Bedroom wall reveal

Before you start reading, did you participate in What's Cookin' Good Lookin'? If not, what are you waiting for?

After hours and hours of tracing and painting and with the onset of possible carpal tunnel, I am finally ready to reveal my bedroom wall stenciling project. I have to tell you, I am in love with it. Like, head over heals in love. But, before I show you, let's take a stroll down memory lane...

Here's the before circa July 2009; before we even owned the house. Curse that blue trim:

Soon after we moved in, we painted the bedroom "Apple Blossom" from Benjamin Moore. Much better and no blue trim to be found.

It's been just over a year, and I a little embarrassed to admit that our bedroom hasn't changed much with the exception of different bedding and a little wall art. We're still kickin' it college style with no headboard, dinky window treatments and minimal accessories. We've been so busy renovating the kitchen, creating a man room, decorating the living room  and countless other projects that our bedroom has been neglected. Consider it our red headed step child.

I couldn't take our dull bedroom anymore and wanted to spice 'er up. Since the hubs isn't home much these days, the only spicing up in the bedroom that I could count on is decorating. Our "step child" was screaming for some attention, and I had to appease it. Via stenciling of course. It was a long process, which I will explain tomorrow, but I just can't wait to show you the final result! Like I said, our bedroom isn't decorated yet so please pardon the decor, and lack of bedding (it's laundry day) and feast your eyes on our not so neglected step child bedroom:

I am loving the personality that the stenciling has added to an otherwise "blah" space. It's the first step to creating a bedroom that the hubs and I will love. Best part, I've completely transformed our bedroom with an *almost* free project. Score!

Anyone else out there stenciling these days? How'd it work out for you? Are you suffering from carpal tunnel like me or did you find an easy way to get 'er done? I'd love to hear what you think!

*editor's note: this post was not intended to offend any red headed step children that may or may not be reading this blog ;)

House Tour Part Three: The Living Room

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families. Mine was spent with my extended "Navy" family and it was pretty great. I'm a lucky girl to be blessed with people that care about me and welcome me into their homes when my hubs and family can't be around.

Don't forget to submit a recipe to What's Cookin' Good Lookin'. We've all been busy with Thanksgiving, but it's not too late!

Now onto the tour!

When we're home, the hubs and I spend 90% of our time in the living room. It's a really large room that boasts beautiful dark hardwood floors and is in the center of our lower level. It's easily the hub of our home. I've tried to make it a light, airy, and inviting room but the decorating is still not quite done. We've come along way though...shall we take a look?

Here are some pictures from our inspection. Disregard the decor, it was the previous owners and we're not here to judge their furnishings. Different strokes for different folks. I would like you to take note, however, that there was no overhead lighting in the room, and the door in the corner was blocked with furniture. The previous owners never used that door. It leads to our laundry room which is also attached to kitchen. Did you notice the dirty white walls and dirty cream trim? It was the only room in the house that did not have dark blue molding (you'll meet that later this week) and desperately needed a paint job.




Now, here's a doozy- check out the mantle and built-ins (score!):

Are you digging the magenta parchment paper? Neither were we. How about the broken cabinet doors? Nosiree.

Another issue we had with our living room was that it was cut off from the rest of the home:

On the other side of the wall with the desk is the kitchen. That wall was begging to be torn open. Let's rephrase, the hubs was begging to tear that wall open.

So, our issues with the living room when we moved in:
1. No over head lighting
2. Yucky paint
3. Yuckier pink paper
4. Closed off from the rest of the home

Ready for what we did? Take a peek:

The first thing we did when we moved in was install overhead lighting (hired the pros for that). The room felt cave-like without it. I know not everyone is a fan (hehe) of ceiling fans, but the hubs and I love them. They help keep our house cool, so they're fine with us!

Now for the fire place, the very first thing I did when I walked into our home after closing was rip off the pink parchment. Thankfully, it came off so easily! We also removed the doors from the bottom of the built-ins. I love, love, love built-ins and am thankful we have them. Excuse the dog crate by the way, that's not part of the decor.

Now for the big stuff:

Check out the breakfast bar that the hubs (and friends) built. I think I've told you before that I was a little wary, but I'm so glad I let the hubs have his way with this. He was so very right. It completely opens up our living room and makes life and entertaining that much easier.

And there you have it, our living room. There are still things I want to fix up, and I am dying to tile the first place with glass tiles, but we'll get there.

Stay tuned for a tour of our dining room and to meet the infamous dark blue trim. Warning, it's not pretty!

