It Actually Looks Like a Guest Bedroom and Not a College Apartment

Recently, my mom and I painted one of our two guest bedrooms (we've actually painted both now, but only one has furniture in it). I joked before we painted it that it looked like a college apartment, mostly because the walls had flat, white paint on them, and it was decorated with a futon pulled out as a bed and storage crates as the nightstand (I know what you're thinking, but that room was definitely not my top priority when we moved into the house). But now, it is such a cute guest bedroom!

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the luxurious futon and storage crates, but I do have a picture of the room before paint and furniture so we'll start with that...

It's definitely not much to look at, but it is a nice sized room. However, with a little paint and some free (and beautiful!) hand-me down furniture (MUCH Thanks go to my Aunt and Uncle for remodeling their guest rooms and giving us the furniture they didn't want) it turned into a wonderful guest bedroom! Take a look...

The bedding I got on a super sale at work (it's definitely helpful working for a retailer that sells cute merchandise to decorate with!) The artwork above the bed is actually some photographs that the hubby took. I LOVE original pieces so I just used some simple frames to make the photographs really speak for themselves, and it turned out amazing!

Don't you like how the upgrade from the college furniture turned out?? We sure do! 

More to come later...

XO, J&K

Builder Grade Closet Turned Massive Walk-In...A Girl's Dream

Alright, so earlier this weekend, I posted about how my hubby decided to tear into the teeny tiny closet in our bonus room and make it into a massive walk-in closet for storage. Well, the framing is up as well as some drywall so the teeny tiny closet is definitely no more. Now it is about 5 1/2 ft by 8 ft, which is a girl's dream! (If only it was our closet...) It will actually be used for random storage that we need so it will mainly consist of shelving, but here's the progress we made this weekend...

This is how the closet started before my hubby took a hammer to it...

And this is where we finished for the weekend...

Big change right?? I'm excited to see it all come together, and I even get a new overhead light for the closet!! (Thank goodness for the fact that both the Fathers can do some electrical work!)

We're hoping to get the rest of the drywall on the outside done early this week, then the new electrical work will be done. This is consist of moving the plug that is currently inside the closet to the outside wall of the closet and adding in wiring for an overhead light inside the closet. More later as we progress through this project...

XO, J&K

All I Wanted Was My Window Blind Hung...

Last night, I asked the hubby to hang the window blind in the newly painted second guest bedroom (pictures to come soon) but instead I got a demolished closet! So to fill you in on some discussion that has been going on for a little while, we decided to tear out the closet in the bonus room and build a new, bigger closet for storage (I mean come on, who puts a teeny, tiny closet in a HUGE room???)

After some organizing in the bonus room, which is being used as storage space right now, the hubby decided last night (at 9:00pm by the way) to start tearing down the drywall to the existing closet. See?!?

He ended up getting that side of the wall torn out, but then today the ENTIRE thing disappeared.

You can kind of tell how small the previous closet was, but now we're going to extend it out to make a walk-in storage closet. As you can see, we're reusing as much of the old closet as possible, which will definitely save us some money! The plan is to finish up the framing today so we'll see how it all turns out. More to come later...

XO, J&K

Tiny Bathroom Redo

Alright, so the kitchen may be the biggest transformation, but the half bathroom on the main floor looks incredibly cute now. It's not a very big bathroom at all, but that doesn't mean we didn't give it a major overhaul. Take a look!

Don't you just love how bright and sunny it looks with the yellow? Just for kicks and giggles, here's a quick look at what it looked like before...

Like I said, we did quite a bit of work in this bathroom. We took out the ridiculously small vanity, and put in a new dark cherry vanity with a neutral top and added a mirror (because there wasn't one before). We were able to reuse the vanity light from the upstairs guest bathroom in this bathroom so we can purchase a new one when we redo the guest bathroom. We used the 16x16 tile I purchased at a garage sale with the grout we used everywhere else in the house. After it was painted yellow and new trim was put in, I got to add in the finishing touches. This included the curtains that were originally one shower curtain panel. (Yes, you read that correctly) I found a shower curtain that I absolutely loved, and in about an hour I transformed it into 2 curtain panels for this small window. 

I love how it all came together and how much bigger the bathroom looks now! Again, our hard work paid off, making this another great transformation. That's all for now...

XO, J&K

Our DIY Kitchen Makeover

Now, the "DIY" in the title doesn't mean it was the only DIY project in our house...We have actually done almost everything ourselves to save money. However, I think our kitchen makeover is probably the most dramatic change in the entire house. Take a look...

Isn't it fabulous?! When we originally looked at the house, the kitchen was very plain, simple, and boring. The only cabinets were located in the corner, and the rest of the 300 square foot kitchen was empty! (And it had terrible linoleum flooring too...) If you don't remember, here's another look at the original kitchen.

Now, like I said, this was probably the biggest transformation in the entire house because it needed the most work. So here's what we did to make it beautiful.

1. We replaced the awful linoleum flooring with a neutral porcelain tile that we were able to score for only $0.99 a square foot (This was a budget-saver in our 300 square foot kitchen). Yours truly and the hubby put down, grouted, cleaned, and sealed the entire floor. It was a time-consuming project, but once it was finished, it was great!

