On Growing in Love with Your Home

We've owned our home now for about 16 months, but have lived here for 15 months, so I thought I'd share some photos my friend Ashley took of us in our house to celebrate our one year home-versary! 

If you remember, I actually was visiting my family in California when my husband came and saw and then made an offer on our house. I facetimed him during his walkthrough, but that's all I had to go off of. You can imagine my anxiety ;) You can read more about that experience here and get all our house hunting details. 

I first saw our new house on the day of the inspection. When I walked in from the side door, I immediately saw a couple things that I wasn't a huge fan of. I tried to remain calm. It didn't check a lot of my "must-haves". I was getting nervous. As I toured the house, I noticed it was a lot smaller than I expected and had some quirks, but I kept reminding myself of the potential. Lots of deep breaths! We can do this.

 We spent 6 weeks fixing up the house (read: painted every room, taking out a bulkhead from the bathroom, painting kitchen cabinets, adding built ins to the living room, etc.) until our apartment lease was up and we had to make the move. I've shared this before, but I found it so interesting how sad I was to leave our apartment. It was just a one bedroom little place, but it's where we moved in together after our wedding and all of that. It held a lot of memories. I get so attached to the places I live, even places I didn't love the look of, because I pour my heart into making it as much of a home as I can. Does anyone relate? I highly recommend this because although it makes leaving harder, it makes living there all the more enjoyable. It's amazing how much you can make a place feel like home with some little, sweet touches. 

So when we moved in, while I was grateful for our house, it didn't feel like us yet. It definitely didn't feel like home. Everyone kept asking me "don't you just love your new house?" and "I bet you're so glad to be in a larger space and out of your apartment!" The thing was, I didn't love our house (yet) and I actually really missed our apartment! I felt so guilty about this, especially because of how much work my husband was putting into the house. I felt like I should love it more right away.

But like a lot of things, love grows over time. Not only did we fix up some areas of the house that wasn't very pleasing, but also just living here and unpacking our stuff, getting a few new pieces, making memories, having friends over, meeting neighbors...it all helped me come to love this little house! 

 Lincoln sure is glad we have more space in our house than the apartment! I couldn't get over how he curled up in my lap for these pictures. 

This is definitely my favorite room in the house. It's SO bright, almost all day long!

Probably the most radical change in our house was our backyard renovation. It has brought us so much joy because it feels like we expanded our living space! We've had lots of friends over for dinner out here, hosted a little sip and see, and are hosting a baby shower in September out here. One of the things on my wish list when house hunting was I wanted space enough to entertain and host. It's one of my greatest joys! I was so thankful we could made a space for this in the backyard.

Seeing it transform from a pile of dirt and weeds to our little oasis has been so fun. I still can't believe my husband pulled it all off!

This little area with the shutters (my friend made them + our window box!) is a favorite of mine.

 Lincoln's face above kills me. He is not photogenic ;)

I'm so thankful for our home and to live here with handsome husband of mine. We've made a sweet little home together and along the way, McCann has found that he's extremely handy and loves projects! That's music to my ears ;) 

Ashley Slater Photography 

I can promise you this; one day when we leave our little three bedroom ranch, I will miss it. Lots.

xoxo


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Our New Bathroom Sink Faucets & Fixtures

Hello and happy Tuesday! One of the biggest projects we've been working on in our new house has been our main bathroom. As you know from this post, we did some serious work on it! 
Today I'm excited to show you our new bathroom fixtures! Since we ripped out the old vanity, we needed new sink faucets. Look at the ones that were there before. #yikes They were so old and needed an upgrade! This is actually a great way to update an older bathroom-- you'd be surprised what you can find at decent price points to make impactful changes like this.
BEFORE:

AFTER: 
I wanted something classic, traditional, but that leaned a little vintage. I found this fixture and I knew I was DONE for. It was so beautiful!! I couldn't picture anything else for the space. I loved the slight detail to it and that curved faucet head had me swooning. I've used Pfister fixtures before and I've always loved them, so I knew I'd love this.

When we changed that, we also had to update the towel bar, toilet paper holder, towel ring and we needed a hook to put near the shower for easy access to our towel while showering. Thankfully the sink faucets I chose had a whole collection of all the things we needed, so I went with all the accessories from the Marielle line in brushed nickel.

I never knew I could love a toilet paper holder so much, you guys!! This one is SO easy-- it just lifts up instead of having to toggle it in between the two end pieces. Then when you've changed it, it goes right back down and hooks into place.

