Home Improvement

So one of the reasons we bought the house we did was because, despite being 65 years old, it had been updated and had relatively few things that needed to be done to it. However, moving anywhere means needing to change things to make them your own, and this has been no exception. There are definitely still several things that I plan to do, but here's how decorating/updating has been going the last few months!

So when we first bought the house, the white paint was seriously fading and the porch was a darker gray color. 

As part of our contract, we were given a check to pay for the house to be re-painted. Nice. I was sooo excited thinking I was going to be able to change the color of the house. I had big plans to make it a nice beige or gray or blue or green. Then we found out that it was going to cost nearly $1000 extra to change the color (as opposed to keeping it white). Now I almost wish we had done it, but that was NOT in our budget. 

So we went with white. But then we had to pick out what kind of white we wanted to use. It's REALLY hard to tell from a sample what your whole house will look like. I thought the white we picked was going to be kind of a bright grayish-white. Instead it ended up being kind of creamy. It's fine, but I don't love it. Every now and then I think it looks a little pinkish, and I am not a fan of that.

 Really, it would probably be fine if the three houses next to our weren't so darn cute. Ours just looks lame in comparison. At least the paint isn't fading now, though.

In the above picture the porch is already painted, but, originally, the painters left it gray. Gray does NOT look good with cream. Not even kind of good. It drove me CRAZY. So I went to Sherwin Williams and bought a can of paint to match the house, then took my afternoon naptimes one week and got busy painting! 

It took three coats and four days, but I finally got it done!

Ah, the porch looks MUCH better. I also added the flower box under the window, and some nice hanging baskets on the porch. 

I'm trying to figure out what else to do to improve the curb appeal. Any suggestions? 

I want to get rid of that orange foundation under the window, but have no idea what to do with it. I'm hoping maybe the bushes will grow and that will make it look better too? I might also get some darker mulch. We're also going to be getting some new shutters VERY soon (like I already bought some). I'm not a fan of those diamonds!

In addition to working on the curb appeal, I've also been doing a few projects here and there, mainly for Samuel's room.

I found this cute frame back at Thanksgiving and finally got around to spray painting it and filling it with pictures. It's not perfect, but I think it turned out pretty well!

I also made (okay, put together from an ikea package) this step stool. It might have been Ikea, but it still took me QUITE a while. Much longer than the ikea bookshelf or bench  that I built. Speaking of which....

Our mudroom has turned out quite nicely! There's actually another little shelf where the stroller is now, and we have baskets in all but one of the shelves. I love that this empty room that had NO purpose before is now part of our home!

This is another fun little project I did. It was ridiculously easy with some canvas, fabric, and a wooden "S." I really should have gotten enough to do all of Samuel's initials, but I bought the stuff to do this back when I was pregnant, so I think it's safe to blame that on pregnancy brain, right?

I posted on facebook about my fun ottoman-making afternoon. My original plan was to use this in lieu of our coffee table, but it turned out to be WAY too tall when it was done and no where near long enough. However, I have been in need of a side table, and this seemed to do just the trick! 

This may not seem like much of a project, but it has been one of the most helpful things I've done. No one EVER put things in the right bins before!!

Samuel's room was probably the one that got the most updates when we moved in (other than the mud room). When we first saw the house, it looked like this: 

Yup, lemon-lime colored. I'm not completely opposed to that color, actually, but it in NO WAY matched ANY of Samuel's room decor. It had to go. Eric was amazing and spent a day painting away. The color, once again, was not exactly what I had envisioned (it's supposed to just be khaki, but, depending on the lighting, it can have a bit of an orange flair), but it works, so no complaints here!

We also changed out the hardware on one of the closet doors (seriously, best $5 EVER!) and had the light fixture changed (I forgot to take a picture of that, but, once again, HUGE difference!)

              

My original intention when we moved was to get new living room furniture in addition to our recent dining-room-table purchase. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that I have really expensive taste. Our furniture is only a few years old, so there really wasn't a NEED for new furniture. So I decided to just re-decorate what we had. Previously everything was done in blue and brown. Now things are looking a little more lively:

(and no, the teddy bear blanket is not part of the decor, though it might as well be since it's there 10 hours out of every day!)

(excuse the messiness)

I also got some baskets to store our DVDs, partially for looks, and partially because a certain little boy thought it was fun to pull the DVDs out of the cabinet.  

We really need a new TV. That might be coming up before too long. 

Our dining room was the easiest to decorate. I just have one picture that needs to be hung and it's done. Oh, and now there's a nice high chair over in the corner by the bookshelves. :-) 

Upstairs, we bought Eric a new desk and turned a storage box into a home (okay, bathroom) for our cat. It's much more pleasant than our old arrangement. I didn't take a picture of that. Do you really want to see? Probably not. 

This is my current project. Our play/guest room. You can kind of tell from the toys and now the bedding what color theme I'm wanting to go with, but I have no idea how to incorporate the two together and make it look cohesive yet still fun for kids and inviting for guests. Any thoughts? I've been perusing the internet and Target for wall decals etc., but nothing's come to me yet (except that I'm probably going to be getting a shelf/storage system of some kind soon). 

We haven't used it much, but I really like our patio furniture. It's not fancy, but we also didn't pay that much for it, so for what it is, I'm pretty happy! Now if Eric will only ever be off work enough for us to grill!

One last unexpected project that I had this week was painting our fireplace. While moving our coffee table to vacuum, I came to the realization that our gray tile was painted gray, not just made that way. Whoops.

We left things that way for several weeks, but pretty soon little man decided it would be fun to peel at the paint. And eat it. Not a good idea!

So last week, when I was getting really tired of pulling him away from the fireplace 10 times an hour, I hauled myself and my baby out in the rain back to Sherwin Williams and bought some paint. Of course the color was a little different, so I had to do the whole thing. Glad nap time is usually 2 hours long!

Anyway, there's been plenty more going on around here, but that's probably plenty of updating for now, right? :-)