One year later- Before and After

 Exactly one year ago today my sweet hubby and I closed on our first home! I seriously can't believe its been a whole year, it has flown by! Ironically enough, we also started working on (and almost completing) the final room in our house this week, the nursery. Its taken a year but every room in our house has paint, curtains, and furniture! We still have some bigger projects we hope to complete one day (the kitchen, floors on the main level, backyard, etc) but all of those are put on hold for the moment until after baby girl arrives and after we make a trip back to Australia to visit family. So, for the most part most of the rooms in our house are complete, other than a piece or two of furniture, some light fixtures here and there and some blinds in a few rooms. We have done so much in a year I really can't believe it. When I say we, I mean mostly my hubby! He has spent countless hours painting and working on the house. I've done my part too with the help of my momma, but he certainly has done most of the "heavy lifting"! Its crazy to think that 18 months ago we moved back to the US with all our belongings in 4 suitcases, lived in a tiny one bedroom apartment and now we have a house complete with furniture and all!

This week was my spring break so my mom was here helping me do some spring cleaning and organizing, as well as work in the nursery. I can't believe after only living in our house for a year we've accumulated junk that needed to be cleaned out, but we had! We also got a lot done in the nursery, finally! I've been so impatient to get started working in that room so it was fun to finally be able to see our vision come together. That room is still a work in progress and should hopefully be complete in about 2 weeks.

So enough small talk, here are the before and after pictures of our DIY dream home...a year later! (I apologize for the poor quality, half were taken with my iphone, which I love dearly but it doesn't compare to a real camera!)

Dining Room- Before

Dining Room- After

This room was a big job mostly because of the wallpaper. We changed out the light fixture, curtains and of course paint. We still need to order and install the blinds for this room and my hubby is going to build me a buffet/cabinet one day we'll change out the floors, but for now its done.

Downstairs Den- Before

 Downstairs Den- After

This room was probably one of the biggest changes and challenges! We hated the wood paneling so we knew we would paint it, but I had the hardest time being able to see it. The whole room was painted, beams, shelves and everything! It is painted the same color as the dining room. Its a cream color with a hint of yellow (this photo does not do it justice!) I believe it is called Napery from Sherwin Williams. We wanted clean, warm colors in our house and this one looks great in this room! The only projects left in this room is to order and install the blinds and paint the back doors (not pictured). 

Living Room- Before (from front door)

 Living Room- After (from front door)

We didn't have to do a lot of work in this room other than painting and adding blinds/curtains. We went with accessible beige from Sherwin Williams on the walls. We will change out the floors one day after baby girl destroys them :) This is going to be our family room or play room for the kiddos or at least that is what we are planning on. Its on the main level with the kitchen and dining room so we can easily block off the stairs with baby gates to keep the kids contained. We tried to think kid friendly when picking out things for this room and arranging it. My hubby is going to build a shelf that will go opposite the couch that will be more storage for kid stuff and we'll mount a TV above it one day. 

Living Room- Before (from dining room)

Living Room- After (from dining room)

Same room, just a different angle. This room is ridiculous long and a little on the narrow side. It took a while to figure out the best way to arrange it. Yes, we have a wall of clocks. One is set to local time, another is set to Australian time and one doesn't have batteries in it :) It seems silly to have a clock set to  different times, but it sure it helpful sometimes when we're trying to work out a time to Skype with family overseas! 

Kitchen-Before

Kitchen- After

Kitchen Eat in- Before

Kitchen Eat in- After

Kitchen- Before

Kitchen- After

We still have quite a bit of work to do in the kitchen. All we did after moving in was paint (we're doing grey, yellow and white, the grey is useful grey from SW) and added a refrigerator. We plan to put hardwoods in (the whole main level), refinish the cabinets to be white, change out the appliances and backsplash/counter tops, light fixtures, etc. So, this is no where near complete yet, but it is livable for now! 

Master Bedroom- Before

Master Bedroom- After

Once again, I feel like my little iphone camera doesn't do any justice to the colors in the room, but oh well. This room just needed paint, a new ceiling fan and some blinds. Thankfully they had put all new carpet in before we bought the place. This is one of my favorite rooms in the house. The walls are a pale sea green (called livable green by SW) and our bedding we found at Pottery Barn had the exact colors we wanted. We really wanted a simple, peaceful bedroom and I think we got it! I opted for shelves instead of bedside tables, as much as I love tables I always clutter them up for some reason, so shelves seemed to be a little more practical, plus we don't have a headboard, so with the shelvers and wall lamps I wanted to create some sort of headboard wall without actually putting in a headboard.

Guest Room- Before

Guest Room- After

This room was another easy room to work on, just needed paint, blinds and a ceiling fan. The walls are the same beige as the living room (accessible beige from SW). This is kind of our catch all room. There really isn't a theme or anything. The furniture is mix matched, some of it was my childhood furniture my parents gave us. The bedding is blues, beige and grey that we got as a wedding present, but since we switched to a king size bed we couldn't use it in our room anymore. And this is the only room in the house that is allowed to have red. When I was living on my own several years ago, I loved red! My apartment had tons of red decor. Well, hubby was not a fan of red...so this is the only room in our house that you can find some of my old "red" decor items. Its also the room that has a lot of my artwork from Europe and other places I traveled before getting married. So, its kind of our mix matched guest room, but I love it. 

