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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