House Tour Part Two: The Downstairs Bathroom

When we toured our home for the first time, the downstairs bathroom was what stood out to us the most. It made a huge first impression on us. Good thing we don't judge a house by it's bathroom a book by it's cover because this bathroom could have had us running for dodge. Here's why:

First off, let's take a look at the wooden toilet seat and ginormous blue throne. Not only were they horrendous and 50 years old (yep, original toilet) but with a tank that large, the commode was a water guzzler. Talk about flushing money down the toilet. Do you love the 50 year old sink? It reminded me of being in a 1950's prison, or school house. I almost didn't want to wash my hands after using the bathroom...but I did, promise.

What do you think of the blue flooring? Chic? Geometric? Hideous? How about the totally fabulous vanity mirror with blinking side lights? It's all the rage in Paris. I think.

Clearly this bathroom was from a different era, an era that existed well before me and the hubs. It had to go. The problem? Redoing a bathroom from head to toe is expensive. Really expensive. Since we had just done the kitchen from top to bottom, there wasn't room in the budget to gut the bathroom. So...we worked with what we had. And here they are:

The one thing our bathroom kinda had going for itself were these vintage hand-painted tiles. They're not our style by any means, but our house is 50 years old and sometimes it's nice to pay homage to it's age. So, instead of declaring war against our middle-aged porcelain, we formed an alliance. We were going to work together to create a nice bathroom. Here's what we achieved:

One coat of paint, water efficient toilet, new pedestal sink,  simple medicine cabinet, ceramic tile floor, clean roman shade, and light fixture later, here's our brand spankin' not so new bathroom. It's still not our style, but we're so happy that we were able to create a clean, new, and notsobad bathroom for less than $500. 

The best part? We did it all ourselves! No professionals needed. Except, I would now consider the hubs a professional toilet installer- that man can rock a wax ring.

This bathroom was a major lesson to us that if you work with what you have, sometimes it can actually pay off. It's not a new bathroom, but it looks completely different and we're pretty happy with the result.

So, how about all your DIYers out there? Ever had to work with something you didn't love because you couldn't change it? How'd it work out for you?

Stay tuned for part three of our house tour when I show you the living room!

PS- Don't forget to enter my first give away! It closes on Wednesday, so hurry!

Starting at the beginning

Well Hey All! Don't forget to participate in What's Cookin' Good Lookin'? I can't wait to see (and taste) what you all come up with!

It dawned on me that I've been showing you all of our home decorating, but I've never taken the time to show you the last year of house work. From tiling, to painting, to cutting down walls...we've been busy. Today, I will start with the story of our home, which is on my "Our House" page and follow up daily with a tour of each room in our home. Get ready!

Here she is- home sweet home! Built in 1959, our house is twice our age, but we treat her like our very high maintenance child. Over the last year, Paul and I have put everything we have into her and the work is still going. She is high maintenance but we love her nonetheless.

How our house came to be ours is actually pretty interesting. During our first year in Virginia we rented a home as we did not know if we would stay in the area once Paul completed flight training. In April of 2009, we got the word that we would be staying here for at least three more years. We were so tired of throwing money down the hole every month in rent so it was time to take the next step...purchasing a house. Yikes!

We started the home search in May and narrowed it down to two neighborhoods, though our hearts were truly set on one. Truth be told, the city in which we live has some pretty rough spots so location was key and we were determined to move into the neighborhood of our choice.

Throughout the search for our home, which brought us into over 100 homes (picky much?), Paul and I always liked one particular street. The houses were quaint, it was less than a 1/2 mile from my work, there was no traffic, and it was set back in the corner of our dream neighborhood. We also had the style of house picked out that we wanted: a smallish, brick cape cod with shutters. During our home search, a hobby of ours was to drive through our desired neighborhood and to look for new "for sale" signs. On one occasion, as we drove down our favorite street, I picked out a house and said, "I want a house just like that one." Too bad it wasn't for sale.

Fast forward two months. Our lease was about to run out, we'd looked at every home in our price range and came up with nothing. We were desperate to find a house or we would be forced to sign a new lease for another year. Another year of money down the hole. Knowing how desperate we were, our realtor sent out a letter to everyone in our desired neighborhood to see if they were willing to sell by the end of July. She had one response. One. A couple who had grown too old to care for their house. A house that was a brick cape cod with shutters. A house that was on our desired street. A house that was in our price range.

The house that I had picked out months before that made me say,

"I want a house just like that one."

You know the saying, "it's too good to be true," well, this time it wasn't. To make a long story short, that house is now our house and we could not be happier. Not many people hand pick their dream home when it's not even for sale and end up living in it. I loved our house before it was even ours and I still do.

Stay tuned tomorrow for kitchen before and afters!