December 15, 2016

Jonesville Ultimate Gift Guide 2016

We're so excited to spend our first Christmas as a married couple and in our own house! Even though it's still messy, not everything's unpacked, and there won't be an overflow of presents, we are still looking forward to spending time with each other and with our families.

Need a last minute gift, or stocking stuffer? Well, we've got you covered. We've got presents for the girls, the guys, the kids, and every home lover. The day where you can order something online and get it before Christmas is quickly coming up, so make sure to grab some of these great gifts before then! To see some other great gift guides, visit some of my favorites: ChrisLovesJulia, Yellow Brick Home, Young House Love, Emily Henderson, and House of Jade.



November 28, 2016

Updating Brass Wood Fans to Modern Matte Black

When we painted all the ceilings white, we took down the ceiling fans in every single room. We had 6 fans total, one in every bedroom, one in the living room, and two in the kitchen (I still don't like fans in the kitchen). They were Hunter fans, a great long lasting brand, but extremely dirty and outdated colors. My undying go-to in these situations: matte black spray paint. We spray painted our 70's fridge, our hallway light, and our door hardware, and every one of them turned out great. This quick DIY took two cans of spray paint, so only $12! That beats having to spend $400 for 4 new fans.



This is the only photo of our actual fan light in action in our master bedroom I could find. I guess I didn't want to take pictures of the ugliness? But I found one just like it at Home Depot with the brass base and wood blades, just imagine it with a layer of grime (ew). Even though they would have been perfectly fine and not too bad looking if we had just cleaned them up, the matte black goes with our style better and makes them feel newer than they are. I'm not a fan at all (haha, pun intended) of fans that are also lights. Overhead lighting in the middle of the room is unflattering and often too bright. The ideal situation is can lights on the ceiling and a few lamps.

November 18, 2016

Sketch Plans for the Utility/Laundry Room

If you follow me on Instagram (@jonesvilleblog), you will have seen our completely torn apart utility room. When we had our big leak, we had to dig up some concrete in that room where the water heater is to get to a pipe. Because our house is not insulated (it’s the worst), the utility room wasn’t insulated either. We knew that we would have to insulate that room and the pipes in there so they don’t crack in the cold winter months. Originally we were just going to stick the washer and dryer in there and worry about redoing the space later on. Next thing I know, Auston had torn out all of the old nasty sheetrock in just a few hours! You might have caught a glimpse of it in our Leak Post. I know a few of you have asked about how I start thinking about how I start planning a space, and this is the very first step: I sketched up my ideas on Windows Paint, to show that you don’t need sketching software to start planning.

If you’re standing in the door, you have a wall with a window opposite you and the washer side would be on your left and the dryer side would be on your right. Originally I had planned to put both the washer and dryer on the same side so that we could have a big counter space on the other side but after carefully measuring a few times, we realized that it was about an inch and a half too small. Just an inch and a half! Bummer. My plan B is to now put them on opposite walls and have a small counter space on both sides.

The washer side will have a bigger counter than the other with a suspended thick wood shelf that spans the entire length of the wall. There we can keep all the stuff we use regularly like detergent and fabric softener and of course a few pretty decorations.  Above that will be a wall of cabinets where we can store extra cleaning supplies and things. I love the shaker cabinets so I’m hoping we can incorporate them in here with a chunky rectangular gold pull. My favorite idea for this space is making a place for pull out laundry sorting baskets! I got the idea from YellowBrick Home and Kim had put canvas sorting baskets on the wall in their cute small laundry room. For us, this will save trips carrying loads inside and outside which we are all about making things more efficient, especially in the cold! On the back of the wall on both sides, I’m hoping to do a fun but muted wallpaper. This is the only space that I can quantify doing wallpaper because it is small and not a major room in the house so if the next owners want to take it off, it won’t be a big hassle.


November 10, 2016

The One Room Challenge: The Reveals and My Bracket

For those of you who don't know, the One Room Challenge is a home renovation challenge for all bloggers that happens twice a year. Every season, the girl who runs the operation asks 20 bloggers to completely renovate one room, in real time, in 6 weeks. You can also be a Guest Participant by linking your posts on social media. I found out about this because one of my favorite blogs, Chris Loves Julia, was asked to be a participant for the first time. On their Podcast 6 weeks ago, they talked about how they should make a bracket for the Challenge. Obviously, this Challenge is not focused on winning and losing, but rather on making beautiful spaces. But after the first posts came about the spaces the bloggers were going to do and their mood boards, I made a bracket - for fun of course.




This has been one of the most fun aspects of the home DIY world I've found yet. Everything is filled with encouragement and inspiration even though there is a wide range of design styles. Yesterday was the last day of the 6 weeks - time for all the reveal posts! So I rounded up my 5 favorites out of the 20 and some reasons why they spoke to me/inspire me. Not necessarily the "best" because that is subjective, but the ones that aligned with my design style the most.


