Settling in our new home...Room Remodel, gated entry, chicken Coop!.....

Hello Everyone!

I first want to apologize for such a delay in posts. We have had a very busy past 8 months. We have packed up and moved towns, into our dream home about 30 minutes from our previous home that is posted in this blog. We could not be any happier with our decision! We moved to a very small town of around 600 people. This is a big change from the 120,000+ population we moved from!

One more thing before I pack everything up..... (NEW DOOR AND BOARD AND BATTON)

We did recently add a brand new door and Board and Batton in the dining room and I wanted to show it to everyone before we move.... 

Starting a New Chapter....

Well our family is starting a new chapter in a few weeks. This is such a bitter sweet moment. We are moving! We have always wanted some acreage to spread out. We have looked for a few years and there was nothing that jumped out to us, until a few weeks ago. We found the house and property that we have always dreamed of!

Homemade Laundry Soap

Laundry soap is so expensive! Here is my recipe to make your own. It is very cheap to make and lasts a long time. (Depending on how big your family is and how many loads of laundry you do a week) It smells great and cleans so very well! Use 2-4 tablespoons per load. This does not suds up so I am told it is safe in HE washers. I however do not have the front loader washers but have been told by people that do that it works great. They just add it to the drum with the clothes. 

Updating Our Home Office

So our home office was in need of an update. Our large executive desk just took up too much room in our office. Nothing was easily accessible.  

And while it is still a work in progress I wanted to show you what we have done so far. We still have the flooring to do and the office closet, but I will post about those two later on after they are complete. 

Updating Generic Column on Our Covered Patio

Our original column on our covered patio was boring and had seen it's better days. So we decided to replace it with a cedar 6x6. We found a local guy who runs a saw mill at his house and had him cut us a true 6x6 cedar post. The result was amazing and really looks nice. We went with cedar due to the upcoming Pergola and deck project we are fixing to get started. We also built our exposed post Privacy Fence out of White Cedar and are very pleased with the results. (See earlier blog on how we put up our 100% DIY Exposed Post Fence) ........

Here are our Before and After photos of replacing the old post.

Easy and quick DIY Recipe Board

I have looked thru tons of pins on Pinterest for DIY Recipe boards for my kitchen. A recipe board is a convenient thing to have in your kitchen to preplan your meals. While I love DIY crafts I was looking for something a little less involved then some of the ones I found online. I really did not want to have to make the board itself. So I headed off to Walmart and found this cork/dry erase combo board for $12.00! I also picked up some clip magnets and a magnetic holder.

Honest Review of Tommie Copper

Ok so I don't normally write about products....(and before someone asks, No, I do not work for Tommie Copper. Neither I nor my blog was paid or compensated in any way.) And to be honest this topic is completely different from what I usually blog about. However, I felt is was much needed.

My problems are in my back, neck, shoulder/arm combo. I have nerve damage, disc problems, & degenerative disc disease in these areas. A few months ago I saw a commercial for a product called Tommie Copper. I don't know if anyone has heard about it. I will say I was a complete skeptic and no way thought it would help at all. I did some online research for weeks and found mixed reviews. While it worked for some, others said no results seen. Reviews sometimes do not give honest opinions. It's hard for me to believe what another blogger wrote about a product that the company has sent them free products and asked them to "Try It." Out of most of the reviews I found, this was the case. So I thought I would give you guys my completely honest, unpaid review.

Updating your Builder's grade Bathroom and Kitchen

Our house was a classic builder's grade home with all light fixtures and hardware being the cheapest stuff available they could use. So we changed them out to something more appealing. We updated both bathrooms and our kitchen. With just small upgrades you can completely change the way your room looks.

Organizing Your Walk in Closet

My walk in closet was a disaster! So I figured it was time to do something about it. I had thought about the best route to go with it and decided to buy a cube storage system for floor storage and bins on the top self. I removed everything but my clothes. I left them hanging up and removed everything else from my closet. 

How To Frame a Builder's Grade Mirror

We knew we did not like the plain builder's grade mirrors that were in our bathrooms. We debated whether to bust the mirrors off the walls or just frame them up ourselves. Taking the mirrors down and replacing them with nice framed mirrors proved expensive and time consuming. 

Framing the mirrors out with simple trim is the most cost effective and simplest way to do a quick update to your bathroom.

Putting up a Tile Kitchen Back Splash!

When you bought our house the back splash was a Fake Tin Back Splash. Honestly, I never was a fan of it. It stayed up for a few years before we decided to tackle it. After numerous trips to Lowes and Home Depot (We bought and returned countless squares of them, we finally found one that looked great with our wall color.

We had never done any tile work ourselves so I personally was a little nervous but I will say it was pretty simple for us layman's to do this in one weekend. We spent apprx. $200.00 on everything.

From Builder's Gray to COLOR!!!!!

After years of renting and apartment living we had become very used to "Builder's grey" and Beige. So of course during our home search, the home we loved was painted with the all too familiar grey we had been starring at for years now. So that had to change. And Fast!

How We Put Up Our DIY Exposed Post Privacy Fence

From the day we bought this house we knew we wanted to put up a privacy fence in our back yard. We are on a corner lot and wanted some privacy. We also wanted to be able to let our dog, Dia, have a safe place to play!

How to make DIY Custom Shutters on a Budget

My husband and I wanted to "Spruce up" the outside of our home and give it some curb appeal. We never really liked the plastic shutters that you see on most all builder's grade houses now days. So we did our research on Board and Batton Shutters. And what we found was that these shutters were pretty pricey! So we decided to give it a go ourselves and make them!

How We Got All this Started

Hello everyone! My name is Selena. I started this Blog to show you how we have upgraded our "Builders Grade" home. I will also be sharing organization and storage ideas as well as some of my favorite recipes.

We bought our first home after years of renting. Even though our home was only eight months old when we purchased it, after all those years of looking at grey boring walls we knew we wanted to do some upgrading the minute we moved in. We have now been in our home for a little over three years and have done a lot to the outside and the inside on a very limited budget. I will be giving you easy Do It Yourself ideas and tips on how to get some "Custom" looks for a modest price.