So, there you have it a before and after of most of our house, a year later. The only room I did not include is our nursery. We have about two more weeks until that room is complete and I think it deserves its own post. It may not look like we did a lot in a year, but we really did. We've been on a tight budget, but we've been able to create the perfect, simple, peaceful home that we both wanted. I still can't believe it is ours and can't wait to bring our baby girl home to our DIY dream home in a few months!

Playing catch up

I've said it before, maybe one day I'll be better at keeping up with my blog...that day (again) is not today. Oh, well...thats life. And boy is it busy! We have been so busy the last few months, so here is a quick recap. 

In November, we announced we were expecting our first child! We of course found out way earlier and man it was tough keeping that secret! We also hosted Thanksgiving at our house in November. There is nothing that makes you feel more "adult" than hosting a holiday for your family at your house. It was so much fun! It was just my immediate family, grandmother and aunt and a close couple friend of ours. I am super bummed I did not take one single picture from that weekend. But in my defense, I was fighting morning sickness and the exhaustion that comes with the first trimester, cooking a huge meal and entertaining guest. It was a great first holiday in our new home. 

In December, we jetted off to Disney World for Christmas with my family. I do love me some sunshine and warm weather in December! Disney World isn't the most exciting vacation destination when you are 17 weeks pregnant, but we still had a blast. I just did more sitting around while my hubby and brother got to ride all the non-pregnant friendly rides. It was so nice to have a week away with my hubby and family. We got to spend Christmas day with relatives that lived in Florida as well as some long time family friends. We visited Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot. I'm pretty sure Epcot was the guys favorite because they got to drink beer in every country. We did lots of outlet mall shopping, sleeping in late and laying by the pool at our resort. It was a wonderful trip, just what we needed!

Apparently this was one of the few pictures I took of my parents...I promise, they were there!

In January, we had our big anatomy ultrasound to find out what baby Fowler would be! I've been saying since day 1 that I thought we were having a girl but we were still so excited to finally find out! We had our appointment on a Tuesday and were planning a party that Saturday for our family and close friends to reveal the gender, however we decided to find out at the doctor. We wanted to find out first, just between us. I'm so glad we did because it was nice just the two of us knowing for a few days. Although, it was SO hard keeping that a secret from everyone else! People at work kept driving me crazy and I had to stop talking to my parents and a few girlfriends for a few days because I was afraid I would spill the beans. I wanted to go a different route for our party. I had done so much searching on Pinterest and there are so many good ideas out there but since we already knew the gender it was more about sharing it in a unique way for our family and friends. One of my friends gave me the idea we ended up doing. I bought several onesies and dyed them the appropriate color (pink or blue), wrapped them up for our family and friends to open. We had everyone in the living room and my in-laws and cousins in Australia on skype and had everyone open them at the same time to find out. And its a GIRL!!

Once again I wasn't so great with the picture taking. I was busy holding the ipad for my cousins to watch, while my hubby was holding the laptop for his family. I did get this great video of my parents opening it. I'm pretty sure my mom was the first one to find out. She immediately ran upstairs and came back down with a pile of pink goodies. I asked her if she had a pile of blue ones too in case it would have been a boy, she said nope! We are so excited to meet our little girl in a few months! Her name will be Evelyn Grace and we'll call her Evie. We didn't know it at the time we decided on the name, but Evelyn was my husbands grandmothers middle name and my great grandmothers name. We picked a family name and didn't even know it! 

In January we also celebrated my handsome hubby's 34th birthday! I had my Kindergartners make the sign and I baked the cake. Well, it was an ice cream cake courtesy of Pinterest, so there wasn't any actual baking required. We celebrated with friends and dollar burgers at one of our favorite restaurants. I'm so thankful to call him mine and I look forward to many, many more birthday celebrations together! 

I can't really remember February, which is sad because it just ended a few days ago! We've been busy preparing for our baby girl. The nursery is painted and we have a crib, and thats about it. Well other than her closet being half full of clothes already! My mom has been working on sewing stuff for the nursery and she is actually coming in town this weekend to help me make some progress on it. I've felt pretty good since my morning sickness let up when I was about 17 weeks pregnant. Its true what they say, the second trimester is magical compared to the first! I've had some trouble on and off with my blood pressure, but we think its mostly stress related from work...yes, teaching Kindergarten can be stressful. When I was about 20 weeks or so, I got hit with carpal tunnel which unfortunately has not gone away. I tell you what, pregnancy is crazy! There are a lot of weird symptoms that I never knew about before I got pregnant. But really I can't complain, I feel like I've had a pretty good pregnancy overall. Some days are tough and uncomfortable but overall I've been very blessed. In fact she is kicking up a storm as I type this and there isn't any better feeling than that!

The next few months are sure to be a busy whirlwind! My best friend from high school is coming in town later this month for my baby shower in Memphis, I'm helping host a few baby showers for friends, my hubby starts his new job, childbirth classes, end of the school year craziness, etc. And before we know it the end of May, first part of June will be here and so will our baby girl! 

I will most certainly not let another 3 months go by without an update. We've finished some big projects around the house, so I fully intend of a before/after house update soon! As well as a nursery post and baby prepping. Until then!