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!!

Christmas is Coming!

One holiday down one more to go! It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas at my house. We've got the tree up and little decorations starting to pop up around the living room. Since our space is limited I am trying to keep it simple. However, that isn't going to prevent me from decking the halls. I am finding the easiest way to decorate when you have limited space is to us little things like tiny ornaments that you can stick between things to add a touch décor (see picture below). I am also trying to take advantage of wall space. If you are able to try hang stuff it makes it easy because you can use any blank space you have then put something festive but simple. Don't over crowd your space and make it look cluttered though. Ry-bear and I are hoping to finish our Christmas decorating this week so I will put up more pictures when we have it all done but here are a few of what we've accomplished so far. What are your Christmas decorating tricks for small spaces? Feel free to leave pictures in the comments with your holiday décor!

See the little Christmas balls? I am going to add some lights or garland to the bottom half as well since it is so vacant looking.

Tape looks kind of ugly but I used what I had on hand :P lol

You can do this over ANY window. I have a second curtain rod I put it on but you can do it without the curtain rod as well. Just tape it over the window sill where you can't see it.

 The Christmas tree and finished product (well on that half the room anyway). More pictures to come say tuned.

A Little Touch of Fall

So fun fact not only has Thanksgiving become such an under celebrated holiday that you can barely find a store with any thanksgiving stuff in it, now when you do find a store everything is already on sale! I am both happy and disturbed at this. Happy cause hello I just got stuff even cheaper but disturbed because how can it be such a glanced over holiday! I mean I get that it is football season but I should at least be able to find something other than paper plates with turkey on them. On to the fun stuff! So I have finally started redoing my living room. I stayed up a few nights ago to clean the room and move some stuff around so I can have room for the Christmas tree. In an effort to start a tradition I will be putting the Christmas tree up November 25th. Yes I am that person. But first lets focus on Thanksgiving! I am so excited for this holiday and I am hoping I can get the house in order so maybe I can start forming some form of holiday tradition. If you are wondering why I am behind in my decorating and house organizing it is because we were supposed to be in our house by early to mid November. Unfortunately, we have hit some snags in the property we bought, mainly the people who sold it to us didn't disclose that you couldn't put septic on it due to an easement for the water treatment plant across the street. So our housing endeavors have been put on hold which is why I am determined to make the space I have work and make it functional. Moving on! First things first I got new curtains. Not expensive because hello budget! but I have been wanting something different for a while so I finally spent the $20 to get curtains. I took the curtains I had in my bedroom and put them in the living area...it already looks so much better. I also moved the 5 gallon fish tank which really opened up the door way space...granted a tree is going there soon but hey we do what we have to do for Christmas right! Now as of right now I am still in the designing portion of the decorating phase. I am thinking of moving my recliner into the bedroom and putting the desk in the living room. However, as of right now I think I am keeping everything as is. So now I can start decorating for the holiday season. The easiest way to decorate for the holidays without breaking the budget is to keep it simple. I went to Hobby Lobby last night and purchased a Thanksgiving cross (it is so cute), a box of 13 glittery pumpkins (I like glitter), a bag of fabric leaves,, and a thing of ribbon. All of it WAY over priced of course because it is hobby lobby BUT EVERYTHING was half off so I got it all for just under $25...Still expensive but since I didn't have anything it was necessary. Now I can just start adding to what I already have each year.

So below are pictures of my simple yet still budget friendly purchases and some before and afters of the living room.

First up what I got!

 

 

                                        

 

Before (I will admit I did clean up before I took pictures)

After! Like I said SIMPLE but still decorative ^_^

Before (The 5 gallon fish tank used to sit on the other side of the TV)

After! (Love little glitter pumpkins, I want to get some foliage as well still)

 Before

After!

The ribbon I haven't used yet because I wanted to do a bow for the door but I forgot I don't know how to make a bow. Point is no this isn't the most over the top perfectly decorated home that just screams I love the holidays. However, for the space, time and budget I currently have it lets me have a little taste of fall décor. That's as far as I have gotten so far but there will be more décor and cleaning organizing tips to come so stay tuned and don't forget to subscribe and follow me to get these little things right in you inbox!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy November ^_^

