Posts Tagged ‘before and After

Let’s wrap up September, shall we?

(Click on each picture to see the original post.)

I started off the month by showing off my new clearance pillows and my semi-finished family room!

And then swooned over the new GLASS bowl for the kitchen aid (I still want one!)

I showed everyone my Master bathroom renovation I did last year…

I embarrassed myself by posting an outtake video from my Sponsor Redi Shade.

And then gave you a tip on how to make your morning school routine run more smoothly.

Then I gave a tutorial on how to create a cheap (but not looking!) Fall Wreath from the dollar store.

Right after that my house flooded!

And I had to cut out a huge hole in my ceiling to assess the issue.

During all this flooding hoopla I updated a few tabs at the top of my blog.

And then came the craft that swept America by storm!

The birth of the Dryer Vent Pumpkin!

Who knew it’d be so popular? I’m thrilled you all loved it so much.

After all the embarrassment I received over my Redi Shade outtake video, I had to post a rebuttal!

I found an awesome blog that I had to share with the world

House*Tweaking!

After that, I showed you how easy it is to make a Pottery Barn inspired mirror.

Then came a post about a bunch of Craigslist scores I’ve made.

And my B&A from cleaning out the closet (with a promise to give a tut on how to make some DDR pads!)

After my closet was cleaned out, I finally tackled the huge hole in my ceiling.

I begged and pleaded for advice on how to paint my piano…

…got a score of a deal on a cute basket…

…and replaced a few fixtures.

By this point America had dryer vent pumpkin and dollar store Fall wreath fever, so I highlighted several people that made their own.

I must be on a wreath kick because I made a 2nd fall wreath by channeling my inner Martha.

Then I showed you how I save a little bit of cash on dryer sheets.

I then proceeded to fret over paint colors and begged for your opinion – which you gave some great advice on!

My mantle has evolved since we moved in…

And then finally yesterday I had a clothing crisis and turned to you guys to help dress us for our family portrait.

What a fun month!

And of course, how could I close without bragging about my awesome advertisers?!

Check these awesome peeps out!

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Thanks to each and every one of you for plugging along with me on my blogging adventures!

I picked a cabinet for all my spices and cooking stuff…

It sat like this for exactly 5 days before I couldn’t even take it anymore! (And I hadn’t even baked anything yet!)

YIKES!

What a disaster! I am OCD when it comes to being organized, so obviously this train wreck was not going to work for me.

I headed over to the Home Depot and bought this awesome organizer.

I cringed and looked away as they rang it up (almost $40!) but I know it is so worth the investment.

You can see the mess in the cabinet where I previously had all my spices. Obviously I didn’t pick a big enough cabinet. I decided to hang the shelf organizer on the inside of my pantry door.

It took me about 10 minutes to hang it. These are so super easy to install. I just screwed it right onto the door.

Now I can let out a sigh of relief!

An organized spice rack! Niiiiice.

I still have to organize the actual pantry, but at least my spices and cooking stuff are taken care of.

Being organized isn’t hard. You just have to have the right supplies. For under $40 I went from this disaster:

To this neat and tidy pantry:

I can’t wait to do all sorts of fun home decor crafts, but for now I’m just trying to get the bones of the house taken care of. I hope you like organizing tips because I have a feeling I’ve got a few more posts in the future.

Do you have any great tips for organizing? Share them with me!

I tend to get focused on one thing and then obsess about it non-stop. It’s all I can think about all day and night until I finally tackle whatever it is I’m obsessing about.

Right now, it’s THE STAIRS.

I know I won’t get around to this HUGE project any time soon, but it’s fun to dream! Here’s my big dream that one day I’ll get around to doing…

Here are the stairs at my new house:

(They are nice and have absolutely nothing wrong with them. I just like other stairs better.)

And here is what I want to do to my stairs…

Absah-freaking-lootly beautiful.

I found these stairs at a model home in the area that I fell head-over-heels in love with. The decor and upgrades are just amazing and I plan to copy as much of this house as humanly possible.

(I already took my trusty Sherwin Williams paint chip thing-a-ma-bobby with me and color-matched all the paint colors in the house so I can paint my house the same way.)

Now honestly, this little project won’t cost much. I just need to change out the railings….

…It’s the other stuff I want to do that’s going to add up quickly.

Upstairs off the game room there are 2 half-walls that I want to tear down and add the iron railing to…

Here’s a current picture of the staircase looking from the ground floor up the staircase:

And here’s a picture of the game room and the two sections of half-wall I want to tear out…

My goal is to have it look like this:

I love this!

From this:

To this:

When you are upstairs I want to be able to see the front door through the rails.

It just makes it feel so much more open. Plus, I’ve got two monkeys for children and I’m kind of afraid they are going to try to climb that half wall to see over it. If I’ve got a railing there then they can see through the railing instead of needing to look over it.

Here’s a current view of the foyer looking up:

I want it to look like this:

I need to price it out still, but for now there are things far more important in our budget than replacing railings and half-walls (like, oh, lets say… a fridge, washer, and dryer!)

Also, I’d LOVE to go from this:

To THIS:
Sarah over at Thrifty Decor Chick ripped her carpet off her stairs and stained them. Gorgeous.)

As if my STAIRS list isn’t ambitious enough, I’d absolutely LURVE to rip out the little side wall at the bottom that the railing attaches to…

And then have it stair-step with the stairs like this:

And a nice thick scroll railing wouldn’t be too bad either.

But I’m afraid we are probably talking mucho $$$$ to do that (though I’m no expert I’m assuming we’d have to rip out those stairs and insert new planks that are longer).

And while I’m on a fantasy roll here, let’s just remove that little miniature wall on the bottom completely and go from this

To completely flush with the ground level like so…

Yes, obviously I have some serious issues. We still haven’t closed on this new house (we close this Friday HOPEFULLY!) and I’m already day-dreaming about a very expensive renovation.

But honestly, I really do love this house just as it is, and if I never get to redo these stairs and half-walls, I’ll still love this house regardless.

But in a perfect world, I’d change the railing to iron, tear out two half-walls and change them to iron, rip out the carpet on the stairs and stain it, make the railing on the stairs stair-step instead of a little angled wall, and make the bottom railing flush with the ground.

I’m adding this to my list, and maybe with next years tax return I’ll redo the staircase. Or we’ll add the hand-scraped hardwood floor to the downstairs that I’ve been oogling over…

Sssshhhhh, don’t tell my hubby. I see dreams and daydreaming, he sees dollar signs flying through the air. $$$$$$$$$$

xoxo, Allison

Tags : before and After, dreaming out loud, favorite things, ideas, power tools needed, stairs