DIY haircuts? Why the heck not.
This is one of those posts I never thought I’d write (it’s definitely not very home related) but due to a surprising amount of requests, here it is. I guess anything that has to do with saving money and doing something yourself is fair game, right? I have no idea how I got into cutting people’s hair, but throughout high school and college I just played around, cutting off a guy’s mullet here and giving my BFF a super short pixie cut there (all at my “client’s” requests, of course). Why did they trust me? I have no idea. Maybe I just have a trustworthy face? I most certainly don’t have any formal training. I just sort of treat hair like I’d imagine I’d make a butter sculpture. You just remove the extra stuff so you’re left with the shape you want. Confidence inspiring, huh? But a bunch of people actually noticed my latest work of haircut art on John’s head in party pictures yesterday, so… score! Haha.
The funny thing is that we realized I’ve been cutting John’s hair for seven whole years! And I’ve probably dished out 50+ other haircuts to other friends and family members throughout the last ten years (why yes I have cut my brother in law’s hair in the backyard of John’s parents beach house). So take this post for what it is, one not-professional gal’s take on how she grooms her man. An above the neck manscaping lesson if you will.
But since it’s extremely impossible to tell you how I cut John’s hair and a lot more descriptive to just show you, we actually made a video, thanks to the help of our handy little tripod. Look at that shaggy hair John had going on in this “setting up for the video” shot:
It’s amazing what a little at-home clippage can do. How YOU doin’ hubby?
But on with the video! Let’s get up close and personal with those light brown locks, shall we? Oh yes, and I have primer/paint all over my hands from Clara’s birthday dollhouse (more on that tomorrow).
For anyone who can’t watch the video with the sound on (mehaps you’re at work?) it’s actually still pretty easy to understand on mute (since you just have to see what my hands are doing to get the gist). And I’ve included a few written tips in bullet form below, just to help anyone with a sucker on standby who’s ok with you experimenting on their head. I say that in the most kind and loving way, since all of my friends and family who have let me go to town on their hair are pretty darn awesome. I actually haven’t had an oopsie since college (I went a little shorter than I meant to on a gal in dorms, but she totally had the bone structure to work it). Although now that I’ve made that claim I feel like I should knock on wood. Or John should, since he’d be the most likely person to have to walk around with a potential hair snafu if it ever were to happen. Anyway, on with the tips:
- I cut hair when it’s dry or very lightly misted with water because my experience when cutting wet hair has been that it “shrinks up” and is always shorter than I mean for it to be – which can lead to profuse apologies. Also hair that’s wet might not “lay” the way it does when it’s dry (ex: a cowlick might make itself known when hair’s dry and result in an uneven effect).
- I cut John’s hair at night after Clara’s off to bed so we can get ‘er done without distractions (no toddler running through the hair pile on the floor- which Burger thankfully avoids like the plague).
- I don’t use a buzzer and just shave John’s neck for him after the haircut with a regular shaving razor. That always makes things look nice and polished, and this way we don’t have to store a big hair buzzer (or pay for one).
- I use hair-cutting scissors that I got for like $5 from CVS. They don’t even have a brand name on them to pass along. Sorry!
- I use my fingers to keep things even. For example, when I cut John’s hair I cut it one-finger-length from his scalp, so it all stays that length. I go a little longer on top – maybe two finger lengths (see the video for more on this).
- I always try to cut hair vertically (ex: parallel to John’s spine) – except for trimming the line around his neck – since it can look dorky and block-ish if you cut things horizontally (parallel to the shoulders). It’s really hard to explain in words, but the video makes this much more clear.
- I’m not a pro, so this isn’t real hairdresser scoop. Haha. I’m just a crazy girl with a penchant for pickles and cutting hair – so this is just what works for me (and John, my sweet hair-model hubby).
Oh and here’s an after pic from the back, since that might help you guys visualize it from that angle.
Hope that helps any DIY-haircutting-hopefuls out there! Does anyone else host haircuts at their house? The craziest thing is that I just calculated that we have probably saved at least $700 in the past seven years just by me cutting John’s hair (not counting all the times that I cut my own hair or ask John to snip a straight line in the back when I need a little trim and can’t reach – which might be an additional $500 in savings over the years). That’s a lot of cheddar ceramic animals…
A New Bathroom Light (No, Not That Bathroom)
We don’t talk much about our hall bathroom. In fact, in 17 months of living here, it’s been the subject of just three posts (finding an inspiration room, knocking down a towel bar and fixing the toilet). And since we later used almost the same color as the inspiration room in our guest bedroom, we’re no longer planning to use that color in here, so we’re kind of back to square one. But we finally made a little lighting progress, as today’s title suggests.
