With our big move only a few months away, what do we need to do to get our house ready to sell? This week we’re outlining some of the projects we’re taking on – both big and small – including the fast-tracked makeover of our hall bathroom. John also outlines a shopping challenge of his very own for 2020 that’ll push us to look more locally when we seek certain items. Plus, can a simple pen and paper save you money? We’re looking into an ancient budgeting method that promises to do so. Oh, and there’s an unintended rant about The Bachelor. What’s new If you missed our big news about moving last week, you
Why We’re Downsizing To A Smaller House In A Warmer State
In case you haven’t had a chance to listen to this week’s podcast or read the transcript, we wanted to put our big news into an actual blog post. This is one of the biggest life changes we’ve made in the last decade, so we want to get everyone up to speed. And a huge thank you for all the support and encouragement you’ve shared for this new adventure of ours. We can’t wait to live with less, be outside a lot more, and eat even more fresh-caught shrimp than we ever thought possible. And yes, to everyone asking – we definitely plan to share more about downsizing, moving, renovating, and even things like feeling
#163: Our Next Big Project (It’s REALLY BIG)
Wanna know what our next big renovation project is? Well, it’s actually something that we’ve been contemplating for years but finally have the courage to do (thanks in part to selling our duplex). So this week we’re breaking down why we want to do it, why we think now is the time, and why it has us feeling excited, sad, and inspired all at the same time. Plus it’s really going to put our fondness for simplifying to the ultimate test. And some recent travel hiccups led us to a few new books that we’re loving – and one that I’m looking forward to loving… as weird as that sounds. What’s New If you can’t
How To Build Heavy-Duty Garage Shelves
When we needed some heavy-duty garage shelves for our new shed, we were immediately drawn to this easy shelf tutorial. We wanted something that would stand up to the weight of bigger tools (more than your typical plastic or wire garage shelf) and was also straightforward to construct. I’ll show how we got there, but here’s where I ended up. We ended up loving this technique so much, we repeated it when we needed heavy duty shelves in the shed at our beach house too. As you can see they’re adaptable to pretty much any sized space, and they’re especially easy to install when you have exposed studs to drill directly into. Tools & Materials
How To Drill Through Tile
One challenge when building the floating shelves in our duplex kitchens was drilling through the tile backsplash. After all, we had just spent a lot of time and money installing all of this beautiful tile. We didn’t want to mess it up! Was it a little scary? Yes. But is it totally doable? Also yes. Let’s talk about it. Ideally, we would’ve hung our shelf supports before tiling. Buuuuuut we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye about where to (or even *if* to) hang shelves. Luckily we resolved our stalemate shortly after tiling (I won’t bother you with who was right… but let’s just that person is very handsome and very humble). We decided to install a chunkier
#162: What Sherry’s Not Buying For An Entire Year
That’s right, there’s a new personal shopping challenge going on at our house – and this time Sherry has committed to skipping any purchases in a specific (and pretty wide category) FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. We’re also talking with simplicity expert Emily Ley about how she combats “busyness” and creates more time and space in her life. She’s giving us tips on everything from tackling your family calendar to fun ways to get the kids involved in streamlining your days. And we’re sharing our favorite way to hang heavy objects quickly, without a lot of dust or tools – along with our new favorite guilty pleasure show that makes us laugh out loud (and even
#161: Then Half Of Our Lights Went Out…
This week we’re sharing the mystery of how half of the power in our house suddenly went out when we were just about to leave the country on vacation. We’re also catching you up on the highs and lows of getting our bathroom nearly completed, including how the flu, a surgery, and a sudden deadline kept us on our toes. Plus, an illuminating update to our upstairs hallway and what we learned about “life admin” and how to better tackle it. What’s New First off, if you missed last week’s episode and our big duplex news, you can listen to it here or read a full transcript here. Sherry also referenced a previous episode about
How To Make Built-In Pantry Shelves
I’m so excited to share how we constructed these built-in pantry shelving for our beach house. They’re surprisingly straightforward to construct and can be easily customized to any space, even if you’ve got a small pantry or simple pantry closet. They’re made entirely of two things: 3/4″ MDF sheets and 1 x 2″ pine boards (well, and some screws and nails). Plus, this process can be easily adapted to just about any space where you want to add some custom storage or shelving (bedrooms, playrooms, living rooms, etc). So even if you’re a beginner, you can do this. Seriously. Also, if you’re looking for more shelf ideas & DIY shelving projects, this post has 16
How To Add Decorative Wall Molding
We love a DIY wall molding just as much as the next blogger, but I think we have a new favorite: the thick framing that we added to our bathroom. And it almost didn’t happen! And it was one of the smaller costing line items compared to a lot of other updates we did in there (gotta love when that happens!). We still have some finishing touches to put on the room before we’re ready to “reveal” it fully (like a bathroom door would be nice – and we’re also going to share a full budget breakdown in that big “after” post) but I know that many of you are eager to hear about this
#160: And Now For Some Big Duplex News
It’s our first episode of 2020 and WE BOY DO WE HAVE NEWS! We’re excited to share it because it not only means good things for us, our friends, and the duplex itself, but it’s also connected to our continued efforts to simplify, and it involves a twisty tale of switching tables with a stranger. We’re also sharing a special gift that we gave this holiday season that can help your family honor a loved one. Plus, a check-in on our bathroom reno progress, the Instagram account that keeps us laughing, and our favorite geography-based game we’ve ever played. What’s New Our Big Duplex News Game: Weird Town Names We’re Digging If you’re looking for
How To Build Scrap Wood Storage… Out Of Scrap Wood
The scrap wood pile in our garage was getting out of hand, so creating some scrap wood storage was a top priority in our new shed. And, better yet, we wanted to use as much of our scrap wood to actually build it! So this post covers the steps we took to construct this easy and functional storage system for you collection of leftover lumber. It may not be the prettiest scrap wood storage on the Internet (and it’s a little hard to see with all of wood-on-wood tones), but it’s way better than the garage pile we started with! Step 1: Assess Your Scrap Wood Pile To build this organizer, we started by bringing
Staining Your Wood Cabinets Darker
Updated January 2022 We weren’t happy with the color of our existing kitchen cabinets – too orange and dated looking! – so we wanted to give them a quick makeover for a darker, more contemporary look. We decided to stain them to maintain the wood grain appearance, but we worried that would require us to sand off all of the old finish. Yuck! Luckily, we knew of a product that would let us skip that messy and tiring step while still giving us the end results we wanted. You can see our results above, and read below for how we got there! What Stain Product Did You Use? We used Minwax Polyshades for this project,
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