Lighting Choices for the House

Hey guys,

So I'm gonna do another blog post about the house because I really like talking about the house! It actually brings me a lot of joy because interior design is something that I'm really passionate about! So if you ever need any advice about something just let me know and shoot me an email! 

Breakfast Nook Chandelier

So this is the chandelier I picked out for the breakfast nook. I think it goes well with our table and the built-ins that we plan to build. We currently have three separate spotlight lighting fixtures in there so they will need to be redone and rewired before we can add a new lighting fixture but hopefully this is something we can working over the next year.

Front Entryway Lighting

This is what I picked for our front entryway, it's not exactly what I had envisioned but it's close enough. I'm really hoping that we can remove the pole or just not use it which will ring the chandelier closer to the ceiling because we don't have very high ceiling in our house.

Front of the House Lighting

Front Porch Lighting

This is the lighting fixture I want to use for our front porch! I absolutely love how it looks like a pineapple, it's so cute!

Garage Lighting

These are the lights that will go on the front of the house on each side of the garage door! And they match the front porch light which is perfect!

Kitchen Lighting

This fixture matched the light that we currently have in the kitchen and we have a light above the sink that need a fixture!

Back Porch Lighting

So I haven't really done much planning for our back porch lighting. We have three separate spots for lighting but we're not entirely sure if our ceiling can hold new heavy lights or fans so we need to get that checked out first before we can add change anything! But my plan is to get either 1 or 2 fans with lights and then either a single lighting fixture or two lighting fixtures. We haven't really discussed much for the outdoor lighting but it definitely needs to be updated because it probably hasn't been changed since the house was built! All I know is that I want a fan and some kind of lighting fixture and I'm not sure what to do for the third spot.

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

June 2018 House Update

Hey guys,

So I want to do a more in-depth blog post on this once I am fully able to take a bunch of pictures after the house has been cleaned but as of right now and probably for the rest of the summer we are taking a break from working on the house! Ever since January of this year we have pretty much been working non-stop on the house. Every free day and weekend that we all have had off we have been cleaning, painting, or decorating the house. We've been working so hard on the house to get it ready for a like a house warming party! We ended up having a Memorial Day party and it was great! We invited friends and family and everyone had such a great time! People rode around on our jet ski and took trips up and down the canal in our kayak! It was such a great day!

Now that the party is over with we are taking a break from working on the house. I'm thinking we probably won't work on it again until summer is over. We have some trips planned for the next couple of months and I really need to focus on finding a new job at least a second part time job until I can find a new full time job! I also want to be able to spend more time with my boyfriend and my family!

Anyways back to the house, to start off with the things that are done are the living room and our library! Which I know doesn't really sound like a lot but considering they are the two main rooms in our house I think that's pretty good! Also, we did buy a fixer upper from the 70's that has not been touched since the 70's so I'm hoping you can guess how bad it really is. Basically every room needs to be updated to this century which means the whole house probably won't be completely done for at least 5 years because the kitchen and both main bathrooms need to be remodeled. I still have a blue toilet and bathtub! But we did redo the half bath that's in the office and it looks absolutely amazing so I am very proud of that!

I think we are pretty much done painting everything for now. Thankfully, because I really don't enjoy painting at all! We've painted pretty much every room inside the house except for my bathroom because it still has wallpaper on the walls that absolutely refuses to come off! So it's definitely still a work in progress! We painted the entire exterior of the house including our driveway and patio floor. The only thing left to paint outside is our garage door which of course we can't decide what color to paint that!

Also, the built-ins in the library are completely done! It took a while but my mom and sister were finally able to complete them just in time for the party! They turned out absolutely amazing and I could not be more proud of them and their hard work! They spent so many weekends working on these shelves and they took so many trips to Sam's and Home Depot to make sure they had all of the right tools and parts that they needed to build them from scratch!

