House Tour

The new digs and deets

05/05/2013 10:46 pm by Allison 44 Comments

Okay folks, I know I left you hanging last week when I dropped a bombshell that we are moving. (Okay, okay, maybe I’m being a little too dramatic here.)

Well, I’m back and ready to spill more deets about the new digs (aka house #2). We love house #1 and I have spent the last three years updating it and making it our own, but our dream is to live a little further out, on a little more land, in a smaller one-story home. After following the Total Money Makeover plan for what seems like forever and a day, we finally paid down all our debt and had enough money in the bank and equity in the house to sell it and move into our dream house (which just happens to be cheaper than house #1. Dave Ramsey would be so proud).

When our perfect home popped up in the mls one day, it was a no-brainer to jump on it:

I have several more projects and tutorials for house #1, but for today lets just focus on the house tour for house #2. Holla! And, obviously, I can’t buy a house unless it is oozing with potential, though it isn’t quite there yet, so keep that in mind as you look at the neon green walls… I am a DIYer after all.

When Chase greets you at the front door, this is what you will see:

An entry way, a family room directly ahead, a dining room (our piano/formal living room) on the left, and the kitchen on the right.

Eventually I want to redo all the floors in the main living space to the same type of flooring for a more cohesive look.

From the corner of the family room looking back towards the door:

That hallway on the right leads to the kids bedrooms, office, and game room.

Another view from the family room looking towards the door:

That hallway on the left leads to our bedroom. The laundry/mud room is off the kitchen.

Here’s a view of the family room from the kitchen:

The kitchen:

I have big plans for this kitchen but this will be a “someday” project because it will probably be expensive. I want to open the area up to the family room even more and have a bigger island.

Another shot of the kitchen:

The archway leads to the entry way and then the dining room (our piano room) and the bar on the right overlooks the family room.

Here’s a view of the kitchen from the bar in the family room:

Master bedroom:

Master bathroom:

Another view of the master bathroom:

You can’t tell from the photo but the closet entrance is next to the shower. It’s a lot smaller than house #1′s closet so I’ll have to get creative to fit everything in there.

Bath 2, the kids bath:

Lots of awesome tile countertops in this house that I get to rip out and make over!

Bed #2, the girl room:

As much as I love the neon green, I’m thinking something a little more subtle…

Bed #3, the boy room:

It’s a pretty purple but I don’t think my son will be too thrilled about a purple room.

Bed #4, the husbands home office:

Ben works from home and needs a designated office. This space is perfect because it’s at the far end of the house and will be very quiet for him. Also, it is the largest of the kid bedrooms in the house so we will put a guest bed in here for any weekend guests.

The game room:

This room is almost the exact same size as the master bedroom. It’s smaller than the game room in house #1, but still big enough for us.

One corner of the game room has french doors that overlook a large patio that you can also access from the family room.

The mud room:

The mud room and laundry room are one big room shaped like an “L”. This part is the mud room. The laundry area is ahead and to the left.

Laundry nook:

I am very excited about the size of the laundry nook and mud room. In house #1 this area was the hardest working room in the house, and this new area is just oozing with potential. I can’t wait to get some built-ins and beadboard on these walls.

We actually moved into the house yesterday (Saturday) but I have been so incredibly busy the past month that I am really backlogged with projects to blog about. I actually spent 3 days last week doing some DIYing in the new house in preparation for new carpet that was installed Friday. For the first time in my life I picked out, ordered, and purchased carpet. I guess I’m officially a grownup now.

If you have any questions about the new house or are curious about something that I haven’t mentioned yet, ask in the comments and I’ll put together a Q&A post.

Filed Under: Announcements, Renovating Tagged With: House Tour, house2

The difference 2 years makes

06/19/2012 8:07 pm by Allison 14 Comments

Two years ago when we bought our home I cringed when I opened the door to welcome you in.

These days, not so much.

Welcome to my home.

It’s still not perfect and I still have loads more I want to do, but when I see these before and after pictures I can’t help but smile and pat myself on the back.

In case you are curious, yes, I’ve changed a few things since I snapped this picture. The house is always in a state of flux.

