2016 House to Home Projects

Good morning everyone! I hope you've all had a safe and happy New Year's holiday and are having a great weekend. Don't forget, there are only 3 days left to join the biggest ALL IN Challenge to help you to become the healthier you!! You definitely don't want to pass this one up!! There are ways to get discounts and I can customize a program for you no matter what your budget! Email me at southliveyankee@gmail.com to find out how!

We are headed out of town to see family, so I thought I would take the time to do a quick post.

Looking ahead (and around the house) I'd love to come up with some home improvement projects to tackle this year. I just want to come up with a few semi-big(ish) projects that we may (or may not) have been wanting to do since we've moved into the house. As home owners, I don't think you are ever done with your to-do list. It's all part of making your house your home, at least it is to me. So, now that we have sold all of our houses except for the one we are currently living in, I feel like we can start paying more attention and spending some more money on our family home.

Here are the projects that is like to see completed this year:

1. New carpet in the formal living and dining room. This carpet is in pretty bad shape and has been since we purchased the house. It hasn't been a top priority since we only recently started using the formal livig room and don't use the dining room as much as we should. We have painted the walls in both rooms and ordered a new couch for the living room. It should be here in 3-4 weeks and I.can't.wait! It's a sectional with recliners on each end. It's going to make the room so cozy. I'm so excited for it! While it would probably be better to get the carpet installed before the couch arrives, I just don't think that's possible since our final payment is due on our upcoming cruise within 10 days. So....it's going to be an eventually purchase :-)

2. Another project I'd love to get done this year is to have a microwave installed over our stove. I've always loved the convenience of this feature, plus, since we don't have an abundance of counter space in the kitchen, it would be nice to have that extra real estate on the counter! This is a pretty complex project since we will have to redesign the cabinets in order to have room for the microwave. So, looks like I'll have to be making my dad lots of dinners to butter him up to help with this one! Haha!

3. Our final project will be to work on the guest bath room. The fixtures need to be updated in the shower and I'd like to personalize it a bit more. The current fixtures are brass and we've recently had trouble with the shower. Since we use this as the kids bathroom and give them baths, it hasn't been a big issue. But we've recently had some overnight guests and it would be nice to have an (easily) working shower for them. I also did a screenshot of a cute shelf (in above picture) I would love to make (myself) and hang in there as well.

So, there is my list of home improvement projects for the coming year. I hope to have a few side projects along the way, too. But these are our GOAL projects for the year. I'll be sure to update you on the progress!

I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend!

So long for today...

Friday Fun - Home Improvement Edition

We made it!! It's Friday you guys!!! This has been the longest week I've had in a long time! Not sure what made it drag or so much, but in any event, we made it through the work week!! Yay!!!

We don't have any absolute definite plans for the weekend...yet. You know me, we always manage to find something to get into. I DO know that I am so ready to HGTV some things around the house. We bought this house in October and moved in the first part of November. We have the kids rooms done. That's it. In the last, I usually go straight from closing to the house and start painting or changing things in some way. When I buy a house, I like to personalize it ASAP.  We didn't want to get too much money tied up until we were out from under our multiple mortgage payments each month. While we still have TC's giant garage that we are in the process of building, we have a set number for that, so I feel like we can finally breathe a little bit and start tackling some of these projects that we've been putting off. We already changed out the fans on our back porch and upgraded our light fixture in the dining room, but I'm ready to paint and finally make this house ours!! Here are some of the rooms/elements I'm using as inspiration...

1. Half Bath: 

                             and

2. Dining Room: 

3. Kids' Art Corner: 

We are doing some local shopping this evening for this one, but might have to take a road trip to Ikea in Charlotte torrid if we can't find what we need.

4. Entryway: I decided earlier this week that I'd like to have a hall tree as our drop zone for backpacks, purses, coats, etc. they always end up thrown where ever and I've just gotten really tired of it! 

5. Curtains/Valances: I'm feeling pretty crafty and have decided to make some valances for some windows around the house. I am enlisting the help of my sister's mother-in-law for this one though. She helped my sister make some really cute valances for her house and we texted earlier this week about some options. I can't wait to get started on them! 

I have so many other projects that I want to get done, but these ones should keep me busy for a while!

I hope you all have a great weekend! Hopefully, I'll be able to report back about all of the progress we made over the weekend!

So long for today...