Many of you have said you'd much prefer in-progress updates rather than wait for the final reveal. Here's a peek at where we are now. All sources are listed and linked at the bottom of the post.

Background:

The living room in our 1910 home measured at 18 feet by 9 feet, yet the radiators along the wall took up more than a foot of space. We made structural changes in the basement which allowed us to take out a wall and open the room to the foyer and a first floor bedroom we weren't using.

Updates to the Space:

• The long wall and dividing wall between foyer and small bedroom was taken out.
• Drywall added in place of plaster walls.
• Walls, ceiling, and trim got a coat of paint.
• Solid hickory hardwood flooring installed.
• Under the stairs closet was expanded to provide wall space for a mounted TV.
• Radiators, boiler, and pipes replaced with forced air heat/air conditioning.
• New fan in living room, an antique chandelier added to the front, can lights added.
• All new electrical.
• Additional outlets and switches added.
• Insulation piped in.
• Structural work in the basement, a massive beam added, new entrance to the bathroom, closet shelving added.

We sought to keep much of the original charm and details. The original, wavy glass window with the lace etching up top becomes a focal point. Doug refinished the original front door to the enclosed porch, the picture rail is waiting to be re-hung, and all the trim is original.

I had originally looked forward to having dark trim yet there were many damaged pieces. Gouges, some that split right in half. When opening the room we had to piece together the remaining trim and it made more sense to paint. Much of the trim in other rooms had already been painted which made me feel better about it. It really brightens up the space!

We kept the dark color in the room by using dark stain for new oak interior doors and left the original stair risers and banister dark.

(this is the only photo I have of the room empty) 

We hired a general contractor for the first time, and I thought it would be a dream compared to DIY-ing everything. In reality, we were left with unfinished projects, incorrect work, or major issues which had to be corrected/re-done. Some things may have to be re-done down the line, and others (like the overspray all over the original trim we planned to keep!!! ?) can't be fixed. The timeline was double what had been promised us, 4-5 weeks turned into 8 weeks.

Other individual tradesmen like our architect, HVAC company, electrician, did exceptional work. I'm thankful for them and happy to recommend if you're near the Chicagoland area.

All in all - it was a lesson in why DIY isn't just a necessity to save money. We spent a weekend after the work was done repainting, recaulking, cleaning, etc etc etc and finished the job the right way. We grew up with parents who instilled that level of care in us, we do projects how they're supposed to be done because that's how you do it. In the end, no one knows or loves your house like you.

Above is a look at the wall we had taken out. The first floor bedroom (to the right) was taken out, the closet under the stairs was expanded to make room for a hanging tv, and the foyer opened to the family room. In addition to the room brightening paint, we gained the light from two windows and a door! Other work not pictured includes our downstairs bathroom, which we expanded and moved the entry. It now opens to this space instead of the kitchen.

I'll show more on this space as we finish it off. We jumped into our kitchen/dining room renovations at the end of 2018 and much of the stuff from there is in here now! It is so incredibly nice to have this finished space to retreat to, even if there is chaos elsewhere. I almost don't feel like we're in the thick of things!

Sources:

ceiling fan: Hunter Hepburn ceiling fan, modern bronze (also available in matte black)
foyer chandelier: thrifted, antique brass and crystal
flooring: Sugar Mill Hickory, 5" wide solid wood flooring
stair flooring: soft pine, original to house - sanded and given a satin finish
wall paint: Statuesque, Behr Marquee paint, eggshell
trim paint: Polar Bear, Behr Marquee paint, satin

couch: La-Z-Boy, discontinued but details in this post
ottoman: discontinued, similar
blue/ivory pillows: @beaninlove (DM to request an order)
floral pillows: Classy Clutter Shop
buffalo check pillows: amazon

I'd love to hear what you think of all the changes!

Follow @whitehouseblackshutters on instagram for real-time updates and see peeks of what projects we're currently working on.

I don’t *only* find God in a church.

He is with me, even as I wash the pots and pans, as I comfort an unreasonable toddler, or change a squirmy baby. These tasks could be called mundane or sometimes called quite often annoying, haha. Yet these tasks of life act as my prayer, especially when I do them with a smile, to the best of my ability, and with love, even when I want to feel the opposite of love. These little acts of sacrifice and prayer will strengthen us. It’s not easy, it won’t happen every day, yet it’s something to strive towards.

