One thing this house surely did not lack from the get-go were scary stairways. Creaky, dark, paneled, carpeted stairways. AND being the lucky sort we are, we had the pleasure of throwing a few dusty and dented return air vents right into the middle of the mix. How any air flow at all made it through these dinosaurs is still a mystery to me. One of the very first projects we tackled after we moved in was removing the old vents and carpet from the stairs and replacing with hardwoods and white risers…but new return air vents took months to finally make it off of the to-do list. Poor June Bug lost quite a few toys to the dark depths beneath the stairs. You can [&hellip
Since we moved in last October, the walls of our construction site have not been starved for attention. Between replacing paneling with drywall, sanding, priming and painting, our walls have seen a whole heck of a lot of action, but with a pile of wall art waiting eagerly in the man-cave-pile-of-doom for the past few months, I was sick of looking at boring gray walls…Excuse me. Boring First Star by Sherwin-Williams gray walls. The naval architecture prints that I rescued from a trash pile at my Gran’s house (and that formerly hung in the den of the old house) ended up in the dining room—which is FABULOUS in this girl’s world. I can’t get enough of looking at them. Two DIY knock off abstract circle [&hellip
Once upon a time, a few years back, I met the most precious couple who enlisted my help to find them the home of their dreams. While to most, “home of their dreams” brings up mental images of bright kitchens with gleaming counter tops and shiny new bathroom tile with spotless grout lines, Jackie & Matt had a different plan in mind. Falling in love with potential of a 1960s tri-level ranch fixer-upper, these guys and I clearly clicked. After years of what seemed liked endless nights and weekends attached to a paint brush and more home remodeling lessons than could be counted, Jackie & Matt did a killer job rescuing a once neglected foreclosure and turning it into an adorable home filled with bright [&hellip
Want to know where I’ve been hanging out?…With my new hubby. On the beach. Saying a few “I dos.” That’s right! This gal is officially hitched, and while I can’t wait to share all of the fun in the sun with you all, we’ve got more important things to deal with today, like breakfast tables turned coffee tables. Yippee!…OK, fine. I give. Here are a couple of pics from our big day, but only because you absolutely insist. More on the donkey later. You can rest easy knowing that I’ll bore you with plenty more destination wedding snapshots as they roll in from our superstar photographer (click here for the scoop on the magnificent Danielle Davis), but for now, let’s get back to the matter [&hellip
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