Open Floor Plan: Rancher With Open Center Stairs

A renovated 1970's rancher style home with open center stairs. About two years ago, our traditional ranch-style home went from having small, dark, boxed in rooms to light, bright and completely open.  I took you along for the entire process of the  renovation , but never shared in depth detail and pictures of the open center stairs.   There's very little inspiration on old ranchers with open center stairs, so in an effort to help others who plan similar renovations,  I'm sharing a closer look at the design and layout of our open-concept center rancher stairs. ...

Read more »

Stylish and Budget-Friendly Mid Century Modern Accent Chairs

The best stylish and budget-friendly mid century modern accent chairs! The kitchen and first-floor renovation are coming to an end, which means it's time to think about decorating, in particular, finding a pair of mid century modern accent chairs for the living room.   Removing four walls  created the open floor plan I desired, but also created a few new design challenges, mainly furniture placement.  Unfortunately, I had to let some furniture go that no longer worked with the new layout, but it's been fun hunting for pieces that better fit the style and function of the new open floor plan.   Lately, I've been on the lookout for a pair of medium size mid century modern accent chairs and wanted to share a few of my favorite budget-friendly picks.   ...

Read more »

Kitchen Renovation Progress: Board and Batten Wall, Craftsman Style Columns and Railing

An open floor plan of a ranch style home with white craftsman style columns and black modern railing.  It's coming to the end of the kitchen renovation and it feels so good!   Counters and appliances have been installed and the kitchen has finally been usable for a couple weeks now.   There's still work to be done, but seeing it all come together could not be more exciting.   The latest project to be completed (well, almost complete) are the columns and railing that we added after removing the walls and opening up the stairs.  Let's take a look back at how the house looked a few months ago.  ...

Read more »

Week 14 Kitchen Update: Floors, Island and Trim

Week fourteen kitchen expansion and first-floor renovation update of our little ranch style home.  If you have been following my Instagram stories then you probably know all about our crazy 4-week hardwood floor drama.  Without rehashing all the traumatic details, let's just say, the guys who refinished the floors were incompetent and failed miserably to refinish them properly.  They ended up having to correct and refinish the floors not once, not twice, but three times to get them acceptable.  It was beyond frustrating and set us back weeks on the renovation. Thankfully, the floor drama is now behind us and we are moving forward and getting so close to being able to actually use the kitchen.  The cabinets, island, sink and a lot of the trim work have been completed and the quartz countertops should be installed by the end of the week.  The house is still very much a work in progress, but having the floors finished and being able to move in fu......

Read more »

A Real Life Messy Home Tour

An imperfect and real life messy home tour of a DIY and home decor blogger!  "Don't compare your behind the scenes with someone else's highlight reel." It's hard to imagine the beautifully decorated spaces you see on blogs and Instagram could ever be less than perfect.  It's easy to assume these gorgeous spaces are always impeccably neat and perfectly organized.   Well, guess what?  I'm here to tell you that the majority of bloggers, Instagrammers and influencers do not always live a perfectly neat and organized life.  I've talked to many blogger friends and there's almost always a mess behind the camera. It can be so easy to compare our less than perfect homes with those that seem so perfect.  I know I sometimes get discouraged with the way my home looks.  The paper piles that need to be sorted, the laundry overflowing from baskets, the never-ending dog hair that needs to be vacuumed, but then I remember the mess i......

Read more »

Our New Sleek and Modern Ceiling Fan

Product for this post was provided by  Wayfair .  As always, all opinions are my own.  (affiliate links have been used) What are your thoughts on ceiling fans?  For years, I shot down and vetoed my husband's request to add one to our living room.   Maybe it was all the design shows bashing ceiling fans for being tacky and dated that turned me off.  Maybe it was our old and dated 1970's kitchen fan with orange and brown floral globe that gave all ceiling fans a bad rap.  Whatever the reason, I was adamant about not having a fan in our living room. Fast forward 12 years and guess what?   I realized I was being ridiculous for not wanting a ceiling fan in our living room and happily had the perfect sleek and modern fan installed last week.   After all, they have come a long way since the 70's and it does get pretty darn hot and humid here in Maryland. Do you remember the round-up of  sleek and modern ceiling fa......