There was nothing especially offensive about the existing fixture – nor anything especially exciting about it. It felt sort of builder basic to us. And kind of “backstage make-up room” to us thanks to the long line of bulbs (long vanity + long mirror + long fixture = lots of long things). So we always told ourselves if we saw something that we liked better (maybe with more height and less width, without looking too pidly and delicate over such a large vanity and mirror) we’d upgrade and then donate the original – since we’re sure someone else might love it more than we do.
We randomly checked out a few home improvement stores over the past year and a half, but nothing really got our figurative motors running. That moment finally came about a month ago while Sherry was on Joss & Main and saw this:
We obviously liked the dark bronze finish and also liked its sort of industrial / outdoor feel. It was mildly reminiscent of both our guest bathroom light (an outdoor fixture we installed inside for that industrial feeling) and our front porch light (which came with the house).
And at $60 (down 40 bucks from the original $100 price) it was less expensive than a lot of the alternatives we hadn’t liked as much at the home improvement store. So we pulled the trigger.
The breaking news is that we finally got around to putting this baby in (first it sat on the counter for a few weeks, taunting us). Thanks to the position of our mirror, I had the pleasure of photographing myself a lot in the process. And thanks to the bathtub being in my way, I also got to play the role of the tripod a few times. Apparently my head isn’t very level…
You guys have probably seen me remove a light before, but if not – after turning off the power to the whole house (our fuse box isn’t labeled carefully enough for us to trust it blindly) I carefully removed all of the glass shades and bulbs (I’m a smidge accident prone around those things) and unscrewed the fixture from the wall.
That revealed this big metal plate that was secured to the wall… along with lots of nasty dust (hence my expression).
When I unscrewed the plate I was left with this imprint of what once was: some unpainted areas, a bit of rust, more dust, and some old paint drips.
After Sherry broke out a lead paint test stick (we got a pack of them from Home Depot about a year ago and they’re still coming in handy) we were relieved to get a negative result so I broke out my cheery little palm sander to smooth out those ridges left by the previous paint job so that our re-paint job will have a better chance of looking seamless. But re-painting’s a future task since we still have to settle on a color for this room (but you know we’ll keep you posted!).
With the old fixture successfully down, we brought in the new guy. Here’s what he looked like out of the box.
I screwed in the mounting bar (a simple task that took longer than usual because the included screws didn’t fit my junction box so we had to run to the hardware store to get different ones).
Then I attached the wires and screwed the new fixture in place. Pretend that giant unpainted spot isn’t there.
Once the metal shades were affixed and the bulbs were back in place, we had our new and improved light ready to go. My head-tripoding skills also appear to have improved.
We’re charmed by the extra bit of character this light brings to the otherwise still-ignored bathroom. Thankfully, the two 100 watt bulbs are more than enough to illuminate our small bathroom, and we’re excited about how the dark color of the fixture balances some of the dark accent tile around the room. We also like that it looks sort of old (like our house and many of the other industrial lights we’ve brought in). We have big plans for framing out the mirror, painting the walls, painting the vanity, getting new vanity hardware, doing something to the window, hanging some art, etc. So although it’s not looking too amazing right now, we’re inching towards something that might look cool someday. We hope. Haha.
We like how our new fixture better fills the space above the mirror (thanks to more height, which balances the ceiling-height shower curtain on the other side of the room). And we’re actually really happy with the quality of this light. It looks a lot more expensive than 60 beans, just because it’s not flimsy and the dark color is really matte and authentic looking if that makes sense. The little distressed areas don’t feel too country for our tastes, but they make it feel less mass produced and more “oh this old thing, we actually inherited it from Uncle Merlin and it has some great story to tell” – even thought that’s totally not the case.
And we already dropped the old light off at our Habitat For Humanity ReStore, so the switcheroo is officially complete. Hopefully we’ll have another update post with a paint color sometime soon-ish. And that giant mirror will look a heckova lot more legit once it’s framed out. But at the rate these hall bathroom posts have been appearing so far (along with posts about the guest bathroom, the playroom, and the sunroom – which are our other virtually untouched spaces thus far), I probably shouldn’t make any promises. We’ll get there someday!
