Finding Joy Right Where I'm Planted...

We’ve all heard the quote “Bloom Where You’re Planted” And if this year has taught me anything, it’s simply that. If you talked to me four years ago, I could tell you a million things I wished we had… things that I wished we could change about our house, our life, our financial situation. I was busy looking left and right and eyeing up all the things I didn’t have, and the lives of others on instagram, wishing for a home that felt “instagram-worthy” and perfect. I’m not generally someone who covets what others have, but I could easily get consumed by petty jealousy and play a mean game of comparison.

In the last few years, I’ve worked pretty hard on this. I’ve become best friends with the “unfollow” button, or the mute button. I’ve stopped picking up magazines, stopped looking for things I want, and focused so much more on what we need, and let everything else fall away. Social media is very good at feeding us a lie that tells us that what we have is never enough and what other people share about having is what we also need to have. Living a life of excess, having an over abundance of stuff, a new wardrobe every season, blah blah blah… but I realized it’s not what is going to bring you happiness. Maybe it will in the moment, but long term, you can’t sustain that. Instead, you need to find the joy right where you are. In your current moment. Look around and pick out a couple things that make you smile. Count the blessings.

My life is far from perfect. My home… far from perfect. Are those homes I see all over Instagram beautiful? You betcha. Would it be nice to have a little more space for our family to spread out a little? You betcha. But I am so proud of the home we do have. I love that we own a home that when people walk in, they feel cozy and welcomed. 2020 was the year we all stayed home, and the fact that I can say, I still love everything about this house, flaws and all, is saying something.

I wrote an instagram post this morning about instead of comparing my life to what others have, I talked about the joy I felt when I made my bed and saw the new Christmas quilt and red pillows. Seeing so cute and put together, I remembered that wish i made three years ago that “one of these years I’m going to bring the Christmas decor to our bedrooms, in order to bring the holiday magic to the whole house.”

Last year, I invested in two very small and inexpensive trees for the kids rooms. Slowly, but surely, I’m creating the dream I had for us with the limited budget we have, but creating something magical for my children has become more of a priority for me than getting likes or follows on instagram.

Yesterday, as Jonathan looked around the house, he told me… “Mama, Christmas is my favorite time. This looks so magical.” I could feel the lump in my throat, and it made me realize that THAT is what it’s all about. Creating magic in the every day. And for me, there is nothing more magical than a home at Christmastime.

A Room Remodel: Wallpaper Makes all the Difference.

Four score and six years ago… we created a fun and creative space for our new little baby boy. Three years later, we added a baby girl, but because Ryan had just graduated with his Masters, we didn’t have the money to give her a whole new room. So… We took down the small shelves, changed the curtains, added a cute rug and called it good for the time being. There was no rhyme or reason to any of the decor choices, but I really loved those yellow curtains and knew that would be my starting point when I figured out a design for this room one day.

Using the curtains as my color inspiration, I found a wallpaper company I loved and after looking through pages and pages of designs, I narrowed it down to a couple favorites. But for obvious reasons, those triangles just called to me. (I have a triangle tattoo on my arm).

I posted an instagram story saying I wish I could do a collaboration with them, and someone actually messaged me back telling me to send them an email! I could NOT believe it! And from there we sent emails back and forth and locked in on a design.

I found other inspiration in the Crate & Kids catalog, but knew the only thing I could afford was the adorable clothes hamper. But then we got to work.

When we removed the shelves & the trim on the chalkboard, the dry wall was damaged so we knew we had a lot of work ahead of us before we could start installing the wallpaper.

We received the wallpaper the week before all the stay at home orders went into affect. Ryan was super sick that week (negative for covid-19) and then that sickness spread like wildfire through our house. So not only were we dealing with Ryan working from home, no school and not being able to really leave our house… we also had so many projects in our house hanging over us. We finally started our girls room project at the beginning of April.

