July before and after!

Hey hey! Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend!!

I’m back today with the July before and after party but first I have to share the progress on the the family room expansion. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you’ve seen this photo:

I’m already SO SO SO happy we did this. As soon as it was down I told my husband it felt like the room should have always been like this, which I figure is a good sign. I can’t believe we didn’t do it sooner!

I’ll update you more on the progress and the plans this week since there’s more happening as I type. :)

Now, on to some of your beautiful spaces and projects from last month that are nice and clean and finished. ;)

Bear with me because there were a ton of GREAT kitchens this time – I had to share a few of them. I am obsessed with all the pretty details of Kathy’s kitchen:

I absolutely LOVE it. I love how the open shelving isn’t overwhelming – sometimes I feel like it can get to be too much. And her combo of the horizontal beadboard and subway tile looks so good.

Emily’s wainscoting looks so good -- I really wanted to share it with you all because so many of you ask me about this treatment on textured walls:

She gives a great, detailed tutorial that you’ll want to check out if you’ve wanted to try this. It turned out beautifully!:

Another kitchen redo -- Tasha made her kitchen look completely different with a few inexpensive changes that made a big impact:

The painted cabinets are a big change but she also painted the backsplash and stenciled the floors – I LOVE them. It all makes a huge impact for not a lot of money!

Jennifer shared a few of her recent garage sale finds and how she transformed them with small changes. I love how she’s using this tray now:

If only I could get my butt out of bed early enough to garage sale. ;)

OK, I told you there would be a few kitchen transformations and when you see this one and the before you'll know why I had to add it in:

Kaylor’s kitchen is stunning! OH my goodness. The furniture, the colors – all of it is lovely. Go check it out!

Here’s another small project – Christina fell in love with a Target bench and recreated it on her own:

She even sewed it and made a real cover – this wrap and staple girl is impressed. ;)

And finally, I had to include just one more kitchen. Gretchen’s DIY outdoor kitchen for the kids is adorable and so inexpensive:

Her son LOVES it – so sweet. My boy would have loved this outside when he was little.

Alrighty, that’s just a small taste of the awesome projects that were linked up last month. Let’s see what you’ve been up to since then! Please – no house tours that are not your own or that you haven’t worked on. If you’d like to be considered for next month’s round up, include a link to TDC or this button/code in your post: 

 

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You can link up your posts here. Have fun!:

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Dining room built ins

Hello my friends! How are you? My sister-in-law and nephew have been here all week and this is our last day with them. I’m excited we have a sunny day (I think ALL day) to do something fun!

In celebration of two anniversaries recently – ten years in our home and my blogging anniversary – I’ve been sharing the progress of some of the rooms in our home over the years. By the way, I totally forgot about my blogging anniversary when it hit – six years at the end of May. Whoot!!

I ALWAYS struggled with our dining room. I don’t know why. Part of it was that shortly after we moved in I marched myself to the furniture store and bought a complete set of dining furniture. I liked it OK – but I wasn’t madly in love with it. I just wanted to fill the space. Now I know better and would wait it out, but you know how that goes.

Long ago I added molding to the walls (with Liquid Nails! No.) and jazzed up the ceiling:

I also recovered the seats of the chairs almost immediately to add some color to the room. It was very beige/brown.

You’ll see here that this was my gold and red phase as well. Ah yes…

I still wanted some more contrast so I changed up the drapes and added a solid red to the bottom:

Then things just got crazy and I painted the whole room (the entire. room.) brown:

You know, looking back, I don’t hate it. It was dramatic and pretty – I say you can go dramatic in two rooms safely – the powder room and the dining room. Or all the rooms, it’s your house.

I always struggled with the fact that this room opened up to our two story living room so I just added a piece of trim down the wall to separate them. Probably a major design crime but you know, I like to live on the edge.

But the thing is…it was DARK. Shocking, I know!:

I didn’t mind it much till we had new floors put down after a water issue. Then it was positively cave-like. Dark on every surface in the room and I couldn’t take it anymore.

