Home Homey Home

We've checked a few more little projects off the list.. woohoo!  A few weeks ago, I put an all call for help on Facebook... what color to paint our sunroom.  I asked every person who stepped foot into our home as well.  Our home is mostly greys and this green just wasn't cutting it for me.  The furniture would stay so we had to find something that would work. 

The two winning color suggestions were varying shades of yellow and blue.  We eliminated blue right away, since it wouldn't go well with the furniture.  I bought three samples of yellow that we painted up in smaller areas and guess what... I hated them all.  They just didn't work.. too blah, too bold, too bright.

And then I remembered I'm not usually a yellow paint kind of person.  So we nixed that idea.

We tried a gray/blue but it didn't look right with the furniture.

We considered everything from navy blue to white. We ended up going with Weimaraner by Benjamin Moore. The painter who we used to paint our kitchen cabinets suggested that to add an earthy feel to the room.  I wasn't 100% sold but after considering every other color under the sun, we decided to get a sample of it.  And we liked it, so we went for it.

Here's the finished product...

It definitely flows better with the rest of our house and is very soothing!  We are happy with it. I love how it changes with the light throughout the day, sometimes looking more brown and sometimes more grey.

We also finished up some work in the kitchen!  This is the second time in our marriage we have hired someone to do a project in our house for us... we are usually all about the D.I.Y.  But between cabinet doors and drawers, we have 42. And ain't nobody got time for sanding, priming, and painting all of that. So, we sucked it up and hired a painter.  Best money ever spent!  Done in a few days and way better than we could have done.

I saved some pictures of our kitchen from the listing when we bought our house and I'm so glad I did.. the kitchen is hardly recognizable.  I am loving the brighter, less GREEN and oak-ey space.

Before (check out that peek into the dining room too...)

After.. yay!

Making this house a home has been so fun... it feels more like us now that these two projects are done.  Maybe a break for awhile now?  Maybe..

Dining Room Table Re-do

We bought this table from Goodwill for $9.99 a few months ago.

This was the picture Justin sent me from Goodwill...should I buy this table for $10?  YES!

We found the chairs for $2.99 each.  Have I mentioned how much I love Goodwill?  ;)

I recovered the chairs, we painted the dining room and the china hutch, and got a new light fixture.

Things were improving!

 We liked the table but wanted it to be longer to accommodate more people.  It was originally 5 ft but we wanted it to be closer to 7 ft.  Justin started by removing the top and buying five 2x8 boards.  He kept the original legs and end boards which had a drawer on each end.

Justin cut new side rails and screwed the legs and rails together.

Final support boards were added underneath and the drawers were put back in.  The frame and supports were screwed to the tabletop and the new table is built! Then he stained the boards and added a few coats of polyurethane.

The finished product!

 The last step was to build a bench.  Goodwill only had 5 chairs and we wanted to have seating for more. We thought a bench on one side would be the perfect solution.  Yay for another completed project.

Backsplash

The backsplash is done!  A few little details left.. but it's mostly done.  Yay!  

Before

 After

The new tiles really lightened up the room.  I love it!  

Close up of before.  It was too dark and too busy.  And just poorly done.

Next project on the list is to paint the cabinets white.  Big task but hopefully will come with some big impact.  It's so fun and rewarding to make small, inexpensive changes that have a big impact.  Thankful for my handy hubby!

Thanksgiving weekend in review

I love having a nice, long break from our norm.  It's so refreshing and does our family good.  Claire and Emma had the entire week off of school and Justin was off starting Wednesday for the rest of the week.  It was a great combination of relaxing, working, fun, and connecting.

Claire had been saving her money for the last few birthdays to make the big American Girl doll purchase.  With the price tag of those dolls, her mom and dad were definitely NOT going to be buying her one.  She decided to follow her bigger cousin Anni's lead and save up her own money for one!  It was a great lesson in saving vs spending and she was so proud when she finally could buy her doll.  On Wednesday, we made the trek to the big city and Claire made the purchase.

Claire and Isabelle

On Thursday we headed to Justin's brother's house for the day.  Did you read that... FOR THE DAY! It is so amazing that we have family close enough that we can just go for the day!  What a blessing!  Both of Justin's brothers and their families were there, as well as his mom and step dad.  My sister in law graciously hosted all 19 of us.. what a gal!

All of the cousins.  That's a lot of kiddos!  #shoefam is quite the crew!

On Friday, we had to deal with the van in our garage that refused to start, even after trying to jump it.  

At least it provided some temporary entertainment!  ;)  

We Justin spent lots of the day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday ripping out our kitchen backsplash and putting in a new one.  The old one was bad.  So so bad.  It was an obvious DIY by the previous owner.  Haha, we somehow think our DIY will be better.  ;)  But it was not only super ugly, but just so terribly done.  We were inspired by some friends who just did theirs themselves and said it was pretty easy!  We found a tile saw to borrow and the rest is history!  

Destruction!

New tile is up. All that is left is the grout.. then it will be done!  

