Outside Light Reno

There are a handful of cosmetic things that we knew wanted to change before we even moved into the house. One of those being the horribly ugly outside garage light! It was setup on a sensor and a few months after we moved in the other bulb went out (only one was working when we moved in). We knew we wanted to replace the fixture so rather than spending money replacing the light bulb we just stuck it out. 

We were putting off this project for 2 reasons. One - We had no idea how to replace a light fixture. Two - The placement of the fixture is so low that we had to make sure that we bought a light that went up rather than hung down. Easier said than done.

One day we were at Lowes and saw this fixture and decided it was time to tackle this project! I'm super proud of Justin for doing this all by himself...well, he needed my strong arms to hold up the fixture while he screwed them in! haha

Before

Can you say U-G-L-Y??

After

We also replaced the entry way light so they matched.

Another part of the project was the fact that the owners only had one light put outside the garage (instead of 1 on each side). My dad encouraged Justin that this was a project they could tackle in no time! For our anniversary my parents gave use a Lowe's gift card so we could purchase the other light :) I fully intended on at least somewhat documenting the process of installing a light where there was no light before but Justin, my dad, and his friend Mark ended up installing the light while I was getting my hair done so I only have after pictures! That's okay - pretty sure I would have been lost with all that electrical stuff anyways!

The Finished Product! We finally have symmetry!

New Floors = NO MORE CARPET!

When Justin and I bought this house one of the things we loved was all of the tile in the kitchen/living room/bathrooms/hallways, etc. We did not love the carpet in the bedrooms/office/flex room and we knew it was the first big project we wanted to tackle. At the end of July we were finally ready to get rid of all that carpet - about 1100 square feet! The before pictures are from right after we moved in so things look a lot different now in some of these rooms (thank goodness!) The color we chose is Hickory Mocha and we LOVE it! We chose a 12mm laminate rather than the 8mm we used in the old house and it is SO much better! So quiet and feels more like real wood (without the scratches and upkeep)!

Before

I so miss those awesome window treatments...NOT

Our closet

Guest Room

Guest room 2

Office

Flex Room

After

We finally finished painting our bedroom a few weeks ago (we started the project in Feb...oops!) We also added crown molding in here!

Our next "big" project is the flex room which is going to be my new office. My desk is on back order (ugh) but I'm putting the room together in my head right now!

New doors!

Our house is technically 3 bedrooms plus an office/den and a flex/dining room - according to the floor plan. The office is a pretty large room with a nice closet so the only reason it's not a bedroom is because it's missing a door. The flex room is a LARGE room that we weren't quite sure what we were going to do with when we moved in. We knew we did not want a large formal dining room - to us that's a waste of space since we have a spacious breakfast nook. What we did know is that we wanted to add a door to the office so we could make it a bedroom if needed (or so I can close the office door if I need to). We were still undecided on the purpose of the flex room (other than the tumbling room that we refer to it as haha) but we did know we wanted to add french doors. Justin's dad owns his own construction company so we were lucky enough to have him take time from his busy schedule to come down here and build us some walls and install some doors.

We LOVE how they turned out! We've now decided to move my office from the office to the flex room. I have a new desk ordered and can't wait to start designing this room now! 

Before

During

After

Notice my little helper??

Master Bathroom Update

Justin and I have been constantly working on house project since we moved in and we are finally getting some of them complete! We painted our master bathroom back in February or March but there were a few finishing touches we had to finish. The last thing was a new valence that my mom made for us. My mom and I picked out the fabric at JoAnn's and she made the drapery. She finished it a few weeks back and we've had the curtain rod since May but finally got around to hanging it yesterday. I'm so happy with how everything turned out! I saw the wall color on pinterest and had to really search on the blog it linked to to find the actual blog post and color of the wall but it was worth the effort. It's definitely a brighter-bolder color than we usually choose but I'm glad we branched out on this one. We decided to stick with white accents for the decoration - which matches the white tile of the tub and shower - very spa like! 

We still have one (maybe 2) project left in here but it's a big one - change the cabinet color. We've talked about refinishing them the way we did our guest bathroom but this house does not have raised vanities like we put in our last house (sad day!) so we don't want to do all the work and then decide we want to put new cabinets in the bathroom so we are just holding out for now. We also want to frame the mirror but that will have to wait until we make the cabinet decision also.

Before

After

Mom made this valence too :)