Chris Loves Julia. These guys weren't my favorite simply because they are my design soul mates, but because they created a space that was totally for kids and yet still had a stylish design. They turned their guest room into a room for their two daughters with these built in bunk beds and a reading nook, complete with a pink, green, gold, and black color palette. This inspires me because it shows that you don't have to sacrifice form for function, there is a perfect way to marry them.



November 8, 2016

Making Modern, Classy, and Low Cost Curtains in 5 Easy Steps

For a relatively small square footage house, we have lots of windows. The kitchen has two and the half door, the living room has a long wall of windows and another one on the other side, long story short, every room has at least 2 windows. We have been living in our house for 3, almost 4 weeks. and it has been completely curtainless. This is the first time we have lived in a neighborhood, and I didn't realize how important it was to have curtains/blinds/anything between you and the neighbors. I finally decided that we needed something to cover our light capturing panes, and I started digging for some pretty, low cost curtains.

I threw blinds out of the pool of options because they just got too expensive and after some looking, blackout curtains did too. Then after searching some blogs I follow, I came across ChrisLovesJulia's post on drop cloth curtains and coupled it with YoungHouseLove's clip ring method, and something just clicked in my mind. I loved the texture and darkness of the canvas drop cloths and the hidden look the clip rings give them. Long story short, a whole window with two curtains and a curtain rod cost $26. This could get expensive if you put two curtains on every single window, but we chose to do two in the bedroom and one every where else (except for the big living room window). So here is what you need and how to get these DIY curtains in your space in just 5 easy steps.



November 4, 2016

Favorite Finds for Early November

I can't believe it's already November and we've been in our house for a 3 weeks! It seems like every day I have something to do after work and every weekend we're out, so I haven't gotten as much unpacked as I would like, but all in good time I guess. Our kitchen reveal went great and we love living in it. Keeping the shelves styled really isn't so bad, but Emily Henderson did a great video in the kitchen she just remodeled about how to style those open shelves and keep them looking great. 



On to other fun things for this week! Here are a few cute products that I've come across through the week as I look at things for the house. I am really itching to have a neon sign. I would probably put it in the guest room where I put my clothes and things to get ready. This white "Seize the Day" one is way too expensive for me, but I'll keep looking for a cute and less expensive one. The Voluspa candles are always amazing smelling, but this Burbon Vanilla one just sounds magical. I was browsing through Target the other day and saw these beautiful over the knee boots. I've been looking for a good flat boot to wear with dresses (and other things) this winter. You guys probably don't find the Floppy Disk art as cool as I do, but the inner geek in me is trying to find somewhere to put it in my house.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! We're headed on trip to Asheville so my SnapChat (@jonesvilleblog) will be filled with fun things.




November 1, 2016

An Unexpected Problem: 17,000 Gallons Worth

Over the weekend, we had a huge unexpected problem hit our house. When I came home on Friday, I sat down to talk to Auston like usual when he says, "Don't freak out, but when I opened the water bill today, we went through 17,000 gallons of water last month." My mind went wild with the amount of money we would have to pay for the bill and for fixing it, how much time it would take us - I mean, he said don't freak out, but obviously that wasn't gonna stop me. Thankfully, he told me right away the bill was only $250, but that's more than our normal $50 and more than we had planned for. As soon as he saw the bill he started to look for where the leak was, turning off every pipe separately and checking the water meter to isolate the problem.



October 28, 2016

Fortune Cookie Friday 010

It has been 2 weeks since we moved in and we can't get enough of it. The new kitchen makes everything sweeter and the mornings a little more bearable. We love having our own space, to make a home together and to just be together. Yesterday marks 4 years of us knowing each other, crazy how time flys! There has been so many memories made in those 4 years that it's crazy to think about all of the more memories that we'll make in the next 4 year. I'll get off the rabbit trail now, promise. We put up DIY curtains yesterday and will be posting a tutorial on them in the next week!

Three more days till Halloween!! I've never been a super fan like some, but I do like dressing up and decorating. I've also never lived in the neighborhood so this will be my first time having trick-or-treaters! Whether or not we'll be here that night is still TBD, but I know it will be fun when we do hand out candy. Anyone have fun plans for Halloween?

We haven't had time to decorate for Fall/Halloween becuase of the craziness of moving in and unpacking. But for you guys that are, these Alice and Lois marble pumpkins are my favorite so far. Last year was my first year painting pumpkins instead of carving them, and I loved it.


October 26, 2016

Updating our 70's Fridge with DIY Paint: A How To Guide

Our house was built in 1957 and remodeled in 1980 when they put a brand spankin' new Whirlpool Mark I refrigerator in. But now that it's 2016, that almond color was just not in style anymore. It actually works perfectly fine and keeps things super cold, but that color was just awful. We looked into replacing it with a new stainless or black one, but we just couldn't justify getting a new one when the one we had was only aesthetically displeasing. So I did some research and decided I was going to DIY a paint job.