I was recently visiting my cousin and she had this print by my good friend Katrina displayed near the sink. As one does, I then staged her super clean kitchen with fake dirty dishes in the sink to snap this picture. 😉

The flowing script reads,  "God walks among the pots and pans." What a message! But what exactly does it mean? This author translates the quote from the original Spanish and explains:

St. Theresa of Avila says that the seeker of God who has already found the joy of contemplation would prefer to be with God without interruption, but if her obligations call her to fulfill her everyday duties then God will be for her not in the contemplation but in these duties:

"So come on, my daughters, do not despair. If obedience demands of you to be employed in external things, then understand that if these are in the kitchen then the Lord walks among the pots and He helps you there both externally and internally."

How beautiful is that. We are praying not only with our hands and words, but also with our feet, with our kisses on cut fingers, with consoling a tired baby who won't give in, strong-willed children, staying patient when you want to yell... and so on. I'd love to know - how do you pray in the midst of the day? What simple acts do you like to use as a prayer?

To find and purchase this print - visit Rose Harrington Art

**This post is not an ad, she is one of my favorite artists and I enjoy several of her pieces in our home.

Behind the scenes (or if you follow on instagram stories), we've been prepping to start remodeling the entire first floor of our house, starting with the family room pictured below. Before I tell you what we plan to do in this phase of the project, let me take a step back. I'll share a brief timeline of what we've done up to this point and plan to do for the renovation.

Since our current #whbs1910house needed SO much work, we wanted to do as much as we could right off the bat.

April 2017 we first toured the property. I didn't even take any pictures while looking!! I didn't want to get my hopes up. As I drove up, I had a strong feeling this was it. This was the house. As I toured the house, I got more and more excited. It needed work, sure, but I didn't think of it as a "tear down" despite the listing selling it for land only. The demand in our neighborhood is high, and many small old homes get torn down to make way for beautiful new ones.

We looked at it on Doug's lunch break, and he returned with my dad and a structural engineer that night. He confirmed what we had thought - there were some structural issues, but they were able to be fixed. We got several quotes/opinions on the basement work and started making plans on what we'd do to the rest of the house.

Our rough timeline looked like this:

• basement foundation, drainage, and supports
• all four upstairs bedrooms painted, new flooring
• expanding the family room
• complete gut of kitchen, dining room, bathroom
• adding laundry room to back porch
• making front porch more porch-ish
• landscaping and exterior projects

I didn't announce until end of July, the closing kept getting delayed and we wondered if it would even go through. 2 ½ months after our offer was accepted we reached a resolution. We got the news we could close on a Thursday, closed Friday, moved in on Saturday, cleaned up our old house on a Sunday, then closed early that week. Ahhh!

First we finished the basement, then while the major work was done down there, we started all four upstairs bedrooms. The original hope was to finish those two before moving in, but life happens.

Once we moved in, the major basement work started. After the structural stuff was done and the house settled a bit, we started room by room on the ceilings, walls, and trim. Over several months we did that work, emptying one room bedroom at a time, and shifting everyone's mattresses and stuff around. Once that was done, we had the floors upstairs refinished. Once all THAT was done, we needed a breather.

We finished our bedroom, had baby Nora in December, and stopped all work until now. We've been sourcing things, getting quotes, and planning our next steps. We finished up 40 BAGS IN 40 DAYS for 2018, took a family vacation in Florida over the kids' Easter break, then made plans to start once we came home.

So here we are today!

This year we are hoping to remodel the entire first floor, all 800 square feet of it. Here's what we plan to do in 2018:

• 1st phase - HVAC, downstairs bathroom expansion, family room expansion, move basement door
• 2nd phase  - kitchen, dining room, adding 1st floor laundry room
• 3rd phase - (what we would like to do but not sure if we'll get to it) front porch/curb appeal updates, add patio

The 1st phase was started, HVAC is done and demo on our family room starts Monday, which is insane.