However, there are definitely a few things that still need to be worked on. Some of those things include adding built-ins in the breakfast nook! We really want to add some built-ins with a bench and then we have a round table and 4 chairs that we plan on putting around it. We're not entirely sure if 4 chairs will fit around it once we get done with the built-ins and the bench but we will see. I also want to update the lighting that's in the breakfast nook because it's like four different spotlights and I want to update it to be 1 chandelier. I think it would look a lot better and update the look of the room!

Fo the dining room, I still want a small bar cart and a mirror to go over the shelving unit that we have in there! The shelving unit also kind of still needs to be worked on but that is something that we will work on over time! Other than those two things our dining room is done! It's absolutely perfect in my opinion and it turned out exactly how I pictured it! 

Another thing is that we also want to get a new countertop for our outdoor bar top counter! The one we currently have is dry-rotting and falling apart! Every time you touch it pieces fall off of it, it's pretty bad! I also want to change out the lighting outside and get a fan! We have three different spots for lighting fixtures but we need to make sure that our ceiling is strong enough to be able to hold a fan and different types of lighting fixtures. We also need a coffee table for outside which is something we will have to build. We built all of our outdoor furniture except for our table! The table we recently bought at Sam's and we absolutely love the table because it actually has a built-in leaf and it expends to fit so many people which is amazing! We also have barstools to go with out bar top but they need to be fixed, sanded, and stained! I also think that we need to get at least two more because our counter outside is actually pretty long and I think we could easily fit four barstools at it!

So as you can see we've come along way but we still have a lot of work ahead of us and I can't wait to see how the house turns out once we're completely done with it! I also am really hoping that it will majorly increase the value of the house but we will find out later once we're all done!

Anyways, keep checking back for a full post featuring before and after pictures of all the work we've done so far soon! 

Thanks for stopping by!

XO, Steph

House Update Summer 2017

Hey guys,

So far not that much has really changed at the house since my spring update. My mom and sister are currently working on the built-in bookshelves that are going up in the library! So far they are turning out great and I cannot wait for them to be finished.

My mom and I are working on outdoor furniture. Together we built a couch and two chairs. To be honest, they aren't the most comfortable pieces of furniture ever but I am super excited to be able to say that we built furniture. So far they are built and we are in the process of staining them and putting a weather protector on them. We had some major issues with the cushions and we tried out at least 3 if not more different cushions from a few different stores. We ended up settling on some from Target and some from Lowe's. Together are only going to seat 4 people. I had hoped the couch would fit 3 but we shortened the couch so it would fit on a wall in-between two of our sliding glass doors and because of that we lost a seat but then there's still some room left over on the couch. We probably should have made our own cushions but I really didn't want to do that and I also really didn't want to pay for that. 

So far my room is coming along great! I still need another nightstand and my TV needs to be mounted but other than that I don't really plan on adding any other furniture in my room. I might end up removing the bench that I made for my room and finding somewhere else in the house to put it but we'll see. If I decide to remove the bench then I do have my eyes on this lingerie chest because then it will help clear up some space in my closet. My closet is a bit a small and I probably need to go through it and remove some clothing items that I no longer wear but I struggle with getting rid of clothes. I'm so picky when I shop anyways that I feel like if something is cute I'll probably end up wearing it again. I am also finished with my gallery wall, I only need to hang 2 more items and then it should be complete!

So I have this little room outside of my bedroom and there's a small space behind the door that I plan on adding this shoe cabinet from IKEA because I absolutely need more shoe space! I have run out of room in my shoe closet and had to move my athletic shoes to the floor of my actual closet haha. I'm hoping that it will be wide enough for me to be able to also make it like a jewelry station because I literally have no room in my room for any of my jewelry stands. I actually left all of my jewelry at my parents house because I have nowhere for it to go in my house.  

That's it for now. Hopefully we'll be able to finish the built-in bookshelves before the end of the year haha and then our next big project is built-ins in our breakfast nook with a bench for our table!

XO, Steph

Furniture Ideas for the House

Hey guys,

So here are few furniture items that we are considering purchasing for the house.