If you didn't catch  our full kitchen reveal the other day, go check it out. 13 weeks of work got us from 0 to 60 in no time, and we have big plans for some more updates down the road. The black fridge ties in the color palette for the kitchen and matches the black stove. If you don't get any further, the whole process took a total of 2 days, most of which was drying time and cost $16.






October 24, 2016

Before and After: The Full Kitchen Remodel Reveal!

It's been 13 weeks exactly since we did the first update to the kitchen by installing new cabinets on the once cabinet-less wall. And you guys, it has been a dramatic and long time coming. You can look through the entire kitchen timeline and see step by step how we got to this place. We still have a handful of ideas that we'd like to add to make the space more functional, like adding cabinets above the fridge and a storage/display system above the right side cabinets, and the backsplash(!). But for right now, we are incredibly happy with where our hard work got us. Our house was about as gross as it gets when we first bought it. The walls were yellow from smokers and the vinyl floor was sticky like duct tape. It took us 13 weeks to get here (including alot of work elsewhere in the house, but that's reality), meaning that it's a process. Don't go through these pictures and think you could never turn your kitchen around into a space that you really love. Life's too short to not be happy in a space where you spend a great deal of your time. With that in mind, see our transformed kitchen!





Here's just a refresher in case you forgot how ugly and non functional this place was before, a shot of the same space from the same angle. It's hard to imagine how sticky this place was and how clean it feels now. The thing that makes the biggest difference in visually looking bigger is the white flooring and the light gray walls. I'm glad we chose to stick with the black appliances we had because it grounds the cabinets and makes it seem full. Check out how we DIY'ed this black fridge from our existing almond colored one, spoiler: it took 2 days and $16.



October 18, 2016

Installing a Modern Brass Pendant in the Kitchen

Big news: we spent our first night in the house!! We were going to take pictures and a few SnapChats to commemorate the occasion, but by the time we got in bed we were exhausted. Everything is still in boxes and the floors are still dirty from working, but I couldn't spend one more night away from this place. It's hard to live in it and not have it decorated or pretty, but right now it's worth it. This weekend is going to be filled with unpacking and cleaning and rearranging.

On to other things for today! The kitchen pendant is something that I have been excited about from the get go. I knew that it was going to be a stand out piece since it would be gold and at the center of attention above the kitchen. After a lot of searching and price checking, we landed this pendant from Progress Lighting in the Natural Brass finish. I grabbed this beauty from Wayfair while they were having their huge Labor Day sale, so I got it for about 40% off. And if you thought this guy was cute, take a look at its big brother (literally), which is twice as big as the mini. Even though the bigger one is probably prettier and makes more of a statement, the dimensions of the mini fit our space better. If you're one of those people who don't like to wait for things to ship, then you can pick up the mini in the chrome finish at your local Home Depot.




October 10, 2016

Installing Marble Vinyl Tile in the Kitchen

Over the weekend we moved all of our furniture into the house, put all the hardware on the kitchen cabinets and hung them all up, installed the garbage disposal, and put the quarter-round down in the kitchen. A few posts back I mentioned that we picked up this marble vinyl tile from Home Depot for only 89¢ / sq. ft. Last week we prepped the floors and put those babies down. 

Here is the top layer of sheet vinyl. It was a brick like/Tetris pattern in a brown and khaki color. Below the top layer was a layer of plastic tile that looked 100% like masonry brick. Not only was their exterior brick, but their kitchen floor was brick! Thankfully, we came up with a better solution.



Below is the bottom layer of green terrazzo vinyl tile and it surprisingly more bearable than the top layer haha. This "Ugly Flooring From History" article is incredibly accurate because it lists the top (#1) and bottom (#25) layers as ugly flooring and oh are they right!


And here is the new carara marble vinyl flooring that we installed ourselves.

September 30, 2016

Fortune Cookie Friday 009

If you haven't noticed, there have been no posts this week. That is because we have been installing our new vinyl tile kitchen floor! And guess what, it is finished and it looks awesome. I can not wait to share it with you guys on Monday. If you follow me on SnapChat (@jonesvilleblog) you have seen a sneak peak of it yesterday and I am going to share another one at 7pm tonight! Since the floor is done, all that is left is to put the cabinet doors back on with the hardware. Our plan is to do that today and tomorrow and move in this weekend!

This Inside Out Bedroom has given me some inspiration for the poster bed that we are getting via hand-me-down.  It's not nearly as modern as this black square one. Ours is a dark wood, almost cherry like, with tapering posts on the corners. I'm pinning alot of idea for DIYing a bedframe and headboard but I think we need to get into the house before we start thinking about that. 