In the next post I'll share more details on what we plan to do, and then go into detail for our design of each room. Room layout, finishes, etc. The fun part of course is decorating, so I'll do another post on that eventually. I feel this house has pushed me past my safe zone for decorating and I'm feeling more comfortable picking bold, out-of-the-ordinary style choices, which is so fun! I think my style would best be described as classic/traditional, yet eclectic at times. I'm drawn to bohemian styles and textures, bold color, and it will be interesting to see how those play out in our old home.

Stay tuned! Any questions, leave them here or on facebook, or on our instagram stories. I'm constantly sharing updates on instagram stories, it is the best place to follow us these days. I'm revamping our email newsletter and will keep you posted on how to get updates there.

Each month I work on a challenge to MAKE something with supplies from Michaels Stores, this January the other Michaels Makers and I are tackling storage and organization.

My husband and I didn't know what to expect when we looked at our house for the first time. The house was listed as a tear down, the only picture online was the exterior of the house. When we took a tour, not only did the home have 4 bedrooms (3 upstairs, 1 downstairs) - but it also had a bonus room on the 2nd floor, which looked dark and tiny.

I thought it'd eventually make a good office/nursery.

To fix the crumbling ceiling underneath, we added a planked wood ceiling, then painted everything white.

The wood floor you see in the picture above is the same wood flooring in the room today! We had a local company refinish the original wood underlayment and it turned out beautiful. They sanded the floors, added three coats of satin polyurethane, and this is what we got.

Our last home had a great office/crafting space, but supplies were stored in our basement. Since this room is on the 2nd floor, I wanted to have anything we'd need stored up here. I bought two of these shelves on Michaels.com, and the baskets at my local store.

I used four different sizes of baskets in here. I usually prefer clear bins to see the contents, but in here I wanted the storage to be a part of the decor. The hidden storage works for our cords, office supplies, cameras, and miscellaneous crafting items like rolls of vinyl.

The pegboard, mounting hardware, hanging basket and hooks for the pegboard were purchased from a local big box hardware store. Most stores will even cut the pegboard down to size for you.

The hanging white and clear storage bins were also from Michaels, they're great for tiny things which might otherwise get lost in a big basket.

It's so nice to have an organized, bright space to sit down and work! The room felt like a dungeon before, the white paint and refinished flooring did wonders to brighten things up in here.

Here's another look at the before and after:

Michaels has everything you need to get organized for the new year! From washi storage to lexington carts, you can MAKE your year the most organized one yet. 

This post is sponsored by Michaels Stores. I am a Michaels Makers project creator and was provided with store credit to purchase products for this post. All ideas and opinions are my own, and I only recommend products I would use again.

In addition to a lot happening for us in 2017, it was remarkably different than 2016. In 2016 we were comfortably settled in our house and it was one of the only years we didn’t welcome a new child.

We added and finished wood flooring in our family room in January 2016, updated our fireplace in December 2016, but that was it. We consciously kept our calendar free so it wouldn't get in the way of little day to day activities, playing with neighbor friends until bed, hanging out with family, or spur-of-the-moment traveling.

As I thought back to all that happened in 2017, the best way to share it with you is how it unfolded.

When the year started we made a giant list of things we'd need to do to the house to have it completely finished. We started chipping away at it, not knowing what news we'd soon get.

Doug had been doing a great job at work and got a promotion which required re-location. His current position was a 30 minute drive to a nearby suburb, the new position in Chicago. Since our home was a 20 minute drive to any train line into the city, the commute to Chicago would be 2 hours each way. After much thought and prayer, we decided to finish our house, put it for sale, and move closer to the city (and near a good train line). It was hard to leave and we were sad to uproot our life there, but could not justify a 4 hour a day commute. Doug had to do this for a couple months while we were waiting for our house to sell and waiting to close on our new house. This made everything I’m about to share that much more difficult!

We remodeled our upstairs bathroom over the course of a few weekends with paint, a new light fixture, mirror, faucet, hardware, shower curtain, blinds, shelving, and hooks. We worked with the peach tile, and kept the almond tub, toilet, and sink since they were in good shape.

After that, we renovated our kitchen. It already was great - had hardwood floors, black granite countertops and backsplash, a fireplace, and desirable layout. Despite lots of natural light, the room felt dark. We updated it by refinishing the cabinets, purchasing new appliances, adding a new faucet, and putting in pendant lights over the countertop to match pendant lights we installed over the table when we first moved in. What a difference this made!