We had to patch the holes, as well as skim coat the stripes on the old wall to make sure that you couldn’t see the texture from the paint. This was a tedious process, because my sweet husband is a perfectionist and we kept having weird issues with the plaster not adhering to the wall and fine bubbles. Not to mention, something we would normally get someone to watch the kids so we could focus on the project without interruptions, we didn’t want to risk exposure, so everything we did was either during nap time, in between work days and weekends.

Finally by June, we were ready to hang the wallpaper! And I could not be MORE excited about this. One word of advice: Make sure the entire wall is fully painted white before installation. Regardless of the color on the wallpaper, it isn’t 100% opaque, and that dark shadow from the previous paint color at the ceiling is faintly visible through the paper.

On the ColoRay Decor website, our pattern shows the triangles with the points going down (like bunting), but I really loved the idea of them going the opposite direction, so at the last second we decided to flip it.

This is ABSOLUTELY a two person job. Go slow. Don’t rush. We started by giving a little extra at the top. Peeled back the backing and slowly worked from the inside of the sheet to the edges, squishing out all the air bubbles and making sure we didn’t have any creases. Ryan was on the ladder, and I was behind the wallpaper on the floor, slowly pulling the backing down evenly.

Did I mention, GO SSSLLOOOWWWWW. Match up the seams. And if you need to pull it off and reposition it, you absolutely can!!

When we were all done, using a straight edge and a very sharp Xacto-knife, we trimmed off the excess on the top & bottom and the sides.

We had been planning the room remodel for a couple years, and knew we would need to transition Verona into a big girl bed (Which we had already purchased from Ikea December 2019). I managed to take a chance on a bed spread that I ordered as a Target Drive up, praying it would be the right color, and asked for a new white rug for the girls room for Christmas 2019 in preparation for this upcoming remodel.

All the pieces were falling into place, and I had also dreamed of creating two big canvases as art for the wall to complement the wallpaper. I scored these 24x36 canvases from Michaels for 50% off, and was able to create something custom using my Tombow Dual Brush pens! (After planning it out on a smaller canvas just to make sure I liked the way it looked first). I love these lyrics from JJ Heller, and knew they would be perfect for my little girls room.

Our house is small. Our resources are limited. And money was definitely something we DIDN’T have to throw at this. But I knew creating a fun space for my little girls to grow up in was what was important to me, and here we are!

It turned out better than I could have ever dreamed, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to work with ColoRay Decor on this bedroom. Every time I walk in this room it fills me with so much joy, and these two little ladies LOVE it!

List of links:

Wallpaper -ColoRay Designs

Bedframe -Ikea

Twin Quilt -Target

Shag Rug -Rugs.com

Clothes Hamper- Crate & Kids

Curtains -Target

Floral prints -Lulu Ink Designs

Other Print -Handwritten Hope

Little Girl's Room Reveal- Geometric Design

I remember when we found out that we were going to have a daughter, and visions of a beautiful nursery flooded my head. Floral wallpaper. Floral wreaths. Wooden script names. Soft tones. I had it all pinned on Pinterest, and was planning this big grand reveal. Then the instagram world vs reality sets in, and I knew that what I wanted to do wouldn’t be financially possible with all that we had going on. We don’t tap from a bottomless well of money, and whatever work that needed to be done in that room, we were going to have to do ourselves, because paying a contractor or designer was not in the budget.

So we waited. And waited. And waited. And then I bought some curtains because that tone of yellow just made me happy and from there I decided to design this room. I found this adorable wallpaper from ColoRay Decor and it was off to the races. Triangles make me happy, and these colors fit perfectly in our colorful home aesthetic.

Slowly but surely, we made small purchases here and there until this sweet room was complete. Repurposed an old dresser & nightstand, gave them a fresh coat of white spray paint. Some custom artwork created by me to go on the main wall, and boom! I’ll give links to all the other artwork, and please feel free to comment if you have any questions about anything else!! Enjoy!

