Creating Home: Simple Improvements

So obviously y'all know that we have been working hard to get our little home all sweetly situated! We have put a LOT of work into painting, adding trim work, electrical wiring, raising the roof on the extra room off the house, turning the garage back into a garage, and that's before we fix the flooring, do any yard work, or put anything like furniture into the house. So while all of that has obviously had a major impact on our little fixer upper house there are also simple little things we've done that have completely altered the appearance of the home. I am taking a page out of the book from one of the blogs I follow (http://thefrugalhomemaker.com/) and decided to start sharing our little remodeling/redecorating adventure with you. I was originally going to do a series called creating home, however, I decided to rename that series and use the tagline to make it easier to find my décor and homemaking posts. On with post!! where was I oh yes...I am excited about sharing this with you, because seeing the before and after pictures really reminds me just how much work we have done. More importantly though I want to get into simple things that you can do on a tight budget that can vastly improve the functionality and appearance of your home! So while the major before and after pictures I will save till later, I want to share a few of our minor improvements with you now!

Fix the lighting

Okay long story short if you have crappy lighting your house is not gonna look to hot. Though it may seem that no one would really notice or care about what fan you put up or if you outside light fixtures are "pretty" people do! I know crazy right!!! I never thought it would make that big of an impact but it really does. It is one of the subtle things you can do that can completely alter the appearance of the home. Example....our original porch light verses our new porch light!

It is a simple thing but it made a BIG difference in the entrance of the home. Best part...it was only $10!!!

Of course that isn't the only lighting we changed out we did the fans and are working on doing the bathroom and hallway.

Paint

Oh painting is a wonderful thing. It can turn pretty much any room into a completely different environment. For us we picked grey. I have lived my whole life in a beige house so I was determined to under no circumstances have a beige house when I finally got one. I picked grey because frankly I still needed a semi-neutral color. IT LOOKS FABULOUS! originally I was going to have a general color for the main parts of the house and then do the bedroom different. buuut with it being a smaller space I thought that it would look to patchwork quilty if I did the bedroom and bathroom a different color. I instead decided to make an accent wall in the bedroom. Just a darker shade of grey. We also put that darker grey on the inside of the front and back door. It really tied the whole house together. Plus we did a fresh coat of white on the baseboards to freshen it up a little. (feel free to ignore the people in the room. It was the only picture I had that had that wall and door before we painted :p ) (I will be taking better pictures soon!)

Decorate

The way you decorate really determines the atmosphere of the home. Whether it feels cluttered, organized or sterile in some cases. Now I am NOT big into staying with the "trends" of the year. I like what I like and I won't decorate with something that is "in" if I don't like it. However, once in a while my likes link up with the trends of the year. I love it when this happens because I go all mainstream and say "I liked it before it was cool" lol. Anyway, I am a BIG picture taker. I take pictures of anything and everything. That also means I have a lot of picture frames and little sayings I like to hang places and oh my word I really don't have enough wall space for everything. If you have the same problem then try a rotation method. Pick the ones that flow together well and then change them out every few months. It keeps the place looking fresh and perky and your guests excited to see what you've done with the place. I am still in the decorating phase but here are a few pictures of what I've done so far.

Curtains can really be a key element in setting the mood of a room! The red gave a nice accent color as well as provides much needed insulation against the brutal Texas heat.

The bathroom

Okay seriously the bathroom can totally make a home. It is like the one room that could be just another boring bathroom or could completely be the best room in the house. I am currently working on ours. It is the one room in the house I have put on hold until later because it is perfectly functional as is and I want to wait till we have the money to do more with it. However, I have big plans for that room and I can't wait to share them with you!

Our biggest project.

So the little extra room off the house that has the utility room in it has easily been our biggest project. It had some water damage so a new roof was a must and are wonderful little framing guy was able to do about a half a dozen other things. I am not going to put up pictures for this just yet since we are talking about simple improvements however, I will be doing several before and after's of the house when it is completely finished and as we slowly get more stuff done! I am so excited about our little home!!!

I am so excited to share more details of our little home as we slowly pull it all together! Stay tuned for some more updates! Don't forget to subscribe for the newsletter and like our facebook page!!! You can also follow me on twitter and Instagram.

Working on a household project? Share it! leave a comment or email me at maryannapartlow@gmail.com! you just may be featured in my next Creating Home post!!