Reno is hard, y’all!

Oh my gosh, this weekend started out with such high hopes. We were going to accomplish all this painting, get the master bathroom & closet tiled and grouted, install the freestanding tub and vanity in the master and install the vanity upstairs. Nope. Just nope. Reality slapped me in the face a lot this weekend.

Listen, things go wrong on renovation projects. If you aren’t emotionally equipped to handle that, just don’t. I have no other words of wisdom. Renovating is physically and emotionally draining. Now, I’m not a complainer… but I am a realist and this weekend was HARD! There will be weekends when you want to give up.

Here are some of the mishaps that happened to us this weekend. Needless to say we’re off schedule now. Blah.

  • The vanity we ordered for the master bath was supposed to be white. We picked it up a month ago. Did we check it then? Nope. Did I expect it to be what I ordered? Yep. We open up the box… it’s BLACK! No bueno. So, we’re supposed to have the marble template done today… time for plan B. Return the vanity, reorder a new one with a prefab marble top and sinks attached. Problem solved. Nothing wasted but time.
  • Tile. Oh man tile. Saturday went smoothly, except we started 2 hours later than we were supposed to… Sunday was another beast. We go to get started on tiling the shower, only to realize the tile order was incorrect. They gave us too much of the guest bath tile and not enough master bath tile. I guess they switched my numbers. Ugh. Easy fix… run to the store and buy more. Nothing wasted but more time.

Anyway, moral of the story. Throw your schedule out the window. ALL THE THINGS will go wrong. If it can, it will.

So… we’re a couple days behind. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I’m trying to stay focused on the positive. We have this gorgeous house. It is about 90% done AND we are going to be in it by Thanksgiving…. I don’t care if it’s not even done by then. Haha!

Anyway, if this is your first time renovating be sure to go into it thinking that things will go awry. Your budget won’t be big enough. You won’t stay on schedule. You will find problems and there will be mistakes that must be fixed.

BUT, in the end it WILL get done. And, if you stay focused, it WILL be beautiful.

Before the craziness, I WAS going to do a tutorial on how to tile. But I will save that for another day.

Instead, here are some photos of the progress on our house!!

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Formal Living IN PROGRESS. Gray paint, White trim and crown, hardwood floors, New marble fireplace surround being installed soon.

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Formal Living room before – this room was just very vanilla. Also, carpet. Yuck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Kitchen and Family In Progress. Painted cabinets, gray walls and paneling. Trim is painted, floors are in.

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Kitchen and Family BEFORE. Green Tile, green marble fireplace. Light oak EVERYWHERE!

 

 

How I Decide on Design

I get asked a lot how I decide what to put in my houses, or how I make sure everything goes together. Many people don’t have the “vision.” But for me, I honestly just choose things that I like. I love watching DIY and HGTV, flipping through “Better Homes & Gardens” or browsing Pintrest and Houzz in my free time. I spend so much time looking at ideas, that when I see a space, I can pretty quickly tell what would look great in it.

In this room, I knew I wanted to make it light and bright, but also wanted a pop of drama. We went with hardwood floors, but chose to lay tile where there was the most foot traffic (for both durability and style). I also wanted to play off the beautiful fireplace and draw your focus to that wall so we painted it a deep tan that paired well with the other colors in the room. Sheer curtains and oil rubbed bronze light fixtures add a feeling of whimsy to the room.

In this room, I knew I wanted to make it light and bright, but also wanted a pop of drama. We went with hardwood floors, but chose to lay tile where there was the most foot traffic (for both durability and style). I also wanted to play off the beautiful fireplace and draw your focus to that wall so we painted it a deep tan that paired well with the other colors in the room. Sheer curtains and oil rubbed bronze light fixtures add a feeling of whimsy to the room.

For me, it’s less about doing everything in a certain color scheme or style, and more about choosing things that are welcoming and make my house feel like home. You can accomplish this in any style or with any color scheme. In our last house we chose to do earthy tones, tan paints, dark brown hardwood and light tan travertine floors, tan and white granite and white cabinets. I loved the look that we achieved, and most importantly it fit the architectural style of the house.

