Finishing Touches

This past 2-3 weeks have been a blur. We have been working tirelessly on finishing projects. I feel like this house doesn't want us to leave. Scott and I, against our nearly finished 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1000 square foot house.

We finally finished painting the doors and trim in nearly the whole house! Last week we finished up some ceiling repair and flooring, yard work, cleaning out closets and packing. Along with other small projects...Oh yeah, and while entertaining 3 little people! 

Scott has joked, take how long you think a project should take and then times it by 4. Then you will get a more realistic timeline when doing home renovations with kids. Ha! 

Well this crazy ride is almost over and boy will we be happy to pitch that for sale sign!

Even though repainting our WHOLE house has been a literal pain in the back (and shoulders, neck, arms, etc), it is looking amazing! I know this will pay off in the end. It has to, because it looks absolutely amazing in here!

Lots of doors and trim to paint.

Bye-Bye Gold Knobs!

We have been wrapping up all the house projects around here and are finally just about done! Praise the Lord! It has been a long road and a lot of hard work, but things are looking great around here! I will be posting a tour of the house soon and highlighting everything we have done.

Do you have any of these shiny gold door knobs in your house? All of our door knobs looked like this and to us screamed "dated". So of course we had to do what we do best, update them! Take a look at how easy and cheap this update was…. 

A few of the door knobs had been replaced to brushed nickel when the locks were changed so we really needed to finish the rest of the house. But replacing them would have been more money then we wanted to spend. To cut the costs we chose to simply spray paint them with Rustoleum's metallic silver paint.
Let me tell you the hardest part of the job was removing the knobs and hardware! That really wasn't hard either just a bit time consuming.

Once all the knobs were off, I used some steel wool to lightly rough them up. The goal was to help the paint stick to the knob, but not make deep scratches in them.

Easter Wreath- He Is Risen

This wreath project has been in the works for several weeks now. I finally got it finished up last week! My how much time and energy this house renovations are literally sucking from us. Every time we start to think we are nearly done another project presents itself. Currently, an easy ceiling repair turned into a big drywall, mud, sanding and popcorn texture repair. The projects haven't been hard, but add 3 kids 5 and under and try to get anything accomplished! haha! One day they will be grown and I know I will miss these days!
Okay, back to this beautiful Easter wreath. This didn't take long... I just had to start and stop so many times I thought it would be ready by the 4th of July and miss Easter completely! I have plans to switch out the He Is Risen banner for a Spring banner after Easter. It's always nice when you can get more use out of a seasonal project. (That is usually my goal!)

 I gathered up a foam wreath, grey yarn, fabric, paper, string, yellow brads, small pins, a twist tie and a couple twigs.

Easy and Frugal Dishwasher Update

 Last week we made some great progress on our To Do list. Not everything got crossed off, but we did get everything started! Amid us painting trim and doors in the whole house, drywall repair, yard work, and pressure washing the outside, I managed to squeeze in a few projects. This dishwasher update was one I wedged in the To Do list one morning.

I saw Young House Love's blog about their recent dishwasher update and thought the end result was pretty dramatic. (You can check out their dishwasher's new look here.) Painting a few dishwasher door pieces can make a big difference! So you know, in all my many opportunities of spare time I thought I would give it a shot.

Here is what I started with.....

Our basic black oldish dishwasher....most likely has been here since the house was built in 1996. 

I started by unscrewing the side panels.

DIY Beadboard Backsplash

We are LOVING this kitchen update and only wish we had done this when we moved in four years ago!

After we treated the counters with Rustoleum Countertop Transformation kit here, we had bare torn up drywall for a backsplash.

The laminate countertops extended up the wall, where it had been glued to the drywall. When we scraped it off, it decided to take bits of the wall with it. Up until that point we were thinking to keep the costs down we would just paint the wall. Now looking back I really am glad we had to do a backsplash!

Here are some photos of the kitchen before the awesome beadboard was installed...