This week marks SIX YEARS that we’ve been in our house. Every year we take a photo in front of the house and I somehow managed to wear the same brown boots in those photos for the last three years, haha! We love this little house and still feel so lucky that we found it all those years ago.
See some previous blog posts on our house here!
Over this past weekend while Luke had a guys weekend in San Diego, my sister came over and we got to work on a little master bedroom makeover. I had recently purchased a new set of sheets and a duvet cover, while my sister helped me choose the curtains and some of the accents to complement the bedding.
I always try to keep our master bedroom on the simple side. I opt for minimal decor and try to keep clutter at a minimum. The only decor we have in our bedroom is a framed watercolor on my nightstand from a trip to Paris and two framed photos from our wedding. We each chose our favorite photo from our wedding and have them placed above our respective nightstands. The goal for this space has always been to create a comfortable and relaxing environment. This room after all is our one place in the house to escape for some peace and quiet. This room also gets the most natural light in our house and I wanted to keep it light and airy. I love how it all came together!
(see sources cited and linked at the end of this post)
This past weekend Luke and I decided it was as good a day as any to tear our closet apart and install a new closet organization system. We foolishly thought all we had to do was take down the old closet and install the new one… haha. It ended up being an all-day adventure. We started with removing the clothes, unscrewing and prying off all the boards attached to the wall, patching up holes, re-painting the inside wall… AND THEN we were ready to install the new system. We purchased a shelving track system. First you anchor the hanging tracks in the top of your closet and then you hang the standards off of those. You then determine your layout and place your brackets, racks and rods. All sounds pretty easy, right? Well it should be, but I anchored the hanging tracks upside down and didn’t figure it out until we were finished. OOPS! After we corrected that mistake the rest of the project went smoothly. Upon completion we decided to cool it on the house projects for a little while – it’s felt a little non-stop with the constant tweaks we’ve been making. If you’re interested, here’s the closet organization we purchased.
A few times a year I get tiresome of our furniture layout and on a whim decide to re-arrange everything. It usually happens out of the blue and without much thought at all. A few weeks ago I switched out some items in our living room and dining room to add more interest and love the results! I took my grandmas bench from the living room wall and slide it on the other side of our dining room table to create more seating. I also took our wood-top bar cart and moved it to the living room and placed bar stools on the ends. I basically took two pieces of furniture that weren’t being used, moved them around and now they get more use than they ever had. That’s a win in my book.
I’m sharing these photos a little later than I had planned on. While the bathroom remodel was just finishing up, Luke underwent a planned eye surgery and ended up having a more complicated recovery than we both expected. His recovery consisted of him laying flat (face down) for two full weeks. My time was spent taking care of him and making sure his recovery went smooth… and not taking photos of our renovation 🙂 I finally got around to taking photos of the finished space and here they are! We’re very happy with the outcome. (let’s not forgot what this space looked like before)
These are the “before” photos of our upstairs bathrooms. Yes, we’ve been living with this awful green linoleum for the past three years. We always knew that remodeling these bathrooms would be a project we would eventually tackle, so when we bought our house we were OK with them because we knew it would be temporary. We have two bathrooms upstairs (one off the hallway and one off our master bedroom). What’s silly is that these pictures are actually an improvement from what they used to be… these bathrooms once had sponge painted teal walls and neon flower drawer handles, eww!
Sometimes it takes living in a place for a while to see what you can live with and what you’d like to live without. We’re happy to see these green bathrooms go & can’t wait to show you what they look like closer to the end of the week… So check back soon for the big reveal. Muhahahah!
Don’t go too hard on us with the photos below…
I’ve always wanted a gallery wall in my house and over the years I’ve had a few. Those few were always miss-matched; a mix of photos, artwork, old frames and new frames (see here). I could never quite get the combo just right though. This time around I wanted to go with something simple, timeless and classic, something that wasn’t a hot new trend in interior design. I think I finally got it right this time! All photos are my own; taken from different places that Luke & I have traveled to.
We have a l-o-n-g list of things we want to do in the house. It seems that when we cross one item off the list, a few more get added! We’ve finished our living room project (which I have yet to share on the blog!) and before we tackle the kitchen countertops, we have two small bathrooms upstairs that we’re going to renovate. We’ve already picked out all our supplies and can’t wait to get started (we’re buying everything from Lowe’s)! We’re getting new flooring, painting the walls, adding a new vanity, subway tiles and new hardware. We’re going with white/gray tones for a very neutral and classic look. I just can’t wait for this project to be finished! Right now the bathrooms have green linoleum and green marbled countertops… I will not be sad to see those go!
I wish we had an entire wall made of built-in bookshelves, with a library ladder strung across the top. How awesome would that be? My dream home definitely has this included. There is such a classic and sophisticated feel about these library ladders. It can really transform a plain shelf into something so much more. It adds an interesting element to the space, in such a simple way. Here are a few of my favorite. I’m bookmarking them in case we strike it rich sometime soon and move into our dream house.
THE COPELAND ADVENTURES 