Although not a huge transformation, painting the trim and walls of our foyer, upstairs hallway, and downstairs hallway was a HUGE job! We replaced the drafty wooden door with a steel one with windows, took down the existing chandelier and spray painted it bronze, patched a million holes, and replaced the upstairs light fixture. We also replaced all the almond colored outlets and switches in the house with white ones.

We completed a gut rehab of our main floor / master bathroom. This included everything! New tub and tile walls, new pocelain tile floor, refinished vanity, new countertop and sinks, lighting, mirrors, faucets, toilet, shelving, hardware, and paint. This room was totally transformed and definitely helped sell the house. Especially since it was both the main floor powder room and the master bathroom. 

We put in a new front door, replaced / fixed our door bell, added new light fixtures, and relandscaped the front yard. 

We cleaned and re-stained our back decks, and refreshed the living space.

In addition to the renovation / getting-ready-to-sell projects, we purged like crazy! This house had over 3,800 sqft (including basement), and our new house has around 2,400 sqft (including basement). I do 40 bags in 40 days every year, but this year I got far more than 40 bags as we got ready for the move!

Not only did I get donate bags full of items we didn't need, I emptied out and sold much of our furniture. Many were items I still liked, looked hard for secondhand, or even refinished or painted. We were downsizing and space was at premium, so I resolved to start fresh, sell them, and use the money for new pieces when I was ready.

Doug had questioned if I needed to *actually* do 40 Bags in 40 Days this year in addition to organizing it. It was a lot of work, but helped immensely. I was reminded again why the challenge helps so many people! I felt detached, had a goal, kept motivated with the group and ecourse, and it later helped the home selling process go SO much better. Once we had everything packed up and moved into the new home - a few family members asked "that's it?" It made our new, smaller home feel much less cluttered.

In addition to doing 40 Bags in 40 Days, 2017 was the year I created our 40 day e-course. Hundreds signed up, many who had tried in previous years to do the challenge were finally able to complete it after taking the course! Thank you to all my followers and readers - those of you who have recently joined us and those who have been reading here for years now. I will be offering another one this year, you can sign up here.

Through the end of the winter/early spring, we had the kids in activities. Ben tried out karate in the winter, and the others were in gymnastics. This was the first year Ben played baseball and Lily played softball. Adam and Luke did soccer again, Doug was the coach for Adam’s team. This was our first time doing three different sports at once - we were often spread all around the surrounding cities at different games, then traveling to another game after that, eating meals in the car, and running all over the place. Then getting word we'd have a showing and AHH! we needed to hurry clean the house and leave for another game. 

And right when we thought things couldn’t get any busier, I became pregnant with Nora mid March. Yes, this is in the midst of everything - the renovations, potential move/job offer, activities, 40 bags in 40 days - all of it! Since late 2016, I had been feeling like someone in our family was missing. It wasn't a surprise, we were open to having a new baby, and we were overjoyed when we found out. 

In early April we were under contract to buy our new house.

It was marketed as a tear down; it needed (and still needs) a lot of work including major foundation work, but much of what it needs can be changed. What we loved about it were things that cannot be changed: it is on a private street, within walking distance to a train station with multiple express trains to Chicago, and walking distance to parks, concerts, festivals, a vibrant downtown, shops, coffee (haha!), the library, and so much more.

We intended to close in early May which would have left a couple months to complete some renovations, but there was an easement issue that needed to be worked out by the attorneys before we closed. Closing was delayed for 2.5 months, which left no time for renovations prior to moving in! 

With Doug as our realtor, we listed our house by the end of May and a month later after multiple offers.

All the upgrades and work we did renovating the house paid off. We received full list price for our house (and it was the most a house ever sold for in our neighborhood)! We had hoped to stay longer, and would have been happy to live there for many, many years. We hope the new owners enjoy it as much as we did in our 3 years there.

I should also mention that this was one of Doug’s busiest years as a realtor. While he works in insurance full time, he got his real estate license when we sold our first home, and really has a gift for it. This year, he helped us buy and sell our houses, helped his cousin buy their first house, helped his parents sell a house they flipped, and currently has two homes listed for sale. Great job, Doug!