September 28, 2016

Some Kitchen Inspiration: Devol Kitchens

We have some big kitchen projects in the works! The biggest of them being laying the vinyl tile floor we got last week. While those are underway, I thought I'd share a company that was a source of inspiration for me while we were planning our kitchen. Devol Kitchens is an English company that does kitchens, bathrooms, interiors, and flooring that your dreams are made of. They perfectly mix Shaker and English styles, leaving it modern and classic looking. My favorite part of this entire company, and part of what makes them so classy, is the velvety look they get from their flat paint. ChrisLovesJulia talked about the importance of paint sheen in their Podcast, especially in the kitchen. Sadly ours ended up being a semi-gloss coated with a satin top coat so they aren't quite as flat as I would like. Not to mention that low to no gloss don't get as dirty as glossy sheens.

During our planning, I was struggling with whether or not to do a color, a two toned color, or just a neutral like I talked about in this post. And that was all because of photos like these. The deep velvety emerald green is so enticing. The functionality of the kitchen is not anywhere near realistic for us, but it is still beautiful nonetheless. That marble countertop/backsplas must have cost a fortune and I'm sure was worth it, they're incredible. Having an art ledge in the kitchen is probably unrealistic, or so I thought at first. As I looked through the rest of the photos, I realized that this is England, and houses/apartments there are smalllll. You can see a corner of a table or island thing in the photo, but from another angle you'll see that it is their dining room table! Yes, they eat right in the middle of their kitchen. So realizing that wall space is probably limited, I can see why it could be in the kitchen.




I chose a tuxedo look for the cabinets in our kitchen, but I still love the look of a clean neutral space. These beige velvet cabinets leave the room feeling light and airy. The amazing glass cupboard is a great use of space, especially when it is paired with a clean marble counter top. Speaking of beige, Sherwin William's name their 2017 Color of the Year and it is "Poised Taupe." It is a very warm gray with beige undertones and it's awesome. In the store it is actually warmer than it looks on the website, so always see colors in person. That little green fern is just adorable too.


September 26, 2016

Replacing the Hallway Light with a Modern Flushmount

When we got the house, all of the fixtures were either fan lights or 80's flushmounts. I'm all for retro, but these were not pretty. The hallway had two lights in it, but once we took them off, we realized that one of the set of wires was live all the time. That means that it wasn't intended to be a fixture but rather something like a smoke alarm. We decided to take out the non-working light and install the smoke alarm back. That left us with one flushmount to light the entire hallway. At first, I was looking at these CB2 flushmounts because they are gorgeous. But since there was only going to be one light, I could justify have a light with sides like that, I needed something that would light up the entire hallway.

We ended up with this Globe Brushed Nickle Flushmount from Home Depot. The only downside was that is was brushed nickle and not matte black, like the rest of the house. But since the fixture was only $17 ( !! ), I decided to spray paint the base a pretty matte black finish to match the theme of the house.



Here is how the hallway looked like before we pulled up the carpets and painted, refinished the floors, updated the doors, and put down the quarter-round. It was pretty gross and the light did nothing for the space.




And here is the totally transformed hallway with the flushmount light. The black looks better than the nickle would have and the globe lights up the entire hallway.

September 23, 2016

Fortune Cookie Friday 008

Did you guys see the new counter tops we had installed last week? They look awesome and we're excited about progress. This weekend we are going to finish prepping the kitchen floor and install the vinyl tile we picked up in this post. The only thing I have to decide on is what pattern looks the best. Staggered, straight, with the grains going the same way, or just random, and I can not make up my mind!

Fall is here and it is still hot in Georgia, which is pretty typical. All the girls are getting their Pumpkin Spice lattes and getting out their boots. Everyone is putting out their pumpkins, acorns, and leaves. I like Chris Love's Julia's post because she transitions her home into Autumn through subtle and not tacky changes. In her living room below, she changes out some colors, puts out some branches and acorns, and replaces greens with fall foliage. Stuff that feels like fall but doesn't make it tacky. This Apartment Therapy article on Subtle & Sophisticated ways to decorate your front entry is anything but subtle (haha!).



September 21, 2016

Updating the Outlets and Vents

The one great thing we noted about our house when we were looking at the first time was the ample amount of outlets. There is at least six in every room plus at lest 2 vents and were all either almond colored or an odd metal finish. Vents are expensive and we didn't feel like buying 40 covers, so we decided to just grab some spray paint and update all of the outlets and vents. We used Rustoleum Satin White we picked up  for $6 and Rustoleum Clear Semi-Gloss for plastics for $4 from Wal-Mart. So for $10 we changed a small feature in our house but made a big difference.

After we took off all the covers and vents, we made sure to give them a good cleaning before we laid them out to be painted. A few of them didn't get a good wipe down and started to bubble up because the paint didn't have a good surface to stick to. We did two coats of the white and then two of the clear. The clear spray paint just ensures that scratches won't peel the paint off. You can also prime the pieces first if you don't buy the 2-in-1 stuff. Young House Love did that in their Updating Hardware post.







