Deck your halls with locally made real cedar and pine garland. My friend, Shannon, has made this beautiful and fragrant garland and it smells so heavenly. Makes the perfect adornment to your Christmas Mantle. Add your stockings and bows and your Christmas decor is complete.
Read MoreI realized something a while back. We ALL have things we say we want to do. We all have things we say we need to do. Maybe for you, you want and need (for your sanity) a simpler life. A lifestyle that isn’t so hectic and a constant battle of too many obligations. What is standing in your way? Maybe it’s all in your own head.
Read MoreA little unknown fact about me is that I get absolutely beside myself with anxiety over hosting dinner guests. Some of my closest friends are the most incredible hosts, but the crowd I run with does not influence my hostess with the mostest skills. I love to cook and I love to decorate, but putting those two things together with an audience makes me so nervous. I just can’t do it. What I can do is offer you a few ideas for Simple Thanksgiving Tablescapes for the event you host in your home.
Read MoreIntroducing how I trusted my own gut and thought it would be a barrel of fun to paint a massive brick fireplace and then realized I had been completely duped by my own risk vs. reward meter. Our lovely 1980's home would not have been a true renovation if I hadn't addressed the huge elephant in the room. That elephant was brick. One big ole wall of it. Brown, black, red, and outdated. I knew right away I was going to be searing Pinterest for inspiration. I'd seen it a million times, it couldn't be too hard. I considered renting a paint sprayer to tackle all of the paintwork throughout the house, but our small town resources provided nil. Because I was trying to do my part and be frugal, buying a sprayer didn't seem within reason.
Read MoreOnce we'd decided that we would take on a "fixer upper", I immediately envisioned myself taking a hammer or ax to the walls that we would want to remove. Heck, maybe I would even try to remove the wall by running through it. That's how it's done on tv right? Wrong. Our "new" house was built in 1980 and the number of updates that had been done prior to our name being added to the Deed was mostly superficial. The master bathroom had been redone and at some point, the carpeting had been replaced. What was still intact was the dark stain, original dark oak-ey cabinetry, some chopped up rooms, and wall to wall wallpaper that
Read MorePrior to renovations, Jake told people that we were doing a "total gut" on the house. I scoffed and told him to quit being dramatic because a kitchen and bath renovation and taking out a couple of walls hardly classified as a gutting. However, as I walk through the house now, I see that Mr. Right is, in fact, right. The floors are out, the kitchen is almost completely gone, and two massive walls have completely vanished. Let me just admit that I had grand plans of blogging this every step of the way through, but throw renovations in with moving (and child raising), I'm in way too far over my head.
Read MoreIt either is or it isn't. This shows very true when it comes to me and the "keeping of things". I don't get too sentimental on most material possessions and when the other people who cohabitate this household turn their backs, they've come to know, I'll likely be throwing something of theirs away. Broken toys, favorite shirts that are well past their useful life, even from time to time scraps of kids artwork that even Jackson Pollock couldn't decipher.
Read MoreEveryone has their own strengths; some excel at math, others grammar. Some are beasts at weightlifting, others at prepping delicious family dinners. My strength would be getting my house ready for a showing. We have been in the HOUSE FOR SALE season for a while now and I'm a self-proclaimed pro at whipping things in to shape before a showing. If I could make a living on doing the same for other houses for sale, it would be my dream job (perhaps I can use my recently acquired Real Estate license to help clients in this regard?).
Read MoreI NEVER want to build a house. Ever. I took on a kitchen renovation over the summer and it just about killed me. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to many more renovation projects in my future, but I will use some major lessons learned from this little endeavor and get myself a serious grip on reality before just jumping right on in there. One of the most important things I learned was..
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