Happy November! I am so excited for the holidays. Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday followed just barely underneath it with Christmas. I love thanksgiving because it is the one holiday that to me hasn’t been ruined by retail marketing (obviously considering it just gets skipped over 90% of the time). Seriously though I love Thanksgiving. Pumpkin pie and turkey, hot coco, cold weather (or barely cooler if you live in texas), families gathering together to eat and talk and enjoy each other’s company, football! I am one of those, go all out decorate and host a party kind of people. I remember when I was little thinking about all the things I would do during the holidays when I got married. Although my plans didn’t quite work out as I planned (His family isn’t big into holidays and mine is out of the picture) I am still looking forward to when we are finally in our own place and I can really get into the holiday season. My project for the next few weeks is going to be to get our little house all decked out for the holiday season. However, I am working on a baby budget (I’m talking infancy here) and a small space with way to much clutter. If this sounds like you then stay tuned for how to plan for the holidays on a tight budget and limited space. To give you a better idea of what kind of space I am working with we have aprox. 600sq. ft. and it is two mirrored bedroom/bathrooms connected by a hallway with a door leading to the back yard in one of them. So we’ve basically turned one of the bedrooms into our living room (the one with the door to the outside) and it’s connecting bathroom is our “kitchen.” We use the hallway as an extension of kitchen which then leads into our master bedroom. So basically a one bedroom/bathroom house. Honestly I have no complaints! It is a lovely little setup. The only noticeable shortcoming is lack of a kitchen but we make it work.

 Anyway, if you would like to join me in my decluttering/decorating extravaganza then stay tuned. As for now if you are joining me on this adventure then lets start with a room. I am starting with my living room because the only way I am getting a Christmas tree in there is if I move a LOT of stuff around.

First, pick a section of your home to start with and make a plan. Start with the obvious simple stuff, pick up the trash and if there is clutter that shouldn’t be there move it. If it has a home, put it away. If not then pick an area (preferably the last place you plan to deal with) and turn it into your “pile.” This is where all the stuff that you don’t know what to do with will go…we will return to this towards the end of our adventure.

After all the obvious trash and clutter is gone next you need to start deciding what to keep and what needs to go away. Get a bin or box and some wrapping paper (if you have breakable stuff) and start going through your room and deciding if stuff needs to stay or go. Once this is done there will be a lot more space for holiday decorations.

 Now I don’t know about you but I have three MAJOR obstacles in my living room that need to be moved. I have a five gallon and ten gallon fish tank and a recliner in the corner where my tree went last year. Obviously these items can’t just be “stored” until later. So I am going to have to do some serious reworking to make stuff fit…or get one of those “night stand” Christmas trees (that is so not happening). So if you have any major obstacles identify them now so you can start redecorating to accommodate those items.

If you have followed me this far then you are well on your way to decorating and decluttering your home on a budget. With work, some family drama, school and finals week only a month away it promises to be a busy next few months. Life goals is to have Thanksgiving decorations up by Nov. 1^st but since I have clearly missed that deadline I am going to try to get everything done by the 15^th. Subscribe and follow me to get these décor tips sent straight to your email. Leave a comment with your ideas for decorating on a budget or send me an email for questions or suggestions (vintagegirl112212@gmail.com) I will try to answer as many as I can. Stay tuned, and pictures are coming soon!   

 

Making it Feel like Fall

Oh my gosh y'all it is FALL! I can't believe it the Texas weather finally caught up with the seasons. Granted this is Texas so fall may not last more than a few days but it is exciting none the less. With fall finally here I am so excited to start decorating and filling my home with the smell of pumpkin spice and everything nice. If you are like me and working with very limited space (two mirrored bed/bathrooms connected by a hallway {one bedroom/bath combo is the living room/kitchen}) anyway, if you are working with limited space then it can be difficult to go all out and decorate. So here are a few little things you can do that will give your home that fall feeling without to much work or clutter.

Candle Warmers

Step one get yourself those little warmers. The ones you put the wax cubes in and they melt and make your house smell like happiness. Get two if you can afford them. Step two get some fall smelling wax cubes, melt 'em and wait for your home to smell like a pumpkin leaf exploded ^_^ (I REALLY love fall).

A wreath

Get yourself a simple pretty fall colored wreath and hang it on your door. It's like fall welcoming you home every time you enter.

Throw blanket

Get a fall colored throw blanket. Neutral browns and subtle oranges. Drape it over a chair or across the couch. All fall and snuggly.

Pumpkins

get some tiny little decorative pumpkins and a little touch of fall greenery from a craft store. Place them around the house wherever you feel needs a little fall sprucing. 

If you are lucky enough to have one of those fireplace you can turn the heat on or off of then light it up (still to hot down here for the heat) and enjoy!

Happy Fall!! ^_^