September 19, 2016

Favorite Finds for September

Our flooring situation has changed. The quote for the sheet vinyl came back with an insane prep and installation fee, so we decided to look for other options. We ran to Home Depot to return some things and decided to look at the vinyl tile. To our surprise we found this Carrara Marble vinyl tile that I fell in love with. My original kitchen mood board had wood flooring that I thought we could match to our hardwoods. But after we refinished them, we just could not find one that matched the beautiful grain that came out. That's when we decided to go to a local store and have them install some of their sheet vinyl. Unfortunately, they only had a medium gray tile that I could settle for even though I was looking for a white one. So when we came across this vinyl tile at Home Depot that we could install ourselves for 1/4 of the sheet vinly price, we immediately made a decision. Yesterday we leveled the floor underneath and are going to install it this weekend. Yayy! Wednesday we'll share our updated vents and outlets that we DIYed. P.S. There is a 30-50% off Home Sale at Macy's for 48 hours!

Since I don't have any new renovation pictures to share, here is a few cute items for the upcoming fall season. You can follow my Pinterest Favorite Finds board to see all the past items I've posted about and some that I will link to in future posts! I'm seriously envying the duvet for our new king bed and am going to DIY that awesome chalkboard art. The Rewind Champagne candle is one of the best smelling candles I've ever some across. They make candles in all kinds of wine scents and they smell crazy good.

Hand art / Candle /  Turkish rug / Basket / Rug /  Duvet /Throw 

September 13, 2016

Installing New Modern Kitchen Counter-tops

Today is the day, we finally got our new kitchen counter tops installed! Here's where we got them and the new cabinets in. It's hard to believe that just a few days ago we had the 70's vibe counters that were gross beyond belief. We also installed the sink and faucet that we got from Home Depot and pulled up the ugly vinyl. That took about an hour and a half and resulted in some sore backs the next day. The faucet turned out better than I had hoped. I was worried that because we settled for a satin nickle finish, it wouldn't match the gold we had planned. But after doing some research on how to mix finishes and reading Studio McGee's post, I had some confidence that it would work out.

Here is what the kitchen looked like before.





And here's what it looks like now with the new counters.

September 9, 2016

Fortune Cookie Friday 007

Update on our progress: today the electrician and Internet guys are at the house doing their thing. Yay for internet! The electrician is putting in an outlet in the full bathroom because it didn't have one (I don't know why). Next the counter guy can come and then the floor guy! Now for the usual other stuff for today.

This bathroom picture from Kate La Vie' post is giving me a bunch of inspiration for our half bath off of the master. When I think of tiling, like most people, I think of a straight edge where it meets the wall. But this picture blew my mind. Laying the tile in a herringbone pattern and leaving it unfinished gives the space a texture and a pattern at the same time.

September 8, 2016

Updating Old Hollow-Core Interior Doors

Things are coming along you guys! This week we have gotten all the outlets and vent covers repainted and put back up. I am putting the last few top coats on the cabinets and we got the plumbing leak fixed. The floor and counter guys are supposed to come in the next week, and then we can put the sink and pendant in. It feels like we keep saying we're so close to moving in because I say it every time, but now we seriously are. Waiting on other people just stinks because you have to work around their schedule. Thankfully, the Internet guy is coming tomorrow, so I can watch Netflix while doing stuff. 

Does anyone else have an old house with old doors? Yeah, I'm talking about those cheap hollow-core doors that have yellowed over they years but you don't want to spend the money to replace them. Well, that's where we're at. Interior doors aren't as expensive as exterior doors, but they are still too expensive for us right now (this one at Home Depot is beautiful). So we decided to skip the new stuff and just revamp our old stuff. The process was pretty simple; we just painted the doors, painted the knobs, and then painted the faux-knob housing. The inspiration behind painting the knobs to look like they were sitting on plates was this knob at Home Depot. After I put the knobs back on the plain white door, it just looked like a painted hollow-core door. With the faux-plates, it looks just a little bit nicer and livable until we can afford to really invest in good doors and knobs. We used Sherwin William's Extra-White trim paint in semi-gloss, the same stuff we used for the trim. I picked up some black matte spray paint and a top coat for $10. Here are the steps we went through, and you can to, to update your old hollow core doors.



1. Paint the doors. Obviously.



2. Paint the knobs with color and top coat. Taking them off the doors will make it 10x's easier. I used some spray paint I picked up at Home Depot for $10.



September 6, 2016

Putting Down Quarter-Round

We are getting anxious to get in this house you guys. So anxious, we just ripped out the old counter top and sink before we were done painting everything and moved some of our stuff into the bedrooms. No sink obviously makes things more difficult, but it felt like we were getting somewhere. After the last coats of top coating go on the cabinets, we really only have to have the vinyl and counter top guys come out before we can start moving stuff in, eek!

