If you plan to build, or have already started to build, you know that breaking ground on a new house is a pretty exciting stage. Breaking ground on a new house is that point exactly where all your planning has come into fruition, and you can see all your work taking shape. Before you start building a house though, there are several steps that need to be completed, including: purchasing a lot getting the house plan, getting all your permits coming up with a cost plan ... continue reading...
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Exterior Upgrades: Increasing the Curb Appeal of An Outdated 90’s Split-level
Our third house was a 1990s outdated split-level. It had great bones and lots of potential, but required a fair bit of elbow grease to increase the curb appeal. There wasn't a lot of work that needed to be done on the outside of our third house, but I think the few changes we did made a huge difference for curb appeal. One of the first things I did was paint the front door and shutters using dark blue outdoor paint. I think they used to be red, but they were very faded and were looking ... continue reading...
Super Easy DIY Cushion Covers
An easy way to add pops of color throughout the house is with colorful and patterned throw pillows. Cushion covers are so easy to make, especially if you already have a few old or unused throw pillows. To start you need about half a meter (or 20 inches) of home decor fabric depending on how big your cushion is. Upholstery or home decor fabric is usually 54 inches wide. My cushions are a little less than 20 inches, so I cut my fabric 20 inches by 54 inches. Here's how to make an easy cushion ... continue reading...
Tissue Paper Pictures on Canvas Gallery Wall
I wanted to find an inexpensive way to display some larger pictures of my kids in a gallery wall going up the stairs to the bedrooms. If I printed out 8 by 10 pictures, plus bought all the frames for them it would be quite expensive. I found a bunch of tutorials online for printing pictures on tissue paper, but none of them worked for me. Every time I tried to print, the paper feed would tear the tissue paper. So this tutorial is a little different because I used spray adhesive, and it worked ... continue reading...
Main Bathroom and Family Room in a 1990s split-level
For our third house we bought a 1990s split-level that had great bones, but needed a fair bit of cosmetic upgrades. Here is a summary of everything we did in our third house. There are two rooms in our house that we felt we didn't have to do anything to; these are the main upstairs bathroom, and the basement family room. To finish off the house tour, here are some pictures of the bathroom and the family. The top floor of our house has has three bedrooms as well as a bathroom. The bathroom is ... continue reading...
Family Room Makeover with Updated Fireplace and Hardwood Floors
On the first floor of our house after going through the foyer is a large family room/living area. We use it as our toy room because we can keep an eye on the kids from upstairs, and it's a large enough area to hold all their toys. The family room had laminate flooring that was cracked and splitting. I had also used it as my furniture painting area without drop sheets so there was a lot of spilled paint. We replaced the patio door because the seal on the glass was broken. I also painted ... continue reading...
Master Bedroom Makeover
The master bedroom really only needed a few changes to bring it up to date. Like the rest of our third house, there was lots of dated 90s oak on the floor, trim and doors. Here are some of the before pictures before the master bedroom makeover. This was when we removed everything from the room before Tony refinished the floors. There was really nothing wrong with the room, but we wanted to refinish the floors and paint the trim and doors to match the rest of the house. *This post ... continue reading...
The Second Bedroom Makeover
Our house has three bedrooms, and two of them are used for the kids. This room is a little smaller than the other kids bedroom, so we have always used it as the baby room. There wasn't too much to do other than paint and flooring, but it made such an improvement. Here are the before pictures, everything was pink with wood trim. First I did a coat of paint on the ceiling, and painted all the trim white. I painted the walls using Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter. Tony finished the ... continue reading...
