1 Year

March 19, 2013was an exciting day for us. After a turbulent ordeal with the home buying process, we closed on our first home! With both of our cars packed to the rim, we drove to the office where we would sign paperwork and get our keys. Before we knew it, we spent the first night in our house - giddy with excitement and talks of the projects we would undertake! 

Yesterday marked one year that we have called our house ours. It has been an exciting, and at times, frustrating adventure in home ownership. But - it has been very rewarding! I don't know if you celebrate a house's "birthday" or "gotcha day" but we talked about what all we had done so far in the house and our dreams for the upcoming years in this house. 

Here's to the next year, and the many years to follow in this Midwest house of ours!

-E

Snow Day Craftivity - River Rock Boot Tray

Just when you think that winter may be over, it's not! Something I love about the Midwest is our four distinct seasons. I truly believe that if I were to move outside of the Midwest to a place that does not experience the four seasons, I would miss it! I find it ironic, as I wrote that last sentence, that I have always lived in the Midwest, despite calling three states home. I suppose that the Midwest is best! 

A luxury, to some (ME!), that comes with having four distinct seasons is the intensity of each season. I was beyond thankful to find out that I had a snow day this past Monday! It didn't snow in excessive amounts like it did in February, but, it was cold enough to send the wind chills into the negative twenties. Brrrrr. Considering the fact that I truly took advantage of the snow days, I attempted to be more productive on my last one. 

Below is one of the things that I was able to accomplish! Somewhere within my thousands of pins on Pinterest, I happened to pin this super easy and cute craftivity. All it consists of is "river rocks" and a boot tray. Uber easy & cute. I was worried about finding a boot tray since it was almost spring, but Target didn't let me down!

I bought this Mohawk boot tray at my local Target. I felt lucky enough to snag one of the last ones, as I wasn't sure if they would restock for the upcoming season! Next, I went to Dollar Tree and bought 11 bags of their river rock. Other tutorials suggested you could do less, but I wanted to have more than enough than not enough. I poured all of the bags into the tray and distributed evenly. That's it! 

In all, this cost me roughly $16. It is more eye appealing and an easy way to store my boots and shoes. Even though winter is (trying) to wrap up, I still think this will be a valuable accessory come Spring with the rain! Best thing is, if it gets dirty, all you have to do is rinse out the tray and rocks. Easy enough!

You can find more examples of what other people did at these sites, too:

• Apartment Therapy
• Dollar Store Crafts 
• Martha Stewart 

Have you done any home crafts lately? If so, I'd love to hear about it! And, if not, what is catching your eyes with crafts lately?

-E-

Sunday Snapshots

Weekend project progress! It was warm enough to cut tile outside yesterday, but today with a twenty degree drop, the garage is a bit warmer. Hope you are having a great weekend, too, doing whatever you may be doing! 

Making Progress in the Master Bath

This month has been filled with birthdays, visits with loved ones, a friend buying an adorable house, snowy days, work obligations, and so much more. In between all of this, Z has been continuously working on our master bathroom. 

For my birthday, my parents gave me a Lowes giftcard so this helped us get a large portion of the bathroom completed. We bought tile, tools, and a carpet for the  guest bedroom - which is also coming together nicely! I am so excited to see this coming together! 

Here is what we have done so far, since the last post:

Faux wood tile floor. 

Beadboard hung horizontally along wall. 

Trim put at seams of beadboard. 

Tile for insert of shower cubby. 

Tile for shower base. 

The room looks even better in person. We currently do not have lights in the room, so getting optimal pictures is a bit more difficult. Perhaps a video may showcase it more.

I am exploring paint colors and have a few ideas in mind. We are also scoping out IKEA sinks and cabinets. Our IKEA opens this Fall, but... We will see if we hold out that long for the final touches. Shipping or a road trip may suffice, too!

There is much more to come...

-E

Moving on the Master Bathroom

The last few weeks have been a milestone at our house. When we bought our house, we knew that someday we would want to update the master bathroom. This came sooner than anticipated. Months ago while Z was taking a shower, a tile fell out of the shower. At closer inspection, mold was behind it. We didn't know how extensive it would have been, so we ended up ripping out the entire bathroom. (It was bad.)

Fast forward to this past weekend. We used a Home Depot gift card we got for Christmas (thanks, Mom!) and bought a Shluter-Kerdi Shower Kit. Say that five times fast! We went all out when it came to preparing the shower. Since we discovered the mold, we noticed that the tile was not installed correctly. The previous owners installed it on top of the drywall - allowing moisture to get behind the wall, resulting in the mold. Since this will be an obviously wet area, we went all out with waterproofing this area. 

The shower kit took an entire day to install, but it will be well worth it. We are at the point now of installing tile! We have been looking at tile for a little while and the two reoccurring themes with tile are that it is expensive (or at least the ones I love) and that there are too many options.

Looking at possibilities and limitations of our bathroom are also considerations. We haven't settled on anything specific yet, but these images are our inspirations, I would say.

Love this faux wood shower from Madison Modern Home.

Love the horizontal bead board from Judith Balis Interiors.

This IKEA cabinet would save space in our small bathroom!

My mom is visiting this weekend, so we may go and look at tile with her. Sometimes it is nice to get an outside view who hasn't been staring at the project that we have for months. I am such a visual person, so looking through ideas and starting to think about what it will look like is beyond exciting! My Pinterest Board is overflowing with ideas. At night, I can typically be found laying in bed looking at ideas on my iPad. Feel free to check out the board to see what my inspirations are for this room! 

Today is going to be a perfect day to look at tile and inspirations online. I got a snow day which I am so thankful for. Sometimes it is nice to have an unplanned day off! This portion of the Midwest is supposed to get a sizable amount of snow! It is going to snow all day today. Today is the perfect day to curl up with trashy TV, a cup of coffee, and Oscar, Kiki, and Little Kitty Milo. Stay warm today!