What have you guys been hanging in the bathroom? Art? Lighting? Mirrors? Any favorite bathroom paint colors to share? Do you get nervous ordering a light you haven’t seen in person? We must admit we were a little sweaty when we clicked “buy” but we’re glad we took a chance.
Fab Freebie: Here’s Looking At Two, Babe
Since Clara is officially two years old today, we’re celebrating with a kid-themed giveaway featuring two $200 prizes. Are you sensing a two theme yet? The first comes from Sarah + Abraham who offer a slew of customized treats, including party supplies (banners, invitations, cupcake toppers), housewares (personalized plates, pillows, place mats) and more (stationery, water bottles, magnets, etc). They have fun modern patterns and custom silhouettes and we especially love their cartoon-y Olliegraphic plate that’s designed to look like your kiddo.
Our second $200 prize comes from Oilo Studio, who designs chic housewares for nurseries and kids rooms that are totally worthy of a grown-up room too. So you can make like some of their celebrity clientele (Christina Applegate & Rachel Zoe to name two – there’s that number again!) and score some lighting, pillows, furniture, or bedding. They offer bedding in crib, twin, and even queen sizes so you don’t even have to have a kid to enjoy the 200 beans they’re tossing your way.
- PRIZE: $200 to Sarah + Abraham and $200 to Oilo Studio
- TO ENTER: Comment on this post with the words “TWO ME!” and tell us…
- BONUS QUESTION: … your latest / favorite funny kid moment. We’re sure most of you have a good tale of something hilarious your (or someone else’s) child did, said, or wore. Heck, you can even share something wacky you did as a kid.
- GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Wednesday, May 16th at 8pm EST or at 10,000 entries (whichever comes first)
- NUMBER OF WINNERS: One
- PRIZE SHIPS: The United States & Canada (although we do try to wrangle as many international giveaways as possible)
- USUAL STUFF: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winner will be selected using random.org and announced on Thursday as an update to this post. That’s right, come right back here on Thursday for the announcement of our winner. Good luck…
Note: We aren’t paid or perked for hosting these giveaways, we just do ‘em to thank you awesome folks for stopping in. See our Giveaway FAQ page for more info. Pics courtesy of Sarah + Abraham and Oilo Studio.
Worm To Your Motha
Aw, yeah. Clara’s second b-day party was full of food, family, friends, fun… and worms (she picked the theme based on her deep love of looking at, drawing, and even dreaming about worms). We were so thankful to be surrounded by the people we love, the bean had the best time, and the 75 degree weather and sunny skies were the icing on the worm cake. Or should I say worm cupcakes. Let’s get this party (breakdown) started…
But let’s start at the beginning. Clara was born two years ago today. Wait, that’s too far back. Let’s just cover the party. Here’s the sunroom all decked out for the big day. Nothing too fancy, just some balloons and streamers from Target, a colorful tablecloth from HomeGoods, and lots of worm-a-licious food. But we’ll get to that in a second.
We decided to use the sunroom, the patio, and the carport for the entire gathering, which was about 30 people total (ten were kiddos under the age of four). Of course if it had rained we would have partied inside, but it felt especially wormy and fun to have kiddos running around outdoors in the fresh air. Having the sunroom (which is located right off the patio) for food and drinks was also really nice since we didn’t have to worry about finding actual bugs in the food (fake worms = ok, real bugs = not ok).
Here’s a close up of the table seconds before everyone arrived. Fun fact: the table is actually a secret book project covered with a tablecloth since we can’t reveal it on the blog – and also since we didn’t have room to stash it anywhere else. Haha. We figured we might as well put it to good use for now (we’ll be auctioning a bunch of book projects off for charity this fall once the book is out and they’re allowed out of the proverbial bag).
We set out worm-ish food with worm-related labels (made in photoshop and printed at home) like “worm crudités” (long skinny slices of carrots, cucumbers, and cheese), “puffed worms” (white cheddar cheese puffs), “salted worms” (pretzel rods), and “worm dogs” (hot dogs that we cut into fourths and boiled to make them all curly as so many of you recommended in the comments of this pre-party post – thanks!!).
See those pretty flowers on the table? They were from J-boom for Mother’s Day. Love my hubby.
Here’s a close up of the worm dogs. They were a hit among kiddos and adults. I think we moved more of them than we had people at the party.