After the floors were refinished here, we were going to put quarter-round down to polish it off. The house came with some pretty hardwood natural quarter-round, but after taking the whole of it out we decided to buy new ones. It seemed easier to buy it than try to repair the ones we had broken, try to get the million and one nails out without breaking them more, and then painting them twice. In lieu of the hours it would have taken to do all that, we decided to scrap the old ones, run to Home Depot and get 200ft.(61¢ per ft.) of primed quarter-round for just $120. It was well worth the money. Auston lined up and painted them all trim white with one coat, and installed it over the weekend.

Here is the living room right after they refinished the floors, with no quarter round. There is a gap between the floor and the baseboards, making it look unfinished and a nice place for bugs to hide (ew!).



And here is part of the room with quarter round installed.

September 2, 2016

Fortune Cookie Friday 006

In case you haven't seen, Target is having a huge 30% off home items. I snagged this adjustable floor lamp that I have been eyeing for the living room and this double lamp for the office. Lamps are perhaps the best thing to happen to homes since electricity. Registries are such a wonderful thing becuase you can use them even after whatever event you got it for. I keep all ours we did from the wedding up to date just in case someone needs a birthday, Christmas, or whatever occasion gift idea. I love giving presents and I think registries are a great tool because you know you're getting something the person really wants.

Speaking of gifts, do you ever want to send someone a small, cute, personalized and inexpensive gift for any occasion? Greetabl is here to rescue you. They make a small box that you pick the pattern of, fill it with whatever gift at whatever price point you want, and then put in a personalized message and pictures. The gift giver in me is just jumping for joy. They have the best taste in patterns and gifts they offer, and give you great advice if you don't know what to write in your message.


Currently, I am dreaming about a cozy bedroom like this one from Room&Board. I usually don't like canopy beds, but this modern wood looks amazing in the fresh white room.


August 26, 2016

Fortune Cookie Friday 005

Did you guys see our refinished harwood floors? They look better than we were expecting them to. This week we are putting the top coat on the kitchen cabinets and it feels like it is taking forever and a day with so many coats. This weekend we'll put the quarter-round down and hopefully start moving stuff in next week!

It was a struggle to find a brass kitchen faucet that wasn't $150-$200. So we settled for this Pfister High Arc one  in the Stainless Steel. At first I was really disappointed becuase it didn't align with the vision I had, but after reading this how to mix metals article, I feel like we can make it work. I also didn't realize that it has three spout settings, kind of like a shower, where it can be a full stream, power spray and eco rinse, so I'm actually kind of excited. The high arc was a big factor because the current sink has a short one that only hangs a few inches over the bowl, making it hard to wash dishes (which you really need when you don't have a dish washer). Here's a great example of a kitchen with mixed finishes that encompasses our brass hardware and silver faucet situation.




August 24, 2016

Refinished Hardwood Floors

Our floor guy finally came and refinished our hardwood flooring! When we pulled up the pea green carpets in this post, we were relieved to find hardwoods that weren't in terrible shape *insert huge sigh of relief*. It's one thing to look at the edges when you're thinking about buying a house, but it's another thing to actually pull them up and see what's underneath. We debated whether we should try an refinish them ourselves, or contract it out. In the end we decided that we would spare ourselves the time and possibility of messing them up, meaning extra money to fix them, and just contracted it out.

Thankfully we had a connection to a guy who came and did them for around $1,600 for approximately 1,000 sq. ft. Why do I tell you the price exactly? Because we wanted to make sure we were getting a good deal on the square footage we had, so I'm sure there's someone out there who's doing the same. In small towns like ours you can usually count on people  giving you a fair price, but when you're newbies you just never know. Pricing might vary depending on location, contractor company or experience, and even time of year. The only areas that were not refinished were the kitchen, which will be vinyled, and the two bathrooms, which are tiled.

Here is a shot of the floors right after we pulled up the carpet. They were pretty, but too yellow and light for our taste, so we asked for a stain that was a shade darker ("Minwax Provincial 211"). There was also spots from the decomposing foam and bad spots in the wood from high traffic.



And here they are after the refinishing....


August 22, 2016

DIY Siracha Salt

Wedding Favors; something that is losing its appeal to Millennials, especially those not in the South. I was telling one of my friends who lives in New York what we did for our favors and she looked at me with a confused face. She had no idea that wedding favors were a thing! Speaking of, if you're one of the up and coming generation, make sure to brush up on these 10 Wedding Etiquette Rules, they are SO important (especially #2 and #9 because both happened on our day and it was frustrating). Not surprisingly, making the favors was one of the things I was most excited about. It may be because I love to give gifts, but it may be because I have a weird affinity for tiny glass jars. Other cute favor ideas we had were honey, candy, candles, soap. Usability/make-ability was a huge factor in picking what we wanted to do.