Some other big things that occured during this time of the year: 

• we hosted a big party for Lily’s 8th birthday
• took the kids to see the Chicago Cubs. It really was the perfect day: it was on Kate’s birthday, it was the first game for all of them, the Cubs were the defending World Series Champs, the kids got to see a grand slam in person, and the Cubs won the game so the kids were able to waive their W flag when the game was over
• went out to breakfast often and hit some of our favorite local spots before moving

At the end of July (after tons of paperwork and back-and-forth negotiating regarding the easement), we were finally able to close on our new house! We closed on a Friday, moved on Saturday, cleaned the old house on Sunday, and closed on our old house early the following week. I had a blogging conference in Utah on Monday, and it was Luke’s birthday as well.

We couldn’t have done all of this without the help of our family and friends. Thank you to everyone who helped us survive this crazy time!!! 

We weren’t able to complete any of the renovations at our new house prior to moving in. Since we had a lot of work to do on the basement/foundation, we stored most of our furniture, toys, and stuff in a POD on our driveway until the work was finished. We also didn't move in beds and most dressers, we wanted to renovate the upstairs and bedrooms first.

To say it was chaos here was an understatement! But despite that, we took advantage of this time before school started and did a lot as a family. Weekly concerts, exploring our new city, checking out the farmers market, going out to ice cream often, playing mini golf, visiting new parks, bike rides, walks, and spending time with our extended families. 

I feel like I should end the post here. But I've barely even started, haha! 

The first thing we did to start work on the new house was have an asbestos abatement company to remove the asbestos from the basement. 

Over the next couple months we had all the basement foundation work completed (all hired out), which included jacking up the house, adding new steel I-beams and posts, reinforcing bowing cinderblock walls, waterproofing with interior perimeter drain tile and extending downspouts to flow underground to the street, tuckpointing part of the cinderblock and stone foundation, filling cracks and patching part of the concrete floor. Once they were done, Doug painted the floor and walls, and installed carpet to make a play area for the kids.

I haven't taken pictures of this yet, since it looks like a playroom most of the time and still has plenty of moving boxes, but here's a picture before we started any work: 

and shortly after work started:

These months were especially difficult because in addition to having much of our stuff still loaded in the POD, we were trying to renovate the upstairs of our house (the bedrooms). We were working on one room at a time and moving matresses and bins of clothes from room to room as we progressed. Everyone knew which room would ultimately be theirs, but while they were temporarily living in another room, they called it their “rental room.” 🙂

The house is old and had a lot of crumbling plaster on the ceilings. In two of the rooms the ceilings were covered with panneling and ceiling tiles to cover it. We removed all of this and added a shiplap type ceiling to 3 of the bedrooms to improve the look and hide the cracking / crumbling plaster. See our office ceiling project hereour office ceiling project here, and our bedroom ceiling here, we also did the girls' room pictured above. The dark trim was in bad shape, we painted each bedroom’s trim, patched and reinforced the plaster walls, and gave them a fresh coat of paint. 

Upon completion, we completely moved out of the house (moved in with my parents) for a week while we had the wood floors refinished upstairs. We originally didn't know the condition of the floors, they looked pretty bad, and we considered carpeting everything. I'm so glad we went for it! 

And with all of this, came our share of other struggles.

My grandfather passed away in February. He had lived with my parents for the 7 years before this, and we visited them weekly growing up. He is such an integral part of who I am; I miss him very much, yet am thankful we had so many memories.

With the start of my pregnancy in March, I was extremely tired, struggled with health issues, and knew something was up. You can read all about it in this post, but we got through it, my family and friends rose up to help us, and after having Nora, am feeling much better.

As the year went on, we took time to go camping with the kids, visited a beach, and even spent a few days at an indoor waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells over Thanksgiving break. Our year certainly ended well as were able to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our family, celebrate our son Adam’s 6th birthday the very next day, and welcome our precious daughter, Nora two days later on Doug’s birthday, December 28th. 

It was the perfect way to end 2017!

2017 has certainaly been the busiest one on record for us, but without a doubt it has brought us closer together as a family. And dare I say it, has been the best year yet. 

I am so blessed have the support of friends and family like I do, and I’m truly touched by the prayers and kind words you all have offered us throughout the year. Thank you to all for your kindness, and I look forward to a great 2018 in our new home!