All of the bowls and plates were just things we had in the pantry. Nothing really matched in shape (round, scalloped, rectangular, etc) but it all worked because it was white – which was actually a nice combo with the crazy-colorful tablecloth (bright platters and bowls might have been a bit much with such an in-yo-face pattern).
We also set out little cups of gummy worms. Hanging a few over the rim like they were crawling out was my idea of a good time. Oh yes, I live on the edge.
We had another small table for the pizza – which is always a party pleaser. We did our take on worm pizza by ordering one with worm-like peppers & onions and topping one with pre-cooked spaghetti. The other two (cheese and peperoni) had a label that said “dewormed pizza.” Oh yeah, we ran with this worm theme, baby.
Everyone got a kick out of the bird napkins (birds eat worms, right?) that we found at Ikea.
On the other side of the sunroom we set up a little drink station. See this table covered with another HomeGoods tablecloth? There’s another secret book project under there. Haha. As for what drinks we served, we went with some cute glass bottles of orange soda and Coke for the 20-ish adults and also had Izze, water, and sparkling water in the beverage tin along with apple juice and water for the kiddos. Oh and see those apples in front of the drink tin? We plopped a gummy worm on each one. Ha. They actually got eaten, too!
And check out those worm-like pink straws…
Since this room is still completely untouched, there was no wall art going on (we just plopped down furniture 16 months ago and haven’t done anything but shove book stuff in there since). So we taped up Clara’s monthly pictures from this year along with 12 fun worm facts on a nice bare expanse of wall above the table. John just googled around for worm trivia and typed each 4 x 6″ card up in Photoshop.
For anyone who wants to see the whole shebang a little closer, just click this photo for an enlarged version:
Oh and here’s the carport all snazzed up with pink & orange streamers. When it comes to bang for your buck, they’re pretty festive (and so cheap!). It’s hard to see in these pics, but we swagged them so they were sort of wiggly and worm-ish. And I proudly hung the fabric banner that I made for Clara’s first birthday on the half wall that looks back onto the patio. We brought a few chairs and a garden stool out from inside as well as all the sweet little watering can favors for each of our young party-goers to take home.
I can’t tell you how happy it made me to see all ten of those little watering cans lined up on that wall. As I mentioned here, they were each filled with a bottle of bubbles, a pink or orange shovel, and a stuffed snake-turned-worm that we found at Ikea for 49 cents (we cut off the forked tongue to complete the conversion). We also grabbed the watering cans at Ikea for 99 cents each.
Other than streamers and balloons, we just hung three paper lanterns that came in a pack from Target and some funny worm-like pink swirlie paper things that we found for a few bucks at Party City. Then we brought out a low table from the sunroom and made a little play station for the kiddos with things like bubbles, a puzzle from Melissa and Doug that has bugs/worms on it, a box of crayons, and a bunch of color-the-worm pages that I sketched before the party.
I just took cardstock and a gray marker and drew a few happy little worms for the kiddos to color. It actually went over pretty well. It was so much fun to see all those colorful scribbled worms at the end of the day.
Here’s a people-milling pic for ya. Is there anything better than a patio full of people you love?
Sidenote: Clara was kind of hilarious about the pizza. She took a big bite of mine and then moved over to her cousin Jake and asked for a bite of his and when we all stared laughing she went from person to person, requesting a bite of each slice (thankfully there were only two other people nearby so it didn’t turn into a giant germ-sharing fest). It was very “welcome to my party, now feed me” of her. At least she wasn’t asking us to bow to her and fan her with leaves.
The other crowd favorite of the afternoon (besides our sweet little pizza-mooching bean) were the dirt cupcakes. We just picked up tasty little 40 cent vanilla cupcakes from a local bakery here in Richmond (Ukrops), pressed them icing-side-down into crushed up Oreo cookies, and plopped a gummy worm on top. We also made some that were dirt free (just squished a worm into the white icing) but the consensus from the crowd was that the Oreo ones were the best since they had some crunch.
Here’s the birthday girl getting her special cupcake (she hand-picked that green gummy worm before the party) in her favorite yellow chair. We stuck two worm-ish pink candles from Target on top, sang our little hearts out, and blew them out fast (since she’s still mildly afraid of fire from a certain Hawaiian hibachi incident).
She did momma proud with her cupcake-eating skills.
