Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Abby's 1515Home

Our new home is 1515 square feet with 3 bedrooms. The two front bedrooms are much smaller than we had before and we went back and forth with how to arrange them.... Abby takes big room and smaller room is for guests or Abby has them both and we do bigger bed in bigger room and play room in smaller room or get her a twin bed and make the playroom bigger? It wore me out!

Ultimately, we decided she is 7 and needs space to play. She has lots of toys that she loves and plays with and I don't want to hinder that. Our main guest is my Mom and she was fine sleeping on a twin, so we made the bedroom the small room and the bigger room is the playroom. In 3-5 years, we will likely get a small guest bedroom back and Abby won't need a playroom.

The design for her room came from this fun bedding by Pillowfort at Target. We bought it before we moved and took the sham to Sherwin Williams where Abby and I looked at lots of paint. We decided on Mint Condition, a light and bright mint green and had both her rooms painted that color.




I bought her nightstand on a resale page for $15 and then painted it and used crystal knobs. It has great storage for books! I then shared that bedding with my friend Anna who made this sign for Abby as a surprise. It is her favorite Bible verse and fitting for a young girl learning kindness, humility, and beginning to be involved in extra activities. I love how it turned out!




The other side of her room has her IKEA Hemnes dresser with crystal knobs and a few of her favorite art pieces from the old house. She loves the bunny she painted and is excited to paint another one this summer!



It is a sweet little room for my sweet little girl!


Next door to Abby's bedroom is her playroom. This room is full of fun! Most of the furniture was in her old playroom, we just added some different pieces and painted a few things!


Playing off the mint green, I added peach, grey and gold using Target's pillowfort line again. Such cute stuff at the right time for me! We kept some pinks and blues since we had those pieces from the old house.



More importantly than her space, Abby's heart toward this move has been great! She is excited to start a new school in the fall where she already has lots of church friends. She surprised us all with her first vacation request when we talked about spending our money on things other than our house- Africa to see Sole Hope kids. That is the kind of confirmation a Momma needs!



Saturday, June 4, 2016

Our 1515Home Lighting






I think lighting can make such a difference in a house, so our renovation week included 12 light fixtures! God love my husband and his triceps! He spent a lot of time on a ladder looking up.

My favorite light fixture is this pendant cluster I found on Amazon. It hangs over the dining room table. It is fully adjustable and at under $150 makes a statement for a steal. I also love my collage wall behind it- I'm just waiting on a big wooden fork to come in above Bessie, the cow head.



Here is the light fixture freshly installed with the lights off. It looks pretty on or off! You can also see the cabinets in the background before we chalk painted them and the gold bedroom before it was painted.


One of my favorite light fixtures in our old house was the mason jars pendant in my kitchen and dining room. I was able to do a similar look with these ceiling fans from Home Depot. They weren't in stores, but you can find them online. I looked and looked knowing I wanted dark wood, good lighting and no frosted glass for under $200! We installed these in 3 bedrooms, the living room and the office. If you love this look and have the popular tile that looks like wood in a weathered color, that is the opposite side fan blade!


Next up, we removed 4 mushroom lights found in the hallway and laundry room and replaced them with small drum shades, also from Amazon. These give off great light and are low profile since our ceilings are only 8 foot.


Finally, we updated the two lights outdoors. Both shine good light on the porches of our home.


Thanks for visiting our home!

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Our 1515Home Office


I work from home so a home office was a must. I also own and use lots of craft supplies. We knew our home had to have a home office or a bedroom to make into a home office. 

In our old home, I used a bedroom as my office and my husband had the traditional office. So we each had our own space. We are now sharing and realized how much we use the office at separate times. I work more during the day and he does computer gaming, etc. at night. It works for us!

Our space has a large opening into the living room/kitchen and eventually we might do french doors, but for now, it is open. Knowing that, we bought all new office furniture that matches. After looking around, we settled on IKEA. It gave us the best wall to wall options for the price and I liked having white so that it wouldn't be too heavy for the small room.


My wall is longer and holds the three pieces above while Marcus has a smaller wall and just a desk and bookcase. We had the walls painted Agreeable Grey and a new ceiling fan from Home Depot installed. 

We spent a little extra and had IKEA do both delivery and assembly. With all the projects we had going on, it was easy to outsource this one. And, we haven't always had the best luck with building IKEA ourselves. This was a no brainer!


Here is my space after unpacking. I love the vintage colors coming through in my office supplies. I added a glass top to our desks in the hopes that it keeps the furniture looking new longer. IKEA is often a softer wood and I didn't want us to damage it easily. Although my space is smaller, I honestly have better storage now.


The final touch- I added pink vintage glass knobs in place of the black IKEA basic ones. For $30, it added that vintage feel rather than the clean modern feel of IKEA. I found these on Etsy and almost bought green!


Marcus' side features his beloved Millennium Falcon. This piece was designed and laser cut by a friend and he loves having it in his office rather than the garage!


We also hung our diplomas in here. We are still paying for those pieces of paper!


Thanks for visiting our little office!

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Our 1515Home Bathrooms

I love home decor. I love design. I like mixing colors and filling spaces. I wish I had studied it more in college. When we bought our last home, it was less than a year old. Everything was new and fresh and it wasn't smart for me to change things just because they weren't my style at the time. So, I hadn't embarked on a home renovation before. 