I'm so happy with how it looks, the color is different than anything I've picked before.

The other bedrooms are white or gray, this room needed something dramatic and different. I'm no stranger to color, we have a hot pink rug and chair, our old home had colorful flowers on the wall and a turquoise front door - but the idea of going dark on a wall terrified me.

Which is embarrassing to admit because it's just paint, haha, but true.

Here's the room when we started, it had carpet, painted brown trim, beige walls, and non-planked ceilings. And it wasn't bad!  I would have been happy to keep this room as is for some time. We picked the room as our master because it was closest to the bathroom, had a large L shaped walk-in closet, and sat across the hall from a small 4th bed which would make a perfect future office/nursery.

Many of you know we bought this house as-is, listed as a tear-down. It was far from "tear-down" condition, but needed a lot of work. We decided early on we wanted to finish the second floor and bedrooms right away before tacking larger projects on the first floor. In our last two houses, the bedrooms were the last to get done. We thought working on this first would help us to feel more settled as time went on.

After the other three bedrooms were finished (here's the bright office remodel) we moved out for a week and had the pine floors refinished. We didn't use any stain, just sanded them and used three coats of satin polyurethane. This could (and will) be it's own post - the before and afters are insane!

Here's the before of our master bedroom floor, the red carpet tiles were in the closet.

And the floors after. When we bought the house we didn't know the condition of the floors - we were pretty set on just carpeting the bedrooms and uncovering this was like finding hidden treasure.

We planked the ceilings in the girls' room and with the bright office makeover due to slightly damaged plaster ceilings. Our closet had similar ceiling tiles and damaged walls, we thought *eventually* we may have to plank those as well.

Since it looked so good in the other rooms, and hey, this is our bedroom - so we decided to plank the ceiling in both our bedroom and closet. We hired Doug's younger brother to help us finish the project quickly.

I went back and forth with the paint in this room - do I want light and airy like the other rooms, or should I try a dark, moody color on the walls? The girls' room naturally has less light and I found myself spending more time in there. Plus, we had bright white ceilings, thick trim, and large windows so it wouldn't feel closed in.

So I went for it. Doug painted the ceiling and trim on a Saturday, we bought the paint Sunday morning, and it went up later that day. I missed most of the paint going up and went upstairs to see how Doug was doing, then posted this to Instagram and Facebook.

Only one coat up and I was freaking out because I was SO HAPPY WITH HOW IT WAS TURNING OUT!!!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bb-ymcLFrSM/?taken-by=whitehouseblackshutters

In the morning, I rushed into the room to see the daylight streaming in. I still couldn't believe it. Yes, it's just paint and we're not the first people to paint a room this color but I can't get over it!

I couldn't believe this was the same room we started with. Here's the before and after again:

Another week went by and we moved into the room. We still have a lot of the finishing details but we're calling it done for now. It's so nice to have our mattress on an actual frame rather than the floor, something we haven't had since early July. The "sacrifice" was worth it 🙂

sources (may contain affiliate links):

Wall Color: Sherwin Williams Duration paint, "Tempe Star"
Trim and Ceiling Color: Behr Marquee paint, "Polar Bear"
Ceiling Planks - Tongue in Groove Pine, Menards
Schoolhouse Ceiling Fan // White Textured Quilt // Matching Textured Shams
Dresser: IKEA Tarva 3 drawer

What do you think of the space, color, and transformation?

If you want to see what we're working on as it happens, follow me on instagram - @whitehouseblackshutters. It's easy to share quick updates and answer questions over there, so that's the best place to follow along if you're curious what we are up to.

I will admit - after all these updates, I am ready to sit back and enjoy this house and catch up on sharing prior details. 🙂

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcSq15-lQ0J/?taken-by=whitehouseblackshutters

5 Tips to Get Your Home Guest Ready

Have a plan in place.

Gather snacks, tasty drinks, and have enough on hand for a few go-to quick meals. This way you'll be able to spend more time socializing and less time in the kitchen.

Don't Freak

I like having a clean house as much as the next person, but we don't live in perfect homes. Try to keep from stressing yourself out. Your guests want to visit with you, not your house! Focus on making your home easy to relax in. Tackle big stuff, don't sweat the small stuff.