You might remember our lighting is a brass/gold finish, so this brushed nickel finish on the faucets might surprise you, but don't worry! You can totally mix metals in a beautiful, classic way. I'll be sure to explain this more in my full reveal coming soon. Hint: 

faucets / hand towel bar / towel bar / hook / toilet paper holder
Thanks for following along our home progress! I'm hoping to have our living room bookshelf reveal done next week. Do you have any questions about styling bookshelves? If so, drop them in the comments so I can address them in that post! What would be MOST helpful for you when learning how to style your shelves?
In case you missed it...
Bathroom Renovation Posts:
Design Plan Large Mirror Frame Solution

Have a great day!
xoxo
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PS. This post is in partnership with Pfister, who graciously provided our fixtures. All opinions and thoughts are honest and 100% my own. I only partner with brands I love and use in my clients or my own home. Thank you for supporting brands that keep MND doors open!

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Our First House: Bathroom Inspiration

With only a week to go until we have to start moving our stuff into our new house, we are still in full-swing renovation mode! Last week we finished ripping out everything we needed to in the bathroom and now it's time to piece it all back together. Here's what it looks like now. WARNING: it's scary haha!

The original vanity was sitting on the floor (no toe-kick) so it was really low to the ground and that just wasn't going to be ideal for my 6'3" husband ;) I found a very affordable vanity at a local discount store and picked out a quartz countertop that's white with some gray veining to replace it. It's going to be great (we are on a budget, so it's going to epically better than before, but not overdone.)

I have been dreaming of using brass hardware SOMEWHERE in our future home for some time, but it's not my husband's favorite look, so I figured I'd do it in our bathroom, rather than our kitchen which will have many more pieces of hardware. I'm not sure about you, but I'm all about mixing metals. I get this question a lot-- how do you mix metals correctly?! And I'm going to give you some tips today!

TIPS ON MIXING METALS:

First, you want to make sure that you choose a dominate metal and a supporting metal. The dominant one would appear slightly more than the supporting metal. My dominant finish will be the aged brass because it's seen in the light fixtures (which I'm DYING over), hardware, and then I'll pull it in other places like a picture frame, tray for the counter, etc. Our supporting finish will be satin nickel seen in the faucets and towel bar. I'm going with these gorgeous faucets that have a bit of a vintage feel to them because the house is a little older and I love the character that these add! 

The other tip I have is to make sure every metal has a buddy. So if you have a brass light fixture, make sure that finish shows up at least one other place to create unity.

We just took out a huge bulkhead that was above the bathroom vanity, making the space feel so small and crowded. We have no idea why it was there, as it wasn't covering anything important, so I'm thrilled it's gone!! This means we can raise the electrical to make for more space for our light fixtures and mirrors. The mirrors I'm hoping we'll go with are a champagne finish, so they go with both gold and silver, which I think will be great to marry the two! But I'll need to see the space once the vanity it is before ordering a mirror to see if I still like the idea of two mirrors, or if I should do one mirror since it's such a small space. One mirror might make the room flow a bit better, we'll see!

THE DESIGN PLAN:

vanity / shower curtain / sink faucets / mirrors / light fixtures hand towel /  round brass knob / brass pull / tile 
We'll be painting the bathroom a lighter color than it is now and I'd love to bring in this dusty blue / sea glass hue. We ripped out the current vanity and the current tile floors that aren't my style and aren't in great shape stayed in tact (darn ;) One of the reasons I'm not loving the current floor is because of the huge white grout lines. Funny enough, a reader suggested what I was thinking-- we might be able to stain / dye the grout to make it less obvious. Then I got to thinking about a couple DIY projects I've seen over the years involving painting tile. I would never suggest this for a main living space, but since it's a bathroom, I think it just might work! 
The plan is to paint the tile and grout white, then use this stencil in a light gray to make a pretty design. Since the grout lines are so large, the standard stencil sizes offered won't work, but thankfully they're going to make me a custom size. Since our tiles are 6" squares, I am going to measure the width of 4 tiles together plus the grout in between to get my stencil size. I think the 6" stencil would be way too busy, so doing about a 12" size will be much easier on the eye! That's our game plan for now. The tub /shower is a one piece fiberglass situation and even though we'd love a tiled shower, we're not going to do that. It's too much money to put in at this point. What's there now is in really good shape!
Can't wait to show you as it comes along in the coming weeks. xoxo
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