A new idea formed in my head over time that I talked about here. I was tired of not using this space. I wanted to make it more functional and change up how we used it.

So the DIY built ins began:

You can see the synopsis of how my Dad and I built them here. It wasn’t hard, just time consuming. It took me forever to get them finished – eight months total I believe.

I had a design in my head all those months of thinking about it and a big part of that design was lights at the top of the bookcases. It took months to find something that was affordable but I finally found what I wanted in the outdoor section:

And now…I love it. This room is one of my favorites in our home.

I could not be more pleased with how it turned out:

It’s been about a year and a half since they were finished and they are holding up great. I’m really proud of Dad and I for tackling it. :)

Funny thing is, the plan all along was to put a coffee table and four chairs in here, but we moved our old kitchen table in here a year or so ago and it’s become my husband’s office in the summer months:

He has a basement office but can’t stand to be down there without natural light in the summer. So although his stuff laying around kind of drives me batty, I love that we’re actually using it. Many of you have suggested adding a more casual table back in here and the idea is growing on me. Plus, finding four matching (comfy) upholstered chairs is so dang expensive!

I can’t forget the other view of the dining area – it’s really more of a landing/hallway of sorts. I found this before shot of our stairs that I didn’t know I had:

And I showed you this more recent after here:

Such a difference! (Here’s the how to on pulling the carpet off of stairs.)

Many of you have asked how much I spent on the built ins and I’m not positive of the cost because we did them over such a long time. The kitchen cabinet bases were $320 total and the butcher block from IKEA was $130. I’m guessing we put in another $150-200 in trim and wood (I used basic pine wood for the actual bookcases). And the lights came to $140. So a rough estimate is about $750-800 for 12 feet of built ins.

I would have paid three times that to have them done. Easily.

So there’s a look back at what is now one of my favorite spaces in our home! It was one of my problem children before though. :)

Do you have a dining room? Do you use it? Have you considered changing up how it’s used?

P.S. Check out my tips on decorating bookcases in this post.

Have a great weekend!

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June before and after!

Hello everybody! It’s time to kick off June (can you believe it?) with another before and after link up. I so enjoy looking through all your projects and homes – blogs are pretty awesome. :)

I’m sharing a few that caught my eye and then we’ll see what you’re up to this month. I was SHOCKED when I saw the before photo of this sofa:

It was a Craigslist find and Cheryl had incredible vision (and a great upholsterer) – it just goes to show that a good quality sofa can be transformed. I absolutely love the new look.

There were two kitchen redos that caught my eye – first up was Laura’s before and after:

Can you believe the difference? Amazing! She shared a whole before and after house tour, be sure to check it out.

Michelle shared the progress her kitchen has made over the years as well:

Her kitchen table is gorgeous too!

I love a good knock off and I love a lighting knock off even more – Tasha’s take on a West Elm light fixture was brilliant:

And Carrie’s fixture was so simple it’s just ridiculous:

I have one of those orbs and the thought never even crossed my mind!

Haeley shared one of the easiest, cheapest tricks for large artwork:

Her whole master bedroom turned out beautifully, check it out here.

So inspiring, all of you!

As always, if you’d like to pin these projects, please do so from their respective sites. :)

Now let’s see what you’ve been up to over the past month! If you’d like to be considered for next month’s review, please include a link to TDC or this button in your post:

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/" title="TDC Before and After" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/beforeAndAfterButton_thumb1.gif" alt="TDC Before and After" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Here you go!:

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I work out

Some of you are all, well that’s a random title. And the rest of you are singing “Girl look at that body…”

:)

It will be in your head all day now. You’re welcome.

Today I’m going off course as I do sometimes to talk about life stuff. I’ve had a bit of an epiphany over the past four months or so and I wanted to share a bit of the journey with you today.

I know too many people right now who are dealing with the scary, nasty, despicable disease that is cancer. It’s hit especially close and it woke me up to the fact that I have one body and I want to take better care of it. Simple as that. (And in no way am I suggesting those with cancer do not. I just want to do better by mine.) I’ve never treated my body horribly, but I haven’t treated like the temple that it is. Laugh at that if you want, but it truly is! 

