Feathering My Nest 2015

A new year and so many projects I want to complete. I have been making mental notes about what I would like to do in my house this year. Some projects are bigger than others and some cost more money than others.

I would really like to make the entry way a little prettier. I even wrote about this area back in October.  I have found a few tables that are the perfect size, but I haven't found one that I just have to have. So the search continues.

Growing up, my parents always had a picture wall. Now with the help of Pinterest, picture walls themselves have become a piece of art. This is the future home of my picture wall. It is in the hallway that leads to my kitchen, so it is one that I pass all the time. We had family pictures done in December, so I have plenty to choose from. But it is another project I want to check off my list.

It isn't just the picture wall that I want to complete, I have one thing hanging in my house. One thing. I have a lot of walls to fill. This spot is in my family room and I want to use some pictures that my dad took to fill this space.

I love these built-ins, but they are looking pretty bare at the moment. They need a little love to look more put together.

My dining room table and chairs came from an estate sale. One of the chairs is in really bad shape, so they need to be recovered. I know exactly what fabric I want, which is half the battle. But like most projects, it is a matter of time and money.

My upstairs bathroom has a bright future even without a major renovation. My cousin is coming in a few weeks and is hopefully going to paint my vanity. I am super excited about this. I need to get the peeling wallpaper down and paint, but this bathroom can be a keeper for a long time to come. I am even thinking about a new countertop. This would really put some life into this small space.

I know these aren't the only things that I want checked off my list, but they are some of the major ones. I am looking forward to accomplishing a lot to make my house feel more like home. Do you have lots of home updates planned?

Rustic Christmas Tree

I am loving my family room more and more with each passing day. One of the reasons at the moment is my beautiful Christmas tree.

When I bought my house, I knew that I wanted my family room to be cozy. Naturally, I wanted that same feeling at Christmas time. With a few additions to decorations I already had, my rustic Christmas tree came to life.

I saw this Crate and Barrel tree collar on Instagram and knew that it needed to a part of my tree. I absolutely love it! It is a nice change from a tree skirt.

Burlap had to be incorporated into this tree somehow. It became the garland and is a nice accent.

Many moons ago,  I learned how to make bows for gift packages. I have made larger bows for  my trees in the past, but didn't feel like it would work for this tree. I also had no other idea of the direction I wanted to go. While roaming through Pier 1, I found this reindeer that is actually a really large ornament. It ended up being the perfect tree topper. It is just the right size.

The last addition was ting. Hobby Lobby had a glittery white kind that added a little flair.

The family room inadvertently also because the reindeer room. In addition the tree topper, I had these fun sparkly reindeer ornaments.

I have had these purple ornaments for over 10 years -  before I even had a tree. I am happy that they worked with the new rustic theme. It gave the tree some color and it really pops.

It is hard to believe that Christmas is a few days away. Are you ready??

Glorious Carpet

New carpet has arrived! I can't even begin to describe my elation over getting rid of the nasty brown carpet  and really old padding that was in the family room.

The installers were able to come earlier than expected, which was very nice. They ripped the old carpet out in no time. The whole project only took about an hour. I wasn't sad to see the piles of carpet and padding in the driveway.

And lucky me....there was a lovely faux parquet linoleum underneath the carpet. I keep finding all kinds of surprises!

Nice, new padding was installed underneath that has a stain blocker of some sort.

The finished product! New carpet. The room looks completely different, and so much better, with lighter carpet. There is no furniture and everything is nice and new. I love it! I vacuumed the whole room with glee. Now, I need to find furniture for this space.

What Did I Walk Into?

So, I have been writing about my house for a few weeks now, but I realized I haven't really described what my house looked like when I first saw it and when I bought it.

Underneath all the yuck, I could see a house that had so much potential. The size and layout was great! But it was going to take some money and a lot of effort to make the place be a place I loved.

When I was searching for a house, I had a few things that I really wanted.

• A dining room
• A kitchen with potential
• At least 3 bedrooms
• Preferably more than one bathroom
• Fenced-in yard

I was able to get all of those things, plus a little more with my house.

• 4 bedrooms
• 2 bathrooms
• 2 living areas
• A basement

So what did I walk into? A house with great bones that needed some TLC.

This house has an entryway, which I was super excited about. For some reason, I do not like when you walk right into the living room. The entryway isn't big, but it is a decent size and will be a nice place to welcome guests.

The living room is right off the entryway. It is a pretty big room. Unfortunately, I won't have any furniture in this room for a little while.

The dining room is a room I was pretty insistent on having. Although I have never had a dinner party, I think having a place to have a formal meal is nice. It is also a good place to decorate.

The kitchen needs a lot of help. The stove is a relic. Someday it will get a major overhaul. I just don't know when that day will come.

The family room is the first place to get a facelift. I have already written about taking off the layers of wallpaper. This will be the room I live in the most so it will be nice to have a place that doesn't need any more work.

I can't expect that my house would become a picture perfect home overnight. It is going to take years. But it will get there. I am planning on being in this house for a long time and I can't wait to move all my stuff in and call it home.

The War Against Wallpaper

I hate wallpaper. Or actually I hate taking wallpaper off the wall. My family room had two layers of wallpaper on it. The top layer came off very easily since it was attached to the bottom layer of wallpaper. The second layer is putting up more of a fight.

The wallpaper was probably put up when the house was built. It does has some lovely scenes of places like Monticello.

I hired a painter this week and he will be starting on Saturday, so my mom and I are feverishly working to get the wallpaper off. I have a sneaking feeling that those walls will need to be skim coated because of some damage spots.

The whole process is pretty gross. I bought DIF to help with the removal process. We scored and sprayed and scored some more and sprayed some more. Some of the pieces came off in bigger chunks, but most were scraped away.

By the end of the night, we had one wall free of the ugly wallpaper. This room is going to have a great transformation and I can't wait to see it finished. I have the vision in my head, so I hope it turns out the way I see it.

All the work on removing wallpaper really takes a toll on my hands. After this process is done, I think my mom and I deserve a manicure!

Frumpy Family Room

The fun of homeownership has begun! This weekend, my mom and I started working on my new house. The more I am in the house, the more projects I see. We had such good intentions of cleaning the walls to get ready for painting. But that didn't go as planned. I am not sure what kind of paint is on the wall, but it doesn't want to let go of the yuck that is on it.

So we moved to a project we could do...tearing down wallpaper. At least one layer. That's right...2 layers of wallpaper. Why do people do that?

Thankfully, the first layer came off pretty easily and we were able to get most of it off except that pieces near the ceiling. Progress none the less.

Most of the walls in the downstairs bear evidence to the shape of the things that were previously hanging. It is pretty gross! And it is the yuck that won't come off.

There is quite a bit of wallpaper in the house, so is isn't going to be the last of it. But there was also contact paper behind the built-ins. Yuck, yuck, yuck!

The carpet is another story. It is disgusting. The brown carpet has faded into an orangy-brown color. I wouldn't sit on it to save my life. It give me the creeps.

But the new carpet has been ordered! I am super excited about it. It is going to freshen up that space so much. Welcome to Modern Gray! I was going to the color just to the right of Modern Gray, but decided that it was too dark. The house just feels tired. It needs a little life brought into it and I am excited to do that.

I am thrilled to have my own home and am so anxious to move in and settled. But there are some things, like the family room that need to be done before I can even think about moving in. Slowly, but surely everything else will fall into place. Just one step at a time.