I am all about making a house a home...

and better yet, making your house a home

on a budget!

Here are some sites that I find extremely 

inspiring and creative. I just thought I'd 

share. 

I ♥ before and afters from design sponge.

I especially like the ones she featured today...

and this...

and this designer nursery...

and this outdoor couch...

I also LOVE Layla's house and her 

design ideas...

Seeing her dining room made me

re-think and re-paint our dining room...

And, of course, we all love Young House Love...

Seeing their whole house, made me re-think our

whole house's design. 

♥ their living room!

And what is quickly becoming a favorite

website for ALL of those who are looking

to make their own furniture and not spend

money out the butt, check out knock off wood! 

I ♥ her bragging board posts. Especially

this woman's outdoor dining table that cost

a whopping $16.52 to make!!!

Someday I'll have a patio and a big outdoor dining 

table and it will be awesome!

And last but not least,

the most memorable house I've ever read about...

I couldn't find the blog post about her

that I had originally read but the thing

that stuck out to me, that she said, was

that it was their family's home so they 

designed with their family in mind and also

that they never spent more then $150 on a room (i think).

Whenever I re-design a room, in our home, 

I think about family-functionality and simplicity.

I've learned a few things and I am anxious to get

back to designing our home once things settle

down a bit. Right now it's all staring at me like

a blank canvas... 

Someday I'll tackle my to-do's with all of the

ideas and inspirations I have found in blogland...

For now I thought I'd share them with you!

Enjoy!

living room progress...

As you know, I decided (on friday morning at 10:35) to re-paint our living room.

I decided to paint the walls a shade lighter then the couch. So, we hauled our chair cushion with us to Lowe's and found this color.

Valspar's - Woodrow Wilson Putty

I bought 2 gallons of the one that has the primer in it and boy am I glad I did! I got the entire room painted within 2 hours! Last time we painted with the cheap wal-mart brand paint and it was dripping down the walls and required 2 coats (3 in some areas). Good paint makes all the difference.

*My mom helped trim out a section of a wall but I had to re-do it. The woman does not put enough paint on her brush! But she did help me get to the store with 3 kids in tow and helped hold Faye for a few minutes while I rolled the walls. So, thank you mom!

I decided to try out 'frog tape' and I have to say it did work! Our walls are extremely textured so it couldn't stick very well, but even despite that I saw no drips. I taped off two walls and eventually decided that it was taking too long so I ditched the tape but it worked where I used it! I paint with such precision that I had confidence in going solo. 

The results are amazing! Are you ready for the beauty that is now our living room?

 

Ok, so our living room went from this....

 to this.....

to this....... (sorry for the mess)

We are so incredibly thrilled with the results! Everywhere I look, I see beauty. Let me take you through our living room a little...

The first and obvious thing that stands out to me are the window treatments. We feel like real adults! We have window treatments! Actual complete windows! How did we do it? Well, I was inspired by young house love's (can't get enough of them) living room window and the no-sew curtains in their nursery. 

First I went to Menards and bought room darkening white roller-shades and cheap bamboo roller-shades.

Then I went to Wal-mart and bought cheap (9$) curtain rods and drapery rings with clips. While Jess was hanging everything, I worked on the curtains. 

From our recent trip to Ikea, I already had 2 packs of white curtains (2 panels ea. pkg. and for only 15$ per pkg.) They are tab curtains which I don't like but the material is excellent for the price. I cut off the tabs and used the iron-on hemming tape that was included for the bottom of the curtains. I then clipped them on to the drapery-ring clips and the result, as you can see, is amazing! 

See that round mirror? I scored that at Hobby Lobby for 8$ in the clearance area because there is a piece missing off the top of the frame. 

Now, on to some pretty little details... 

This shelf contains 5 of some of my favorite finds from over the weekend. The white vases were .50 a piece from a local thrift store...

 

This adorable little guy was only 1$ from the same thrift store...

This interesting piece I got for 4$ at Hobby Lobby! I ♥ it!

Another favorite thing of mine is this painting...

My mom gave it to me. It use to be my great-grandma's and she got it from her daughter-in-law I believe. Anywho, I love it and has to be one of my favorite things that I own. I seriously wish that I had 2 more just like it for my dining room and bedroom... But that'd just be craziness!

Our living room still has a little ways to go. Our picture wall that we had up just didn't look the same on this color of wall so that is why we've added in art pieces. We are still playing with it but when we're finished, I'll share the photos. This is what it looked like - 

I can't remember where I got the framing a picture-in-a-frame idea but we love it! I got most of our frames from the 'damaged frames' section at Hobby Lobby for under $10. We like the imperfections...

I scored a bunch more there this past weekend. We hope to fill in the wall a bit more. Plus we have to add in baby Faye of course!

Now that our living room is well on it's way to being what we want it'll be easier to find little things here and there and add them in. I am going to order some new fabric for pillows off of etsy to add more pops of color to the room. I'm going to re-upholster our foot-stool in a bolder fabric. And, hopefully find some new lamps. We are considering trying to build an end table similar to the one we already have for the right side of the couch. But, those things can take their time. I'm just so happy to be rid of the blue....

Oh, I also painted our dining room...

.

But more on that another day...

last year...

we purchased our first home. we'd been living in a smaller bungalow type house of my great-grandmother's for about 3 years and before that, a few small apartments. so, as you can imagine, we have been thrilled to be home owners. this house is large and is a huge blessing to us. however, i am beginning to wallow in it's size and how many rooms there are to decorate.

for some awful reason the previous owner, a realtor (flipper), thought it necessary to paint ALL of the trim and walls a terrible 'smoker's yellow'. (as we so lovely refer to it as)

at the end of last summer we decided to start painting. i didn't put much thought behind colors, i was just so excited to have something of our own. so... we began painting.

and the living room became blue....

but first was a horrid teal color because i'm terrible at figuring out colors. so, we re-painted the walls with this baby blue that i still hate but decided i hated it after we'd finished the whole room. so... we went with it. these are very big walls and it took a lot of effort thanks to my sister and brother-in-law. the living room remains the same... a color that i hate....

however, i do like our decor...

just not the color of the walls. it's very limiting. i want to be able to incorporate more colors. my style is more eclectic i am learning. i can do matchy-matchy (as seen) but i don't like it. my husband understands my dilemma but really likes the way our living room is. however, i've convinced him to let me re-paint eventually and try to find my style. i've been showing him photos and explaining what i'd like to see done.

i was so pleased to see this post yesterday over at young house love. i showed it to him to further explain myself. i think he agreed...

i want to re-paint the walls a shade or two lighter then the couches. i want to change out some of the pillows to incorporate more colors. i want to possibly re-do the footstool (we made it using this tutorial, but now i am beginning to see how we could have made it better) i want to change out the curtains that i made for bamboo shades. and i want to put more art on the other walls. i'd like to find a round mirror to put above the radiator and we have some floating shelves that still need to be hung that will go above the right side of the couch.

the whole house is calling out to me but i cannot seem to get past my decorating block until i fix what i already did. and that applies to the 6 out of 10 rooms we did paint, starting with our living room... sorry jess! i am my mother's daughter... i just cannot continue with this ugliness staring at me. my fear is to move on to the rooms we haven't touched yet and continue this madness so i must first fix what i did wrong to learn what not to do... right?

so i wonder how he'll feel when he sees this...

love you, babe....

i know what we're doing this weekend!

i'll be sure and keep you all updated.