Before and After

A house always seems like a work in progress. It has been two years since I moved in and I finally have {almost} every room completed. And if I could start over, buy all new furniture, and do it again...I certainly would. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have, and with a limited budget...do what you can. I do have a slight obsession with a few places and as soon as it's in the budget there are a few key items which  will be on their way out the door. First would by my Ikea dining table. Great for the price when I got it a few years ago, but oh so boring. I am currently obsessed with these : I.O. Metro Dining Table and I.O. Metro Dining Table 2. There is just something about the rustic wood that makes me feel like I am eating a delicious dinner cooked by my grandma in an old farmhouse. {Even though my grandma never had an old farmhouse} When I walked into my new house, the first thing I thought was...well, this all has to go. The endless painting began and because I am slightly OCD, most of the rooms were painted within the first few months. So what have I done over the past two years...well....here is a little preview: 

Entrance

Living room 

"Office" 

Deck

Half Bath- yes it kind of feels like you are under water in there

Need a quick island for cheap? I made this one using an unfinished base cabinet (Thanks to the Habitat Re-Store). Slap on some plywood, Duraroc and some extra limestone tile (Thanks Mom) and you have an island for under $40. This has become the perfect gathering space. 

Dining Room

Basement

Ikea has some great inexpensive items...I took these mirrors I have had for years and painted on a stencil to bring new life to them. Easy Peasy. 

Basement Bathroom

Guest Bedroom

Guest Bathroom

Master Bathroom {As seen in a previous post}

Master Bedroom

Now that all my projects are almost complete...time for a new house?? 

Mommy to Bee

Babies...who doesn't love them? A great friend of mine is expecting and I wanted to throw her a little shower with a few close friends. I spent the week before gathering materials, researching {Pinterest} and crafting all my decorations. Her and the Mr. have decided to make the sex of the baby a surprise so of course the shower had to be fairly neutral. When I think neutral, yellow comes to mind of course, but I put a little twist and added in some grey, white and black. I found lots of "themes" I liked but I {sort of} went with the "Mommy to Bee" theme. I am all about decorating on a budget so I went around to all the local stores gathering different colors of tissue paper, fabric (on sale of course), pretty paper, etc. For those of you interested...I think my total decorating budget was about $35. Of course I had some things lying around the house that I used as well, but with a little imagination you can do a lot with a small budget. I arrived home from business travel on Friday evening and went straight to work baking, making food, cleaning my house and of course, finally putting all my decorations together that I had been working on. I was so excited to see it all come together. I had even been growing my own Dahlias all summer, in hopes that the white and yellow ones would be in bloom. Unfortunately, I was not so lucky and they are all on the brink of producing some magnificent blooms, but I did have some dark purple Dahlias that were just lovely so I went with it (in addition so some flowers from my local flower shop). 

There were two moments from this shower that delighted me.

 1. Megan's (the mommy-to-be) face when she walked in.

 2. A guest of the shower said she felt like she was walking into Pinterest.

 Success. 

{Mommy to Bee theme} 

{Thanks for coming...have some honey and chocolate}

{These straws sure made the drinks taste better. Thanks Etsy}

Handmade Paper Straws

{Salted Caramel cupcakes...of course}

{Yeah, that's real caramel on top...yes, it took me three tries and I burned the s*%# out of three pots}

{My attempt at making a bee out of tissue paper...not bad for my first try}

{Garden flowers}

{The beautiful mommy-to-bee}