Read more »

Double Duty Decor: How to Effectively Hide Toy Clutter

Clever and stylish ways to effectively hide toy clutter! Building, creating and decorating is my thing , organizing is not.   Walk into my home on any given day and you are bound to find piles of papers, laundry in the living room, craft projects on the dining room table and toys that are not where they belong.  My home is small and it's no secret that I'm not the most motivated organizer.  I would much rather spend my evenings blogging and creating projects over doing laundry, putting away dishes and tidying up the house.  Unfortunately, this results in unnecessary stress so I'm working hard on keeping our living and dining rooms organized and toy free with double duty decor.  We keep a lot of toys in our basement , but most of them end up in our living room since that's where we spend most of our time.  Unfortunately, I lost the "no toys in the living room" battle years ago, so instead of fighting with the kids to take their toys to their......

Read more »

$5.00 Tea Towel Pillow

If you don't like sewing or are just starting out then this project is for you!  It's not only super easy an inexpensive, but it takes very minimal (and I mean minimal) sewing skills.  Seriously, I think it took me at most 5 minutes to sew this $5.00 Tea towel pillow.   It all started on one of my recent HomeGoods trips (you can find the recap on my "Let's Go Shopping" round up).   I loved the colors and fringe and knew right away it would make the perfect pillow. Are you ready for the difficult tutorial?  (did you catch the sarcasm?) ...

Read more »

A Meaningful Living Room Update

You know the feeling you get when you walk into a store and your eye is immediately drawn to a piece that you just have to have?  A piece that no matter what you do you just can't get it out of your head.  It could be a rug, a picture, an amazing pillow, a unique vintage item, anything.  I got that very feeling when I was browsing online and came upon a  numbered eye chart .  I had such a strong feeling about this piece and knew it would be the perfect addition to our living room. It might look like an ordinary eye chart to most, but to me it means more, so much more. It's not too often that I get personal on the blog, but today I wanted to share a bit about my son's journey.  This child has no fear and is constantly keeping us on our toes.  Not only has he been rushed to the hospital for an allergic reaction, but he has also broken his clavicle, bumped and bruised his head more times than I can count and suffered through a pretty serious ......

Read more »

Library Card Catalog Inspired Furniture Makeover

I have a serious crush on vintage library catalogs and would love to get my hands on one to call my own.   The problem is they are so few and far between and my beer budget just doesn't cut it when it comes to paying for such a unique and vintage item.   That doesn't mean I'm giving up my hunt, but until I get my hands on one I've settled for giving a piece of furniture a library catalog inspired makeover. ...

Read more »

{Entryway Reveal} DIY Plank Wall Tutorial

How to create a beautiful and inexpensive faux shiplap wall!  You guys, I am SO excited about our new faux shiplap entryway wall!  This was a spur of the moment project that popped in my head on Friday night and by Saturday morning I was putting planks up on the wall!  The best part about this DIY shiplap wall project is that the total cost was less than $50.00!                                    My husband pretty much gives me full reign of the decorating in our house, but that doesn't mean he doesn't shake his head at a few of my ideas.  When I mentioned I wanted to plank the wall in our entryway, he looked at me and asked, "Can we just finish one project before starting another one?" Well, no....no I can't.  I have a slight problem of not being able to sit still.  I have to be doing some sort of project or I go a little crazy.  It may seem like I'v......

Read more »

How to make West Elm inspired Bin Pulls

An easy way to make unique West Elm inspired bin pulls! Yesterday, I shared my  HomeGoods table that I altered to look like my favorite  West Elm Bin Pull Console table .  I not only loved the iron legs of the West Elm table, but the bin pulls were amazing too.  I knew if I was going to even try to replicate the table, that I had to include the bin pulls.  I searched and searched for similar pulls, but came up empty.  That's when I got the idea to create my own pulls. SUPPLIES NEEDED TO MAKE WEST ELM INSPIRED BIN PULLS Affiliate links have been used - Thin sheet metal - Tin snips - Metal file - Ruler - Drill - Drill bits - Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint HOW TO MAKE CUSTOM BIN PULLS First, you'll want to figure out the hole distance and how long you need to make your pulls.  The distance of the holes for the West Elm pulls were 5 inches apart, so I made my pulls 6 inches long and tall enough to be able to bend......

Read more »