Lets talk about my house!  Longtime readers are familiar with the ongoing work I’ve been doing to the home my husband and I purchased in July, 2012.  To refresh your memory, the home was painted in 3 shades of pumpkin orange and needed a lot of TLC.  In real estate, location is king and because the home was on a beautiful street, right on the cul de sac, it fulfilled our dreams.  It has been an amazing two years in this home- lots of love and laughter, a ton of time spent riding bikes outside or swimming in the pool, and we couldn’t love it more.

Make sure you look at those before photos!  And please forgive the photo quality- I didn’t use a tripod for these and didn’t want to use a flash so they aren’t great quality.

Let’s start from the front foyer.  It might be my favorite room in the house because you get a view of our front living room and my beautiful couch, and our game room.

The foyer has a lot of my thrifty finds- the white chairs were found at a thrift shop for $40 each, the credenza was a Craigslist find, the wooden collage art was from a yard sale, the yellow signed lithograph was an estate sale find and the lamp was from the same estate sale.

Next up is the “great room” which has now become our game room! (note the burnt out globe- we don’t have a ladder tall enough to change it so…. yeah.  One day.)

We just added this gorgeous Brunswick Gold Crown II pool table to our collection.  Obviously, I care a lot about the items I put into my home, so adding a bulky pool table wasn’t something I was keen on.  However, my husband was determined to get one.  In fact, he wouldn’t shut-up about it.  For a year I’ve been researching modern pool tables and stumbled onto this line.  It is still made, however this particular table was made in the 60’s.  I found it for a more than reasonable price (if you Google it, I did NOT pay that price) and gave it to my husband for his birthday.  All the artwork (except our wedding painting) has been found at thrift stores and so was the record player cabinet (my husband is a vinyl enthusiast now and our collection is growing rapidly).  The overhead lights were from Craigslist.  My dying plant was from Wal-Mart…. hah.

Our kitchen drives me a bit batty… the cabinets and counter are not my taste but we are trying to make it work!  We replaced our old college era dining table with this amazing smokey lucite and chrome set from the 70’s.  I saw it on Facebook from a shop in Orlando and went to see it that day.  The seats had to be recovered so I chose a white vinyl.  It is easy to wipe clean since I have little guys.  The bar was also from Orlando but I bought it from Ebay!  We had been looking for a bar and this one was perfect- it really is a cool thing to see in person.  The light turns on when you open it automatically!  Notice that the stone planter from previous photos has been removed.  It took more effort and time than I want to talk about but having it gone makes me so happy!  No more random pile of rocks!

Our bedroom only has a tad MCM (mid century modern) flair, the bed, the rocker, the armoire are more traditional items.  My armoire is so roomy that I’m sure I could never find a vintage piece to match the storage it has so for now it stays.  The nightstands are thrifted and refinished, lamp and long dresser are also thrift scores.  The dansk candle holder was my 6th wedding anniversary gift (iron) and hold 6 tapers.  My 5th anniversary gift (wood) was the large wooden lamp and his was the photo of the place we met in college, framed in wood of course.  None of our 7th gifts (copper) were decor related so they don’t get coverage.  I love how calm our room feels when it’s clean and that we have family photos all around!

These are just photos of our bathroom taken after it was first painted, nothing else has been done since these were taken except that the door was replaced.  (hence the older watermarks and text from an older post).  It is small but it works.

My laundry room project is complete and I even have a place to showcase a few of my “vintage cloth diaper” collectibles like the Sta-Puf advertisement.  I created sliding panels modeled after those sold at Ikea using curtains I found at the thrift store.  I placed a weighted metal rod in a pocket sewn into the bottom to keep it straight and we mounted them to sliders from Ikea.  We use our laundry room as a pantry since this home didn’t come with one!  The cabinets over the washer/dryer were found at the Re-store.  Even the paint for this room was a Craigslist find.

The office hasn’t changed much at all since my last post.  It is technically a dining room but we wouldn’t use it so office it is!