List of links:

Wallpaper -ColoRay Designs

Bedframe -Ikea

Twin Quilt -Target

Shag Rug -Rugs.com

Clothes Hamper- Crate & Kids

Curtains -Target

Floral prints -Lulu Ink Designs

Other Print -Handwritten Hope

The [Never-Ending] Kitchen Reno

Listing Photo of the Kitchen

We moved to this house in June of 2013, after walking through many “GUT-JOBS” we settled on this house, knowing that the kitchen was newly updated and only needed a little work to make it feel like home. Other than a new coat of paint, updating the countertops, and installing a backsplash, I was so happy with the size and layout of this kitchen. Two months into living here, we donned our n95 masks and went to work (ironically it was on our 1 year wedding anniversary).

A project that I thought would only take a week or two, ended up turning into a MAJOR project. Much like the story of “If you Give a mouse a cookie”. If you tell Ryan you want to paint the walls, he is going to tell you he needs to paint the ceiling first. If we paint the ceiling, we need to add new recessed lighting, and if we add new recessed lighting, we need to cut a MAJOR hole in the ceiling to run said wires. If you have the ceiling open, you may just need to fix the bath tub drain, and while you have that open in the living room, we should also add recessed lighting in the kitchen. My seemingly “simple cosmetic update” of painting over the ugly yellow wall color became a much more intense job.

This was our first home project together, and now after 8 years of being married, I’ve come to learn that nothing is ever just a “Simple update”. Please don’t mistake this as complaining, because I’m incredibly grateful for the skill and handiwork of my husband.

All that to say, we have lived in a constant state of ‘manageable’ renovation since we moved here. Life is busy, children are blessings. Four months into the lighting project update, I found out I was pregnant, which made life a little hectic, but also lit a fire for Ryan to get this house in a more “liveable” state.

In 2016, {3 years after we bought our house} we were in a good financial situation to afford new quartz countertops, and the tile backsplash I had been dreaming about. I felt like we were finally “making it” because the kitchen would be perfect! The color of the cabinets wasn’t my first choice, but the new backsplash and countertops made it feel so much more our style.

I started to nit-pick and asked Ryan if “one day, can we replace the ugly cork floors?” because they started to feel out of place with the fancy new countertops. But we knew that this was another project we would need to save for, and after just having Verona, we needed to take it easy in that department.

Flash forward to Memorial Day 2018: we had a terrible storm and we were without power for a while, and had to connect our refrigerator to the neighbors generator. When we pushed it back in, we were unaware that the hose for the ice maker was punctured and started leaking water. Three weeks later, we realized that the floor in front of the fridge was damp and started to bow. We pulled out the fridge and about died when we saw the extent of the damage.

Thank God for insurance. August 6, 2018. Contractors came to pull out the flooring, and we were met with some pretty devastating news. Mold & Asbestos. We were quarantined from our house, displaced until it was contained. They told us it was going to be a complete kitchen gut. I cried. Many times. All of the contents in the kitchen were packed up in boxes and hauled away. The lower cabinets were ripped out. The flooring was ripped out. It was all gone, so we started to dream about what our kitchen could look like. After a few back and forth calls, we realized that only a few cabinets would be replaced, but we couldn’t find the exact match to our existing cabinets, which resulted in new paint and door/drawer faces.

We had to create a new “makeshift" kitchen in our dining room, using a hot plate to cook dinners and we washed our dishes in the bathtub upstairs. It was not an ideal situation, but we made it work. In order to save some money, and make a few updates to our walls, flooring etc, Ryan agreed to do most of the work himself, which seemed like a good idea, until I found out I was pregnant with Vivienne. Can we just talk about the irony of how big renovations & pregnancy seem to go hand in hand in this house. As I was busy growing a human, I was a little useless when it came to all the other work that needed to be done in the kitchen.

When you’re in the middle of it, it felt like the renovation was never ending, and to be honest, our kitchen still has some work to be done. Trim. Broken tiles. Side paneling. Grout. But from the photos, you can barely tell, and looking back, I’m so grateful to have the kitchen I have today. It’s one of my favorite things about our house.

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Moral of the story: real life doesn’t look like a home renovation show. You can’t always wrap everything in a pretty bow, say here is where we started and in 3 short months, this is where we are with our perfect completed kitchen. Patience. Trust the journey. Sometimes the end result turns out better than you could have ever imagined.