So we've had our breakfast nook table for a few months now but I am having the hardest time picking out chairs to go around it. Our plan is to build a built-in bench which will hopefully hold seats for two people at the table and then I really want to find 4 smallish chairs to fit around the table so that way we can have seating for at least 6 people (even though only 2 people live there haha). So I have a few options but I honestly don't know if I'll ever be able to pick haha. 

The main wall in our library is teal so I was thinking it would be nice to tie it all together since the whole area between the breakfast nook and library is all open but then it's kind of hard to do that because I'm not sure if they're the same teal. I'm also conflicted because what if I want to change up the color scheme of the table and I have teal chairs, then this limits my color options a little. I also think that they might not really go with the table that well. I was thinking about doing maybe a dark gray or charcoal but then that might not even go with the table either.

I'm also having a hard time picking between farmhouse and industrial. The table is very farmhouse so apart of me feels like we should stick with farmhouse style chairs but then industrial chairs would help to tie in the theme of the library. 

These are the chairs that actually match the table. We didn't buy them with the table because I didn't know if I liked them enough to spend the money on them. I originally wanted completely different chairs but now I've changed my mind and I'm trying to find chairs that will match with the theme of both rooms better. But we'll see what ends up happening. 

I like these chairs for the industrial look but my issue is with the wood. The top of our table is wood and I'm just not sure if the two woods would look good together. However, my sister says that she doesn't mind mixing woods but I'm having a hard time picturing them going together. They don't really look like they would match but they would definitely match the theme of the barstools we have picked out.

These are the barstools that we picked out. We have a counter height bar area (as opposed to a bar height) and we both agreed that they would go very well with the theme of room plus we both really wanted this style, where the top can screw up or down. In the beginning we both really wanted comfy barstools with a back and a lot of cushion but I feel like these would look so much better because we'll be able to just slide them underneath the bar and it won't look like there's a whole lot going on in that area.

So far this is the coffee table that we have picked out for our steampunk themed library! It is very industrial and will hopefully go with the rest of the room very well.

So for the couch for the living room area, I really wanted 2 navy blue velvet couches but I was having a really time finding ones that I liked so I decided to change my mind and change the color and design of the couch. I am now going with a grey sectional with a pull-out couch and a chaise. I found one online that I liked but now I am having a hard time finding it again so I may have to do some more research find a different one that I like. We also have two chairs that we are still going to recover in blush pink velvet fabric and have them be conversational chairs in one of the corners of the room and then if we ever need more seating options we can just move them on over. We also added an extra chair right next to the TV and it is my black and white houndstooth chair that my mom and I recovered a few years ago. It was supposed to go in my room but unfortunately my room is too small and the chair is too large to fit haha. Currently that room has a lot going on at the moment with a lot of different colors and patterns but I think once it all comes together, everything will look absolutely beautiful!

Also, I know I haven't done too many fashion related posts in a while and mostly just because I haven't gone shopping in a while because we've been spending most of our money on our house. My sister and I are also having a hard time finding time to shoot because we don't get very many days off together and then when we do, we're usually doing chores around the house/ working on the house or going grocery shopping haha!

However, I did recently buy a few new items and I'm hoping to shoot some outfits either this week or next week. I am just waiting for some stuff to come in the mail!

P.S. Everything is from Target except for the chairs that actually go with the breakfast nook table.

XO, Steph

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DIY Gold Shelving Unit

Hey guys,

So I was originally planning on doing some more Valentine's Day related posts but then I realized that Valentine's Day is like 4 days away so it would be kind of pointless to do a gift guide because no one would really have the time to buy any of the items I would have picked out anyways. So I will save my gift guides for next year (maybe I'll actually be dating someone by then haha)!

So about a month ago my sister and I stopped by IKEA on our way home from a trip to Tallahassee and we purchased this shelving unit. We only purchased one at the time because they're $80 a piece and we weren't entirely sure how it was going to turn out and we didn't want to waste our money haha.