The house we just bought is an incredibly traditional space. And lately I’ve been falling in love with modern and contemporary interiors. But a true contemporary feel just won’t work for this space with its 8 inch crown molding and decorative paneling in multiple rooms. So I’ve opted to blend modern and traditional and we’re going for a transitional feel. We’re accomplishing this with cool grey colors, touches of modern (like lighting and sleek stainless appliances), bright white trim and cabinets and light white and grey quartz countertops. We’re maintaining the character and charm of the house by painting the paneling, adding a wood accent wall, sliding barn door and all the original trim work. We’ve highlighted the beautiful gas burning fireplaces with quartzite and marble and are doing stacked stone accents around the kitchen island and wet bar. We’re three weeks away from finish out and I simply can’t wait to share our finished product.

Adding drama to a guest bath

This was one of only two bathrooms in our first house. I knew all of my guests would see it and so I wanted it to be beautiful. I chose a pretty glass tile pattern that played off the light travertine floors and shower. The light gold framed mirror and Sea-Blue accents make this room feel calming and spa-like.

So, the bottom line is, you need to look at several factors before you jump in with both feet on a design path:

  • What is the architectural style of the house?
  • What do you REALLY LOVE? Because you’re probably going to live there a while.
  • What finishes are important to you? Is it flooring, paint, fixtures, granite/quartz/marble? Do you want Chrome, bronze, gold, brushed nickel fixtures?

And then… use your money wisely. We’ve never had a project come in on budget. Ever. But that’s another post in and of its self. Choose to update things that will make the most impact. Lighting, flooring, PAINT, Kitchens and bathrooms. These all give you great bang for your buck.

Happy renovating.

For the love of all things pretty

I come from a family that has been involved in construction and renovation for as long as I can remember. When I was born my parents owned a paint contracting company, apparently I used to run around the job sites and play as a child. From there, they started buying residential properties and rehabbing them. I’ve been painting walls and trim since I could hold a brush. My mother would bring me along to hundreds of houses as they were looking for “the perfect one.” As she would walk through and discuss the changes she would make in each home to bring it to its potential, I too began to see the vision. Early on, I began to start envisioning my own changes to properties. I would walk through friends homes and think of all the things I would do or change or update. To put it mildly, I fell in love with renovating. I have a passion for making outdated things pretty again. I love walking in a room and sharing my vision. And so, my husband and I have continued the tradition.

We bought our first home the week before our wedding. It was a beautiful house, but had some things that I definitely wanted to update. Nothing too serious, just cosmetic fixes. We were planning to move in when we returned from our honeymoon. A week after our honeymoon, we had a giant slab leak. A pipe burst in the foundation, and I came home to several inches of water inside our house. The rehab process took over three months, there were countless sleepless nights, tons of stress and many times I felt overwhelmed. But there were also design choices, trips to pick out tile, paint, granite, baseboards, lighting and home decor. It was exhausting but I fell in love and I fell hard.

A year and half later we bought a condo in College Station, TX. This is where Texas A&M is located and where my husband and I both went to school. Property was appreciating quickly and we knew we wanted to buy a rental property that we could hold onto for years to come. We found a condo, but it needed to be completely redone – and we lived 3 hours away. We didn’t let that deter our decision to buy it. I could see the potential. It was the perfect location, great layout, on the bus route for the university, and we got the perfect price. We were all in. We drove down almost every weekend for 3 months and we renovated the entire condo ourselves.

We learned how to texture walls, install tile, install cabinets, move walls and tons of other fun DIY projects. It was a fun, exciting and exhausting time in our lives.

And I couldn’t wait for our next project.

Fast forward 2 years. We were still living in our house, and the commute for my husband was taking him 45min. We had just had a baby and family time was super important. So we decided to sell the house we loved and move closer to his job.

It turned out to be a fabulous decision! We made enough on the sale of our home to pay off my student loans, my new car, and we had a tidy sum left for a down payment and renovation for a new house.

2 years prior I got my real estate license. I knew that it would come in handy eventually and I would be able to help family and friends find a home too.

We searched for months before we found the perfect house. It had the perfect location to my husband’s job… and it needed tons of work! And that brings us to today… currently in the middle of a renovation on a house that I have fallen in LOVE with.