Home Decorating Ideas

My biggest and best makeovers of 2016!

Well HELLO my friends! How have you been?! I don't think I've ever taken this much time away from the blog but it was wonderful to decompress and spend time with friends and family. Our holiday season has been great and I hope yours has been too.

I'm at the same spot I'm at every year at this time -- so ready to put away Christmas decor and get the house sparkling clean. I'm also totally ready to tackle some DIY projects...I've got the itch!

But first I like to finish up the year by recapping some of my favorite projects of the year. This time I'm focusing on rooms that I completed or mostly completed. If you've been around for long you know it sometimes takes me years to redo a room from start to finish, so when I even get close I'm thrilled. 😆

I'll start with the beginning of the year and of course will link to each space as I go!

Early this year I finished up the dining room turned library transformation that had been underway for years! I was THRILLED to get it finished up. Here's a reminder of how our dining room looked for a long time:

Years ago I started by building a wall of built ins:

And I finished up the space with a new light fixture and rug earlier this year:

I've since simplified the bookcase decor some and I'll share that soon. It was feeling a little heavy to me and I love the simpler look!

I've been transforming our bedroom for years now...it's been a long haul. ;) I did get quite a bit done this year and it's SO close to done! I got and made some new bedding:

And finally finished painting each big wall (one at a time) that had been a dark gray/green for ten years:

Here's how they look now:

(TV wall in master)

I ADORE our bedroom now. It's so bright and crisp and still has plenty of contrast with the dark accent wall and floors. Love!!

Our guest room has had a few more updates (I just realized I haven't even shared some of the recent ones!) and it's just a couple more projects away from being done. I ended up painting the accent wall white to make it pop and we got a beautiful new metal bed:

And I finally painted the IKEA dressers (and added some pretty DIY knobs) a couple months ago:

This room is so cozy and pretty, I just love it.

One of the biggest transformations in our home was in the smallest room. The difference paint and new light bulbs made in our son's bathroom was staggering. It was VERY yellow before:

I painted the walls, printed out some art and changed the bulbs...all made a HUGE difference in here.

My hope is that we'll be able to tackle bigger projects in this room this year!

I think our basement got the biggest updates this year. It started when we had a huge flood from our HVAC system into my husband's office. We pulled up the carpet in there and decided to go with vinyl, water-resistant flooring instead:

We loved the flooring so much, later in the year we pulled up the rest of the gross carpet, put this stuff down everywhere and rearranged some furniture:

It was like a brand new space just by moving the sectional around!

We LOVE this flooring! It has been absolutely wonderful down here. I don't worry about it one bit:

You can see above that we started another big project down there too -- the fireplace wall we had planned for years.

I shared the final fireplace wall here...we're obsessed with it:

We spend SO much time down here now...it's been so awesome and has completely changed the feel of the whole basement.

Another one of my biggest and favorite project was changing up our loft/craft room. It's a large space that we were never using well:

Here's a look at how this room looks now -- it functions as a craft room and office so perfectly!:

Our new, large desk is my favorite part and both my husband and I use it almost every day. This room is SO functional now and all the added storage in the cabinets and window seat is fantastic!:

I hate any underutilized space and this room was one of them until this transformation. It's such a beautiful space to work!

I forgot about another favorite! (I have a lot of them, duh.) Years ago I painted our mudroom a dark peacock blue:

It really is a lovely color, but it just didn't mesh with us or the rest of our house. The difference some white paint made was incredible:

It is so welcoming and bright now (again, the new bulbs help tremendously!) and I feel happy the second I walk through that door! It fits with the rest of the house so much better now.

And finally, this one isn't a room makeover, but it's a project that has been incredibly popular all year and especially since Christmas. You guessed it...it's all about purging! :) I shared my experience with the Konmari method and how it has literally changed our lives:

Usually this time of year I'm starting to purge big time...and I won't need to do nearly what I have it the past because of this method. Changed. my. life. I'm looking forward to going through a few things and then focusing on deep cleaning the house instead of trying to get rid of everything...cause it's already gone. :)

I hope you enjoyed the recap -- is there a room makeover you loved? It's hard for me to pick a favorite but it would have to be between the basement progress and the loft makeover. Both have made such a big difference in our home!

THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for an amazing 2016 and for coming back to see what I'm up to every week. Writing this blog continues to be one of the greatest joys of my life. Have a safe and fun New Year's Eve and I'll see you next year! :)

Christmas thrift store makeovers

Hey all! Hope you're week has been wonderful! I've been incredibly lazy and it's been amazing. :) I've got a few more errands to run and a ton of wrapping to do over the next few days so it's time to get productive again.

I have some super quick thrift store makeovers I wanted to share with you that I got at an awesome new store (for my local readers).

The lovely folks at Mission 27 Resale in Indianapolis contacted me a few months ago and asked me to come out to visit their new location downtown. Mission 27 is run by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which is an organization that serves the poor and disadvantaged. I LOVE their mission for this store in particular. The lovely folks that run this organization noticed that the food that was being given out at their food bank wasn't always the healthiest of options (because of the cost). The proceeds from this store go to buying healthy foods for the food bank, among other things.