For our wedding favors I decided to make my own siracha salt and put it in little glass jars for everyone. I was back and forth on so many different options because I think favors are such a neat (and cute) way to say thank you to all of the people that have been supporting you. I wanted something that the guests could take with them but could also replicate. I went to a wedding a few years ago that had this amazing chocolate bark and I remember thinking, "This is awesome, but I want some more." We also wanted something guests wouldn't hate but also something that still reflected us as a couple. From what my family tells me, everyone loved them. So here is how I made the siracha salt; it is so simple that it is almost stupid. All ingredients I got from Walmart for under $6 and it makes a lot of salt. No matter what your cooking skills are, you can do this (as long as you don't forget to set a timer...).

August 19, 2016

Fortune Cookie Friday 004

This week has been a slow but big week. We haven't been able to do any work on the house ourselves  (ergo, no progress posts) because the floor guys came to refinish our hardwoods! And you guys, they look so good already. After they stained it, they put the first top coat on the next day, and now are doing the second coat. I posted a sneak peak on my IstaStory the other day.

Just bought this sink for the kitchen on sale for $73 at Home Depot. We toyed with the idea of leaving the sink in that came with the house, but after putting some miles on it for a few weeks we decided just to go ahead and grab a new one. Sinks can get dang expensive if you're not careful, but we just couldn't do a stainless so we decided on an acrylic.

This bathroom is giving me all the inspiration (and impatience) for when we start renovating our full bathroom. It's hard to stick to one project when I have all these ideas and visions in my head, but I know I need to focus on one room at a time, for the room and our wallets sake. Or even just moving into the house would be a great step haha.



Some of my favorite home bloggers, Chris Loves Julia and Yellow Brick Home, started a series called "A Night In" where they share how their homes look at night time. They make a great point about how home bloggers always photograph their spaces in the light where everything looks perfect. But these guys are looking to shatter the notion that their lives are perfect by taking pictures without daylight, which I mean, they still look amazing without the light, but it's still a great series...

August 12, 2016

Fortune Cookie Friday 003

Our kitchen has come to a standstill for a minute. We painted all of the cabinets with the colors and picked up the top coat at Home Depot a few days ago. It turns out that you don't want to finish white cabinets with Polyurathane because it will turn them yellow. Now we have to paint them again and then seal them again, hopefully with something clearer. The floor guy is coming next week to refinish the hardwoods and the kitchen vinyl guy will come whenever we finish repainting the cabinets. On a more exciting note, we got all of the hardware and the pendant light in! The hardware isn't as "brass-y" as I would like them to look, but they will do for a small budget. The pendant light looks like it's going to be awesome, we won't hang it until we're done painting. Enough about the house, let's get to some Fortune Cookie stuff.

When my interests shifted from fashion to more home decor/DIY, I started following different bloggers. Some blogs that I'm loving now: The Design Confidential, The Makerista, Hej Doll, Sarah Sherman Samuel, Becki Owens, H2 Design and Build, Happily Grey, and Wit and Delight. I tend to sway to the blogs/Instagrams that have a modern feel, but I also follow people who have really great DIY sites.

These black lamps that Mandi styled as wall lamps in this post are just everything. It's projects like these that give me hope that renovating a home can really be done on a budget while still getting the results that you want. It also helps me think out of the box when it comes to styling other pieces that you might only do one way. DIY giant macrame rope lights? Yes please. Mandi at Vintage Revivals has such a cute selection of DIY crafts, so make sure to take a look around.

This print. I just discovered Visual Pixie's Etsy store, and I want everything she has. The best part is that this print is only $8. It is actually a digital download, but you can take it to somewhere like Kinkos and have them blow it up for only a few dollars. Way better than spending $50-$100 on a piece of big art. Some other prints of hers I'm pining over are this one and this one. It is very important for us to not go to bed angry at each other, so having this on the wall would be a really great (and stylish) reminder. The personalized birthday would look perfect in a nursery. Word art is really making it's debut in homes because it give the room a voice that reinforces the mood. It also can just give you a little pick me up if you're having a bad day.


August 10, 2016

Sketches: Kitchen and Living Room

Once we painted the inside walls, the house was just an empty shell with abnormally (but awesome) large rooms. For a second I started to feel the anxiety set in as I thought of all the possibilities of decor and furniture. It seems that having an idea of a space is harder to put on paper than you would think. Planning is one of the most difficult parts in a project for me. I have so many ideas and thoughts about how I want the space to feel, but I the problem is I have so many choices! There's a million paint colors, a million side tables, a million pillows, and a million 'n one pieces of art to put on the wall. So, as I tried to figure out how to get my ideas into see-able form, my first instinct was to just save pins of pictures that had aspects that I wanted. That was a good start, but I still could not see how everything would work together in the rooms.