So I started by laying out all of the piece's and spray painting them. I accidentally spray painted one side and forgot to take a picture and so I flipped them all over to the other sides and took a picture of the white side. Then I spray painted that side and forgot to take a picture of all of the piece's after I had finished spray painting! Yeah, I know, I'm super great at this whole blogging thing haha. However, some of the spray paint got on some of the sides of them so you can kind of see what it looks like spray painted before being put together.

This is the spray paint that I used. I originally used this spray paint on a different piece of furniture but I didn't like the way it turned out so I googled and a lot of people suggested this one instead and I have to agree. It looks so much better and I look the way it turned out.

Then I put it together, which I did by myself which is why there is only one picture of the final product all together. There wasn't anyone home to take pictures of me putting it together and it comes with instructions so I didn't really see the point in taking pictures of it after I put together different piece's haha.

Also, I marble contact papered the top and bottom shelves incase you didn't notice and this is the contact paper that I used.

So after I took this picture, I had to take out the top and bottom shelves because I realized that there were some spots that I missed with the spray paint and so I went back over the whole thing with another coat. Then I brought it inside from our extremely messy garage and yes we know, it's a work in progress! After I bought it inside, I put the top and bottom shelves back in, added the glass shelves and being styling it.

So it's located next to our giant picture window in the family room. It's like two inches too big in my opinion but it will definitely work and I'm not turning back now so it's staying and we'll just deal with the currents being kind of in the way haha.

However before I started styling it, I went around our house looking for everything that I wanted to use to style the shelves (which I actually did this wayyy before I even brought it inside, like two hours before because I was still waiting for the paint to dry. I really wanted to make sure the paint was dry before I risked brining it inside haha). I don't really want to buy anymore for the shelf because in my opinion we currently already own way too much for our good haha so I wanted to use stuff that we already had. Some of our stuff is still in boxes or scattered throughout different rooms so I went searching for everything that I thought would look good on the shelves. 

Since I think it turned out really well, I really want to get another one soon and so I will need to find more items around the house to add to the other shelves. Like I said we have a lot of stuff so I don't think it will be too hard to do. Plus I might end up replicating some things on each one to make it look more symmetrical. 

My plan for the bottom shelves since they are empty is to get large (probably white) boxes to store our DVDs in. I don't really like the DVDs to be on display and since this our main room with a tv in it we need to have our DVDs somewhere nearby and we have a large collection of DVDs that seems to just keep growing every Black Friday haha.

Then I styled each shelf, shelf by shelf. 

I am obsessed with vases and bouquets of flowers and I sadly haven't found all of vases yet but I came across this one in our office which is normally in our office and I thought it would go perfectly on with some pink flowers and on this shelf. 

I also have a large collection of coffee table books and also fashion books so I thought they would look much better on these shelves rather than on the shelves of the steampunk themed library so I went searching for my books and I kind of grouped them together based on their color. And for the group on the second to last shelf, you will notice that one of the them is a light blue and that's because it's my Kate Spade coffee table book. I currently have two out of three books that she has. My plan is to buy the third one and I will just add it to this stack and that way this stack will be organized by author haha! By the way, no I did not pay the full amount for my Kate Spade coffee table books. I actually found both of mine at either TJ Maxx or Homegoods on clearance for super cheap. I think one of them may have only been like $8.

One of the other stacks has my two Lauren Conrad books and so whenever I get her newest one Celebrate I will add it to her stack and probably remove some of the other books and move them over to the other shelving unit. There are several other coffee table or celebrity books that I want to buy so eventually I think I will have enough to make the shelves look a more full but at the same time not too cluttered.

My sister and I recently purchased these pineapple bookends at Hobby Lobby but I thought they would go better with the theme in family room since our library room is going to be steampunk themed. Plus we have a pineapple catch-all tray on our front entry way table so it just ties it all together.

I originally had all of the books in between the bookends but I thought it looked better with the two books underneath the bookends since the bookends have acrylic bottoms. 

