Dining room before and after

Last week I was going through a few pictures of our home and stumbled across a pictures of our dining room and living room before our major renovation this past winter.  Holy smokes the house looks different - I was absolutely stunned by the transformation.

You might think that's a little funny to hear coming from me since it's my house but when you literally live through a renovation and see every little step of the process unfold you take for granted the overall change that occurred over 3-4 months.

Our dining room before...

...and our dining room after.

The picture is taken from the exact same spot in our living room.  Hard to believe huh?! These before and after pictures remind me of how much I love our home. 

I hope to have a more house tour posts coming soon.  I am waiting for a day that when the stars align to get pictures taken (the house is clean, I am home, and it's a sunny day).

To see hour entire dining room, read this post.

Client Design + Before & After

Is it seriously December already - eeekkk! This month always seems so jam-packed but in the end we survive!  This month I am participating in two local vendor fairs and hoping to wrap up a couple of client designs before Christmas.  The good news is that this is all stuff I enjoy!! (Did I tell you that I haven't started Christmas shopping yet either?!)

Anyhow... I month or two back I had the opportunity to work with a great gal, Neda, to re-decorate her living room.  She has such a great space so of course my mind started to go in a million different directions because the possibilities were endless.

Here is a "before" look at her living room.

Isn't her space awesome?! I love the high ceilings and the open floor plan!  Based on the client profile she sent me, I pulled together this living room design for her.

Neda did such a great job pulling the space together.  I sort of want to live here. :)  Not to mention this quick picture from her phone looks like it came from a magazine!  It's so clean, fresh, and modern!!  This is easily one of my favorite spaces that I've had the opportunity to decorate!

What do you think?!

If you are looking for help with any room in your home, let me know, I'd be happy to help!  Hop on over to my e-design services page for more information or email me designyourdwellingblog (at) gmail.com to get started!

Welcome to our home - A tour of our entryway

This post has been a long time coming - wow! We started our garage addition project well over a year and a half ago. Our entry way was part of that addition.  Originally we were just going to create a breezeway between the house and garage but decided to go for a full entryway instead.  We are SO thankful we did because we added more storage and more space - two things you  need when you live in an old farmhouse.

Before I get to the after pictures here are a couple of "in progress pictures.

The old entryway started where the tile started. It was pretty teeny-tiny!

We put a heated floor in our garage. That heated floor continued into our entryway - bonus!

Now... here is the entryway as it is today!

The view out of our patio doors is our south pasture. This guy keeps a close watch. :)

Where did I get my stuff you ask... here is your answer.

Custom area rug -  The Perfect Rug

Hunter Boots Print - Bright Bold & Beautiful

Mirror & Bench - Target

Deer head pillow - Regan's Brain

Iowa map canvas - DIY

Living Life Print - Wedding Gift

Color- Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams SW7029

There are still a few minor things we are already going to update like changing out the door to the garage and re-painting the outside doors to a darker color.  We can seem to use the door handles to shut the door so we always have handprints on the white doors.  Stay tuned for the updates!

My Home Office Reveal

FINALLY I am showing off my home office! I've been hinting at it on Instagram and Facebook so it's about time that I give you the goods. This project has only been in the works for 2 years.  Mostly because I couldn't decide on the color to paint my cabinets until I learned to "Be Brave."

Before I show you the current state, I need to share the "before" picture with you.  It will add a little more shock value so hopefully you wont walk away from this post and say, "hmmph, I expected more..." :)

Yep, that is what we started with, an old Iowa farmhouse basement.  Thanks to my sweet husband for saying "Honey, you need a space for yourself and all of your creative work." Which probably really meant, if I fix up the basement she'll keep all of her crafty stuff out of the dining room. :)  Regardless, I am thankful that he had the basement painted for me and had a friend build custom cabinets as my Christmas present. 

Here you go... the after!

My new decorating motto is "Be Brave" I picked this up from ABChao, a blogger whose Design Camp I attended in Minneapolis.  For this project, being Brave meant painting my cabinets a blue/green color  (Slow Green by Sherwin Williams - SW6456) instead of painting them white or staining them which would have probably been the logical thing to do. :)

There are a few quirks that I wish we could fix like actually putting sheet rock on the walls but we have a small leak on days when we get a really  heavy rain.  I would also love to have the floor leveled but that would take a lot of money which means I would have to starting doing a lot more e-design work. (Feel free to ask, I would love to help you out!)

Regardless of the quirks that still exist, I have fallen in love my stone, farmhouse basement space, that still leaks every once-in-awhile. At least it didn't have dirt floors...

Featured on Tuesdays at Ten June!  Thanks Michelle!

Design Client - Before and After Photos

On Sunday afternoon I got one of the best emails ever from Stephanie, one of the design clients I worked with over the summer, that was packed with after photos of the two rooms I helped her decorate!  She said that I was more than welcome to share the before and afters so that is exactly what I am doing - yay!

Stephanie's story...

