, for three reasons....
Concrete is a porous material, so it’s susceptible to stains
Not only are our countertops concrete, but they are also white
I’m messy
So even though Z Counterform sent …
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Introducing “Oakmoss”
As many of you know, I’ve been struggling to choose a color for our kitchen cabinets. Adam started building the cabinets about eight months ago and asked me to choose a color, and the only thing I was sure of is that I wanted some sort of green. So I started looking at light, airy, neutral greens, and landed on “Grassland" from Sherwin Williams.
He painted the cabinets that color, and I instantly hated it. So I started looking for darker alternatives and settled on a neutral green …
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DIY Concrete Countertops, Part II – The Pour
*Thank you to Z Counterform for sponsoring this post.
Alright, here it is...part II of my concrete countertop series! I know a lot of you have been patiently waiting for this post and I’m excited to share all the details. (Read part 1 here if you haven’t already.)
Before we get started on the tutorial, let me just tell you that neither Adam or I have ever worked with concrete, we are truly newbies at this. We spent a ton of time watching videos and reading tutorials online, but had no …
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DIY Concrete Countertops, Part I- Setting the Forms
Well, we did it...we actually poured our own concrete countertops! Adam and I spent hours and hours (and hours) researching this before we did it. We read tutorials and watched YouTube videos and generally felt prepared and confident...but honestly, the process still didn’t go quite like we thought it would. Turns out no amount of research or reading can compare to actually getting your hands dirty. I already knew that...but now I know it better.
There are a lot of steps and information to …
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