Bathroom Makeover

Our Covid Project…

Snowvid 2021

The Quarantined Life

Over a year later as I look back, these treasured memories of being “stuck” at home will forever be cherished. The Lord kept us safe, sane and healthy, knitted us tighter as a family and made us appreciate life in a deeper way.

Bedroom

My goal in designing our bedroom was to create a peaceful retreat where I could go in and escape and just lay down and breathe, ya know?

I gathered some of my favorite comforts like linen pillow cases. We hung up curtains and macrame plant hangers that make a sweet subtle statement and bring some green into the space. Our walls are pretty bare but I like the empty calmness of it, especially when I’m sitting on the accent chairs reading or bird watching while I look out to the backyard trees. So peaceful.

I did, on a whim, decide to hang up my hats as a display over our bed, again, interesting but not too busy and filled the wall nicely. I don’t know if thats what I want forever but it work for now.

My favorites… For Christmas about 2 years ago, Fred bought me a hand woven Turkish blanket from Odd Bird, an amazing textile company that actually started in Denton. The pattern is beautiful and I love snuggling up with it to take a nap.

One of the most recent additions was a coffee station on the dresser. Fred got me a Keurig so that I can brew myself a quick tea or coffee in the bedroom. I love how minimal it is and how it gives the bedroom a resort feeling.

Future Plans. I would love to paint an accent wall where the hats are hanging, maybe this summer I’ll bust out the brushes and my painting pants. Our linen comforter is also a queen size but we make it work in our King size bed, I just love it so much I keep putting off buying a new one and they can get expensive! I’d love to add some wall scones as side lamps too. Some day probably years from now I’d love to take the carpet out and add flooring and nice rug.

Also let me be totally honest with you. My bedroom looks that tidy about 50% of the time… The other 50% of the time there is baskets of clean laundry galore that stare me in the face and keep harassing me. So rude.

Galentine's Party

This Galentine’s was hosted two years! Brought such sweet memories of times we could gather inside and near each other with out the worries of Covid! Praying for more of those days in the future.

Let's Talk Lights

Let’s talk about light fixtures! Light fixtures can really transform a room, that’s why that was one of the first things we changed out in our house. Thankfully we bought a house that was only about two years old so it was very updated, meaning we got to spend extra funds on fun stuff not redoing kitchen or floors, etc! When we were in the market to purchase we were first looking into older homes that needed way more work but I’m so grateful we found this house that was much newer but still felt like a blank canvas I could transform and make our own.

I knew for the main hallway I wanted three lights that hung consecutively from the front door to the entrance of the main living area/kitchen/dining. I thought it would make a great entrance statement that would lead your eye to our main windows in the living room where you can see the beautiful trees! To achieve that effect we did remove the fan in the living room which I felt made made it feel too busy once we had all the light fixtures installed. I tend to always be cold so taking out the fan was not a hard decision.

For the living room we added a simple yet stylish ceiling pendant from IKEA. It only came in gold and even though I liked it, we decided it to spray paint it black in order to have it kind of match the hallway lanterns.

I chose the hallway lanterns from World Market because they were felt traditional yet modern and they were reasonably priced! I also feel like these can go with many decor styles! I read every single review on their website and it helped that people had posted pictures of what they looked like in their home! So I decided to go for them when they had a 20% off sale all light fixtures! Two of the three did arrive broken, exchanging them at the store was annoying but a breeze.

The light fixtures for the kitchen are also from World Market. For the kitchen I wanted something less traditional and more fun, sorta boho but still stylish. I went with these Basketweave Bamboo Pendants that I felt brought texture and airiness into the kitchen and gave it so much character!

Our kitchen came with three simple hanging light fixtures, pretty basic builder grade so I knew I wanted to change them out right away! Also our old house didn’t have light fixtures in the kitchen so it was fun getting to add some in our new home!

We ended up covering one of the middle lights because the bamboo pendants were large enough to only need two and I like the symmetry the pair created. Also! We kept the original light fixture and put the basket pendant over it. Genius, right? We painted the silver poles with flat white spray paint and actually made the installation even easier as apposed to connecting new cords.

I’m so glad the light fixtures in these areas were one of the first things we changed in our home because it really helped us slowly implement the color scheme and overall style we we’re going for. The total cost of this project was about $380 (thank you stimulus check.) Fred and my father-in-law did and amazing job installing them so that also saved us money! Now I’m itching to add light fixtures to other rooms in the house!!!

Decorating for Christmas at our New Home

Happy New Year Friends! We spent the morning putting away our Christmas decorations. It was so much fun getting to decorate a new home, in other ways it was challenging. In our old home I knew exactly what worked where but this time I had to figure out what worked for this house. Even though the layout is very similar to our old home there’s little things here and there that i’m figuring out!

Like I had a hard time styling our mantle! I think I re-did it like 3 times before I actuallly decided to leave it. Our old mantle didn’t have that kind of seat that sticks out and it kept feeling bleh until I added a little more to the bottom with some fire logs and some Ikea vases and I think it just balanced it out a bit better. At some point there was a banner across the mantle mirror, I had all the stockings to one side, I had a garland with candle pillars, there was no side frame, but at the end I was pleased with our sweet mantle, balanced and displaying some my favorite thrifted brass pieces.

We stuck to a pretty neutral color scheme, black, white green and added creamy burlap accents to bring a little bit of warmth! I tied some wire burlapy ribbon to our light pendants that hang in our main hallway and it just added a soft traditional sweetness to the hallway that always made me smile when I walked by.