Set a cozy mood.

Add little comforts and touches across the home, especially for at night when we're relaxing and enjoying one another's company. Have board games nearby, refresh old favorite card games with a new deck. Provide plenty of throw blankets and cozy pillows. Turn the lights down and add a candle or two.

Be ready to explore the neighborhood.

A big reason we chose this fixer upper is the close walk to a vibrant downtown area. Before you host (and if your guest likes exploring too), take a look at what's happening in or nearby your city. Get outside after dinner, show them around, let them see why you love living where you live. Most times we've had friends over, we've walked downtown to the park, library, a festival, concert, ice cream parlor, or a local coffee shop. If they like sports, look up their favorite team and head to a local sports bar. If they'd rather stay in, order out from a favorite local spot.

Make your assets shine. 

We recently had our 107 year old pine floors finished, they had been hiding under layers of carpet, tile, paint, or left bare over the years. The rest of our home is still under construction, but the floors look great.

The folks at Bona were happy to look up the specific product we used to make sure their product was safe for my new flooring. The Bona PowerPlus system is easy to use for a quick spray and swipe over my floors. In minutes, I was done and left with a shiny, refreshed floor. The product is safe for kids, green, and leaves no residue behind.

I was surprised at the results - we JUST had our floors done and this made them look so much better!

Let your holidays sparkle this year with beautiful hardwood floors! Spend more time with family and less time cleaning with Bona PowerPlus, Bona’s most powerful cleaning system innovated specifically for hardwood floors.

Bona PowerPlus offers Bona’s most powerful clean with 3x the cleaning action:

• Surfactant loosens tough, heavy build up
• Oxygenated formula penetrates for a deep clean
• Bubbling action enhances and lifts away debris

Safe for hardwood floors this GREENGUARD certified, ready-to-use, residue-free formulation provides deep clean results that are fast, beautiful and easy.

Make sure you visit these other bloggers who are also sharing how they get their beautiful homes guest ready for the holidays!

Kelly Elko

Kindred Vintage

Town and Country Living

White House Black Shutters

Jennifer Rizzo

In this house, all the bedrooms and main bathroom are upstairs. Our family calendar is on the 1st floor, and we were constantly up and down the stairs in the mornings to figure out what was going on. I broke my foot last summer (all healed now!) and things got CRAZY! I literally could not go up and down and up and down to figure out what was going on that day.

I wanted a second, mini command center upstairs to help keep us on the same page and know what to get ready for.

Instead of regular push-pins, I wanted to do something different.

These great mini clips were in the paper crafts/embellishments aisle at Michaels, I hot glued them to basic metal thumbtacks. They can hold a stack of papers and won't damage homework, photos, artwork - things we may not want a hole poked through.

Organization wise, the mini command center is mostly for the kids' schedule and to help them be responsible.

I created a printable for a simple weekday schedule, one which won't change much from week to week. The first day it was hanging up - I hadn't even told the kids yet - and my 7 year old went around telling the other kids which uniform they needed that day. SUCCESS, haha!

Eventually I'd like to hang this in the hallway after we paint over the purple walls. 🙂 For now, it is in the boys' room hanging from our nifty picture rail. Their room is at the top of the stairs and easily accessed by all the kids.

Get the Free Weekday Schedule Printable Here

I'm so happy with how our custom bulletin board turned out, and how it's added organization in the midst of chaos. The older kids have been using it daily to check their schedule without my help, and I can focus on helping the younger kids. I think our kids crave predictability and responsibility, so far this little space has done just that!

I'm going to just start sharing short and quick posts, I hope that's okay with you! I'll go into more details of the projects later, but for now, I want to keep you all updated.

Here is our office and 4th bedroom before. It was a small room and really dark, so I wanted to go BRIGHT in here. We didn't know what to expect but soon found the faux paneling was hiding damaged plaster. You can see the tile flooring was scraped up before we moved in.

Here's a closer look at the flooring in our master bedroom, which was very similar to the office floors. We discovered soft pine hiding under everything and had hoped to refinish it rather than cover it.

After he took down the old paneling, this is what lie underneath. Crumbling plaster, a grid structure, and some more paneling holding up things. He added to the grid with furring strips, then added tongue-in-groove pine. Not only did it look good, it would add support. It was more $ than the faux shiplap methods you can find online, but we needed the support, and I love the textured look.

