My "tiny" dream

No, we aren't selling our home and moving into a tiny home, this isn't that kind of post. I do however dream to own one someday, but not to live in. Remember when i said a while back that I'm really bad at following through with things I say i want? This is one of those things. i have, for a few years now, wanted to open my own shop. I want to sell farmhouse decor, antiques, jewelry and homemade items. Zack has always been supportive but he and I both knew that we would probably never be able to afford to rent out a space to do that. Enter the tiny house movement. Tiny homes are made from basically everything these days: buses, converted train cars, barns and sheds, I couldnt ever actually picture it for my business but then Zack and i were running into Home Depot the other day [we cheat on Lowes occasionally] and this beaut was chilling in the parking lot....

I was instantly excited and made Zack tour it with me. Surprisingly, he loved it too. Its the wrong color for me but everything else is perfect for a little store, don't you think? Its got the perfect place for a checkout counter just under the stairs to the right side,

as well as a spacious loft.

My customers would have ample space to shop and I would have more than enough room for my products. I can picture it.

Of course this exact model [it had "upgrades"] was somewhere around $15,000 which is still an affordable option but the base model was only around $7400 and we could do our own "upgrades". Zack is really handy. he can build almost anything so its a great option for the future. the other great thing is that its a small enough footprint that we could possibly fit it on the side of our home that we plan to build one day [can you say short walk to work!].

Basically I'm saying that someday I'm gonna own a tiny store. Someday.

---Jackie

Giani Granite counter top review

There is absolutely nothing wrong with our counters, let me just start by saying that they are brand new, really beautiful laminate counters, but they are not my style at all. We knew that eventually we would love to get granite put in but right now I thought it might be cool to see if I could update them on the cheap. I was searching online and I saw a ton of reviews and tutorials for this Giani Granite White Diamond kit and everyone was so happy with their counters that I thought Id try it and review it for you guys. My opinion? Pass. Let me begin by saying I DO like the way the counters turned out overall but I will probably never use this kit again. It was a huge pain and it took FOREVER! There are lots of spots that I just could not get the way I wanted and corners? Don't get me started. I don't know if I am just an idiot, the other bloggers were fibbing [probably] or what but mine was just not easy at all. I had to use so many coats of the limestone to get it to look halfway decent and not like a kindergarten sponge painting project. Then, I had to use a tiny brush to get into the corners which left brush marks that I then had to dab with a sponge to blend, it was nightmare. Some parts I can tell didn't get covered enough, some parts i love. I tried to add veining like a lot of the tutorials.. yeah, no. That shit didn't work at all. It looks like I painted a line and tried to cover it. I'm not going to sit here and gripe for an hour, although I could, so Ill just show you my counters.

I did the laundry room first and totally forgot to take pics during each stage but here's my results....

Before...

the primer...

the -12-coats-I-give-up-it-looks-fine-after picture.

The bathroom before

primer

one coat of the pearl

first coat of the limestone

after SEVERAL coats of limestone and a couple dabs of the pearl and here we are....

Zack likes them, or at least he says he does, I think he knows that I'm one coat of limestone away from a breakdown so he just says it looks pretty, either way, it'll work until we can update them. In the meantime, here are the final afters, with two coats of the sealer. 

So far they are holding up to wear but we'll check back in a couple months and see. Anyone else tried this kit and didn't like it? Or am I the only one?

---Jackie 

My office reveal

When we walked this house for the first time we entered into the master bedroom and the realtor was like, " ..and look, his and hers closets.." and all I thought was "OFFICE!" Its literally the perfect size for me and like I have said before, I HATE wasted space. Zack and I jsut don't have enough clothing to really take up 2 entire walk in closets and we didnt want to use up a spare bedroom for no reason so he jsut went along with it although Im pretty sure he thought I was crazy at first...,most of my ideas are ;)

In order to turn it into a fun and comfortable office space I first needed to make it look like less of a closet, I.E. nix the shelves. It wasn't hard per se but I did utter a few choice words in the process because of the massive holes the anchors left. Fear not, I followed this great tutorial on Youtube for patching larger holes and I can confidently say that Zack could not tell where the anchors were at all! Home run!

After patching and painting the holes we added in my 2 file cabinets [these ones from Walmart] and a large piece of edge-glued panel wood from Lowes, [stained and white washed the way I do all the wood in my house][for a tutorial on this finish check out this post].