We added a rug that is made from FLOR squares, I wanted a more custom size so this was a good solution.  I would definitely use them again and am thinking of adding more to my hallway to the bedrooms.  We also added the large map canvas.  The office is a mess but it is used a lot.  This is the “tidied” up version.  Usually there are papers everywhere…

The front living room  (designed to be a formal but we use it as a real living room) brings us full circle, as you can tell from the first photo.  In fact, our kids run this path over and over.  It’s like a home track.

A lot of changes have happend in this room.  In fact, I don’t think there is a single piece of furniture in here now that was there in my last home update.  The sectional is something really special.  It belonged to my Great Aunt who lives in North Carolina.  She had to move from her home and so the couch went to me.  It needed new cushions and upholstery, not exactly what I was hoping to deal with.  My husband and I agonized over the color decision but wound up going with the color we picked first- 1 month after shopping everywhere else!  The upholsterer did an incredible job and I have to pinch myself sometimes- this beauty is mine!  The side table is a $10 yard sale score, the coffee table was from an estate sale, the vintage radio was from an auction.  Now lets talk about the credenza.  It’s one of the few pieces I’ve paid “almost retail” for but it was fate.  Our entertainment stand fell apart!  We needed something for our TV so I started looking- this turned up (in Orlando again… sigh) and it was the exact size I needed.  Apparently credenzas are standard 60″ or more.  Smaller ones are 1 in a million.  It’s a gorgeous piece of furniture and will be with us for a long time.  The rocker and stool/ottoman are reproductions I purchased from Zulily and not vintage.  The pillows are all from regular stores like TJ Maxx, Old Time Pottery, Ikea and Wal-Mart.  We placed a cat scratcher right where the cats from in from and it was really been effective in keeping them from scratching on the couch.

Guest bathroom… the only room in the house we totally renovated (and my ourselves!)

Not much has changed in the guest bathroom since my post on it.  I still love it so much!  DIYing the entire project allowed us to put more into the big ticket items that make this bathroom look much more expensive than it was.  First time visitors love it, and I get a lot of comments about it on YouTube videos it appears in.  The artwork ‘If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie wipe the seatie.” was custom from Etsy.  The octopus stencil was also from Etsy.  The toothbrush holder is actually a bottle drying rack from Boon!

Everett’s room hasn’t changed that much but it’s worth a look.

His dinosaur collection has grown quite a bit since we moved in.  His vocabulary is mostly dinosaur names, and don’t tell him that an Allosaurus is a T-Rex or he will not hesitate to correct your ignorance.  I also semi-permanently attached the building plates to our Expedit shelf for a nice place for him to build his Duplos on, an activity he still loves.  We got a new TV for Xmas from a family member so this was the only room the old one fit into.  Believe it or not they rarely watch it unless we let them watch a movie on it in bed.  All of his furniture is Ikea, and everything but the Expedit was bought from Criagslist for a STEAL.

Fletcher’s room has seen some revisions too!  (these photos have a different watermarks since I took them for a post about his room featured on OffBeat Families)

Fletcher’s room has a Mario/Nintendo theme that evolved from the cross stitch I made for him while I was pregnant.  Most of his furniture is Ikea, but the dresser was a thrift shop find that I painted.

And lastly- the Golden Girls Room.

Looks fabulous right?  This room flip flops between being a stately shrine to The Golden Girls and my filming “studio.”  I love my house but I do miss the full basement we had in NY- I was able to spread out my filming equipment and get away from the kids while I worked!  You can see it more put together in an older post.  

Wow… I guess that is it!  I covered everything except the garage, even though we did actually do some organization and added cabinets from Re-store in there for a workspace.  Seeing it all come together, even though it isn’t complete (in my opinion) has been fun for me.  In two years we have managed to fit in a ton of work on the home and make it our own.  As much as people dread buying “fixer-uppers” it gave us the ability to customize it fully to our taste and the home itself was priced right.