Living Room Changes

 The living room has come a long way. Immediately when we saw this house I knew I wanted a fireplace. We built two in our last house so I knew we were up for the challenge, but we got busy with other projects and it fell to the back burner. Here's how it looked at the start of the year. 

And my plan for the space...

Finally, before Thanksgiving I convinced Zack to help me bring the fireplace vision to life. initially I painted it the same color as the doors in the house but I do think down the road I'd like to plaster it or paint with roman clay for more texture. 

After the holidays I was ready to take the next steps and do my "built ins" next to the fireplace. There are several ways to do this, you can build them yourself, which I would have loved to do but we just don't have the time like we used to and what time we do have together we just don't feel like spending it working on projects SO we chose the prefab route. Our ceilings are tall though so I had to look around for shelving that was the right height and color. I found the ones I wanted, the Billy bookcases from Ikea in birch but they were out of stock. I set up an alert for when they came back in stock hoping it wouldn't take long and lo and behold, a week later they came in stock. Our Ikea is over an hour away and but the shipping cost was ridiculous so I set them for pickup and ended up driving there in a snows storm for these babies. It was worth it. Here's how it looks now. 

I did plan to add doors to cover the bottom two shelves but they were out of stock at the time, they recently came back in stock and are on the way to us now! This room has come so far and it feels so good now! Hoping I can convince the hubby to get me a Frame TV to finish it off 🤞

---Jacqui 

2022 Plans

 Wow, I'm not sure where the time's gone. I am so bad about updating here but fortunately, you can follow along on Instagram for more frequent updates. Since the last time I've posted we've done so much, and yet, there's always more to do! This year, we have big plans! We started on the kitchen at the end of 2021 by ordering new appliances, removing the microwave and adding a vent hood. 

So, for 2022 that's first priority...

1 Finish the Kitchen.

First and foremost, we need to add a backsplash. I haven't decided on one yet but I do love marble, I also may check out the Cloe tile from Bedrosian. We're also still deciding whether we want to build a vent hood cover or leave the stainless one exposed. Not sure yet. I'm also thinking I may change the hardware to a champagne gold, just for another layer of pretty. The final piece will be adding electrical in the pantry to move the microwave in there, which brings us to...

2 the pantry

I did an initial fix in here by adding more shelving but I want to do it right. The plan would be to add electrical, rip out all the shelving, add cabinets, build wood shelving and some functional organization. 

3 Back yard 

We built our home in 2020 and had some issues with the patio concrete cracking. Fortunately, the warranty company will be replacing it but they can't do that until late spring #ColoradoProblems. Once the slab is replaced, we want to build a pergola, maybe replace the slider with French doors, build wider stairs and *fingers crossed* build in our grills. Hoping we can finish everything on our list before the end of the year. 

 

4 Front yard

The final and most simple project will be our front yard. Our bushes we added last spring unfortunately didn't survive the summer so we will be replacing those, adding some driveway lighting, staining the fence and possibly adding some corbels on the roofline, we'll have to see if we get affordable quotes on that. 

Of course I have some smaller projects planned too but those are the biggest things on our list this year. Stay tuned! 

---Jacqui 

DIY Double Barn Doors

 Wow, its been a while since I've shared a project, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy! This project was one I knew we'd end up doing sooner rather than later because there was absolutely no privacy to our master bath. The problem with this opening, and the reason we built the doors from scratch, is its extremely tall. There aren't any standard doors we could find to fit and the cost of custom doors, plus needing two was outrageous, so we were left to DIY it. Here's the before:

And my terrible drawing of the plan:

To build the doors we purchased 3/4 in MDF from Lowes, thin square moulding from Lowes, this double barn door kit from Amazon, a set of 10 inch pulls from Amazon and these cup pulls from Amazon. All we did was cut the plywood in half (we had Lowes do this!), then we cut them to height with a circular saw. After the panels were cut we measured and cut the lathe pieces to fit (here's where you can really customize the doors!) and glued them down with E3000 using clamps to hold until the glue dried. Next, I caulked all the seams and painted, attached the handles and Zack attached the barn door hardware and we attached the track directly to the wall into the studs before placing the doors on the track.

They aren't perfect by any means, there is a small gap when closed as the MDF did warp in the garage due to the weather changed (don't do what we did and leave them out there, keep them inside if possible!), but we love them and they give us the privacy we wanted. 

Lots more DIYs coming up soon!