We even remembered to try to take a few family photos. Of course we didn’t get any with all of us looking at the camera and smiling (what are those odds, one in a million?), but we did end up with some sweet candid ones (yes that is a random bubble floating by in the foreground).
Clara took the worm theme very seriously. For example, she took great pleasure in feeding them to me.
She and her daddy even got all Lady and The Tramp for this shot:
We all seemed to gravitate to the carport after a few hours in the sunroom and on the patio, and then we decided to open some presents. This wooden worm (well, actually it’s a snake) from one of Clara’s best buddies was a huge hit. The funny thing is that John and I played around with that exact same thing (from Michael’s) for this old Halloween post before we had any idea Clara would develop a deep, strong love of worms.
Clara was seriously smitten.
Here’s another people-milling shot in the carport. As much as we would someday love to convert that space to a garage, it sure is good for friends and family (and balls and balloons). We ended up bringing out our dining chairs with their slipcovers back on (so any rogue icing could just be washed off) and we did what we do best: hung out and watched those sweet kiddos of ours. Although there are only three out of ten kids in this pic, so there must have been a gaggle of them staring at a spider in the corner or dunking by the basketball hoop (a sweet gift from my brother Dan, which you can see two pictures up).
The general gist? It was a great day. We are so thankful for our friends and family and our sweet, happy little girl. I always cry at her party. Just can’t help it. She’s our little miracle (birth story here, sniffle sniffle). And we’re so grateful to have awesome folks like you guys to virtually attend our weird little worm party. Haha. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.
But perhaps Burger had the most fun, gazing dreamily up at all the leftovers at the end of the festivities.
He even got lucky and found a cheese puff under the table.
The End.
Oh wait, we made a little Clara video like we did last year – not to show at the party this time, just to have so we can look back on it (and watch it with Clara, since she loves the one we made for her first birthday). So here’s her last year in seven minutes. My favorite parts are her Britney Spears impression near the beginning and some Flash-Dance-ish ottoman dancing in the outtakes at the very end.
Love that girl. Love you guys too. Lots of mushiness flying around. Haha. What did you do this weekend? Any Mother’s Day fun? Any worm eating?
Psst- We have a bunch of outtakes for this month’s Clara picture in front of her homemade fabric, so you can check those out here on Young House Life.
DIYing vs. Living In Your Home & Enjoying It
Q: Since you decorate/upgrade/reno your house for a living, do you ever feel like you are always working on your house but not ever getting to just live in it and enjoy it? Like when you spend all day cooking in the kitchen by dinnertime you aren’t hungry and don’t even want to eat half the time. If something (like your house) is never quite done and there’s a to do list longer than the purchase contract, is it hard to just peacefully sit without always thinking about the next project and thereby giving yourself low level anxiety? Or….am I the anxious one which is why this even occurred to me? – Rach
A: Haha, it’s a great question and we actually get it a lot. I really think because this blog and our DIY love started as a complete hobby (we did home improvement stuff on nights and weekends and started this blog just to keep our friends and family posted) it’s totally something that we still enjoy doing – and are thankful to have the opportunity to do full time. We actually still do most projects on nights and weekends since during the day we’re tending the blog/answering comments/writing posts/doing other office-job stuff like arranging giveaways and managing sponsors (and watching the bean) and then at night when Clara’s asleep we can actually get our hammer on.
Bit since fixing up our home wasn’t something we did to make money or start a business, and was actually what we opted to spend our free time doing without making a dime after a hard day’s work – it really is just the definition of FUN to us. To be very honest, the business side of running a blog can be pretty hard work – so the coding and the technical stuff and the other behind the scenes being-a-small-business stuff (like filing quarterly taxes and paying for our own health insurance, etc) can be stressful (more on that here). But the DIY stuff is always our favorite! It’s the fun part. The cream in the middle of the Oreo, if you will.