My favorite thing? I’d say the paint and moulding. <3

What is one of your favorite things about your home?

What is something you can't wait to improve on?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: entry, House Tour

Furniture switcharoo and stuffing the Advent

12/16/2011 1:11 pm by Allison 5 Comments

So. How’s it going?! First off, a huge thanks for all the well-wishes. I’ll keep you posted.

Okay, so I showed you how I moved the sofa table over to the staircase wall…

In it’s previous life it was a headboard. I cut it down, gave it a coat of paint, and turned it into a retro sofa table:

I’m still totally diggin’ the table. Like, A Lot. I like it a lot. You couldn’t really see it very well behind the couch though, so I moved it where my kids art desk use to be:

Which is just fine by me because their desk usually looks like a complete disaster. Don’t believe me?

Um, ya. I just couldn’t take it any longer. So I banished them from the living room and they now have to do projects at the kitchen table, which has actually stayed a lot cleaner…

So now my living room is looking more like this:

…which brings me to the point of the post.

I’m loving my Silhouette Advent Calendar. It has been so much fun!

The only problem is, what the heck do I put in those 25 drawers?? I mean, some are big. Some are small. Some are tall. I hit up Target and Dollar Tree and left empty handed. I was at a total loss.

Until it dawned on me. Why had I never thought of the Mother-Load of all things party-favor?!

That’s right. Party City! (This is NOT a promotional post.) They seriously pulled through for me in a big way.

I shopped around until I had two sets of 25 items (I have two kids – hence the two sets). When I got home I just dumped everything out on the floor and went to work.

I tried to sort most stuff before I began stuffing boxes, and I made sure to put the largest items in the boxes first so that I wouldn’t end up with a big fat toy and no big boxes left.

After some switching around and finagling I managed to get all the little prizes into the boxes.

The kids have LOVED this Advent Calendar. I pretty much threatened them with their life if I caught them peeking in the box before the appropriate day. If I caught them peeking (or their sibling did and told on them) they would have that days prize forfeited. They haven’t cheated once!

Here is just a sampling of the different items they’ve received. I started day 1 with bells. They each got a carabiner bell set to attach to their backpack and a mini-bells ring. I’m sure their teachers have loved me this month with all the jangling going on.

Cards are always fun for my kids – especially when they are mini cards. Kinsey has already added this mini Uno set to her American Girl accessories collection.

Bouncy balls are always great. Until they break a lamp or something…

And who can resist Slinky from Toy Story? Not me!

We’re only half-way through the month, but the mini Mad-Libs have definitely been the hit this season. The kids have gone coo-coo for Mad-Libs! Now if I could only get them to use words other than “fart”.

We are a Peeps-lovin’ family around here, so of course they had to try the chocolate covered peeps trees.

What kid doesn’t love Clackers? They were always one of my favorite toys as a kid. Probably because they are annoying as hell.

I’m excited for them to get these fun mini paint sets. I don’t know what it is about mini stuff, but I.just.love.it.so.much. Mini stuff is adorable!

The kids think the candy-filled ones are lame. Who would have thought? Next year I’ll put less candy and more little trinkets. But we can’t have Christmas Eve without candy canes to add to the tree, so I filled box 24 with mini ones.

I never thought coming up with 25 little treats for the Advent would be such a challenge, but it really took some thought. The kids have loved it so much and I’m sure to make this fun Advent Calendar a Family Tradition from now on.

Oh, and for those of you who complimented me on my CLEAN house in my last post about my Holiday Decor…

Thank You! But I’ll be honest. I clean for pictures. It’s true. Just the night before my family room looked like this:

Oh snap.

I drank a Diet Dr Pepper, put on some Christmas music, and cleaned the heck out the room so I could get it pretty for pictures. That’s one good thing about Blogging – my house gets cleaner faster because I HAVE to clean to take pics.

Have a super very merry Christmas!

One more thing…

The kids are off school now. The boy-toy (hubbs) is off work too. So I’ll be taking some time off to be with the fam. It is Christmas after all. I’ve got posts pre-scheduled for next week, but I just want you to know that I’ll be ignoring my email even more than I already do (which is next to impossible since I’m horrible at following through with email, but you get the idea.)