The Kitchen: Before and After-ish

When I first saw the kitchen, the clutter and flower-tiled floors scared me, but I did initally love the size of it. The bones of the kitchen were good (a term I now know thanks to Property Brothers :)). The cabinets themselves were in great shape, and the counter tops were white which I could definitely live with. But as you can see in these pictures below, there were still some changes that had to be made to this space. (my awesome husband not being one of them :))

The first thing we did was paint all of the walls that were covered in wall paper. In all the other rooms we took off the wall paper before painting, but we decided to just try painting over it and it worked great (although it needed a few coats). I originally wanted something more neutral, like a gray or beige, but my daring husband helped me get out of that neutral comfort zone and go with his choice of this pretty blue. I am very happy I went with his idea ;)

The second thing we did, which made such a HUGE difference in a matter of 20 minutes, was changing the handles on the cabinets. We sampled a few different types of handles and this was one was hands down our favorite. It immediately gave the kitchen a more modern feel and a nice clean look.

The last thing we did, and are still doing, is changing the floor. We waited for a few months to tackle this project and were so happy once we started it. We used these tiles, which were simply peel and stick. We're still working on the small crevices under the cabinets and doors, which we just have to measure and cut. We used 5 boxes of tiles which totaled to around $120: a relatively cheap makeover. These tiles certainly gave the kitchen a much newer look, something pink flower-ed tiles never could.

Sometime in the future, we hope to get an island to put right in the middle of the kitchen, which will create more counter and storage space. If you're looking for a reasonably priced island, I would suggest looking at Target, Big Lots, or Overstock.com
Another "must" is changing out the interesting light fixture. We bought a replacement fan from Lowe's about 5 months ago, but just haven't gotten someone to come switch it out for us.

Well, hope you enjoyed this and found something that will help you fix-up in your humble abode. Remember, if me and my sweets could fix up this kitchen, then you most certainly can fix up yours :)

DIY Wall Decor

So as I mentioned in my previous post, I am going to fill you all in on how I made my easy DIY wall decor. This past summer I was watching the High/Low Project on HGTV and fell in love with the framed wall art the host used to decorate the home, which you can look at through this link. Because it was from Crate and Barrel, a set of six frames cost hundreds of dollars, which I was not willing to pay.

I was looking for a cheaper way to still get this look. One idea I found online was painting my own patterns and buying my own frames to put the home-made art it. There was one problem: I am by no means an artist (or anything remotely close to one :)) and didn't trust myself with that task. Thankfully I came across Mel Stampz's Blog. 

 It's a great website where you can pick different patterns and different colors and the best part is that they're free! After finding 4 frames from Target on sale for $3.99 each, I printed out my favorite patterns, stuck them in my clearance frames and here's the result:

If I can do it, so can you! :)

Before and After: The Dining Room

So the first room I'm going to show you is the dining room. As I you can tell from the "before" pictures above, this room was not previously used as a dining room. We were just going to make it another living area and just put a couch on the half wall and two chairs on the other wall. Then we realized that putting a coffee table in there would be quite difficult because no matter the size, it would get in the way and be an awkward set up. So when my mom was visiting me, we were brainstorming and she came up with idea of putting our kitchen table in this room instead of the kitchen. I immediately loved the idea, because the space would be used a lot more as a dining room than as another living room. Also, it allowed me to still have a sitting area I that I really wanted. So, here are the before and after pictures. Hope you enjoy :)

 So our first step (after all of the previous owner's stuff was removed) was to tear down the wallpaper. This was no easy task but thanks to our friends letting us borrow their steamer, it went much quicker. After we tore down the wallpaper, we began painting. We used Valspar 3001-8C Homestead Resort Buff. 

On the chair rail wood paneling, that was a natural wood color, we decided to paint white (per my sister's genius idea :)) We used a white primer and paint and it took 3 coats to cover it up, and it probably could still use one more. It makes such a difference and takes a room that looks old and completely transforms it, giving it a modern, clean look. 

Finally, we just had to do something to help out the fireplace. The black in between the stones made it an eye sore, but my mother-in-law and I spent a few hours painting the black grout in between the stones. We just used the left over paint from our family room, which was Valspar 1002-10B Seagull Beach. In my humble opinion, repainting the fireplace made such a difference and as my mother-in-law says, "It went from and eye soar to an eye catcher" (or at least I hope so :)).

So here are the "After" pictures:

On my next post, I will tell you how I did the above wall decoration for about $15.

This Old House

These two pictures above are the living room. 

 

These two pics are of the front family room.

 This is the guest bedroom.

 

 

The two pictures above are the guest bathroom and commode.

This is the master bedroom. 

 Here we have the lovely master bathroom. 

( I couldn't figure out how to put his at the top of the post so just pretend that it's above the pictures :)) As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going to upload pictures of the "before" pictures of our house. When my husband and I first walked through this house, all that was going through my head was "no way we're living here." I am definitely a visual person so once I visually imagined our stuff in all of those spaces in the house, I was able to see its potential the second time we walked through it. As you can see from these pictures, we certainly had our work cut out for us, but I must admit, most of the transformation was a fun process ("de-wallpapering" the many different rooms was definitely not the most fun thing we've ever done :)). Soon, I will post room by room the before and after pictures and let you know all the fun things we did to transform them :)

ps-If you're wondering, all of the clothing, furniture, and other items are all from the sweet elderly couple that lived there before we did. :)

Let the Blogging Begin

Hello all! So my husband and I (and our two pups) just recently moved into a house, which we are beyond thankful for. It was, however, quite a lot of work to transform it because it was stuck in the 60's. I decided to do this blog because we have done quite a lot of things to this house. That is saying something because decorating is not my strong suite and I had to do TONS of online research (and of course got help from my extremely creative family members :) )  I was beyond thankful for all of the blogs that I read that provided ways to do cheap DIY projects to take an old house and completely revamp it. 

My hope is that this blog will help even just one person who has been looking and looking for ideas of cheap ways to do this or fix that and maybe, just maybe, this will be the answer they are looking for. In the very near future, I will be putting up our "before" pics and gradually, all the "after" pictures. My husband and I are by no means interior designers or the "fixer-upper" type so please be encouraged because if I (we) can do it, then SO CAN YOU!