Master bath and saying goodbye

This will be the last blog post at this house. As most of you know, Buddy got a promotion at work and due to that we will be selling our house in Jasper and moving to the Birmingham area in a few short months. We have spent the last five years renovating this house inside and out, and as much as it was a pain in the butt (literally) and a pain in our bank account, I've loved every moment in this house. This house was a disaster when we bought it, and I cried the whole first week we lived here thinking my husband was crazy for believing this house was going to be beautiful. But that's what it is. Beautiful. It may not be anyone else's version of that, but to us it has been home and I think we did a wonderful job for first time DIY. We've kept the craftsman cottage charm of the house, but added a few modern touches to it, and I think that the combo works perfectly for our little house. I will be keeping up the blog to show you guys our new house (whenever we get it and move) and will show you what we do to it....cause let's face it, I love to change stuff, lol. It may only be small things like paint etc, but for those who live out of state, this will be a way for you to keep up. Now onto some pics of our FINISHED house!!! This is what the master bath looked like when we moved in:

After we painted the paneling:

And now with painted wallpaper/beadboard and glass tile around sink:

We also got new bedding, new vinyl saying above bed and painted an accent wall in our bedroom. Here's our bedroom when we first moved in:

And now:

The house isn't "finished", but all that needs to be done is painting crown/trim in the second guest room:

We've come a loooooong way. Now, onto getting our appraisers in here and sell this house so we can move! I won't necessarily miss Jasper, just the wonderful people we know who live here. But it will be so nice being close to everything and having Buddy close to his job. As always, we will keep you updated as we go!

Living Room

We decided (mainly me) that our Smokey Blue living room color (while gorgeous) was too dark for our living room. I wanted something more neutral, (which isn't like me) so it would lighten up the room, and be something we wouldn't have to change down the road when we sell our house, plus I felt like our furniture/art got lost in the walls. We chose Sherwin Williams Jogging Path, which is a very nice warm color and has a touch of green in it instead of a reddish/pink hue like most khaki colors. The majority of our house is now neutral, which will help buyers be able to see their furnishings in there since it will be move in ready. I love our house now, it feels homey and I think represents us as a couple/family when people come over. Your home is your calling card, and should represent in some way who you are and what you love, but most importantly it should feel welcoming to your guests. Now, onto pictures which includes new art above the couch:

If you want to change your house, do it! It's only paint and can be fixed quite easily. You should love your home and be happy in it....if you're not, change what you want. It's that easy! We have changed so many things in our first home over the last four years: Living room is now on it's third (and final!) color, hall and dining room are on their third (and final!) color, laundry'mudroom/back entry is on it's second (and final!) color, we did an accent wall behind our bed in the master bedroom, changed the floors in our main living areas of the house. All of that within four years and after remodeling our house for the first time....it does help to get a discount on paint though ;) Hope our little house inspires someone to take a leap of faith on that paint color, or to buy that furniture/art, or to try their hand at DIY art/décor!

New floors in kitchen & laundry room!

After we installed our Allure plank flooring in the living room, dining room & hall, we knew that eventually we would like to extend it into our kitchen and laundry room/mudroom to cover 60+ year old tile/grout. This stuff is seriously the bomb. It comes with a 25 year warranty, is water/scratch resistant (which is awesome with dogs in the house) and its so easy to install. It goes on top of any flooring, self sticks, and can be cut with an x acto knife. Pardon some of the pics....they're from my cell phone. Here is our laundry room with the old tile:

And the laundry room now with plank floors:

Here's the kitchen when we moved in:

And then with the old tile after we renovated everything:

And now with the plank flooring:

Looks so much better, homey, and matches our other floors. I'm loving not having any more grout to clean in this house, lol! If you're looking for a great alternative to laminate/hardwood, I would suggest going to Home Depot and checking this product out. It's about the same cost as some laminate, but not near as much of a hassle to install.

Ch...Ch...Ch...Changes

There have been a few changes done to the house over the past month (and this week). As a designer on the inside, I get bored really easily with the décor of the house (blame my mom). So, I move things around to make the house feel new again. After we installed new flooring in the main living areas of the house the weekend before Christmas (I don't recommend that) I decided that the rug and curtains in the living room didn't really go. So, we bought a new rug, and I hung up some new curtains to flow better with the colors in there:

Then we moved the old living room rug into the dining room, which works better with the brown curtains:

Then we moved the old dining room rug into our master bedroom:

I also painted the inside of my bookcase for a pop of color in the hall:

Buddy ran into our real estate agent who helped us buy the house, and she was very impressed with our house and the renovations we've done to it. We may be putting it on the market before too long and getting something newer/bigger/better. I'll tell you this, even after all of the money and work we've put into this place, I sure as heck do not miss apartment living!

New floors!

Well, got through cleaning quicker than I thought, so I decided to go ahead and post this. When we moved into this house 3 years ago, we immediately ripped up old carpet and installed some laminate flooring. Now we loved our laminate floors, but at the time they were cheap and we liked the color, so that's what we got. Fast forward 3 years, 2 dogs, and a pain in the butt to keep clean later and we were ready for a change. I wanted something easier to clean, wouldn't get scratched up as bad by the dogs, and show every single paw print when they get wet. Now no matter what people tell you, laminate flooring (and even hardwood floors) are not scratch resistant, cleaners create a buildup over time, and when wet they will start buckling. We found a product that is vinyl plank flooring (made by Allure at Home Depot), and it is water resistant, holds up to scratching, comes with a 25 year warranty, and is super easy to install.....it literally took Buddy 3 days to do our living room, hall, and dining room. This stuff will go over existing floors, needs no extra padding, has rubber bottoms and sticks to each other. They have many colors (some are special order only, and they also offer tile), we went with Country Pine. I never in a million years would have pictured me as having light colored floors in my house, but I have to admit that Buddy was right about this color. I remembered seeing vinyl plank floating around on Pinterest and had actually looked at it....I am amazed how many people are now doing this throughout their homes for durability etc, it makes perfect sense. For what you could spend on some hardwoods and laminate, you can get this product for as much, and loads cheaper in some aspects. Bonus is if we ever tire of it, or when we sell our house the new owners don't like it, it can be removed easily and our dark laminate floors will be underneath. If you're thinking of doing floors, or redoing them, go check it out! I want to redo our kitchen and laundry room now with the tile version. Here is the living room before with laminate floors:

And here's the vinyl plank in Country Pine:

The hall before:

And with vinyl plank:

Dining room before:

And with vinyl plank:

I absolutely love these floors. They're soft, quiet, easy to clean and I love the color! I'm excited to have some family and some of our best friends over tomorrow night for our Christmas Eve party. Hope that y'all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Update: Laundry room & hall

Well, we decided that the ugly gold/yellow color in our laundry room was drabby and made the room look dirty ALL of the time. So we repainted. The color is a blend of different ones to create a custom one that is very pretty. Here is the horrible color in question:

And here's the after:

We moved our small bookcase over to the other wall that holds our shoes, and moved this old dresser from the hall into here to "dress" it up a bit:

Then we moved my HUGE bookcase from this wall into the hall, and moved our "shoe shelves" over here and hung up one of my moms paintings:

Here is the hall before:

And the hall once we moved the bookcase. This thing was not easy to maneuver from the laundry room to here. But, it was worth it:

That's it! We're ready for our Christmas Eve party with our families and awesome friends!!