So earlier this year I was on a mission. I don’t do resolutions but this mission started suspiciously close to the beginning of the year. ;) But that’s what I do every year just because it feels like new start to me. Thing is, usually by March I’m kind of done and I go back to old habits.

Last summer I got in decent shape and had lost quite a bit of weight – and I don’t know what in the heck happened but by Christmas I was inching up to dangerous territory for me again. It happened SO fast. I was still working out, just not as much. And I was obviously eating anything and everything.

I was tired of it. Tired of doing well and going backward and tired of not treating myself better overall. And I had that epiphany -- I have a healthy, working body and I’m going to take care of it and take advantage of it. How lucky am I?

This time I’m sticking with it. It’s my life now – this is a totally different outlook than I’ve had before. I’m SO thrilled with my progress so I wanted to share little things that have helped me along the way.

First up is tracking what I eat. I’ve had the My Fitness Pal app on my phone for years and never really used it till a few months ago:

So here’s the thing. I still eat. I don’t eat great all the time either. We go out to eat a lot. I like margaritas. And tortilla chips. :) I’m still not eating as well as I should but I have made changes that have helped.

I say that to be honest but I also say that because so often I think we feel like we can’t lose weight unless we eat like birds and eat nothing but lettuce. I eat bread, (real) sugar, meat, ice cream and even fried chicken occasionally – but I don’t eat a lot of it. I know myself and if I restricted everything I love completely I’d be back to my old habits in no time. It’s not always about willpower for me – it’s about enjoying life. I enjoy food and refuse to give up all the stuff I love 100 percent.

I was hard core with My Fitness Pal for months but I’m starting to log in less and less. Partly because I know what many of the foods are as far as calories so I can keep it going in my head all day, but partly because I’m determined to just move more so the calories don’t matter quite as much.

Here’s another thing – don’t eat too little calories! I think anything below 1,400 a day is too low. I’ve lost weight just fine at 1600 to 1800 a day – but that’s based on my weight and some calculations. You need to figure out the calories it takes to sustain your current weight and then from there figure out how many to cut to lose weight. (That’s a post for another day.)

Speaking of moving – you need to find a workout that you enjoy. I’ve tried to become a runner so many times in my adult life and I’m just not one. Although I’m realizing how it works my body in different ways so I’m trying to incorporate it more.

But group fitness I’ve always enjoyed -- in college I did kickboxing and loved it. When I was at my lowest weight about 14 years ago (low weight because all I did was work out because it was how I dealt with a sad time in my life) I started it up again.

But for years after that I rarely worked out at all. A couple years ago a friend had mentioned taking Zumba and it sounded fun…but it had been a long time since I had been in a fitness class. I was intimidated. So instead I got the Zumba fitness “game” for Xbox and starting doing it at home:

Being overweight, walking into a group class you are clueless about, not knowing a soul – it’s not something many people can just do. And if you don’t know what you’re doing and feel uncomfortable, you’re not going to go back.

So this was my way of easing into it – and I LOVED it. After about six months of doing it at home (and seeing some results) I started going to the class. And once you find a class that you love, there’s no going back. It becomes almost an addiction – you WANT to be there. I hate missing class – what?? 

My instructor is now a friend and her classes are intense – almost like a Zumba boot camp. But I love that I feel like I’m dancing the whole time, not working out. The music is big for me – she incorporates some hip hop and top 40 that we know so it makes it so much more fun. Like I’m in da club. But not. :)

I started out with a little Fit Bit to track my steps every day:

It’s great – I wear it all day long now and it syncs to my phone. You’d be surprised how many calories you burn cleaning your house or walking up and down the stairs doing laundry. :)

The Fit Bit doesn’t track things like riding a bike or floor exercises (we do the latter in class a lot) so I ended up getting the Polar Fit as well:

This one is more expensive but tracks the exact calories burned (you have to wear the strap around your chest). Most times you’re burning more than the Fit Bit tells you so I like having both.

