Budget Bedroom Makeover for a Rental Home

While I'm still working away on my dining room makeover, I thought I'd share my oldest daughter's room that has been mostly completed for a while now.  It just need a couple of little things finished up before I could take pictures...

Summer Showcase of Homes - My House Tour

There have been some beautiful home tours this week on the 2013 Summer Showcase of Homes!  Have you seen them yet?  If not, I put together a full list of all the home tours through yesterday HERE.  Today is the last day of the tours and I'm happy to be included among such talented women.

20 Kids' Spaces on a Budget

I've always had a soft-spot for designing/decorating kids' rooms!  They are, by far, my favorite rooms to decorate because of the opportunity to use colors, patterns, and creative elements that I won't normally use in other areas of the home.  It's just plain fun to help inject some of the unique personality of a child into their space!  I recently asked to curate a clipboard over on Hometalk of 20 Kids' Rooms on a Budget that is full of ideas to help you transform your children's rooms without breaking the bank.

A Little French Room...Updated

Time for a little update!  Do you remember a year ago when I first shared my youngest daughter's "Little French Room"?  Back then, it looked like this...

The big furniture pieces were in place and despite wanting to keep the room simple, it felt like it still needed something.  At the time I posted the room, I had picked out some white ruffle drapes from Target, but just hadn't hung them yet.  Boy, do window treatments always make a difference in a room...

Lily's Garden Room

I've been so busy working on projects for the house this past week!  Between painting hallways, tons of landscaping outside, scrubbing down the screen porch from top to bottom, and numerous other essential (but unexciting chores), I've hardly found time for fun projects.  I did get a huge sideboard stained and painted and is waiting on new hardware and finally got to put the finishing touches on my middle daughter's room...

An Art Desk for Lily

If you ask my sweet little kindergartner, Lily, "What do you want to be when you grow up?", she'll quickly reply "An artist!".  She's also a girl that craves a little color and like most girls her age, her choice is hot pink and I have to admit, since most of our home is neutrals, it's super fun to inject some happy color... 

A Little French Room

I shared a few sneak peeks of my youngest daughter's room a couple of days ago and the time has come to show the whole room.  I've been excited to share it as some of my favorite things reside in here...I wouldn't mind sleeping in here myself! Pull up a comfy chair and a cup of coffee and get ready for picture overload...

Furniture Transformations and Some Sneak Peeks

I can't believe how fast this last week has flown by... Are you ever in one of those stages when it seems like you're working so many projects, but none of them are "there" yet?  I'm in one of those!  I've been slowly picking away at painting side tables, a dining set, dresser, french love seat, and a small cabinet along with other little projects that have been keeping me busy.  This is my husband's busy time of year at work, so I lack that extra set of hands with the two-year old, homework, baths, reading, and dishes...so maybe my productivity has gone down a bit?  Anyway, I wanted to share some of the projects that I have completed and a little sneak peek of my daughter's little french room that I've been working on.

It's Official! Our Home is on the Market...

After it seems like many hard weeks of never-ending projects, we've finally wrapped up all the loose ends and were able to list our house a few days ago. All we need now is someone to love our home and neighborhood as much as we have. Although we've lost some sleep over trying to sell a house in the current market conditions, we know that everything will eventually fall into place...hopefully.

Since the dust has settled and we finally have a completed home, I find myself sad to leave a home that has been with us since the beginning of our family.  Our first home has seen a family grow through happy times as well as painful moments.  Through blood, sweat, and tears, it has seen almost every square inch transformed from its former 70's self to something we are so proud to call home. 

When we purchased our home, a deck didn't exist.  All we had was an unsafe "apartment balcony"  that was hanging on the side of the house by a thread.  My husband built this two-story deck over three summers.  The bottom half is screened and it is relaxing to sit out and watch the kids play in the yard.

(upper story of deck)

You should have seen the kitchen & bath before we got a hold of it!

A part of me hopes that the next family that moves in has three girls too :)

 It isn't a fancy mansion, but it's been the best first home we could have asked for and I hope the next family enjoys it as much as we have.  

Thank Heaven for Little Girls!

One of my passions is designing and decorating kid's rooms. About half of all my decorating books are relating to kids rooms and nurseries and I think I would still love kid's rooms even if I didn't have three of them myself. As my third daughter was born this last July, we had to add another bedroom in our house to make room for her. This means one thing to me - another room to decorate!! Luckily we were having another girl and since I had just started a children's boutique, I had plenty of inspiration. The hard part was getting it done a few weeks before I was due as I didn't have time to complete it with getting ready for the Farm Chicks show.

Using leftover paint from the shop and scouring sales, I was able to complete Summer's nursery for about $500-$600, including crib, dresser, chair, shelving, rug, equipment, everything in the room. While that is still quite a bit of money (at least to me), I'm not sure how else I could have done it any cheaper. I love sitting in there and rocking her! I tease my husband that it is the only complete room in the house (we are constantly working on projects)

My other daughter, Lily, got a room makeover as well. Since she is my little helper in the flower beds, she has a little garden room. My wonderful step-dad hand-painted the picket fence mural on the wall. Since Lily is 3, she is working on her ABC's and nothing is better than having her wall covered with floral alphabet cards to help her learn. I love these cards! I used to sell them in my shop and are available at Eeboo. I just punched holes in the corners and threaded ribbon through to hang them. Once again, I was on a tight budget and everything thing in this room only cost a few hundred dollars and most importantly, Lily loves it!






I have one more daughter that got a new room this year and I think her room is my favorite. More pics of those to come (I have to get her to clean it first!)