Category: Not Just a Mom

Hello! How was your weekend? Ours was filled with a few errands, baseball and basketball on Saturday (baseball was rained out on Sunday), some family time and more!

It’s already the second Monday of the month (sigh!), so I’m co-hosting with these ladies for our Not Just a Mom series.

This month’s topic is Home Tour.

Well, I’ve written blog posts sharing our home improvements, so I will link back to those during this post. I did a Transformation Tuesday series during the pandemic sharing our house updates through the years.They include before and after photos of our fixer upper home that we purchased all most seven years ago. Wow! That’s hard to believe.

I shared in the first post of that series that I didn’t even want to look at our house because I knew it needed so much work. Travis convinced me to look, and we stopped by the house a few times before making an offer (at the same time that another offer was being made too!) The inside of the house we could update. We couldn’t beat the location, the yard, the schools, and more.

So here we go….

Living Room:

I love our living room and how bright it is. The only thing I wish is that we could change up the seating configuration. All the main seating is up against the wall with the windows. There were hardwood floors under the carpet in the living and office (dining) room. They were untreated which actually worked well for us when we tackled this and the kitchen area.

I’ve been thinking about adding “shiplap” to the walls on either side of the fireplace and add a mirror above the chest. That’s on our project “to do” list.

Office:

So, our office is what would be the formal dining room. Our first couple of years here, we did have formal dining room furniture that we had in our previous home. We then decided to make this space more functional for us and brought up the desk that was in the basement, ordered this cute cabinet, and moved these chairs in from the kitchen for additional living room seating when needed.

Kitchen:

The kitchen is one of my favorite parts of our home. When we moved in, there was carpet in the kitchen! A few quick fixes we did pretty immediately included, pulling up the carpet, laying hardwood and then staining the kitchen, living room/office, and hall floors all the same finish. Travis painted the lower paneling white and eventually painted the fire place. We had the island installed within the first month of living here. We had the cabinets (they are great quality…just not our color preference) painted after living here about six months.

Since I wrote the kitchen post, we have made a few more dream list item updates with a gas stove and updated (as close to farm house style as I could get) sink. Here’s that post and the kitchen post:

Sun room:

The sun room was a perplexing space for some time. Travis painted the wall paneling gray almost immediately, and then we also changed out the flooring within the first six months of living here. Until April of 2020, we didn’t really use this room much, and it housed our leftover furniture. Then, the pandemic motivated us to figure out this space. We purchased some new furniture, brought up the tv cabinet form the basement that I had painted, and made this area more inviting. We now spend lots of time in here!

**Sun room part 2 is at the end of the Life Lately post.

Master Bedroom:

Our master was not a space I put forth a lot of effort. I always had bedding that I loved and wanted to feel cozy, but we hadn’t done much else to our room. Randomly, in December 2019, I had the idea to move our bed how it is in this photo (it used to on the wall where the pictures are). This created more space when you walk into the room which I immediately loved.

In April/May 2020, we purchased new bedding, Travis and Hadley painted the walls, we hung a little gallery wall, and Travis and I put up Wall Pops wall paper on the wall where our tv is located. (You can see that in the master bedroom post). Now, this room is the definitely more cozy. I do wish our room was bigger (as well as my closet), but the room definitely is more functional now and a space I enjoy.

Master Bathroom:

Like our bedroom, the master bathroom is also small. I can’t believe we waited as long as we did to update it, but the finished product was definitely worth the wait.

Kids’ Rooms:

The kids’ rooms both show their personality. We kept them as is for about nine months before painting them and adding some personal touches in the summer of 2015. Like the master, I do wish their rooms were bigger, and, of course, I wish they were tidier, but I kind of let them do what they want with their rooms, and ask them to pick up every couple of days. Hadley is asking for a bit of a refresh, but we just haven’t had time this summer. I can understand wanting a bit more of a “sophisticated” middle school look ;), but I do think her room has stayed pretty age appropriate which was my hope when making color choices a few years ago.

Hayden’s room is still pretty much the same, but he now has a desk in his room.

Basement:

The basement is still a space that is a work in progress. Like most basements, it’s not our most put together part of the home, but we have tried to make it inviting and have updated it with new floors, Travis (and I) painted the wood paneling and we’ve made color choices that tie into the rest of the house to at least make things as cohesive as possible.

Travis also painted these bookshelves white, added the wooden planks and mounted the tv. This was definitely a labor of love, but a cheap update with lots of bang for your buck!

I don’t think I’ve shared this but almost two months ago, our master shower leaked down into the basement bathroom and seeped on to the basement floors. So, our basement and basement floors currently look like a disaster area! I think the new floors will finally arrive this week, and then hopefully we can get the basement put back together.

Basement Bathroom:

The basement bathroom was my very first Transformation Tuesday post! It’s still one of my favorite before and afters. Travis now uses this bathroom, and the closet in the basement is where he keeps his clothes.

Thankfully, with the master shower leak, this area was spared except for a few wet walls (The insurance company brought out fans) and a hole in the ceiling to repair the pipe. That hole is finally getting fixed this week, but thankfully, this bathroom is still in great condition!

We still have a few more updates both major and minor. The hall bath still needs updated and the basement needs to be put back together. Then, we are doing little things like plantation shutters in the kids’ room, a shade for the front door and basement windows, and probably making a few tweaks in the kids’ rooms to prep for middle school.

So that’s a look at our home sweet home! I love looking at houses, so I can wait to see what others share! House Hunters and Fixer Upper (and similar shows) are my favorites to watch. House Hunters is permission to be nosy, and I love a good before and after on remodeling shows!

Next month’s topic is Daily Must Haves. The first thing that comes to mind is coffee! 😆

Make sure to check out the other ladies’ posts, and I hope you have a great week!

Thanks for stopping by.

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