I think the biggest part of this journey is having support. You know the whole it takes a village to raise a child mantra? Well, I think it takes a village to lose weight. I really do. My husband is SO supportive of me running off to class each week. And I’ve made some wonderful friends throughout the process. About 25 of us did the Dirty Girl Mud Run this past weekend:

It was TOUGH (with five days of rain before) but we had so much fun. And now I seriously can’t wait for the next 5K. We even signed up to do the Indy mini next year – not sure where my head was on that one. It’s peer pressure – but the best kind. :)

Here’s another biggie for me – I have no idea how much weight I’ve lost. I don’t weigh myself anymore. It gets me down. Last time I checked I had lost about five pounds but what was months ago. But overall I’ve lost more than 18 inches in four months – that’s pretty amazing. That is encouraging to me – the scale is not.

Last night I remembered that I had taken some before shots of myself back in January. I never do that but I knew this time was different so I wanted to track the difference. Four months later (this morning) I took progress pics and when I put them side by side I almost cried. I couldn’t believe the difference! It doesn’t feel like much when you’re going through it but the pics made me realize I’ve really started to change my body:

I wore the same pants in the photos – I noticed the other day that they are starting to fall off when I wear them. WHOOT! I don’t really have a goal in mind – I’m just going to keep going and see where I land. Now I’m focusing hard on my arms and that middle pooch. I loathe that middle pooch.

My goal is not to be skinny. I want to fit and athletic and strong:

I do weight training with a friend once a week as well but want to try to start adding a day – weight training does wonders for your metabolism! It won’t make you bulky – it tightens you up and completely changes the way you look.

Even though I have more weight to lose I am in the best shape of my life at 38 years old. Seeing muscles develop is almost as exciting as fitting in my old jeans again. :)

One of the biggest areas I’ve noticed is the “back fat” – I am starting to get a little bit of definition in my back and I love it. And the side rolls are getting smaller and smaller:

I hate taking photos of myself but it’s actually really encouraging to see the progress!

But first, let me take a selfie:

Now THAT song will be in your head all day. Sorry. ;)

Just with DIY and decor I don’t think there’s rules to getting fit – you just have to figure out the way that works best for you. If you still want to eat your favorite foods I believe you can – you’ll just have to cut down and your progress may be slower. I think that’s just fine. I’m sharing my thoughts to encourage but take what works for others with a grain of salt – you need to figure out what will keep you going.

Do you struggle with weight and working out? Do you have a routine that you love to do? Do you run? If so teach me your secrets. :)

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Looking back: A powder room redo

Hey there! Hope you are having a wonderful Thursday!

It’s time to go back in time again and check out the progress of the smallest room in our house over the years. First of all – I think the amount of time and effort I’ve put into this bathroom is odd because I haven’t done much at all in bathrooms that would bring more value – like the master bath. But, we use the powder room ALL the time. And guests see it. So in the end, I guess it’s worth making it a priority.

And secondly, I’ve painted this small room more times than I’ve painted most of the rooms in our house all together. I was talking with a friend a few months ago and she mentioned how much I paint in our house – I told her she’d be surprised that most of the rooms in our home have only been painted once. They’ve stayed that way for a long time too. The kitchen, family room, master bath, guest bath and master have been painted once in ten years. And the living room, staircase, loft and upstairs hall as well.

BUT…when I paint one tiny room like 56 times, yeah, I could see how it seems like I’m always painting walls. ;)

This was a room I was never quite happy with, until last year when I finally finished it up. I lived with each look for a couple years, but it never felt quite right. Shortly after we moved in I tried my hand at molding – and I used Liquid Nails to apply the molding. You know, just in case I NEVER EVER WANTED TO TAKE THEM OFF:

Here’s the proof that we all start somewhere. I was using an electric handheld saw to cut that wood and didn’t begin to know how to cut at an angle – so I used some trim pieces in the corners. I think they’re supposed to be installed with baseboards.

