Crafts & Things

I thought I would put up some before and afters of our house, since we didn't do that with our last house and I regretted it! It also really helps me realize how much I really DID do this year when I look around and feel like there's still so much I want to do. Doing these comparisons has been so good for me. We moved into this house in May of 2015, and it's HUGE...I'm talking like 5,970 square feet huge. We are very, very grateful to have found this house, we know we were meant to move here without a doubt! We realized that we could make this house our dream home with some time. That said, I don't think we fully realized how expensive it would be to furnish and decorate this large of a home...and add the extra utilities on to that and...yep. Our front room is still completely empty, we have plans to frame it in because it's so big that that's what I feel needs to happen, lol. Most of our walls are still empty, and I think that's what drives me the most crazy! It feels like we just moved in sometimes. Most of the transformation came from repainting the entire house except the guest room, cleaning, putting in our own furniture and putting up curtains. We have a pretty big yard, .37 of an acre, which required a TON of money putting up a vinyl fence, laying sod in the front and back and buying the boys a play set and making a contained play yard with pea gravel. That left pretty much nothing to do everything we want to do with this house, my ideas are just waiting until the time is right. It has been kind of fun watching it come together in steps, too.

Our main living room.

Before & after.

Kitchen. 

After, before, after.

I finally found the perfect space for my furniture obsession, that little white cabinet on the left. We had no room for it in our last house, so to have this perfect spot really made me happy! We changed out the light fixtures over the table area and the sink, the one over the sink is adorable, a little mini version of the one over the table.

Guest room. 

Before & after.

This is the only room we left green, because it just fit! We took all the superhero stickers off the walls and I managed to find amazing deals on all of this. The desk was given to me by my parents and I refinished it, we got the side tables for next to nothing right before we got married and I got the headboard for FREE from a neighbor. I bought that chair from a friend, and I already had the curtains given to me by my sister. It was kind of fun to refinish it all to match! I was able to finish this entire room for under $200. That's impressive nowadays.

Master bedroom.

Before and after.

Up until a few weeks ago I was having the hardest time figuring out what colors to do our room in. I had painted the walls blue, which I loved, but then I couldn't figure out the style I wanted and basically got really frustrated because I couldn't stop thinking about it. Well, I decided I wanted to go with a duvet and asked my Mom for a Cariloha duvet insert for Christmas, it's made of bamboo and heavenly. So I had been searching for a linen duvet and decided to buy this one and I thought it would be perfect, so I ordered it...but then I changed my mind and wanted a completely different color and was going to repaint our entire bedroom etc. etc. lol. I decided to try it on the bed and see how I liked it...and then it was love at first sight. Seriously. It felt so good to finally know what I wanted! It is so comfy and soft, and get this...I can machine wash it! You read that correctly. THAT is why I was so insistent on a linen duvet. Anyway, fast forward a couple weeks, I had been trying to figure out how I would match the color of that duvet with anything else, because that ivory cream color comes in SO many shades. We were shopping and my eye caught that rug and my heart skipped a beat. Seriously. I told Jeremy I needed it, I even traded the curtains he got me for Christmas that I've been wanting forever. I knew it would match perfect and would fill some of the space in our gigantic master bedroom. And so he spoiled me and loaded it up. It looks like fluffy snow and it's so so soft, and it matches perfect. I'm so grateful. I don't have curtains, but I'm saving up for those...and my birthday is in a couple months! lol. I have to remind myself, step by step, and I really am grateful. 

A before and after of our yard...

Before & After

I forgot to get a before picture of the backyard before we paid someone to flatten it all out and lay topsoil. It was a mess of weeds and mounds of dirt, old garden boxes and huge piles of tumble weeds! It was crazy. 

So like I said, when we moved into this house we had so much space and I just needed to fill it with something. I've always loved the yard sale pages on Facebook, but in our last house I couldn't really buy anything because our house was already full. This big house has really challenged my interior design skills! When we moved in I repainted it this really light blue/gray that I absolutely adore, but, I'm not kidding, all of my decor seemed to only go with off-white walls. Anyway, so my parents gave me my old desk from when I was growing up, it's really old, I can't even remember a time we didn't have it! It was in pretty rough shape, the front leg had disconnected and my Dad had to glue it back on, it was warped and chipped and just overall in very used condition, but I loved it and I knew I wanted it because of the memories. :) My parents brought it up and it sat in our enormous empty front living area for months while I was pregnant, then when Benson was like five months old I finally regained my motivation and got a bunch of projects done. I also redid our coffee table, some nightstands and that headboard a neighbor gave me! :D

Coffee table.

Before & after.

Jeremy had to re-drill holes for me because I chose different hardware and I did NOT trust myself to do that. lol.

Before and after. :)

I searched long and hard for the perfect hardware.

Before

After

And another project that I finished a few months ago...I had wanted a teepee for our boys for SO long. Finally, I just decided to make one and went for it! 

I chose linen fabric for everything but the opening, the opening was a geometric pattern with kind of a silvery finish on it. I thought it would be perfect with the blue/gray that I painted our school/play room, the curtains are a different pattern, but also have that silvery finish.

You can't see it super well here, but I hemmed both edges, then triple zig-zag stitched that peak so it won't tear. 

I wanted to use jute to tie it, Jeremy drilled a little hole through each of these poles and I strung the jute through and pulled it into a tight circle before wrapping it with more jute. 

Finished. :)

Curtains I made to match!

I was totally surprised that it turned out so well when I felt like I was just wingin' it the entire time! I put some pillows in there, and the eventual goal is to get a fluffy rug, but my boys love to lay in there and play their LeapPads or play with Lego's during rest time. It makes my heart happy to see how they love it. :)

I have some more projects I am working on (when am I not working on a project??), I will post pictures of those soon!