Final Walk Through The Rental

Leaving our little rental home was bittersweet. We are so excited that we now own a home but the rental was the first actual home we lived in and we made a lot of memories there. It was for sure sad to see it empty but I thought you might enjoy seeing the REAL after photos.

*You might notice that the lighting in the kitchen and dining room has changed, thats because Zack and I changed all the lighting in the new house and wanted to bring some of the fixtures that we put in this rental, so we replaced the rental lights with the lights that were in our new home when we bought it. *

Updates from the new house are coming soon! 

xoxo,

Jackie

DIY faux olive leaf wreath

I found this wreath from Pottery Barn and I was so in love with it, but as usual, it was way out of my budget. I mean, $80 for a wreath is a bit excessive. I did a lot of googling to try to find a comparable option but I couldn't, so I decided to DIY one. Its not perfect, and its not exactly like the Pottery Barn one but for a fraction of the cost I'd say it turned out pretty well. Lets get started.

First, I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up an olive leaf garland [$24.99 but was 50% off so $12.50] and a grapevine wreath [$3.99 but I had a 40% off so $2.40]. The only other things I used were some jewelry wire I had on hand and some scissors.

In order to get the rustic look the inspiration wreath had I needed to remove some branches. This part has no real method. Just start pulling the branches apart and breaking some off until you get the desired effect.

Next, the olive leaf garland I got was also too full so I started pulling the leaves off until it looked a lot more bare, save the leaves though, you can add more fullness in spots later.

you can see the front part is thinned out and the back is still full

Then, I attached the garland around the wreath using jewelry wire tied tightly around the branches of the wreath

cut the wire really short so you can see it and tuck it under the leaves

Now, you just want to add in some leaves where the wreath shows through too much, you can do this by popping them back onto the little spines you pulled them off of.

way too bare

I am happy with how my wreath turned out although I wish I could have had some faux olives to add in but overall I think I accomplished what I was hoping to.

much better

To see where this little project is going you'll just have to keep reading!

xoxo,
Jackie

Welcome to our new home

We finally closed on the house yesterday and I am so excited to share it with you! Get ready for an overload of pictures. This home is a 3 bed 2.5 bathroom, just over 2000 square feet. Its almost double the square footage of the rental house so its going to be a much bigger space to furnish and decorate but I am up for the challenge. Here we go!

front of the home

2 car garage

the view from the front door

dining room the the right of the front door

kitchen sits just in front of the dining room

left of the kitchen leads into the living room

looking back at the front door

living room

looking back at the kitchen

the backyard, a huge work in progress

the laundry room, to the left as you enter from garage

half bath, to the right as you enter from garage 

lets head upstairs

the door at the top of the stairs is the master

to the right of the stairs is the loft and the hall to guest bedrooms

guest bath

guest room to the left

guest room to the right

hallway looking back to the loft

loft, left is hall right is master 

master 

left is closet [office] right is bath

my new office 

bathroom

our new closet

in the closet looking back at the bathroom door

 So that's the house! Thanks for being so patient while we went through this process. We have made changes already and I cant wait to show them to you!

xoxo,
Jackie

Online Shopping Key Words

When you shop online you have one of two choices: Search for items or go through the menu and find them. When I online shop I don't like to waste time looking through each category to find what I'm looking for. Sometimes, I'm not even sure what I am looking for, so I choose to search using a few key words. Searching these words on ANY decor website has always worked in my favor so if you have a similar style to mine, that farmhouse rustic look, then here's some key words to help you out in your next online shopping spree.

1. Farmhouse- simple as it gets. This one generally pulls up a lot for me

2. Rustic- Same as above, usually pulls a lot of options.

3. Vintage- Lots of white, chippy painted items etc.

4. Industrial- Metal and wood... lots of it!

5. Cow -simply because I'm obsessed with cows

6. Fixer Upper Style- usually doesn't pull up as much but will definitely pull up great options from the show

7. Antique /Vintage[what ever I'm looking for]- putting antique or vintage in front of any specific thing you're looking for will always bring up an older more rustic version

8. Plaid/gingham/buffalo check - I am currently obsessed with plaid so I always search it to see what is available

Happy shopping!
xoxo,
Jackie

The house search update

We found a house! Actually, it was the first house we saw. This house is incredible, really just everything we wanted. Its a brand new build just 30 minutes south of the city. Itll be a whole new experience for us since we've always lived in Colorado Springs but we are excited for the change. We ultimately decided to move out of town for a couple reasons. The first, the market in Colorado Springs is INSANE. Every house we sent to our realtor was already under contract or was a foreclosure, which we did NOT want. The second, this home will cost us about $50,000 LESS than homes half its size and a decade older here in the Springs so we really couldn't argue with the less money nicer, bigger space concept. I won't be showing any pictures or anything until its a done deal, you know how these things sometimes don't work out, but for now, we are under contract and so far things are moving smoothly so within a month or so we will know. Fingers crossed please.

xoxo
Jackie

Game Changer

This post is coming straight out of left field. Even as I sit here and type it I can't really believe it. A few days ago our landlord let us know that his mother is moving to Colorado and is going to be moving into this house on March 3. We were shocked. Now, this IS part of the agreement of us moving in here, we knew someday that she was going to move here and we would then have to move out but we weren't expecting it so soon. Basically, at this point, we have 60 days to be out of this house and into another one. We weighed our options, rent a house, rent an apartment or buy a house of our own. We ruled out the apartment straight away because we have accumulated way too much stuff since moving here and we just couldn't fathom how we could fit us and all of our stuff into a small apartment again. We did seriously consider renting another house but the rental prices here in Colorado Springs are insane right now and we didn't think it was worth paying $1400 a month for a tiny house on the bad side of town. This brings us to the final option and the one we are going with: buying our first home. Its so surreal. I always wanted to own my own home but never took that leap because I don't do well with big changes. I get scared and I back out before I end up going through with it. But, not this time. We got our pre-approval already and we start touring homes on Tuesday. We're nervous, excited, scared and happy all at once. This is the biggest purchase of our lives and quite possibly our forever home. What this means for the blog is there will be no more projects in this house, so the master bedroom and the office are just going to have to be on hold until we find a home and get settled in. We are so blessed and thankful for the time we have spent, the money we've saved and memories we've made in this home, but its time for us to take this leap of faith into a new chapter of our lives and we sincerely hope you continue to follow along, although at a much slower pace.


Jackie