2. We kept the original cabinets because they were in great shape, but we did paint them a bright white to give them a fresh, clean look. In addition to the existing cabinets, we also added an open cabinet over the refrigerator that the hubby built to match.  Then, we added a cabinet set and wine rack on the other side of the kitchen. Again, the hubby built this to look like the existing cabinets. Finally, we added an island with a butcher block top for more storage. (Do you get the impression that I wanted more storage??) When we originally decided on the butcher block top for the island instead of matching the new countertops (I'll get to that in a minute) we thought we would try to do it ourselves. But after some research, I thought my easy DIY project might not be as easy as I imagined. I wanted the top to be food safe and easy to take care of, but all of the finishing products out there weren't exactly food safe or easy to use/take care of. This led me to begin looking for the perfect butcher block top that was pre-made, which didn't end up being so easy. However, I turned to Amazon and was able to purchase a top that was bigger than the island and met all of my requirements, including being budget-friendly since I got it in sale! I also painted the island with a mistinted green paint that I found at Lowe's for only $5, which turned out exactly how I imagined.

3. We replaced the green and mauve countertops with a neutral stock laminate countertop. While it would've been nice to do a solid surface countertop, it wasn't in the budget right away. However, I love the look and the durability of the countertop we did find at Lowe's. It was a color they keep in stock so purchasing it was easy. Cutting it to size was a different experience. Once the hubby and the Fathers figured out the right process, it wasn't too hard; again, it was slightly time-consuming and nerve-wrecking because we didn't have much room to make a mistake. However, everything went smoothly.

4. We added the beautiful backsplash! I found this tile at Menard's and originally, it was out of the budget, but after finding out that the corner wasn't exactly square AND the tile was on a 50% off sale, it was a must. We cut the tile to size and grouted it with a dark brown grout I got for free when I purchase the laundry room tile at a garage sale. (I love a good deal!)

5. We got rid of the terrible lighting (I'm really not sure how the previous owners could see to do anything with the lights they had in here...). We replaced it with a matching set of an island light and chandelier. While this typically would've put a major dent in the budget, we got lucky with this deal. It started with me discovering the island light on clearance closeout at Lowe's for only $5.00! (Yes, you read that correctly, and no, I'm not missing a zero somewhere in that number) We had already picked out a pot rack for over the island, but once I saw this beauty I changed my mind and decided I wanted this instead. Finding the chandelier was a bit of a challenge because it was discontinued, but I was able to find it on eBay (Not for $5.00, but it was still a good deal)

Overall, the changes that we made created the kitchen of my dreams, AND we did it on a budget! It was hard, just took some time and patience, but seeing it come together was definitely worth it. Here's another look at the transformation...

So what do you think? I hope you like it as much as we do! That's it for now, but there's still more to come.

XO, J&K

We've Been Busy, but Now I'm Back!

For those of you who don't know, I'm a manager for a major retail company. This means that from November 1st through January 15th I have hardly any life outside work, with the exception of a teeny tiny bit of family time whenever I can squeeze it in. Because of this, my blogging became nonexistent during that time. BUT that doesn't mean we haven't been doing any updates on the house...We've actually done A LOT!

So now that I'm back, I'm going to start with our most recent project...Built-In Bookcases! I got my inspiration from Chris over at Just A Girl. She purchased standard Billy bookcases and  bookcase extenders from IKEA, mounted them all the way across the wall, added some trim and molding, and TA-DA...Built-In Bookcases. It seems simple enough right? Well, I was right and wrong (just a little).

I explained to my hubby that I wanted to build these bookcases, and we made the trip to IKEA We did in fact purchase the Billy bookcases and extenders, but it was a little more than just mounting them to the wall and adding trim. We put everything together first, which was simple, but I suggested that the Fathers come over the next day to help with actually building the Built-Ins (partially because I'm only so much help when moving the 8 ft tall bookcases) and thank goodness they did! With their help, we ended up with a set of very sturdy and wonderful looking Built-Ins.

SO here's a little bit of our process...

It started with our blank canvas of a Living Room. 

Then, we put up the bookcases and added supports both between each bookcase and behind them (which you can't see). 

After we added the supports, we added trim at the top of the extenders (finding the right size was a task in itself) We needed something that was at least 4 inches tall so traditional crown molding didn't work for us because that would've meant that we needed special order crown molding...which wasn't an option. 

After we added the top trim piece, we added the baseboard trim. In my inspirational tutorial, she cut the existing baseboard away from the wall and reattached it. Well, I didn't want to do that so we bought a new piece and coped it to match the trim on either side of the bookcase. Neither the Fathers nor my hubby were good at coping so the fact that I requested this got quite a few "looks". However, they were able to make it work, and it turned out beautifully!

Here it is with the top and bottom trim, and 3 pieces of trim between the bookcases. At this point, we still needed to attach the trim to the outside edges. After the final trim pieces were attached and the whole thing for a few coats of Horseradish paint by Olympic, this is the final result...

Aren't they wonderful?! I'm just thrilled with how they turned out (despite the fact that I still need some more knick-knacks to fill in the white space) and the Living Room is actually starting to look good!

Since I've probably overwhelmed you at this point, I'm going to leave you with a few more photos from the decorating. Until next time...

XO, J&K