I finally came across the Houzz App while listening to a podcast. It has a feature where  you can upload a photo and the sketch on it. Among other things  like text and a pen feature, you can search for products and add them to your sketch. Houzz is great because it saves all of the products that you have inserted, and once you save the sketch and go back to the picture, it tags all of the products in the room. Now, these are ROUGH sketches, very rough. Almost so rough that they are a little embarrassing to share. But by doing these sketches, we were able to hone in our ideas. We decided that we like black fans better than the white. They also were a big help in deciding what colors to paint the cabinets. You get the point, just try different ways to envision your space so that you know what you want will actually work well together. How else do you envision your ideas other than in your head?

This cow print is just so cute right?! And I love that fiddle leaf fig. I wasn't so sure about the overarching lamp, but seeing it in the space solidifies my thoughts: love. I'm always on the look out for a similar moroccan rug. We have a similar grey love seat and hopefully soon a matching sofa. I'm thinking maybe we can DIY those wooden nesting tables soon maybe?



The kitchen sketch is way worse than the living room, but it was so hard to to put a million little tiles with a counter top that wasn't the same color as the one you're going to have. The first picture does not have the door wall tiled, but we have been toying with the idea of tiling the backsplash and the entire adjacent wall for more of a cohesive look. On the look out for a cheap but pretty Persian rug to bring some color to the room.

August 8, 2016

Painting Cabinets and Picking Hardware Pt. 2

We finally started painting the other side of the kitchen cabinets! Last week we painted the new side of the kitchen that we installed ourselves after we picked out the final colors. Sherwin Williams is our local paint people so we decided to go with them rather than Home Depot. After some paint samples, we decided on "Ice Cube" for the upper cabinets and "Tricorn Black" for the lower cabinets. And let me tell you, SUCH a good decision. Ice Cube is perfect because it has a grey tint rather than the stark white we first picked out because it compliments the greyish counter tops. The Tricorn Black is amazingggg. It has the perfect blue undertone so it is not flat and boring. I've seen alot of rooms starting to use this color on the wall and I'm kinda drooling over this one and this one.First we had to sand down every square inch of the cabinets. It was covered in grime and scratches and who knows what else. Taking off the top layer of shininess (if that's a word) also helps with the paint not chipping off. We had to do it all by hand because the sander can't get all of the cracks and edges. Thankfully my (hunk of a) husband pitched in alot because I have been doing all of the cabinet painting.


August 5, 2016

Fortune Cookie Friday 002

Did anyone not see the new addition to Instagram?? They added a piece called Stories, where you can post a video or picture and it will go away in 24 hours. The premise is exactly like Snapchat, minus the filters. I'm sure they will add them soon because everyone is calling for them. And I mean, who wouldn't use Insta over Snapchat when you can have everything in one place? The answer is, probably everyone who is already hooked on Snapchat.  P.s. I've never gotten into Snapchat, but I've posted a few stories on Instagram of a peak of us painting the kitchen cabinets! I'm @jonesvilleblog over there. We have finally painted the first coat on the cabinets!! They look awesome and I can't wait to show you guys!

Anyone besides me just love fortune cookies? If so, here is a homemade fortune cookie recipe that I have been dying to have the guts to try. The Semi Sweet Sisters put out some great recipes so make sure to check them out. (Picture is from them.) Then you can put them in this crazy awesome "bowl." We got 2 of them, I couldn't resist. 


August 3, 2016

The Inspiration Behind A Black and White Kitchen

We got some paint samples for our kitchen cabinets and decided on a white and black! When we decided on black lowers and white uppers, it was not without hesitation. Auston's initial reaction was "Noooo." I knew that I liked two toned cabinets, but I didn't know if I had the guts to put them in my kitchen. So like any other 20 something that has a house, I turned to the almighty Pinterest for some inspiration. I was concerned that the modern black and white wouldn't mesh well with our mid-century ranch. But as we painted the walls grey and the trim white, I could see the black and white working well with our style and the house's style. I knew we wanted a clean and modern space, but I was afraid that all white would be too white - so the real question is, would I have the guts to do a black and white kitchen? The black lowers break up the white and give some color to the room. After testing the samples we got, let's just say the excitement is real you guys. Here are some pictures that gave me the vision and inspiration to do a black and white kitchen.

**Most of the pictures are linked, but if they're not, they are all sourced from Pinterest! Just search "black and white kitchen."

Below is my number one inspiration picture. It has the black and white cabinets, but also the whiteish counter top and brass hardware. After looking at all my inspiration pictures, I decided on brass hardware because of the warmth it brings to the room. It is just so clean and modern and amazing right?! I wasn't so sure about the industrial sized fixtures at first, but they are starting to grow on me.



I lovee this picture, but I'm not sure how I feel about dark grout. My first thought is that I like it, but someone mentioned that it might be dated really quickly so I am reconsidering it.  Maybe a darker color than just white though? I loved the dark blue lowers, but Auston seemed to like the black better, and in the end I think it works better for this house. The dark silver hardware is pretty, I just think the brass works better with the black. 

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