Shelving Project

Over the past week, Sean & I have been working on a project that I have been wanting to do for awhile now -- some shelves!  When we moved into our house, I really wanted some sort of open shelving in the kitchen.  Since tearing out our cabinets & replacing them with shelves was out of the question, I thought that making some & placing them next to the kitchen would be a nice alternative.  This ended up working out great because it offers a nice way for me to display my books & some plants.  Here is how we made it!

We bought one piece of wood (sized to our preference) & some Minwax wood stain in the color dark walnut.  The first step was to stain the wood!  We let the board dry for about 24 hours.  Once it was dry, we measured the wall where we wanted to hang the shelves so we could cut the board accordingly.  

Once the boards were cut (& after some more staining) it was time to drill the holes.  This was my first time ever using a saw & a drill with that weird bit thing to make the holes.  I was intimidated at first to use the power tools, but I am glad that I'm learning!  Hopefully that means I will be able to make more projects like this in the future :)

Next, rope was used to connect the shelves, hooks were screwed into the wall & then...

...we had the finised product!  I'm so happy with it & think it turned out pretty great!  What do you think?  XOXO

One Month of Homeownership + Some House Updates

Today marks ONE month of owning our home! We have put so much time & work into it & we're still not moved in. Our main focus in the beginning was getting the rental side completely done so that we could rent it out. I'm happy to say that we finished the rental a couple of weeks ago & we have some great tenants who are already happily moved in & settled!

We have slept in our place one time & it was so much fun! Most of our things are there, but we still need to unpack & organize everything. We are waiting until tomorrow to fully move in because that's when our washer & dryer are getting delivered! :) I am SO excited to finally be in our home!

Here are some of the things that we have accomplished so far:

• painted everything - we painted everything Alabaster by Sherwin Williams, aside from the downstairs bathroom which we painted Polar Star by Valspar & a couple of accent walls which we painted Classic French Gray by Sherwin Williams. I absolutely love how it turned out!
• replaced lighting fixtures - almost all of the lighting fixtures in the house were replaced. I had to get rid of the dreaded boob lights! Oh come on, you know what I'm talking about! ;) all of the boob lights are gone & we put these in their place. I love them so much! They are simple & don't bring your eye up to the ceiling, which is exactly what I wanted. We also hung an old (but new to us) chandelier in the dining room, a new lighting fixture in the downstairs bathroom & a new ceiling fan in the master.
• added hardware to the kitchen cabinets - who knew adding some simple hardware to cabinets could make such a drastic change?! 
• painted & partially rebuilt the decks - most of the steps needed rebuilt and we painted them with Restoleum restore to help them stand up against the weather.
• aded backsplash to the downstairs bathroom - this is one of my favorite things that we did! We picked a glass and stainless steel mosaic backsplash which I feel looks great with the paint color we chose & the new brushed nickel hardware we installed. 

I can't wait to show you more of the house once we get it completely done! I'm dying to do a tour/walkthrough when it's all finished, so check back soon if you'd like to see more updates!

Oh, did I mention that we have an apple tree?! Well, we do. We have an apple tree :) I wonder how many apples we will get? I'm guessing we will have a lot...

I hope you have a great weekend!

We're Homeowners!!

My husband & I have been waiting to buy a home for what seems like forever. We started seriously looking at houses about a year & a half ago. After seeing countless properties in four different cities, we have finally committed! Not only did we buy a house, we bought TWO!

That's right, we bought a duplex! We will be new homeowners as well as landlords...yikes! Just kidding about the yikes. ;)

Initially, I was not interested AT ALL in buying a duplex. I wanted a single family home. After living in a condo for the last two years, I was adamant about not sharing any walls. Well, I guess I wasn't that adamant because I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. My husband & I both did! After thinking about all of the space we would have, plus the appeal of having a little rental income, we decided it would be a great investment & serve us well as our very first home! We are so very excited! House tour & inspiration posts will be shared soon. :)