Then, we added this piece of bead board from Lowes along the back to hide the cords, threw up some more DIY faux floating shelves for decor, another DIY cowhide and a cool metal chair from AFW. The sign is handmade and the mirror is from Hobby Lobby. Here's the room now,

Its nothing fancy, and I cant seem to get a great photo of it since this room gets no light other than the ceiling one, but I love having a spot that doesn't take up major space in the house thats pretty AND functional. Lots of great posts are coming your way from this room right here!

---Jackie

Lighting update

We have been in the house just over a month now and I still haven't shown you all the changes we made to the lighting! Before we moved in that was the one thing that I told Zack I could NOT live with. I don't know what the builder was thinking, no wait, I do. He was thinking cheap. As cheap as possible. I couldn't. Like I could NOT stare at these awful boob lights everyday, so before we even moved in, like literally the day we got the keys, we went to the house and immediately changed half the fixtures and then on our next day off we changed the rest. Its a huge improvement and I'm pretty proud that they all look so great together.

entryway before

entryway after

dining room before

dining room after

island before

island after

So, this is where it gets a little complicated. 

Originally there were two lights in the kitchen: One over the island and one centered in the walkway between the sink and island...weird. We didn't like the second light and we couldn't decide if we wanted to move it over the sink or on the wall...

I love this one from Lamps Plus 

Zack likes something like this from Lowes

..so we decided for the time being to cover it with a plate until we decide for good. Then, there's the two lights on the bottom left of the pic. The one closest to the bottom is the living room and the one in the middle is the light that's centered on the bottom of the stairs. Here's a better explanation...

bottom of stairs, island, plate covered

So here you can see the island light and the light at the bottom of the stairs. For the island we added a track and 2 pendants instead of adding more lights, it was cost effective and I really like it! Then, we added the lantern lights [discontinued at Lowes] that we used everywhere else.

In the living room we opted for a ceiling fan because Zack and I are always hot and this is where we hangout the most, it was a no brainer. 

living room after

stairs before

stairs after

upstairs hallway before

upstairs hallway after

laundry before

laundry room after

master before  

master bedroom after

I am super happy with the lighting that we chose and we installed them all ourselves [except the one over the stairs, we had a professional come do that because...heights.] and it was super affordable. If you like what we used check below for a source list. 

Lanterns used in halls and entryway : Lowes

Pendants over island: Lowes

Track over island: Lowes 

dining room chandelier: Lowes

Living room and master bedroom fan: Lowes

Laundry room pendant: Ikea we left off the glass piece

---Jackie 

First projects

In my last post I mentioned that we had started on some [minor] projects. I have a long to do list for this house but we have nothing but time to get it done so we've been working on the little things to make some changed and get this place feeling more like home. First things first, the kitchen. I don't like unused space, or wasted space and I felt that the cabinet next to the window was just that: wasted space. We didn't need another cabinet, actually a few of our cabinets are empty because we just don't have that much stuff.... I mean, we eat out a lot so we don't need a lot. So, the point is, from the moment we stepped foot in this house I knew I was going to take down that cabinet [don't worry its going to good use some where else] and put up floating shelves. I love the look of rustic floating shelves and I thought this spot would be perfect.

It was really easy to remove, just 6 screws inside the cabinet and we popped it off the wall. We got extremely lucky that our contractor left us paint but also that they painted BEFORE hanging the cabinets so we didn't need to repaint the entire wall just the patched holes spots.

Once it was removed we made 2 shelves following this tutorial, same as we did in the bathroom of the rental house, and attached them with heavy duty [75lb limit] anchors into the wall.

I couldn't wait to decorate them and we finished them somewhere around midnight so please forgive the terrible Iphone photos [I finally made the switch from android and I do not like it at all, tell me Im not the only one?], I'll get some good shots sometime this week.

We also added some of the same faux floating shelves in the laundry room to fill up that empty wall and now I love it so much I want to add shelves everywhere! Its a problem. Truly. Here's the before

and the after.

Stay tuned for some updates that include a makeover on these bad boys.....

--Jackie

So far, So good

I've been working on the house round the clock trying to get it just right. Its hard to place furniture from one house into another when the pieces were purchased specifically for certain spaces in the rental, but its coming along. I'm sure things will get changed over time but for now this is how its looking.

nook in the loft

hallway leading to the 2 guest bedrooms

upstairs guest bath

guest room, still a work in progress

master bedroom

downstairs half bath

xoxo,
Jackie