This time around, the house was about 20 years old and I could personalize it. So, we set a budget and I started pinning, meeting with contractors, and visiting Home Depot, Lowe's, granite yards, and other stores to develop my game plan. 

Let's start with our work in the bathrooms!

I've always loved vintage white hexagon tile. After shopping around, it was half price at Floor & Decor than it was many other places. It fits my style and with dark grout makes upkeep easier. So, within 24 hours of owning the home, Vinny was laying tile and removing the linoleum. We went with a medium grey/dark blue grout color. 

 We put it in both bathrooms and our laundry room. This tile is just what I wanted, but I will give warning. It isn't perfect and with tiny little tiles and contrasting grout, it can't be.

If you ever replace tile in the bathroom, know they have to remove the toilet and then reset it. Because the cost of resetting the toilet was already built into the tile cost we were paying, we went ahead and bought new toilets. It just made sense.

The next simple thing we did to update the bathrooms was changing out the light bulb covers. I had done this in my old home and love the impact it makes. I prefer clear glass seeded covers to the frosted ones most light fixtures come with. I actually hate frosted glass anywhere! At $4 per cover, these are super reasonable. We changed out the glass in both bathrooms and kept the brushed silver fixtures.



We had the entire house painted- all walls, trim and doors. The entire home, minus Abby's rooms, are Agreeable Grey by Sherwin Williams. I love the color- very soft grey that works well with browns and beige also. I was torn between two colors and in the end picked it because it is the #1 SW color. I knew it had to be good if everyone else loved it, too.


Another thing I don't like in most homes is the basic screwed in mirror. It is so easy to remove and replace with a framed mirror and makes such a custom statement. I replaced all three mirrors in our bathrooms for under $150. Abby's mirror is Moen and was on Amazon for less than Home Depot and Lowe's.


Her bathroom is soft and simple with grey walls, peach towels, and this white ruffled shower curtain from Amazon. I love that is works now and isn't childish so she can grow with it.

In our master bathroom, I decided to play with a little color. Everything else is really neutral. I think neutral colors help a small space feel less crowded. But, in our bathroom I wanted something special, so we used Annie Sloan Aubusson Blue chalk paint on the cabinets. I sealed them with a water based poly and they look great!



We kept the silver faucets in here and added matching knobs on the new blue cabinets. Our master isn't big, but it is pretty!




I knew I wanted a frame less mirror and the prices on Pottery Barn and other sites were killing me. So, I was patient and found just what I wanted at Kirklands. I never go in there but it was next to Home Goods so I walked in after striking out there. These were just what I wanted and only $40 each.

Down the road, I'd love to replace this cabinet top with new sinks, but for now, it is working.



Finally, we added grey towels and a dark blue ticking stripe shower curtain. We didn't have a shower curtain in the old house, so it was fun to shop around!



We lost a lot of square footage in our bathrooms. We gave up a powder room and our master bath is now smaller than our guest bath was, however, we have made the space we have functional and pretty so it works for us. It isn't fancy, but it is farmhouse!

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Our Big Move

I haven't blogged in a long time for a lot of reasons, but I can't say I have a domestic blog and never mention the fact that I moved and renovated a new home last month. I also can't tell the story of my move without telling a little background.

We bought our house in 2008. I worked full time and we were about to start IVF with the idea that twins were highly likely. We were in our early 30s and did what everyone around us did- we moved up. We went from our "starter home" to our dream home which was about $75K more. It had 4 bedrooms, a formal dining room for entertaining, soaring ceilings, and great schools. We had our daughter 9 months later and then 2 years later I began working part time so I could be home with her.

Over time we became the definition of house poor. My income had lessened and the value and mortgage on our house slowly increased. My husband's income has a commission component and some months was less than expected. Combine that with my "need" to decorate and fill this big house and we moved in the wrong direction financially.

In the fall, we started getting serious about our budget and my husband took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. In February, I ran lots of numbers and we decided to sell our house. We wanted a smaller home, a smaller mortgage, and to pay off debt with some of our home equity. We prayed. We consulted. We prayed. We researched. And, God literally opened every day in His perfect timing that led us to this home.





It was the home of a friend that hadn't hit the market yet. It was a 3 bedroom with an office and cost less than we paid for our home in 2008. It had good bones, an amazing backyard, and is within a mile of lots of our friends. It feeds into the only school we wanted outside of our own. It needed cosmetic upgrades only. It was an answered prayer. And after an offer, it was ours. 


Suddenly we had a new home and a current home that needed to be sold. We got our house ready and it sold in 2 days above asking. The timeline was perfect for us and we were really moving. God had lined it all up and our obedience led to financial freedom and a home renovation. I was somehow going to save money every month, pay off debt, and get to renovate a home. It seemed too good to be true!


We are now in our new home and almost all renovations are completed. We are happy with our decision and haven't looked back. I always looked at the nice neighborhood next to ours as the next step and God has really changed my heart. I see those big homes and see work and upkeep now. 

We are loving our backyard full of big trees and the shade they provide. We are loving the cozy feel a smaller home gives us. We are loving thinking about our money going toward trips to Disney World, Hawaii, and Africa. 





We are loving the "second backyard" as Abby calls it. The field behind our home is open and the perfect spot for flying kites, hitting baseballs and watching fireworks!



Over the next few weeks I will share more of the inside. I have always loved farmhouse style and it is so popular right now that I have so many options! We've done paint, flooring, lighting, doors, fixtures, cabinets, countertops, backsplash, fireplace and more!

Stay tuned!