By now I am sure you are feeling like if you’ve seen one saggy-carpet-and-wall-to-wall-paneling bedroom before shot of my house, you’ve seen them all…and with the master bedroom, it’s more of the same. By no means would I slap a FINISHED label on this room, but I am starting to feel pretty happy with how our master is taking shape. Take a peek.
From the second the fiancé and I decided to make the move to our new construction site, my home loving-heart was dead set on adding open shelving to the new kitchen. Sexy, rustic, chunky wood shelves mounted on shiny, classic, white subway tile. Pass the bib. I’m drooling. From then on, every kitchen design decision was based around my love affair with pretty white dishes perched happily on open wood shelves…and last week, after months filled with countless hours of painting, tiling, grouting and rubbing sore muscles, it was finally time for my shelves to take center stage. Angels sang and it was glorious. With so many DIY labors of love already happening around every turn of our new home, it would have been super [&hellip
This weekend’s open shelf DIY was seriously simple, and we are digging the extra storage. I’ll be back soon with the how-to.  
Around here, recent posts have been so extremely kitchen-centric that I thought we’d take a teensy break from that area of the house and venture into other rooms that have been a work in progress over the past few months. The jig for most of the rooms in the house has been virtually the same: Prime. Paint. Sprinkle in some hardwoods. Decorate. Repeat…And believe me. With a casa as crammed full of paneling as ours is, the paint part of the equation is never ending. While there is still plenty of trim to paint and scary black outlets to replace, today we’ll venture into the upstairs guest bedroom. This space is admittedly one of my favorite rooms of the house, due in huge part to [&hellip
The kitchen backsplash is finally finished—yippee, wahoo & high fives all around! After weeks of tiny projects that haven’t made a huge impact but just had to be finished, my instant gratification craving is satisfied with the competition of the backsplash. Note to the reader: my camera charger is lost somewhere among the boxes of yet to be unpacked miscellaneousness, so we’ll just have to squeak by with pics from the ole iPhone 4. (Gulp) If you want the full run down on how to tackle a backsplash project like this on your own, click here to revisit the how-to post from the kitchen backsplash in the kitchen at my first house. The subway tile backsplash in this kitchen is 99% the same with the [&hellip
Remember the time we claimed this paneling-clad dining/living room as our own? And then knocked a huge hole in the wall? And then we put everything back together again? Sure we wanted a more open floor plan for entertaining—a notion that came from the resale savvy Realtor in me—but the reluctant crybaby cook in me wanted an open floor plan for the sole purposed of being able to watch Real Housewives of (insert city here) while figuring out what the heck to eat for dinner. Fortunately, our new kitchen peninsula situation is perfect for trash TV watching. …as long as the piles of tile and mortar don’t obstruct the view. More on our kitchen backsplash project next week but here’s a little peak-a-boo.  
As a Realtor, blogger, business owner and Pinterest addict, when the fiancé and I made the move to our current construction site, I would have given anything to have my very own home office that the old 2 bedroom house just didn’t afford me. Fortunately, our new house has a dedicated “man cave”, so it was pretty easy to negotiate one of the upstairs bedrooms as my home office. Score! Over the past week, I’ve been hard at work putting together my newfound office space, but you know my rule with my before + after posts. Before we jump into the after pics, I must first force you to revisit the office in its previous state so that you can really appreciate the after shots. [&hellip
There is no doubt that my experience with this construction site has been way different than my last fixer upper. For starters, my last house was my single girl house. I pranced around that place doing whatever the heck I wanted. While my style is not exactly the frou frou-est of all time, I definitely didn’t have to think twice if I wanted to incorporate a frilly floral print or splash or two or three of pink into a room. It was my house and when the fiancé moved in, he was sweet enough to put up with it. This go-round, it is not my house but our house, and while the fiancé is still super fabulous about letting me do just about everything I [&hellip
Last I left you, our kitchen cabbies were freshly installed and the layout of our new kitchen was really starting to take shape. Remember this unfinished look? Since then, cabinets have been painted, flooring installed and appliances have manned their posts. Let’s take a tour around the progress pics thus far—but before we do, you know I just HAVE to remind you of where we started… (Insert cringe, shiver, or how ever you display your distaste with filthy carpet and cheap paneling) Now for the good stuff. Not finished yet but getting closer every day. More specifics on the details in posts to come, but Michael and I are P-U-M-P-E-D about the kitchen progress so far. The cabinets, countertops and all of the added space [&hellip
This holiday season we had no tree. No wreath on the front door. No stockings to fill. Partially by choice since guessing which still unpacked moving box actually contained Christmas decorations seemed like the biggest headache of them all, but also partially because, well, because I just plain forgot. We closed on our house just in time for Halloween. Then came moving day and lots of demolition. Thanksgiving was less about the turkey and more about the cabinet install shortly after. It was easy to slide right into the Christmas home stretch without batting an eye. Santa who? Our house remained tinsel-less but what did I care? I was busy spending time fixing up the new house with the fiancé. Laughing over paint brushes and [&hellip
Every remodel enthusiast lives for this moment. The moment where where you have finally finished tick-tick-ticking up the reno rollercoaster and are finally ready to tip right over the peak and race down the track towards the finish line. All of our demo & prep work is complete and now the fun of putting it back together is happening. It’s finally happening! If you remember the pictures of our kitchen in its before state just over a month ago… …you can definitely see that things are a-changin’. All base cabinets have been kicked to the curb and the upper cabbies that are staying put are patiently waiting for new doors. A new french door was installed to give our little June dog plenty of backyard [&hellip
Over the past month, the fiancé and I have thrown ourselves headfirst into a kitchen remodel. Correction. We have thrown ourselves headfirst into living through a kitchen remodel. Any homeowner with even the slightest sliver of remodeling experience will tell you that “undertaking” and “living through” a kitchen remodel are two totally different animals. At the end of November, we are now officially halfway through our dream of turning this kitchen… into this kitchen… The past month has made us more than a just a little thankful for our must-have list of survival tools for making it out of a kitchen overhaul alive. #1. The Crockpot All hail the most ingenious kitchen appliance that doesn’t actually require a kitchen. We’ve dished up quite a [&hellip