Front entryway

The projects have continued....

We reframed the front plants with brick, and added a small brick area to set our garbage can on. Much easier to get in and out now. Plus, we added some character to the front of the house!

Our insurance company had requested that we put a railing up on our front stairs. Joe did such a great job figuring out how to drill into concrete! We ended up needing an electric drill to get some more power, but in the end, everything turned out great. I love the new look! Now we just need to get the stickers off of the railing and put a nice fresh coat of paint.

The next project to be on the lookout for.... a brick patio in the backyard. Hoping to get this done in the next month or so before winter hits!

Some finishing touches....

Well Joe finally had a weekend off, so we got to finish some of our projects that were already in motion!

Kitchen painting- completed
Dining room wainscotting- completed

New light fixture in the dining room - completed

To all of you out there that got Joe and I either pottery barn or williams and sonoma gift cards....we finally found what we wanted! The new dining room light fixture is a result of that generous money! We had an outdated one, and now we have a fun contemporary/country/totally us light! We love it....so THANK YOU!!!

Dining room wainscoting

We finally decided on putting wainscoting up in the dining room nook. We love it! Much harder to put up than we anticipated, but we are learning! LOVE how it turned out!!!!

Kitchen and bedroom updates

Well it's been awhile since I've posted anything. We found a beautiful yellow rug to go in the kitchen. Poor chelsea wouldn't join us in the kitchen without the rug for comfort! :) We still need to finish painting the green above the cabinets, but once that is done, the kitchen will be done (minus a new floor eventually)...and a glass cabinet door to spruce it up a bit!

We also hung curtains in the bedroom to finish it off! Bedroom is DONE!

No more excuses not to work...

We set up the office portion of our basement! It took hours to put together the desk and file cabinet, but it is finally done! We plan on painting the brick wall a nice bright crimson color...

Family Birthday Board

 

Ok, so this isn't exactly a home improvement....but I was excited to make this! I wanted a way to remember all of the family birthdays, and had seen something similar to this online... It was so simple to make, and it will also be easy to add to! :)

I started with a shelf that was left in the house when we moved in. I spray painted it, and used stencils to paint "birthdays" on. I bought the wooden circles at the craft store and painted them. Drilled and glued the pegs in. Then wrote each birthday in permanent marker and glued it to the ribbon. It adds a lot of color to our new office which we finally have set up!

A place for the cookbooks

 

We found this great, inexpensive shelf at Ikea to add to the kitchen. Great find, and it is perfect for the space!

Kitchen Light



Before - see that tiny portion of the
light in the upper right corner?!?



The light that was in the kitchen was absolutely horrible! It was modern track lighting - not our style, and NOT functional! When you were working in the kitchen, you'd be in your own light no matter where you were standing! So, our project this weekend was to change that light! We got a large, fluorescent light that now provides tons of function to the kitchen! Unfortunately, Joe started taking the light down before I could think to snap my "before" picture....but we did catch a tiny piece of the old light in a previous picture...

Dining room/Living room

Well, the orange is up, the art is on the wall, and the furniture is in place! We love our bright area. We are still going to add a chair rail to the dining room space to help define the area better, but it's almost done!

I also find it very funny that HGTV is on in these pictures (Bath crashers) haha!!!!

Orange...

 

The dining room and part of the living room are going to be bright orange. It's looking great so far. The first coat is up in the dining room...

Bedroom art

 

The window panel of our front door fell off and broke. I was in the middle of gluing it back together when I realized it might make a good piece of art. I decided to use our test paints for the house to paint an abstract picture in each pane. I spray painted the window panel with white paint to freshen it up, and then I glued the painted pieces of paper to the back and secured them with a piece of cardboard to give the piece more structure. The ribbon is to hang the picture. All I had was pink, so it will work for right now. I need to replace that with blue, green or orange, however!

Our bedroom

 

 

 

 

I had no idea how this was going to turn out, but I wanted to put a chair rail moulding in the bedroom and paint white below the moulding, and a greenish blue above. My parents were in town to help, so we tried it out!!! WE LOVE IT! Now I just need to find some things to decorate the room with.

The green kitchen...

 

 This is only the first coat, but it is as beautiful as we imagined!

Rock

 

Today we added rock around the perimeter of the yard and around the tree.

Painting the fireplace

Brick is apparently really hard to paint! Not only is it going to take several coats, but painting the grout is tough! Coat number one is done though! Only took me a couple hours... 

I'm assuming the second coat will go much quicker.