If you caught this Instagram photo we posted back in July, you could probably tell it wasn’t your average trip to the beach. We were actually participating in a photo and video shoot for Virginia is for Lovers, the fine folks who promote tourism in our home state. They were starting a new series featuring real Virginians taking new adventures in the state, and they actually asked to feature us (!!). It’s pretty obvious that we love Virginia, so we couldn’t wait to sing our home state’s praises and check out a few places we’d never been. We were invited to explore Virginia’s Eastern Shore for the day with them, which, for those unfamiliar with
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What We Did To Sell Our House Faster By Owner
Ok, so today our house looks like this. So – spontaneous decision! – while we get settled and find our underwear, this week is going to be moving week! Turns out you guys still wanted to hear a whole lot about the sale of our current house. So let’s do the dang thing. Here’s what we plan to cover in honor of Spontaneous Moving Week: How we staged/sold our house (including a glance at our real estate flyer, a list of what we changed before showings, etc) What we made when we sold our house vs. what we put in- budget breakdown included! Empty house pics (dude, it’s trippy to see your house all echoey
A Full Rundown Of Home Makeover Projects & Links
Packing up our current house and new-house-floor-laying continues… … but we didn’t want to scoot outta our beloved current house without one more updated Listy McListerson full of everything we’ve checked off and a few things we’d love to have done if we were staying here longer (those are bulleted at the bottom). #warningitslong Just for fun, here’s the very first list that we shared for this house back in 2010. I love how plans seem to evolve as you live somewhere and figure out what we love/want as you go. It’s also really funny how quickly your eyes adjust and you forget what you started with, isn’t it? Seriously, a week after we knocked
Adventures In Hardwood Flooring
Late last week we were finally able to start installing our hardwood floors at the new house. It’s going well (we’re getting it done with our own four hands), but it’s proving to be a time intensive project – which is not necessarily the type of project you want to take on when you’re short on time (we’re scheduled to move in this weekend and would like to be completely done with four bedrooms and a long hallway by then – egads!). So once we’re breathing a bit easier and a bit further along, we’ll write up a play-by-play of how it all (literally) is going down. ‘Til then, enjoy this still-dusty pic of the
Pricing And Picking Oak Hardwood Flooring
Let’s talk about wood, shall we? As we mentioned on Tuesday, we decided to go with solid oak hardwoods for the four bedrooms and the hallway upstairs since many rooms downstairs along with the stairs themselves have a nice medium toned oak already (pretty similar to the hardwoods in our first house that ended up being super dog/kid friendly). As for where to get it, first we looked on craigslist to see if anyone had a large quantity of something in the right tone/amount (no dice) and then we headed to Lumber Liquidators, since we’ve had luck with them when it came to buying hardwood floors for half of our first house back in 2007
Our $200 Marble Fireplace Makeover
We can officially stick a fork in it, guys. Well, Sherry actually stuck an oversized fauz clam shell in it, but that’s doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well. Either way, the fireplace makeover is complete. To back up a smidge, you saw us devise a plan for this little refacing makeover, add some marble subway tile and then build out around it. Reminder: fireplace code is different in every area (and requirements vary if it’s wood burning or if it has a gas insert, etc) so it’s a good idea to check that before going nuts on your fireplace. Our fireplace is non-working (we’d love to add a gas insert and even double-side
How To Build A Fireplace Mantel
Ready for more progress on the fireplace? Good, ’cause there’s been lots. Last you saw, we had tiled the hearth and part of the surround with marble subway tile. That was the easy step. Well, at least the more straightforward step. Because our next assignment – building out the rest of the frame – involved the addition of a lot more materials. Let’s start with the MDF frame. We decided to work with MDF for the first time since it’s lighter, cheaper, and smoother than wood would be (plus it’s now sold without formaldehyde and it’s FSC certified). A 4ft x 8ft panel cost nearly $35, but the good news is that we only needed
How To Tile A Marble Herringbone Fireplace
With our fireplace refacing plan all worked out, and our supplies waiting at the ready, it was time to dive into step 1: TILE! So we’re here with every last detail, from prepping and tiling to grouting. In case my sketch below is still indecipherable to everyone but me, I highlighted the areas of the photo below that are going to get the tile treatment. The tile border is only about 7 inches wide because the rest of the brick is going to get framed out with wood and MDF (which will layer on top of the tile, hence doing tile first). Oh but it’s smart to check the code in your area to make sure
Painting Our Kitchen A Soft Blue Color: Colorado Gray
Can I get a kitchie kitchie ya ya da da? (name that song) Also, we painted the kitchen. SURPRIIIISE! We’ve mentioned that we’ve been flirting with the idea in our last two Listy McListersons (here and here), and when Nonna came to hang with Clara this past week we jumped at the chance to tear the kitchen apart and get to it. Just to keep it real, we grabbed this shot to demonstrate that when one room is getting love, some nearby room is getting dumped. It’s like saying “kitchen, will you accept this rose?” and meanwhile we’re sending the dining room packing (with a bunch of extra baggage). There’s usually one of these “displacement
Listy McListerson: Updated
Warning: this is longer than the Oscars, so feel free to fast forward to the good parts. These posts actually came about when people asked how we organize all the stuff we have on our to-do list. We explained that we basically just have one long run-on document, and when folks kept asking us to share it (and update it as we went along), it sounded like our idea of a good time. And it’s high time that we actually updated it considering it has been ten months since we last shared it! Yowsa. In an attempt to keep our eyes from crossing when we read it, we separated what we’ve done in each room
Avoiding Buyer’s Remorse & Purchasing Paralysis
Q: “How do you know when you’re investing in the right piece for a room? I’m paralyzed to pull the trigger and then later realize the table, curtains, or rug I’m currently eying aren’t ‘the answer’ for my room and then spend years regretting them.” – Melissa We get a lot of questions like this one. So after around six years spent decorating two houses on a pretty modest budget, with a nice heaping portion of mistakes and trial and error worked in there, here’s what we’ve learned. We definitely don’t get it right every time. Sometimes we’re too risky, and sometimes we’re too safe, and sometimes the proportion or the size of something is
Our Whole House Color Palette
Q: Hi guys! I was snooping around your blog to try and find a floor plan of your new home with the colors you used for each room (like you did in the post from Feb 24/2010) but I didn’t find one! I would L-O-V-E to see what your new house looks like now, with a visualization of the color scheme per room. Is this possible, or am I asking way too much? HAPPY NEW YEAR by the way! – Danielle A: Oh yeah – we’re way overdue on that! So when Danielle submitted that comment here, we officially bumped it to the top of our to-do list. We did one of them for our