Our Living Room, Dining Room & Kitchen: A Before/After Tour

One of my favorite parts of our house is the living/dining room area. It's so unique and open, but at the same time has also created some interesting challenges. It's also come a long way since two years ago when we first bought the house. This whole area of our house was an outdated wooden wonderland of shame. This house had been on the market for a really long time, and I'm fairly certain it was because no one else could look past the wooden nightmare that was this house.

This is our lovely living room today, after tons of work.

(For updated versions go here or here.)

and here is how it looked when we first moved in:

You should know that those icky couches are hot pink underneath those saggy slipcovers. 

The biggest improvements were made when I painted all of the outdated wooden trim, and painted the walls. Here is the before and after of the living room.

Here is the view looking the opposite way. I love the stone fireplace that separates the foyer from the living room. It really makes our space so unique.

Here's a view of the gallery wall I created from antique botannical prints I found on eBay and framed myself. I'm a big fan of finding inexpensive ways to create art, and this is one of my faves.

And a closeup:

I also love the little mirrored tray on top. It was orignally black, but I spray painted it gold and now it looks great!

I also found a dresser during one of my thrift store trips and painted it. I also refurbished these little end tables, which were found on Craigslist. 

 Here is a picture from when we first started with the renovation of me tricking my little brother into painting my living room while I sit on the couch and watch my shows. 
That's what big sisters are for, right? 

Those windows are just about the only thing in this house I haven't painted, and I am happy to give credit where credit is due. Thanks brother and husband. I tried...and quickly failed. I don't work too well at skyscraper heights.

Let's move out of the living room. Walking backwards into the dining room, here is what you see:

and now we will turn around a bit and enter the dining room. Down those stairs is the foyer and entrance. 

And a view of the dining room.

Here is a side by side shot:

oh, don't worry....it get's worse...

So much better! 

One last stop on the tour. Let's go past the dining room and into the kitchen.

I already painted the kitchen cabinets white, but I still have so much planned for this little kitchen.  I also love the little 'look through' bar area. Those chairs are also a thrift store find. They were a gross brown color, but had a great shape, so I painted them with the same white we did all the trim in.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

For more on the living room and kitchen visit these posts:

How to paint tile countertops

Budget living room decor ideas

My living room design flops

Kitchen cabinet chalk paint makeover!

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How To Make a Gallery Wall

Last week I finally revealed the before and afters of the office, and today I'm sharing how to easily make a gallery wall in any room. 

Gallery walls are one of my favorite ways to decorate a wall. Mostly because you don't have to own a bunch of expensive art. You can just go to a bunch of thrift stores, find random frames and old art, and them piece them all together. And then, you can personalize it by throwing in a few personal pictures or artwork you've created.

Gallery walls are meant to be eclectic, so you can really include anything you want.

That being said, the trick behind a really great gallery wall is making it pleasing to the eye. So, even though you have a bunch of mismatched frames and art, you can make it look good by either making it symmetrical, or making it asymmetrical, but still lined up on an axis. I wanted to make the office gallery wall asymmetrical, so I created a horizontal axis that I could line the pieces up around. 

So that I could remember where my horizontal axis was, I measured the distance from the wall to my line (well, Jesse did) and then put up a piece of tape.

I also laid out my frames/mirrors/maps/sailboats/pictures of fat cats on the floor, and played with moving them around a little until I found an arrangement I liked.

I'm sure for the perfectionists out there, a better solution might be to use a level, or perhaps map out every little frame on the wall with cutouts, etc. I prefer to just throw them on the floor and mash them around until it looks just perfect. 
When in doubt, mash about.

So, after a little trial and error, this beauty was born!

There are so many options for creating a spectacular gallery wall. You can change your axis to be vertical or move it to the top or bottom of the arrangement. 

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

For more info on the above ideas, please visit this post, where I share some real-life examples in our own house.

That's all for today, ya'll!
Thanks so much for stopping by!
I'll be back soon to share the guest bathroom makeover.
 It's my favorite thing ever.

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The $300 Office Makeover!

I'm so excited to finally get to share the office with you guys today! I've been working on it for weeks, trying to stretch my little budget as far as it would go. 


I had about $300 to work with on this room, so it took a little...um...effort. 


But, it's finally done! Finally.

So, let's get started with the before and afters!

Here's what the office looked like weeks after we moved in. It had dark outdated trim, peachy beige walls, and tons of mismatched furniture...basically a disaster.

Then after a few months, I started to work on it a little bit.

And after several evenings of nonstop painting, this little room finally came together and turned into a space that I love.
Here's what the office looks like today.

 One of my favorite parts of this room is the upholstered chair I found at Marshalls for just $90. It has a silver nailhead trim and french script detail on the back. I usually thrift chairs and reupholster them (see 8 examples of that here), but I just couldn't pass this one up. 

I think it pairs perfectly with the desk, too.
The desk was originally a kitchen table I found on Craigslist awhile back for just $50. I sanded it down to raw wood and painted the entire thing black. 
I painted it the exact same way I painted this, but with Behr 'black suede'.

The only other thing I purchased for this room was the ivory shag rug that I found online for less than $60. I love the way it pulls everything together and softens the space.
This rug has since sold out, but a similar one can be found here. (Affiliate link)



My other favorite part of the office is the gallery wall. I didn't have much of the budget left over after the desk, chair, and rug so I thrifted most of the frames and filled them with wedding photos, a picture of Cheese, some random maps, and a sketch of a sailboat that I scored at the thrift store. I also spray painted a couple of wooden mirrors silver.

I also added a few thrifted accessories to the desk.
But if we're being real...most of this is just simple styling for photo's sake. In real life, this desk is covered in tangled cords, Fritos, and the occasional overweight cat. 

I also added a black bookshelf in the corner for storing office supplies. 

And created a diy chalkboard out of an old thrift store mirror that I painted white.

I added a large mirror to the other wall (also a thrift store find, painted black).

As you may have noticed, I painted all of the trim, doors, and walls.That ultimately made the biggest difference in this entire room.
For paint colors and a tutorial on painting trim, go here.

 For the lighting fixture, I found a $20 brass chandelier on eBay, painted it white, and attached tons of crystals.

This chandelier cost me $30 total and looks almost identical to the one that cost me $100 in our guest bedroom.

You can see the full chandelier tutorial here.

And that's the new and improved office! 
Since I only spent $300, I'm pretty thrilled with the way it turned out. I'm sure it will go through many more changes as time goes on, but it's so nice to spend time in this room now.

And that's all for today, ya'll!
To see the rest of the house, you can visit the house tour here.
Thanks so much for stopping by.
I'm so glad you're here!

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