There were quite a few things we wanted to change immediately, and we did. Honestly, I didn't see the half of what bugged me about this house until we lived in it for a few weeks, but slowly things are coming together, and surely we are putting our own stamp on it.
We have officially been in our new place for three months. Within the past three months, we've made some changes. Nothing huge. No remodeling. But we're definitely beginning to feel like it is ours.
I did a post about paint, but I'll touch on that again. Paint is the first thing we did!
I could NOT stand the dark, warm tan brown situation we had going on throughout the house. It made every room feel cave-like. It offered no appeal, and outdated the house. While I do love color accent walls and such, we went with a safe gray throughout. What I love about it is that it changes dramatically depending upon which lighting we choose. Looks cooler with daylight bulbs, but warm with soft white.
I will admit that we hired a contractor to paint the 18' walls in the great room, foyer and exterior gables, but all of the rest we did ourselves. I still have to touch up some areas in the kids' rooms. Turns out a couple of my daughters have no patience for paint. They helped...ish.
New, fresh paint has made this home feel cleaner and brighter and it was money well spent. 100%
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| Now to get rid of this droopy boob light... |
The worst part of painting was going over the creamy trim. The existing color did not match our new paint color. It doesn't seem difficult to do, but with 12 ft & 10 ft ceiling heights throughout the house, it became a tedious task; all while having to keep steady on a ladder without hitting the walls of fresh paint while edging. I never want to do it again. My neck will never be the same...
In the process of painting, I also revamped our powder room. I wanted something moody without being super shocking. Deciding to have a theme, I gave a nod to the state of Georgia, purely because this is where I wanted to be. I am hoping the local area is where we could see ourselves staying for the long haul. Time will tell, and that's another story.
For this project, I didn't spend much, but I did learn that lining up wall paper seams is for the birds. I guess what this house has taught me the most is that what may sound easy to DIY is generally not. Lots of time and effort go into getting it right. And the fixes I thought would be the most difficult are usually the easiest.
The materials I purchased for this powder room were mostly from Amazon! Wallpaper, marble contact paper, new sink fixture, toilet paper holder/hand towel ring. The contact paper is a temp fix until we visit the idea of new stone counters later on. I spray painted the light fixture in place (another temporary fix), and replaced the shades with seeded glass from Walmart. Walmart actually has a decent collection of home improvement junk now-a-days.
I removed the mirror with the help of my daughter. Not gonna lie, I watched tons of YouTube videos on how to safely get builders mirrors off of walls. Turns out our mirror was never glued on! Literally held up by that bottom metal lip and two plastic clips up top. It took all of two minutes to remove. The new mirror was purchased at Hobby Lobby on sale for $35.
This was also my first time changing a sink fixture, and I can report that ended up being easier to install than anything else in this room.
Lighting! Paint makes a huge difference, but new lighting brings a house to current times, no doubt.
I had a breast reduction recently. Nope, not what you're thinking.
NOBODY and I mean nobody loves boob lights. I really believe that there is a better, cheaper builder's option out there; boring globe lights cost less and look somewhat better.
So why do builders keep putting these boob lights errrwhere?
Just the fact that the screw holding the boob up is aptly called a "nipple" is enough to draw out my inner hate of these stupid lights.
They had to go.
And they did.
We did change the eat-in kitchen dining chandelier first, and doing so gave me the confidence to remove and replace all of the boob lights myself. I had a teen assistant handing me tools, but otherwise, this was an easy project! And one so worth it.
I also hired an electrician to install five ceiling fans. The four upstairs bedrooms only had boob lights upon move in and each of those are our kids' rooms :-/ I know summer is coming, so I wanted to be a bit proactive in helping lessen our electricity bill, as well as lessen the amount of bitching I'd hear about it being hot upstairs come July.
Though it wasn't necessary, we also replaced the outdoor patio fan because the former was drooping like all hell. It was one spin away from death.
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| It's a globe, not a boob. Promise! |
The electrician was also supposed to change our great room fan and our giant foyer light on a different day, but when he returned, he did a 180 on me and said he needed scaffolding instead of a ladder. So that's still a work in progress. The work is finding another electrician because his explanation of costs did not sit well with me after his IN PERSON initial estimate.
But we did at least change the fan's light shades from their original frosted brown bell shaped shades. Looks a little better!
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| After moving my furniture for nothing. Thanks guys! |
My favorite project to date: Built ins!!!
Or something like that...
I'm not even going to attempt to say we have a large kitchen. We don't.
It's bigger than other kitchens I have lived with, but doesn't have much storage or counter prepping space. This was an overlooked detail when we purchased the house.
Most people may base home buying decisions on kitchens. Not us. I needed a decent lot size and a minimum of two living spaces. The kitchen was not even a top five concern. Maybe like #8?
The solution was to take space from a recessed wall in the eat-in area and create some 'built-ins' for storage and additional counter space. And y'all, I am obsessed with it.
This project was not a weekend project. This project also confirmed that my husband and I could never work in a professional atmosphere together...Lots of arguments and silent treatment.
I had a vision for full size (13 gallon) trash/recycle space within these cabinets. He could not see it. He did help with the framing of the platform the cabinets sit on, cutting a hole for the outlet, cutting some of the wood, as well as the loading/unloading of the cabinets from the truck. So there's that.
But the plans and 'engineer' work was me. I did refer to Pinterest for some of the planning. There's a robust community of DIY-ers out there, especially with built in ideas. You are never alone in regard to DIY stuff!
The new trash and recycle homes are my favorite thing. We no longer have them floating around the kitchen, and it helps disguise smell, not that we ever let it get to a point of no return. They are super easy to remove too!
I also was able to clear kitchen counter space by putting small appliances and decor on the top wood counter of this. My original plans included a butcher block top, but raw materials around here are hit or miss. For now, I settled on some cheap pine and stained it to match the floors.
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| Ignore my beat up baseboard corner. I have yet to finish the repair. |
The last small update:
We cleaned up landscaping and planted some junk!
The landscaping in the front yard wasn't bad to begin with. We noticed the previous owner must have hired a company to maintain the yard. The shrubs managed to stay pretty clean cut throughout the end of winter to spring.
My concern was the boring backyard. Nothing, and I mean nothing grows back there besides grass. It's just blah.
We planted a peach tree out back and it's been an odd joy of mine to observe it daily to see budding growth appearing. We also planted a magnolia tree on the front right side of the house. Same thing. I walk to it daily, just to see if new growth has appeared. We had a horrible frost hit back in early March, and unfortunately it killed off new growth (we even covered them for it). But growth is starting to gradually return. As for the hydrangeas we planted in the backyard, not so much. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt to hopefully recover, but I'm not holding my breath.
Instead of making individual posts about updates, I think I'll do an update every three months. I foresee slower times, and I foresee times when much will change. We'll likely be doing some boring updates next: adding a few extra gutters, a backyard fence, more garden stuff.
But so far, so good. Each project has made us love this home more and has us grateful that the issues here are only cosmetic.
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