Stephanie and her husband moved into their house about a year ago and hand taken the time to make it "theirs." Stephanie described their whole house as tan so she wanted to add some color.  She wanted their home to feel welcoming and have some character while keeping an clutter-free space. 

Stephanie's home was so beautiful to start with, so the space was fun to decorate!

Here is a look at Stephanie's before and after pictures as well as the design boards I created for her bedroom and living room. 

Living Room

Before and After

Stephanie had pinned this mirror and the rug in on the design board to her Pinterest boards. It was fun to incorporate decor that I already knew she liked!

She also wanted her room to have some character so I recommended painting the back of the cabinets a teal color.  I love how they pop! She also repainted her living space to get rid of the tan.

Bedroom

We changed up the color of the room to a light blue to eliminate the tans and to create the relaxing space that Stephanie wanted in their master bedroom.  

Stephanie has done such a great job using the recommendations from the design boards to pull together her bedroom and living room! I love her beautiful home. (It makes me just a little jealous to live in a small farm house...) I am so thankful that Stephanie got in touch with me and asked me to help her out. - it was a fun project!

If you are interested in a custom mood board for your home, check out my design services page.  I would love to help you out! 

Main Floor Bathroom Makeover

Well friends, I am finally getting around to sharing my main floor bathroom makeover!  I have no excuse for why it took me so long to post this besides I was too lazy to get my camera out.  Poor excuse huh?!

Anyhow... I didn't realize how much different our bathroom looks until I started putting the pictures together for this post and I keep on saying "wow" to myself!  I cannot even take a guess as to what the previous owners were thinking when they painted the bathroom this color.  What's even more puzzling is why it took me so long to repaint the darn thing!

Isn't this the most awful green you have ever seen?! They even painted it on the ceiling.  Seriously?! Oh hey - can you tell where the toilet, mirror and light fixture used to be?! Yeah, it used to be white in there...they should have left it. 

Did you just say "wow" when you saw the after shot? I just did, again. We replaced the toilet, mirror and light fixture and I gave the vanity cabinet a fresh coat of paint.

Do you see the green on the wall paper outside the bathroom? (Yes, unfortunately that terrible wall paper still exists in our house.) I think they were trying to make the spaces flow together? Maybe?

I found the mirror at Target as well as the toilet paper stand, towel ring and towel. I had the extra un-opened paint on-hand from our previous bathroom project when I wasn't sure I liked the color I chose for that bathroom. Read about that project here.

You would think that I could have put a new roll of toilet paper on the stand, huh?! or removed it completely from the picture.  Whoops - photgrapher error!

This little vanity cabinet was probably the most transformational part of the makeover! I grabbed a quart of Sherwin Williams Thunder Grey paint (SW 7645) and repainted.  I even saved the hardware on the vanity.  Nothing a little silver spray paint couldn't handle!  We also changed the outlets to white.  For some reason the same silly folks that painted the bathroom green thought the light switches should be painted green too.  Weird. 

Our short term (3-4 years) plan is to remodel our kitchen and take out this bathroom which separates the kitchen from the rest of the house so we have a more open floor plan.  Thus the reason this makeover was pretty inexpensive (no flooring or vanity changes). I think we maybe spent $200.

I am always amazed at what a little paint and elbow grease can do! Hope you enjoyed this little before and after to kick off your Monday! :)  Have a great day!

Living Room Update

Happy  Monday - I hope you all had a great weekend!  Mine was finally a low-key weekend that included supper and drinks with friends on Friday night and Saturday night, planting flowers and a Sunday afternoon nap - it was pretty great! :)

To kick off a Monday, here is a look at the updates I made to our living room.

Before

I would consider our living room just a little bit dull.  The only update I've made to the living room since I moved here in August was the curtains.  It just wasn't coming together as I had hoped, probably because I haven't spent much time on it. 

After

So here is the after.  It's not a drastic change, but it's enough to make a difference.  My favorite part is the curtain sheers.  They make the room feel so much larger and lighter.  My "rules" for making a few changes to the living room was that it had to be comfortable and livable. 

My update list included new pillows, curtains, rug and a couple accessories.

I found all of the pillows at Target (except the leaf one, that's from IKEA) - they have such a great selection and they added some extra color and comfort that I was looking for!

I mixed some old with new by adding these old boxes that my dad found on farm auctions awhile back.  All they needed was a little clean-up.  They double as great storage!

I stumbled across this vase at Marshalls.  It caught my eye and I couldn't resist getting it for only $10!  

The space is definitely coming along.  Hopefully we will be getting new furniture soon to fit the space a little bit better!  I'm hoping for a small sectional.  The living room isn't that big and it would be nice to add some seating.  Our current recliner is super comfortable but a little bit over-sized.

If you're curious where I found any of the items in the space - leave me a comment and I'll get back to you!

Have a great Monday! :) 

PS... I hope to have a before and after blog post of our bathroom remodel this week.  This has been a long time coming and I'm excited to share!