One of my ultimate favorite things that I got to do with this new home is add wreathes to all our windows! I’ve always loved homes with wreathes on windows whether they’re inside or outside I LOVE wreaths on windows! So ended up snagging some of those cheap Michaels ones on Black Friday for like $2-3 each, the plan was to add bows to them with the same ribbon I used for the pendants but I never got around to it. Instead I did add those battery operated lights that you can set on a timer, Costco had a great deal on them like a 4 pack for $10! So every day around 5pm, one by one every wreath would start to turn on and twinkle bright until about 11pm.

Im grateful for the season of Christmas we got to share in this home, now that everything is put away it’s clear and calm and for these winter months my goal is to cozy up and drink lots of tea until spring makes its debut!

New Home. New Memories.

Let’s rewind to a warm September Saturday. Our whole life’s were neatly packed and taped up in boxes ready to call a new place home. Friends gave of their time to help us move, humbly and grateful we fed them donuts and pizza. I filled our car with our houseplants from the tiniest to the biggest and promised them new sunny windows. We were greeted by the the sweetest letter from the previous owners while the boys rushed to run wild in their new backyard. The neatly packed boxes slowly unraveled into chaos, room by room we slowly began to fill the corners of our new house with warmth, love and new memories.

Cinco de Mayo Quarantined Edition

I’m always down for a fiesta and this Cinco de Mayo we got our fiesta on at home. Fred made his famous margaritas, we bought over priced carne asada from the carniceria, heated up the grill, busted out the loteria and danced to mariachi music! We ended the celebration with smoke bombs left over from 4th of July last year. It was a blast breaking the mundane of our everyday quarantined life.

Memorial Day Weekend

Cupcake Decorating Party

A fun simple way to celebrate love and friendship with littles!

1. Bake cupcakes.

2. Buy candy.

3. Let them go crazy.

Sweet Baby Shower for Sonya

Last summer I hosted a baby shower for one of my best friends Sonya, her baby Harper is now 7 months! This is one of my favorite showers I have ever thrown! I loved working with this color scheme of muted warm tones, it was perfect for this modern chic mama! The table was decorated with a combination of dried, wooden and fresh flowers along with dry wheat grass, gave the table so much depth with all the different textures. Loved it! The menu consisted of fresh fruits, brunch finger foods and sweet pastries like mini pavlovas. Those mini pavlovas were a hit! I need to post a recipe soon! We painted decorative wooden blocks in modern patterns for the nursery. It was such a sweet shower for my sweet friend!

Our Quarantined Easter

Our Easter this year was bittersweet, it’s one we will never forget as we spent it quarantined and away from those we love most celebrating the one who loved us most. We’ve been so used to seeing friends at church on Easter Sunday then gathering with family and cousins for lunch and egg hunts but we made the most of it with our party of five.

We all got dressed in our Sunday best, let me rephrase, I dressed all of us in our Sunday best, they groaned as I made them change out of pajamas for once but they indulged me. We sat on the couch for our online Easter service and rejoiced at Christ’s sacrifice for us and thanked him for our many blessings through this time.

Then of course mom had to have her annual Easter family picture, we found the perfect spot at the trails down the street from our house, nature declaring what was once barren and lifeless now bloomed with life echoing the celebration in our souls.

After they indulged me and were slightly annoyed because they can barely stand still for two seconds to snap a picture it was time for baskets and egg hunt! I don’t know what’s more fun, being sneaky and hiding all the eggs or watching the boys thrilled, running around and desperately searching for them, I love it!

For dinner Fred made us homemade ravioli, it was amazing! I made carrot cake from scratch with cream cheese frosting and went all Pinteresty on it and made the cutest bunnies! And if that wasn’t cute enough our friend Amy surprised us with her beautiful decorated Easter cookies at our door!

It was a sweet day that brought about lots of gratefulness, I was able to slow down and remembered to soak it in and rejoice! HE IS RISEN, HE IS RISEN INDEED!

Halloween Sleepover!

Last week we had a fun cousin sleepover!

With an upcoming camp trip and a brand new tent we had never set up, we decided it would be a good idea to practice setting it up beforehand and take advantage of the set up by having an indoor camp sleepover.

We made it Halloween theme and invited cousins over for a night of pizza, pumpkin carving, s’mores, star gazing, dancing and late night movie watching. First one to fall asleep would get whipped cream on their face!

They had a blast, Fred and I really teamworked to keep the fun going and the mess contained! He also took one for the team and pretended to fall asleep so the kids could put whipped cream all over his face! I love him! I loved seeing the joy on their little faces, they had a blast, we might have to make this into one of our Fall traditions!

4th of July 2019

Nate's Star Wars Birthday Party

Last summer we had an epic Star Wars party. Seriously, it was epic, I think it was one of my favorite birthday parties we’ve ever thrown. Light saber party favors made out of pool noodles, ice pops, cupcakes, piñata and a house full of wookies…

As with every event that we host in our home, I always try to implement my personal style into it while keeping it budget friendly.

So for this party I kept it neutral but funky with pops of bright shiny silver. Silver tablecloths and tinsel backdrop came from 5 Below, Star Wars plates from Target, paper cups, cutlery, party favors and black balloons from Dollar Tree, silver number 3 balloon from Hobby Lobby, cupcake liners and toppers from Williams Sonoma (which I got on clearance a few years back, but they’re available on Amazon. So I spent about $100 max, that’s typically how much I spend on decor for a party.

For food we kept it simple with hot dogs, mac and cheese and of course homemade cupcakes and a double stacked frosting cake that my kids are so tired of but I keep baking because I love them!

So that was it! Simple, laidback, epic.