The two candles are both the same candle just one is light pink and one is hot pink so I thought they would go well together plus I love having the different shades of pink. Once we finally pick out a navy blue couch and get some pink chairs in here I think everything will go together very nicely. I currently have an Eiffel Tower figurine/statue thing that is like a teal color and so I think I'm going to either spray paint it black or navy blue and replace the box at the top with the Eiffel Tower so that way the Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower are right next to each other. Or I might put the Eiffel Tower on the other shelving unit whenever we get that and then try and find maybe another similar box that coordinates with the one we already have.

My plan for the one shelf with the picture frame is find either more picture frames or different picture frames. I do think that it is kind of wasted space at the moment to just have one picture frame. And yes the picture frame is currently empty. I just found the picture frame around the house and added it to the shelf. I thought that the pink tied in very well with the rest of the pinks.

Here is the finished product minus the bottom shelf which will hopefully be finished soon. To be honest, this project took way longer than expected (about 2 weekends worth of work because I kept running out of spray paint and time to go back to the store to buy more) but I am so glad that it is finally finished. I absolutely love the way it turned out and I can't wait to make another one. In total I think I used about 6 or 8 cans of spray paint and then to cover the two shelves with marble contact paper, it didn't even require a full roll. I finished off one roll that I already had from another project and then just cut off another piece from a different roll that I had already opened for that same project but there is still left on that roll.

P.S. All of these images were taken with my iPhone so sorry for the poor quality.

XO, Steph

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Curb Appeal Inspiration

Hey guys,

Happy February! I seriously can't believe that January is already over. I'm kind of sad! I feel like time is just flying by way too fast. It seriously needs to slow down so I can figure out how to catch up haha. Anyways, today's post is another house inspiration post and it's all about curb appeal. I hope you guys enjoy it!

So we don't have a front porch but eventually our plan is to add on to the front of the house and build a front porch area. We love the idea of having a front porch so in the mean time we plan to build a pergola in the front of the house, remove the large amount of bushes that are in the front, add some brick pieces to the front so we can have some type of flooring and then add a few other details.

 

I would love to have a swing in the middle in front of the large picture window and then have at least two rocking chairs (one on each side of the swing). However, it would also be nice to have two rocking chairs on each side of the swing. 

 I love these little decals that people are putting on their doors. We have a double front door so I am not entirely sure if it will look as good but eventually I want to get one of these to add to the front door.

This is similar to the color that we plan on painting the front door. It's kind of similar to the Tiffany & Co. color. I also really like this exterior color but we haven't actually picked a color for the outside of the house yet. We can't really decide what we want and there are so many options and colors that sometimes it's too overwhelming to pick!

I don't think we have house numbers on the front of our house. We might but I am not entirely sure and if we do then they would probably be located up above the garage (because that's where almost all of the houses in our area have them). I want to DIY some house numbers and add them more towards the front door on the column that we have on the front porch.

Our front sidewalk area is not this big but I absolutely love the look of this and would love to recreate something similar for our front area.

I would also love to grow some hydrangeas or peonies. However, my sister and I are not really plant people and so we would probably end up killing them but I still think we should give it a shot at least once haha!

We also need to work on fixing up our garage door. We don't reallyneed to replace the current garage door anytime soon so we just plan to use the one that came with the house. It has a wood grain look to it, so we plan on staining a pretty wood color and then I found a few pins on Pinterest where you can add faux windows to the door so I thought that was a cool idea. We also plan on adding the handles and other metal details to the garage door to make it look more like a barn door type thing.

We also really need a new mailbox and I love the little arrow that they have on this one. I have never really thought about adding a cute detail to the mailbox before and I really like the idea. I'm thinking maybe cute decals for the places we've been such as Paris, London, New York, Ireland! I don't know I will obviously have to discuss this more with my sister haha!

