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!