On Saturday we had a fun and unexpected visit with old friends.  You know those kind of friends who you don't see often, but who know you so well and you just pick up where you left off?  Yeah, it was those kind of friends.  I'm bummed I didn't take a picture of our crew, but it was a short and sweet visit.  We met the Hwangs when we were living in Chattanooga, both of us before having kids.  Then we both moved to Atlanta around the same time for jobs, both HATED it (this was our first move to the ATL in 2007), and then both moved back to the Midwest around the same time. Crazy, right? They now have two girls, close to our girls' ages and were back in the Chicago area for Thanksgiving.  It was so fun catching up and our girls acted like they've been friends forever!  Justin and I reflected on how thankful we are for friends like Phil and Kristen!  It was a great visit.  

It was a fun and full weekend!  We have so much to be thankful for!

Goodwill + New Paint FTW

We have been having so much fun finding treasures on the cheap at Goodwill and sprucing them up with a little paint.  We hit the jackpot one day when got a table with five chairs, a china cabinet, a desk, a dresser, and a child-size desk for grand total of $78!

I've been painting during nap time and it has been so fun and actually therapeutic for me.  I've enjoyed accomplishing something tangible and continuing to make our new digs more homey and complete for our family.

Charlie's dresser - $9.99 at Goodwill started like this:

A little paint and some new hardware... and now we have this:

This desk was also $9.99:

It had some fancy nailhead trim along all the edges, which I removed before taking the picture.

I tried my hand at chalk paint for the first time... and let me tell you, it won't be the last.  It was so incredibly easy - no priming, no sanding, no perfectionism allowed... that is my kind of project, people!  Justin actually said, "Well, the instructions say not to be a perfectionist when painting it, so I think you better do it."

I was so excited to find this desk, as I had been wanting a table for our entryway.  It used to look like this:

Not the most inviting welcome.  Now it looks like this:

I'm still playing around with the decorations on top but I'd say it's an improvement.

My favorite piece we found that day was this china cabinet for $24.99.  I'd say the price was right!

We chalk painted it and put it together and I love it!  Such a fun new piece!

We still plan to redo the table and chairs.  More projects in our future!

Therapy + Settling in

A couple mornings a week, while Emma and Claire are both at school, it's just me and this little man. It's been fun to have some extra quiet!  Char's been going to physical therapy for his curvy spine for the last few weeks.  It has been fascinating to hear what the therapist noticed within minutes of watching him play... he definitely favors using one side and has stronger muscles on that side.  We've been working on exercise (mostly directing his playing) to strengthen the other side.  The great news is that she believes he has what she calls a functional scoliosis, meaning it's totally muscle based and can be corrected with therapy.  She is confident he won't need any type of treatment other than physical therapy.  Yay for that!

Helping mama with some laundry!

Charlie Brown

In other news, we are starting to settle into a daily routine and figure out pick up, drop off, naps, etc..  It feels good to have a better idea of what each day will look like.  Thankful because routine = sanity!

We are also pounding out home projects like it's our job.  In the time we've been here, in addition to unpacking (the WORST), we've painted 2 rooms, completely re-done the half bathroom, installed a new kitchen faucet and light fixtures, painted trim, replaced a door way between our sunroom and family room, cut down trees, and painted a few doors & put new hardware on.  And the kiddos and I are heading to my parents' for the weekend so Justin can get more stuff done.  The list really is overwhelming... paint stairs, paint sunroom, paint dining room, paint kitchen cabinets, rip out some ugly bushes, add shelving in laundry room... and I haven't even ventured upstairs yet!  Good thing we like projects.  ;)  And by we, I mean Justin.  :)

Anyway, that's an update on life around these parts!    

Baby Shoe has a room!

We are finally starting to prepare for the fact that we'll be welcoming a fifth member of the family into our  home soon!  We finally had a name discussion on our way to Iowa a couple weeks ago and I think we've got our girl and boy names narrowed down.  It's hard coming up with two options that you absolutely love!  But, I think we're there.  We also finally cleared out the soon to be nursery that was filled with random stuff junk and got the furniture put together.  MAJOR props to Grammy, who was in town last week and whipped up some darling decor for the room.  We decided to do something different this time since we don't know the gender of Baby Shoe yet.  My mom created all of this with no patterns and pretty quickly, too.  Who votes for Grammy Rho starting up her own custom nursery business??








Everything turned out so cute and I am so excited about it!  Thanks Mom!!! Next step, fix the crib that was broken in our move a year and a half ago!  We haven't used it since we moved to Georgia but hopefully Justin can figure out a way to attach the side that broke off in the move.  I'm fairly confident he'll figure something out.  ;)

11 weeks and counting...

Paint & a DIY

We decided to do some work on our bedroom this weekend. Such a quick, easy, & cheap way to update but it makes such a difference.

Our house, thought built in the 80's, was completely renovated before we bought it.  They put on new siding, painted the entire house, updated the kitchen, updated the bathrooms, and put in new carpet and wood floors.  Such a blessing to not have much to do to the house after moving in!  I have started to get a little tired of the white walls though, so I have a feeling there will be even more painting in our near future.  Here are a few of the before pictures..








And here are a few after pictures...








We painted the room and then Justin made this super easy headboard for our bed.  And by easy, I mean EASY.  He sanded, stained, and then hung.  Doesn't get easier than that!  We still need to do some window treatments but for now I'm enjoying what feels like a totally new room!