Before Pictures of the Vinyl Siding on our Home
Man, oh man, what a journey this has been. Hiring someone to install new vinyl siding on our house has been one of the most stressful and expensive home projects to date. Continue reading
New Siding!
Author Archives: melanie
Little Projects
Sometimes it’s the little projects that are the most difficult to complete. You think, “Oh, that’ll just take a minute, I’ll do it later.” And then the little projects add up into a big honkin’ project. We’ve been trying to knock some little to-dos out lately, but our list doesn’t seem to get shorter. In fact, it seems to keep getting longer! That’s life, right? Anyway, I thought I’d update you on some little projects that we’ve recently accomplished. Continue reading
A Life Update
Our backyard and trees that won’t exist soon…
Wow, it’s been a while. I’ve been much more active over on Instagram lately (asmalllife) and ye olde blog has fallen by the wayside. But, I thought I’d pop in with a little life update. Sometimes it feels weird sharing my life specifics online, regardless, I thought I’d let you know why there’s been some silence.
So, here’s the hot goss: Continue reading
How to DIY a Wood Stove Heat Shield
Alright y’all. I had planned to write this post to explain how we created our DIY wood stove heat shield with lots of helpful photos. But, I can’t find the photos of the back of the heat shield for the life of me and George would kill me if I asked him to take it off the wall. So, wordy explanations are going to have to do! Continue reading
10 Quick Tips for Selling Your RV
We said goodbye to the Airstream last Saturday. And since then, I’ve run the gamut of feelings. Basically I’ve been the epitome of #allthefeels. I didn’t expect it to be that way. I thought I’d just be relieved, but I must admit, I’ve been sad too. To help me work through some of my feelings, I thought it might be helpful if I shared some quick tips and things I learned from selling our Airstream. Continue reading
Airstream Remodel and Refresh
After four years of living in the Airstream, the ol’ girl was looking a little rough around the edges. We knew it was time to do a little Airstream remodel and refresh. (You can see pictures of what it looked like when we first remodeled it here and the first before and afters here.) The paint was definitely not bright white anymore and we knew that we had customized it to our very specific needs. If we were going to sell her, we wanted her to look and be her best for her new owners. Continue reading
Why We Decided to Sell Our Airstream
We recently did a big refresh of the Airstream because… we’ve decided to sell it. For a long time I was holding on to the idea that we’d keep our Airstream as an AirBnB at our new house. But George and I did some soul-searching (as corny as that sounds) and we’ve decided that what’s best for us right now is to sell our Airstream. Continue reading
Our Small Bathroom Remodel: Before and After!
The Bathroom entrance before renovations.
I’m happy to say that we’ve finally finished the one and only bathroom in our small house. Or it’s at least done enough. It’s never really finished, is it? 😉
We did almost a complete gut job. The pictures don’t really show the sad shape the bathroom was in. Our house was a rental and was not loved for many years. The only thing we kept in the bathroom was the tub– which we had refinished. Continue reading
Happy Halloween!
Big Lebowski Family Costume
Happy Halloween, friends! This year we dressed up as The Dude and Walter from The Big Lebowski. Bambi made a special appearance as the rug.
Big Lebowski Family Costume
I hope y’all are eating all the Halloween candy you can stomach and watching all the spooky movies.
Did you dress up this year? I’d love to hear about your costume in the comments!
Check out our costumes of year’s past here.
On Slow Renovating
Our incomplete living room.
I’m sure y’all have heard of the slow movement– slow food, slow fashion, etc. It’s a whole thing. (Check out the Wikipedia post if you’re interested.) But what I haven’t heard much about is slow renovating. It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately because, well, I’m living in a house that we’re slowly renovating.
If you turn on HGTV or even browse home design accounts on Instagram, it seems like everyone is renovating rooms in their homes or their entire homes(!) in a few weeks. WEEKS, people! We’ve now had our small home for about a year and we don’t have even one room completely done. For a long time, I was embarrassed and frustrated that we couldn’t get it done by ourselves in a few months. Then, I was frustrated that we didn’t have the time or money to just pay someone to do it for us and be done with it. I felt like I was going through the five stages of grief, people.
But the more I think about it, the more thankful I am for the slow renovation process. Taking our renovation slower than we had anticipated has given us a chance to make back the money we’ve spent on our home renovations. We haven’t had to take out a home renovation loan and I’m proud of that.
It’s also allowed me to think long and hard about what our needs are and what our style is. The longer we live in this home, the more I realize, it would be nice if we had a small dresser here, or it would be nice if we had a place for coffee cups there.
Honestly, George and I don’t always agree on a style for our home either. I like ultra-modern pieces and he likes more farmhouse. I want us both to be happy and comfortable in our home, so sometimes it takes us a long time to come to a happy medium.
I am also grateful that I’ve been given time to gather pieces that mean something to me. I’m not just going to a big box store and picking out a bunch of meaningless stuff all willy nilly. I’ve had time to search out pieces that I love and in some cases, I’m still looking for the perfect piece to complete the room. And that’s ok.
I’m tired of just seeing the before and after house porn pictures. The middle part is important too. Home renovation is a process and it takes time. So let’s all just slow down and enjoy it.
What do you think? Are slow home renovations just frustrating or should they be celebrated? Chat with me in the comments.