ALL of the items in the store are donated and it is HUGE. I have to tell you I've never seen nicer items in a thrift shop! I can't wait to go back when I have more time to shop around.

I grabbed a few treasures that I made over with spray paint for the holidays! They had a bunch of these stocking holders -- I got rid of ours last year because they were falling apart:

Some were in decent shape but some had areas where the finish was coming off:

I just took some sandpaper to those areas and sanded until the finish was smooth and not flaking anymore.

Then I sprayed with my old go-to spray paint, oil rubbed bronze:

They turned out as good as new! You may have noticed them on the new fireplace in the basement:

I ended up moving them upstairs to the family room fireplace:

I also found this CUTE wood reindeer set:

I loved their modern shape! I took the old bows off and sanded them down a bit -- they were pretty rough. Because of their rough wood I knew spray paint wouldn't cover well, so I grabbed my favorite red paint for Christmas:

You can't go wrong with Santa Red! :)

I did a couple coats -- still letting a bit of the wood grain come through:

I added some bows just to see how they looked but I think I like them without better:

I spent about $15 on the four stocking holders and the reindeer and the makeovers were easy! The deer are my favorite because they are so unique and fun. :)

This isn't your regular thrift store...check out some of the photos I grabbed from my visit:

If you live nearby I would give Mission 27 visit -- the location is massive and they have an incredible selection. (Their women's clothing is crazy good.) This location is near Midland Antiques, another favorite of mine, so you could make a day of it! :)

I plan to be back before Christmas but not making any promises! Depends on how much wrapping I get done. ;) Hope you all have a wonderful and safe end to your week!

Welcome to our Christmas home (tour two!)

Hello there and happy Friday! It's the start of our favorite few weeks of the year! Our family is together, no one is traveling, no school, homework or basketball...it's a welcome relaxing time after a lovely but busy year.

I'm joining in on another fabulous Christmas tour today and this time we're sharing our "welcoming" spaces -- front porches and entry ways. The lovely Chris from Just a Girl is our host and you NEED to go see her amazing front porch! Wow. You can see the majority of our holiday house from last week and the other wonderful bloggers involved in that tour here. Stay tuned at the end of this post to see the other ladies on this week's tour and be sure to check out the talented Jen from Tatertots and Jello next!

I'll try not to talk too much and let you enjoy the photos -- I will link to related posts under the photos if you want more info!

Our front porch is super tiny and years ago I embraced it and decided to decorate it like a big porch. ;) I wish we had something bigger to dress up but ours always looks festive with greenery and red touches:

(Extending concrete steps)

I usually add more greenery around the door, but this year I put it around the railing instead. It's a lot quicker to do the latter and I'm all about simple and easy this year!

I LOVE our shutters and love dressing them up for the holidays. I just tack up the ribbon from both the top and bottom:

greenery and lights outside Christmas decor

I really wanted some lanterns for our extended steps this year, but haven't found anything I trust to leave outside. I'm hoping to find something next summer.

Lynch Creek Farm sent me this gorgeous wreath this year and it is SO so pretty. I chose the traditional look with pine cones and red accents and I'm in love with it:

The "merry" was a wood sign I found at the Target dollar spot that I spray painted red. I just nestled it inside and I love how it looks!

Of course I love the outside even more when the sun goes down! (Which seems like 4 p.m. lately.):

I love driving up to our home all year, but this time it's extra special. :)

Here's a look inside the front door:

(Black interior doors)

That tile is coming up in 2017! Whoot! I've been waiting years to replace it and I can't wait!

I was pretty low key with this space since just to the other side stands our giant Christmas tree:

As you can tell, I have a thing with blue. A color I used to hate in my decor! ;)

I love our simple, pretty nativity set:

The fluffy wreath was from HomeGoods:

You can see how I made those snowy candles with dollar store candles here:

You don't see our staircase right when you walk in, which was something different about this layout that I loved when I first saw it:

I've had a lot of fun with these stairs over the years!

(Black accent wall)

And in the evening!:

I get asked about those grids on the wall a lot -- they are actually old window grids I found at Goodwill years ago. They sat in our garage forever until I made some changes to that staircase wall earlier this year:

Adding my jars filled with fake snow and tea lights is one of my favorite additions every year!:

Just around the corner is the staircase to our basement. I dressed it up with a wreath on the mirror and then hung our DIY Pottery Barn count down:

(DIY wood wall)

You'll notice the advent is empty -- it's been a crazy month. ;)

I shared our newly painted mud room a few months ago -- I absolutely LOVE it. It was worth all of the work to paint every single surface in here!:

That room has been completely finished for some time and I need to share the full reveal with you soon!

It may not look like it to some, but I really simplified our decor this year. I've said it before, but some greenery and pops of red are all a room needs to make it feel festive!

Make sure to visit all of the following talented ladies as well! If you're slowing down this weekend, this is the perfect way to spend a couple hours...with a fire and mug of hot chocolate! :) I will be back over the next two weeks sharing plenty, it just may not be as often as normal.