Tag Archives: small house

One Room Challenge Week 1: A Rustic Modern Porch Makeover

Rustic Modern Porch Inspiration BoardThis year I’ve decided to take on the One Room Challenge! It’s a biannual event where designers make over one room over the course of six weeks. 20 designers take on the challenge and guests are encouraged to participate, as well.

I’m participating this year as a guest and I’ve decided to make over our porch! It’s not exactly a “room,” but it counts, y’all! We’ve done a lot of work on the exterior of the house, but I want to get a few more things done before it gets too cold, so I thought this would be the perfect kick in the pants! Continue reading →

Living Room and Dining Room DIY Updates

Easy DIY Record StorageGeorge’s parents came to stay with us one weekend, so we used that as a catalyst to get some much needed projects done around the house. There’s nothing like your in-laws coming into town to kick your butt into high gear.  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 →

On Slow Renovating

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.

Little Projects

Our renovation process has hit a bit of a stalemate. George is extra busy with work right now and since we gotta make a living, it’s left me doing small projects around the house. There’s some things I’m comfortable doing on my own, but things like installing doors, I have trouble physically doing on my own. Real wood doors are heavy, folks. While small projects are not nearly as gratifying as large ones, I’m proud of the work I’ve done.

Here’s what I’ve been working on.

Continue reading →

Our Home Renovation Progress in Less than 30 Seconds

I got a new phone half-way through our renovation progress, so I haven’t kept up with recording our renovation progress via video, but I found my old phone last week and thought this was still worth the post. Watching this video is encouraging to see how far we’ve come. We still have a ton of detail things to do. Which in some ways, is the worst stuff. Our house is livable now, thank God, but we’ve got a ways to go before I’ll be ready to post those beautiful “after pictures.”

In case you are wondering, I created this video with One Second Everyday. It’s an app that you can use on your phone to journal the everyday. If you can keep up with it, it’s a really neat way to remember your everyday life.

– Melanie

 

 

Design Dilemmas: Putting a bed in front of a window

Design Dilemmas: Putting a bed in front of a window

I’ve been pretty confident in my design decisions up until now. I know what I like, and I’ll search the ends of the earth to find it. (Once a librarian, always a librarian.) But the predicament in our master bedroom has me stumped. There’s no other way to arrange it, the bed in our “master” bedroom has to go in front of a window. The room is fairly small and I think the best arrangement will be putting it under the window on the left side of the picture below.

A Small Home: Before Pictures: Back Bedroom

The “master” bedroom, before we tore it to shreds

Ok, so that’s settled, right? Well, yes and no. Truth is, we’re running low on funds (a huge post on budgeting is coming soon), so I’m not keen on spending even a couple hundo for a bed. I also want a bed that is low to the ground, as to not block all the natural light from the window, so we’re going to build something ourselves. I’d like a bit of storage underneath the bed for socks and undies– a simple box with drawers will do. (Similar to what we built in the Airstream.) Buuuuuut, here comes the hard part, what should we do for a headboard?

Here’s the options I’m thinking: Continue reading →

Our New Home

Our New Home!First things first: we bought a small house! That hunk o’ junk in the picture above is ours!

Ok, ok, I know this might seem like it is coming out of the blue, but it’s actually been a long time coming. Let me explain: the real, honest truth is that we purchased this house months ago. But I had a full-time job outside of this blog that I was trying to protect and I couldn’t tell anyone online because the house we bought is quite far from our current Airstream home– like 4 hours away. But I can now spill the beans because I recently quit my job and fingers crossed, we’ll be moving to our new location and our new home soon. Continue reading →