Dining Room Overhaul!

The next room that we wanted to paint during MLK weekend was our dining room, as the hunter green wasn't really going with the rest of our house.  We knew that we wanted to do wall frames (cheaper version of wainscoting) underneath the chair rail, so we got to work.  Here is the before picture!

And here is after we had painted the top Oyster Bay (one shade darker than our kitchen, Comfort Gray) and the bottom white.  Poor Kyle had to do 5 coats of white to really cover the hunter green... eugh!

Kyle used his stud finder to mark all the studs in the walls so he knew where to nail the frames:

Then he got to work making the frames!  After measuring and figuring out the correct sizes of the frames, he made a jig to help him cut the trim pieces that he needed.

And then built another jig to help make all the frame corners perfectly square:

Putting all the frames in place and up on the wall:

And here is how the frames looked once up:

We bought trim that was already primed so all we had to do was paint with our white trim paint to be finished!  I finally made myself do it last weekend and we are just SO happy with the outcome!  

Now we just need to hang curtains and artwork at some point to make it look finished! Woohoo!

New Range, ORB knobs and Lighting in Kitchen!

I wasn't kidding when I said we would have more updates on our kitchen this week! About a month ago, Kyle found "the deal of the century" on Craigslist (as he refers to it) on a black down draft range for our kitchen.  It retails on Home Depot currently for around $1500, but we got ours for $150!  It was actually posted from Marietta, so Chris picked it up for us and held onto it until Kyle went down there on a business trip. Thank you again Chris! 

The range actually has a lot more features than our last one had and can fit larger pots too which is a huge plus!  So here is how it's looking with our other updates appliances.

You might also notice that we updated all of our knobs and pulls to be oil rubbed bronze!  Thankfully Kyle works for a company that sells these things, or else we would definitely be holding off on this part.  We actually had all knobs in the kitchen before (on cabinets and drawers), and I'm so glad we put some pulls in on the drawers to help break it up.  It'll completely look finished once we paint our cabinets but for now we're fine with seeing some holes that we patched on the drawers that use pulls.  We love not having brass in the kitchen anymore!  (AND Kyle is in the process of updating all door knobs and hinges to ORB... wahoo!)

Did you notice the new island fixture?  Another wonderful hookup from Kyle's friend of a friend.

We also installed a new light over the eat-in-kitchen area that matches the island one. Let me refresh your memory of the BEFORE:
And now our after:

Cannot believe how different this house is looking since we first moved in.  BEFORE:

And our after!  So fun!

Dews visit!

A couple weekends ago, we had 6 wonderful visitors come to our house... the Dew crew!  Tara was helping train some teachers at a nearby church for their Awana program, and it worked out perfectly for the whole clan to come visit for the weekend! Emery had an absolute blast playing with all her cousins and we were so glad to finally show them our new house!

The girls helping Tara and I cook dinner (yes that is how Em smiles these days hahaha):

Sweet story time before bed every night:

Natalie shared her pillow with Em... so blessed with 5 healthy, happy kiddos!

Saturday morning we had mickey mouse shaped pancakes which all the kiddos LOVED!

Then Tara headed to teach, and I entertained the kiddos

So that the men could install our new stove (more coming on this later!)

Saturday afternoon, our cousin Sarah and her family came over to visit since they live here in CLT too!  Her daughter, Addyson, and the Nats are BFFS if you can't tell by this picture!

So thankful for family!

We headed to the park before dinner, where I snapped this picture of Mantha and Em.  They are BFF's too :)

And we can't leave out cutie patootie Samuel either!

Sunday morning we woke up and had DONUT KING for breakfast.  Oh my gosh if you live in Huntersville go to this place ASAP.

No, you aren't imagining it... those donuts have huge chunks of bacon, reeses and heath bar on them... YUM!

The Dews had to leave around lunchtime on Sunday but we snapped a few pictures before we left.  Thank y'all again for coming to visit us, we LOVED IT!

Emery loving on her Aunt Tara!

Love my sis!

Dowstairs bedroom - Paint

We used our long weekend in January (MLK day) to do some painting around the house!  The first room we wanted to tackle was the downstairs bedroom.  It's basically the first room you see in our house when you walk in, and it has french doors leading to it... which we love!  The current color wasn't terrible but the ceiling paint was horrible, trim needed some love, and the walls had SO many holes in them.  So here is a before picture after we had tested out lots of paints to pick the right color!

Here's a before picture after Kyle had painted the ceiling.  You can see all the holes Ky had to patch on the walls-- who hangs that much stuff?

And our after with new ceiling, wall and trim paint!  We chose Sherwin Williams Favorite Tan for the walls.... and we LOVE it!  This color has a little green in it, which I think helps go with the blue/green/gray tones in our house. The two doors that you see on the right lead to the closet and then the full bath.

Since neither one of us need an office in the house, we chose to make this room a guest room with a functional bed if we need it when friends or family visit.  My grandma generously gave us two twin beds after our move, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them!  Into the garage they went for some paint-- comfort gray since we had it left over from the kitchen!  

Here was how they looked after Ky sanded them down:

 And after I had primed them:

 And after I had painted them (you can tell it was late, ha)

Before and after:

I forgot to say that I took the two headboards from both beds and attached them to one bed so they would help it look more like a daybed :)  I found the perfect cream bedding from IKEA, and am still working on getting enough pillows and covers to fill up the bed.  So happy with how it turned out though!

Hallway Lights -- Before & After

It's official, all the lighting in our house has now been changed over to Oil Rubbed Bronze!  Well except for the master bathroom, that room needs a major overhaul and will be done later when we have the time and money to put into it.  Kyle installed fans in all of the bedrooms, so for the hallways we took the light fixtures that were in the bedrooms (much prettier than the current hallway ones) and spray painted them.  My hubby is amazing with spray paint and saved us around $250 by doing this since these oil rubbed bronze lights are currently for sale at Home Depot for around $30 a piece!

So here were how our hallway lights looked before:

And here is after:

And a before and after shot together of our upstairs hallway:

Oh, the magic of spray paint and moving lights around in the house to make it work!

Drop Cloth Curtains for our Family Room!

Here comes another Pinterest project!  I found this tutorial while browsing one day, and knew not only would these curtains would look perfect in our family room but the cost was right in our budget!  For around $10 a panel, you can't beat it. I went to Lowes and picked up 2 Drop Cloths from the painting section, washed & dried them both (for shrinking purposes in case they get dirty and we want to wash again) and then got to work! 

While Emery was napping, I ironed both panels, and then hemmed the bottom to the right height for our windows.  I wanted them to touch the floor but not bag too much since we have animals and the hair would be out of control.  I will say that hemming was SO much easier since I decided to iron after each step... definitely recommend that even though it takes longer.

Next, I sewed on my pleat tape (this stuff is pretty amazing), and then pulled the strings to make my pleats!

After making my pleats I actually used my clips to hold them together while I ironed the front.  I like how that helped hold the pleats better.

My handy helper woke up during that process and had an absolute blast playing with all of my string while I finished up!

Kyle then hung the curtain rod and up they went!  Unfortunately this project still isn't 100% done as we have to go buy oil rubbed bronze clips & rings instead of our brushed nickel ones that we had on hand.  But for now they are up and we love them!

VOILA!

So what's next in here to work on?  Hang something on the wall behind our couch (thinking about all my G's), find new fabric to cover couch pillows, and revamp our lamps!

Hard to believe this is what the room used to look like before we moved in! Loving the changes taking place around here!