---Jacqui

My Friends House

 My really good friend, who also happens to be my neighbor now, has a totally different style than my own. If I were to describe her style its colorful modern/boho/southwestern. She's from Arizona and loves that desert look but she's also really into color with some boho texture and pattern thrown in. She asked for some advice and I invited myself to help her get it all together.  Here's some before and afters of a few spaces we've been working on 

I'm so in love with how its all turned out and I know she is too. Her and her husband have alot  ore projects planned and I will definitely update this post as they make progress. 

---Jackie 

Guest Room Makeover: Reveal

Last week, after finishing the office, I started on the guest room. I loved the accent wall in the old house guest room but I wanted this home to be lighter and brighter and I wanted to try something new. Here's how it looked before the makeover.

I gathered inspiration from Pinterest and Instagram before creating a mood board for the space. 

The first thing I did was the accent wall. I started with baseboard molding as the "crown", then added the vertical pieces with thin trim from Lowes.  Then, I cut the horizontal pieces to connect to the vertical ones. The final step was to patch holes, caulk and then...paint!

I picked out two paint samples that I thought were going to be awesome but they turned out to be terrible. One was way too dark and the other came out way too gray. I went back with my husband, described the perfect paint color and asked him to look for it, and lo and behold, he found the one (SW Woody Rosemary)!

 

Went I got the two swatches on the wall he (and our friends) loved the one on the left (SW Windswept Cliff) but it was beige, and I was set on the green, so I went for it! 

I did decide to paint the closet doors with the beige and I just love the neutral doors combined with the green wall. 

With the accent wall and closet doors all finished I was able to start on the decorating. I sold the old nightstands and found this really cool end table at Homegoods along with a LaJolla basket I'd been hoping to find for forever now. I added this gorgeous chandelier from Amazon and two wood frames from Target with art from North Prints to finish it off. 

Here's the final result.

I have to many projects on my list for this year, I'm not sure where to start though so stay tuned.

---Jackie 

Office Makeover Reveal

 I knew from day 1 that I wanted another built in desk. Originally when we were planning for the layout we thought the front room (the now guest room) would make the best office, it has mountain views, is right in the front of the house etc. After we lived her a week or so I realized that wasn't going to work. Too many people walk by our house (its a corner lot right by a school/park) and I felt too exposed. Besides, it was too large for me to take up as an office. Late one night I switched the furniture and started to plan for my office space. Here's how the room looked when we got the keys...

And after the swicheroo of the rooms.... 

And here's my mood board for the space...

We started with plain old unfinished base cabinet from Lowes. Zack cut the base off of them (they'd be too tall otherwise), I painted them Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black and then we attached a pre-cut 8ft piece of unfinished butcher block from Lowes. Then, I added hardware from Hobby Lobby  and an unfinished piece of pine from Lowes with some awesome metal brackets for a modern floating shelf.

Now came the fun part: Decorating! I wanted a large cork board to pin all my inspiration pictures, paint and textile samples, floor plans etc. I found this tutorial on Pinterest and bought the foam board from Lowes in a 4x8 FT piece for only $6 we also bought gold screws and washers from Lowes and some linen fabric from Hobby Lobby where I used their 40% off coupon. To put it all together I cut the foam to size using an exacto knife. Next, we laid the fabric on the floor and place the foam on top and wrapped the fabric around the back and TAPED it onto the foam board using packing tape. Worked like a charm! Then, Zack screwed it into the wall while I held it straight. After that I started pinning all my favorite things! 

I kept my leather chair that was already in here, added a side table, stole a mirror from the guest room and some decor from my stash, bought some beautiful curtains from Kohls and (after a few swicheroos) landed on this rug from Overstock. 

Im so happy with how it turned out and though its very simple, its very ME! I am now brainstorming ideas for a nice guest room refresh so keep an eye out for that post coming soon.

---Jackie 

Master Bathroom : Making it our own

 I am not a fan of the builder grade mirrors, like at ALL. I ripped them out of our old house an even asked if they could be left out in the new house (they couldn't :( ) so I knew I'd eventually rip them out of this house too. 

The problem was that I couldn't find any mirrors I loved more than the ones in the old house. I even tried to fin those again but they were sold out. One night I went to Target with a friend and they had 2! I snatched them up and then set out to find some lighting. I wanted this house to feel more modern than farmhouse so I found these awesome linear lights from Amazon for $30. Now that I had all my supplies I ripped that horrible mirror off the wall the next morning and hung the new mirrors.

A few days later I , patched, textured and painted the wall and hung the new lights. 

I love the transformation and I feel like this house is started to take shape and feel more like US. 

Before

After

Now we are working on my office and I can't wait to show you how great it looks! 

---Jackie