Even picture taking/uploading/sizing can sometimes feel like busy-work, but projects and planning and painting and all the fun physical you-see-the-changes-as-you-go stuff is the thing we always look forward to! It’s so rewarding and personal that it never gets old. I definitely don’t think it would be that way for everyone, but just as someone else might have a passion for numbers (and take great joy in being a professor or an accountant or a financial adviser) we have a passion for getting to plan/rethink/paint/upgrade stuff. It’s a fun challenge for us and no day is ever the same. I certainly think some folks would rather just do it as a hobby (maybe five hours a week is their cap) but we’re happy to do it day in and day out. Heck, for the last four consecutive Christmases we’ve taken on some of our craziest house projects (what’s wrong with us? haha). But honestly, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
It wasn’t always an enjoyable, balanced, healthy thing for us though. In our first house we found that in the first few months after moving in (about a year before we started this blog) we felt rushed and put all of this unrealistic pressure on ourselves. And it sucked! We wanted our house to be completely made over in a matter of months and anytime someone was visiting we freaked out and tried to do ten things before they arrived, which left us feeling burned out at best and frustrated and deflated at worst (when we didn’t get everything done in time). The freeing thing was realizing that it takes years. Our den actually looked like this eight months after moving in. And that’s more than ok – it’s par for the DIY course.
A house that needs serious love isn’t going to look amazing overnight or even in a month or a series of months. Unless you have a crew of people and unlimited funds. Plus, if you take your time you’re more likely to love the result since you actually think it through instead of rushing in and having all those shoulda-woulda-coula feelings later. This room took 4.5 years to evolve and was one of our favorite spots in our first house – not only afterwards, but along the way. Once we learned to chill the heck out and relax. Haha.
So “relax, it’s only decorating” is kind of our mantra. We’ve had family visit us in the middle of our most recent kitchen reno (there were no doors on any of the cabinets) and we all just laughed that there’s always something disassembled at our house.
Guests know it’s totally normal to come over our house and see something mid-project, and you know what? They still love us! It was a revelation. We don’t have to go crazy trying to finish every last detail when family and friends are en route. They will love us and enjoy our company anyway. Liberating, I tell ya.
In short: now we feel a lot less time pressure (haha, yes, even with such a long list and so many people watching) because we have learned that it’s not a sprint and it’s more of a journey that we need to stop and enjoy. We always say it’s not about the destination, it’s about the ride. And the ride never gets old to us since we get to switch things up and tackle different tasks all the time (painting trim for five years would definitely get old, but getting to do a bunch of different challenges and have various adventures along the way really is our idea of a good time).
Plus we get to live IN our progress, meaning that everything we have accomplished surrounds us and reminds us how good it feels to get ‘er done. I suppose it’s like hanging your degrees on the wall in your office, and putting up photos that make you smile – the environment is a good one because it reminds us how far we’ve come and how rewarding it is when we get our hands dirty and make something lackluster into something that we find beautiful and functional. Even when we’re living right smack in the middle of a project, we try to enjoy that time, snap photos, revel in the fact that a doorway might exist where one didn’t a few months ago, etc. Even if the counters aren’t in and the new floor isn’t down, there’s something nice about enjoying each step of progress as it comes.
So our #1 advice to folks is to enjoy the journey and stop rushing around. Which means while you DIY your way to a new home, you’re required to stop to enjoy your handiwork and appreciate where you were and where you’re going and all that stuff. What’s a renovated kitchen if you can’t enjoy it? Since we finished that looooong project we have entertained a bunch of family and friends in there and every time we find ourselves beaming at a bunch of people milling around in our new space, this wash of gratitude and happiness comes over us. We’re proud and excited to share our hard work and so thankful that it’s functional and beautiful to us!
And not only do we get that giddiness when we entertain, but a quiet evening at home on a random Wednesday night might mean that John cooks while I read to Clara in the chair by the fireplace and then we eat at the peninsula. And this is the view.
Sometimes we take Clara outside to play on the patio, so we’re here:
… instead of here, which is what that area looked like before we got our DIY-loving hands on it.
So we’re soaking up the gratitude and enjoying our ever-evolving home all the time. The same is true when we work towards upgrading our bedroom or our living room or our curb appeal – all those spaces are areas we can enjoy and they fuel us and excite us and inspire us to keep at it. They remind us how much fun it is and how rewarding it can be. So try not to put pressure on yourself to get to this imaginary finish line and just have fun and take your time and tackle things one day and one small step at a time! It really keeps it manageable and spurs you on to make other parts of your home just as personalized and special.
What do you guys do to keep your DIY spirits up? Do you find that it’s possible to enjoy your home improvement triumphs along the way? Have you ever felt the it-must-be-done pressure that we put on ourselves in the first few months of living in our first house? I’m telling you, it’s crazy-liberating to just say: it’ll be done when it’s done and we’re going to have fun getting there. Booyah.