After the ceiling was finished, we added 1x4 quality finishing trim to finish it off. Where the wall meets the ceiling was quite uneven, so we used it to finish it and close any gaps. It also doubles as a simple crown moulding.

After that was done, he caulked all the nail holes and joints, applied 2 coats of primer, and 2 coats of Behr's "Polar Bear" in their Marquee line, with a satin finish. Normally you'll do semi-gloss on trim, but we used satin so it could go on the walls as well without being too shiny.

After 2 coats of primer, 1 coat of paint:

And after it was finished! When I took this, the floor wasn't done yet, so we covered it with the rug from this colorful room. Here's the 42" schoolhouse fan, it's the perfect size for this room.

And here's a phone picture of the completed room with the finished floors.

I can't quite put into words how excited and surprised we were with their outcome. We bought this home not knowing anything about the condition of any floors, but hoped we'd have some sort of original wood. More on these in another post!

So this is where we're at now. All the kids have moved into their rooms, some of the mattresses are no longer on the floor. 🙂 I'm starting to get to the fun part - making decorating decisions! My style is normally collected over time, neutral, yet little unexpected elements. I sold a lot of furniture and decor before moving, am trying to repurpose things we already have, and if that doesn't work, then find something new or new-to-us. Although I like the idea of a home put together over time, I'm also  wrestling with wanting to be done, haha!

Earlier today we started work on our master bedroom. In the meantime, we've moved our queen bed, a dresser, and the office desk back in here. It's a tight fit, but cozy, and this room has quickly become one of my favorite rooms in the house. I just love looking up at the planked ceiling while lying in bed. And the radiators give off the best heat!

What do you think of the progress so far?

If you're not following me on Instagram, @whitehouseblackshutters, you should! I've been sharing much more sneak peeks over there, plus little views of life, projects, what we're up to in my Instagram story.

The first of our renovations, which started the week after we moved in, was to quite literally, start at the foundation of things and do work in the basement. Below you'll see our master plan and goal for the space. It's so funny looking at these pictures now, because it looks SO SO SO different!

We've been working on something or other non-stop and it's just now getting to the fun part - where we have actual progress to share, not just piles of renovation mess and shuffled around stuff.

Scary? Maybe a little. For 107 years old, it's not as bad as it could be. The scariest things we found were an asbestos wrapped pipe, a tiny bit of seepage, and a plug in electronic rodent repeller.

I also found a framed image of St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. My first thought was "oh cool, this family was Catholic too?" My second thought was "wait, is this home and renovation a hopeless cause?!?!?!" Maybe God has a sense of humor and we've gained a new patron saint. Haha! Either way I plan to reframe it and hang it somewhere else in the house.

St. Jude, pray for us, we need all the help we can get, LOL.

Like those telephone poles holding up the house? 🙂 It's not bad, but it needed work.

We know this is an old basement, so we won't completely finish the space. The goal however is to create storage (without threat of water damage!) and create a family living space. But there's a lot more we needed to do first!

Here's the basement master plan, for now: 

This is one area where we WILL have work hired out.

• have asbestos professionally removed from around pipes (before moving in)
• take down existing paneling and shelves on walls
• replace all existing support posts
• replace and add in new I beam to support house
• add in extra support posts (so we can remove walls upstairs)
• jack up the house to fix floor sloping issues
• strengthen/fix bowing walls
• improve drainage
• dig out perimeter of basement and add drain tile leading to sump pump
• replace all windows
• tuck point bricks and walls
• paint floors
• paint walls
• paint pipes/ceiling
• add temporary carpet?
• make a playroom area with toy storage
• create a cozy living space
• empty storage POD into basement
• new washer and dryer?
• add laundry room upstairs, move washer and dryer
• fix basement stairs

These photos were taken the day we closed on the house, July 29th. A little more than 2 months later, this view I'm showing you looks 100% different!

We've knocked out 17 of the 20 items on our list, and even slept down here last week while having other work done. Not only did we sleep down here, it was wonderful and cozy. I wouldn't have entertained that idea in the room as it looks up above even knowing how it looks now, LOL.

What do you think about the plan? What would you do to this space?