P.S. This is the last House Inspiration post. I won't be doing anymore. I could technically do more but the only rooms left are the kitchen and bathrooms and it will probably be years before we ever remodel them to be exactly the way we want them to be. The next step in the series is to do the before and after posts that I plan on doing. However, it is probably going to be a while before we are able to get those done. But hopefully not, my bedroom is almost complete, I think.

I have a few more interior related posts planned and some of them have to deal with my bedroom so once I finish with those then I should be able to do the before and after pictures of my bedroom. I might also be posting some pictures that I have taken during the whole process.

I hope you guys enjoyed these posts and I look forward to writing more similar posts!

XO, Steph

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Patio/Backyard Inspiration

Hey guys,

So today's blog post is the inspiration for our patio. We live on a canal and we also have a pool (just some info for you). It's hard to find images of patios and pools together on Pinterest. Also, some of the images are actually from retailers websites instead because I have specific furniture in mind that I want and so I just decided to use those photos instead of finding other ones on Printerest.

So the first few images are the patio furniture set that I want. The theme for the patio is nautical and kind of piratey. We plan to have a gallery wall maybe that features an anchor, a mermaid (maybe), a ships wheel, maybe some type of compass, and some other items that we find and happen to like and that go with our theme.

We recently went to an antique store on our way home from Tallahassee and we found these iron hooks that have an anchor on them and so we plan on hanging them on the wall so we can hang up towels outside while they dry out or you can put them on the hooks before getting in the pool instead of taking up space by lying them on a chair. 

Soooo, if you can't tell by now, I am obsessed with the color navy. It's my favorite color and I pretty much want it everywhere! So far it's featured in 4 different locations throughout the house. Is that a bit much? I don't think so haha!

We have a sliding glass window in our kitchen that looks out onto the porch. It also has a bar height countertop underneath of it outside. The countertop that is currently there is falling apart and I really want to get it replaced a soon as possible. We kind of had this idea of having it match the kitchen but I think it might be a while before we have the kitchen redone so I think we might just replace it with a random piece of countertop that we find at a stone store or there's this local store that we purchased our tile from and they also sell countertops.

Instead of barstools, we have a couple of director's chairs that we plan on using. They are this light color and we plan on staining them a different color and them we replaced the seats with the color that's down below. The counter outside is pretty long so eventually we will probably purchase a couple more director's chairs but for now we're just going to stick with the two just incase they don't work out.

We recently go a part of our fence installed. Fences are extremely expensive just so you guys know haha. We decided that instead of wasting the money on getting the whole yard done we would just get a dog run and fence in the rest of the yard later whenever we have some leftover money. I couldn't find any images of a dog run with just grass, this one is the closet I could find haha. But eventually it's just going to contain grass and maybe a couple of small trees that don't really grow that big.

Currently there are quite of few bushes that need to be removed and some rocks as well. There is like the tiniest amount of room for the dogs right now and so I really want to add more grass for them to use as soon as possible but we haven't really figured out the best way to remove the roots from the bushes. So we are currently working on that and then eventually I want to add some other items as well such as a dog house maybe and some water bowls for them even though neither of our dogs prefer to be outside for very long haha. 

We also want to build a fire pit outside. We used to have a metal fire pit and we left it outside under our covered patio in that bag that came with it and it still completely rusted away and we have to throw it away. So now we want one that is a little more permanent.

We've also been looking at things to put firewood in so we can keep a stock pile of firewood and just have a fire whenever we want!

I would love to be able to have an outdoor theater type of thing. This is pretty much just a dream and I might just have to settle for a TV on the porch but a girl can dream and if we were able to pull this off, I think it would be so amazing!

My sister is obsessed with games and my mom recently got into woodworking so I found these wooden giant yard games that I thought would be fund to make and have to play whenever we have guests over.

 

Eventually we're going to build a dock and so I found these two items on Pinterest that looked pretty interesting. Our canal doesn't have very pretty water but I still think it would be a neat feature to add to the dock haha.

This might also come in handy incase someone catches something and they need to clean the fish!

Thanks for stopping by!

Feel free to leave a comment or share this with your friends!

XO, Steph