The quality was…interesting. :) So years later I made over the room again. This time with mitered corners (yeah!) and lots of brown (noooo):

I actually quite like this for a while. But after a while the chocolate brown got depressing and dark and…brown.

I went all the way too:

But pretty soon I was craving a lighter look. I painted over the stencils, took the molding down, then started painting over the brown in a hurry before a party. It was months later before I finally finished it up: 

 

At this point we’re a good two years into the redo here. I’ve mentioned a few times that when I stall on things it’s either because they’re incredibly hard or because I’m still not convinced on my direction. This one was the latter. :)

But the plan finally came together in my head and I forged on! I started installing the wood planks:

And pooped out again. I knew it would look good eventually – I was just tired of the space and needed to focus elsewhere. A few months went by and I was ready again. (Told you – longest makeover EVER.)

When I was ready again I spent a few days straight working like a beast. The planked walls came together: 

You can see how I installed those here. The process is really easy, it just takes some time. And painting them in a pain in the butt, for real. 

And then I tried my original plan on the walls – painting them red:

If I was more of a red girl I would have gone for it – but I’m not. I loved the red against the white for sure, it just wasn’t the look I was going for.

After two more attempts on the color I finally got it right. Accessible beige by Sherwin Williams:

Let’s count the number of times I’ve painted this room now, shall we? I think I’m at seven. :) Seventh time is a charm I guess.

The whole room was designed around my son’s artwork – it was when I saw it that I knew exactly what I wanted to do in the room:

We obviously changed more than just the walls – the hardwoods are so lovely and the IKEA vanity offers a ton more storage. I truly, truly love this space now. It’s bright and happy and fun – and it reminds me of my boy. :)

You can see the full reveal of the room here and all the details of the space are here. Even though it’s the smallest room in our house I think it’s one of the biggest transformations I’ve ever done. Maybe I need to take five years to redo all my spaces! Oh that’s right. I do.

Thanks for looking back with me again! Before and afters are my favorite! :)

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May before and after!

Hey all! It’s the first Monday of the month and that means it’s party time! Excellent.

It’s the day you all share one of my favorite things in the decor/DIY world – before and afters. I can’t get enough of them. I will kick it off with a few of the awesome projects linked up last month.

Cassie did one of my all time favorite decorating tricks – painting the backs of her bookcases:

I always love the look (I think it makes everything pop) and her black color is super sexy. I think it just makes all the accessories more dramatic. (You can see my gray blue background on our bookcases here.)

You MUST go check out Tiffany’s new pantry. Must. It is fantastic:

Drawers people. Brilliant. I want drawers everywhere. (And there’s a little surprise on the sides.)

Bethany’s kitchen has been undergoing a redo and it looks SO good:

I especially love the detail they added to the island and I dig the blue color. (My island is light blue and I still love it.) Her before and after is pretty amazing, check it out here.

Man, I love a bright white kitchen, but I love contrast too. Julie’s black cabinets look so good, and she shares a GREAT, detailed tutorial on tiling your backsplash:

That choice of tile is perfect with the black cabs and stainless appliances. Love it.

Sometimes the simplest project make the biggest impact. Kammy took a regular rug and turned it up a notch with paint:

What a difference! Stripes make many things better. :)

Jaime’s mudroom underwent a little redo with paint and a few little details:

Again, it wasn’t a big reno, but little projects like paint and hooks that make the difference here. Love her door with the window too. You can check it all out here.

Andrea finished off her dining room with new chairs (that are lovely): 

But it’s that stenciled wall and wood starburst mirror that really stood out to me. Such a beautiful, well done space!

It’s always hard for me to pick just a few projects to highlight! If you’d like to be considered for next month’s round up, be sure to include a link to TDC in your post or add this button:

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/" title="TDC Before and After" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/beforeAndAfterButton_thumb1.gif" alt="TDC Before and After" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

I have the pin it button installed but I ask that you pin from each respective site instead of mine if you want to save these projects.

Now it’s time to see what you’ve been up to lately! I hope to see some outdoor projects creeping in. :) I’m finally starting some of my own! It’s about dang time.

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