A DIY Kitchen Makeover

The cold temperatures have effectively put a halt to our progress here but I wanted to share with you my friend Megan’s beautiful DIY Kitchen renovation to help keep the end game in mind! Projects do start! People complete them – and beautifully!

Megan and her husband, Jeff, masterfully combined textures to give Megan what she refers to as  her ‘fancy farm kitchen.”

Here’s where they started:

Their renovation included knocking down the partial dividing wall above the sink, new floors, new countertops, paint, tile, and a few other updates.

Here are a couple sneak peaks of the finished product – for the full tour, after pictures, and an excellent play-by-play, head over to Megan’s blog for the full post at Motherhood and Make-Believe.

That butcher block…swoon.

-Layne

Mood Board – Master Bathroom

New year – new mood board.

2017 means a lot of different things to different people. For us, a large portion of the new year will be completing our addition project and living life in our new space. We are excited about what having a little extra space means for us but we’re also excited about opening up our space for our friends and family – hosting holidays, sleep overs, play dates, football parties (basically just chili eating parties), etc.

We’re still dreaming up what most of the new space looks like but we have a pretty solid idea about the vibe we want for the new master bathroom. Here’s a reminder of the layout:

The nook to the right of the shower/tub will be floor to ceiling open shelving. The vanity will go along the same wall as the toilet.

Now, let’s set the mood. Ow. Ow.

  1. We’re goin’ brass, baby. Our current master bath has all brass hardware so we thought it would be a nice way to tie the two together. This faucet seems like a nice fit. (Source: LightInTheBox)
  2. This light fixture is drrrrreeeaaaammmmmmmyyyyyy. (Source: Kichler Jasper)
  3. Oh subway tile – how we love your lines and your ability to make even the dirtiest bathroom look a little clean. We’ve got subway tile in the current master bath and there is subway tile in the kitchen. We will likely tile the entire wall behind the vanity as well as the tub and shower surround.
  4. This brass shower head/squirty-doo combo is exactly what I want for our shower. (Source: LightInTheBox)
  5. These drawer pulls give a nod to the art deco details we have on our original kitchen hardware as well as all the door plates in the house. Plus, you know, brass. (Source: Jeffrey Alexander)
  6. This IKEA vanity is super simple and comes with the countertop. At $599, this piece definitely helps us stay well within our bathroom budget. The creamy gray color should also do well to warm things up a bit. (Source: IKEA)

I’m trying to keep the end result in mind because, as of this post, we’re still waiting for a few consecutive days of not-so-freezing temperatures so our contractor can pour the new foundation and get rolling. Dreaming about picking out a saucy shower curtain and organizing my two vanity drawers is keeping me engaged and excited about the project.

Next up? Master bedroom moodiness.

-Layne

Our New Addition

Nope. Not pregnant.

We live in a sweet, little neighborhood in Boise. We have great neighbors. We also have two kiddos and a relatively small house. We tossed around the idea of selling and moving to a bigger home but the square footage we wanted in the area we wanted was way outside our price range. So – why not stay put and build, baby, build!

For a couple months, we’ve posted pictures on social media of the pretty unglamorous updates we’ve made to our home (it should be expressly stated now that I, Layne, haven’t lifted so much as a screwdriver to make any of this happen – I’ve been watching over the children ((an equally arduous task…but still)). Adam has been working like a d-o-double-g to prepare for our new addition. He’s done things like reroute our meter box (a huge undertaking), unearth what seemed like our entire backyard to replace our sewer line and bury our power line (with the help of our trusty friend, Travis), install a new breaker box in the garage, cut down the old cable lines, and other things that I am still not sure I understand. All these things had to be done before the fun stuff starts.

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I present to you: The Fun Stuff.

floorplan

Everything with a blue background represents our current footprint. The rooms with the white background represent what is in the works.

Here is the breakdown:

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In short: we wanted a big, carpeted room for the kids to play in. That turned into thinking about how nice it might be to build a master bedroom up on the main floor so we would all be on the same level. The bonus? We’d end up with a really nice guest suite in the basement (our current master suite) and a little extra space for some of our hobbies.

We started dreaming this project up in the late summer and are just now getting to the point where we’re about to break ground on the foundation.  We’re contracting with Foothills Construction (the team that helped us with this) to do things like pour the foundation, frame the walls, install the roof, and a few other tasks. Adam and I (mostly Adam) will be responsible for the demo and finish work including the electrical, plumbing, drywall, painting, tiling, and trimming out the doors, windows. Adam is also building a deck off the back.

It will be a busy winter/early spring (maybe) but we think staying here and enjoying this home will be worth it.

I’ll be posting some mood boards in the next couple weeks to help bring some life to the ideas we have for the new spaces including killer built-ins, lighting, and pretty bathroom fixtures.

Hip, hip, hooray!

-Layne