*This post is sponsored by Sherwin Williams and some links below are affiliate links for your convenience. All opinions are my own*

Para leer este post en Español haz clic aquí. 

Hello friends! I know it has been a little while since you last heard from me… the truth is a whole lot has happened since and I have not had the time to even sit down and write about it.

If you have been following me on my Instagram account, you probably already know that we have moved. My husband and I came across an opportunity that we could not pass up and we took it, but it happened so fast and demanded so much of our time that I have barely had the chance to sit down and write a post about it.

I can say that selling and buying a home at the same time can be beyond stressful and time consuming, but we made it through and are happily settling into our new home…. still settling as my new house is currently filled with a ton of boxes and my furniture has not all been set in place, but at least we are in.

Whew!

Before this abrupt change we had planned to paint the exterior of the house we were living in, but quickly scratched that idea since we decided we were going to move and the new homeowners might want something different anyways. So instead we decided to spruce up our front porch to make it more appealing to potential home buyers.

So we decided to fix our front porch for some much needed curb appeal.

Time: 1 Week

Difficulty: Advanced

Supplies:

• Purdy Woven Mini Rollers
• Purdy Angle Sash Brush
• FrogTape Multi-Surface Painter’s Tape
• White Lightning 3006 Advanced Formula Caulk
• American Line Pro Mini Roller Trays
• 1 gallon of Exterior Emerald (color matched)
• 2 quarts of Exterior Emerald (color matched)

So let’s be real.. after a few years, the exterior of your home may require maintenance to keep it looking good. You also may want to refresh the front of your house to keep it looking great for your guests… or in our case, we wanted it to look great for people interested in buying it.

Here are several things you can do to keep your front entrance looking wonderful and welcoming.

I have a covered front porch and this is what we did to fix it up.

The first thing you want to do (before cleaning your surfaces) is remove any dry-rotted pieces of wood– this is a normal thing that happens due to the changing of the seasons and weather.

Sometimes you may have to remove a large piece, but that’s okay.

Make sure you pay close attention to the crown molding and the bottoms of posts and pillars where water can accumulate and stay stagnant.

After you remove all the dry-rotted pieces, replace with pressure treated wood and clean all surfaces to be painted (we had removed the railing that was there a while back so we patched the areas up where they attached to the pillars). 

Use exterior and paintable caulk to seal all the seams so that no water gets inside.

If you don’t plan to repaint the entire exterior of your home with different colors, simply remove a small piece of paint from each of the existing colors of your home and head over to your nearest Sherwin-Williams to color match the paint samples.

I have done this several times and each time we have had great color-matching results.

Once you have your paint, go over all the areas you replaced and add a new coat over all adjacent areas so the paint blends well.

I repainted the front door and the surrounding frame.

Once all work is complete and dry, add a new doormat (yeah I am totally guilty of having an ugly welcome mat).

These are also inexpensive. I think this one cost me $6 at my local home improvement store.

Add some summer plants in DIY pots to add more color to your front porch or you can even add a pretty wreath to your front door (I did both!).

And my house was ready for viewing! Don’t get me wrong, we did a few more things to get the house ready and I will cover those in detail on a future post, but we do think this is one of the reasons our house was under contract within 2 weeks time.

Of course, you don’t need to do this only when you plan on leaving your home, go ahead and do it now and enjoy coming home to a refreshed and welcoming front entrance.

I will be back soon with more updates!

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Hi everyone! Today I am sharing our powder bathroom reveal and a few steps we took along the way to get what we wanted done. So if you remember a couple of days ago I showed you the before pictures here. Yeah, they were bad. So, after we removed the sink and most of the toilet (we kept the base in place, removed the tank) we painted the corners where the tile would butt up against the walls. I chose Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams.

The sink and cabinet base needed to be installed flush up against the wall so we removed the baseboards in this area using a dremel to cut into the baseboards and then a hammer and chisel to remove the actual pieces. It was pretty easy.

At least it looked that way from where I was standing 😉

Getting the measurements for this was easy. We just put the cabinet up against baseboards, made sure it was centered exactly where we wanted it and made pencil markings where we were going to cut.

Then after we removed the baseboards we put the sink cabinet back up against the wall and traced around it completely in order to give us a guide as we put the tiles up.

Then once we removed the cabinet we placed a temporary 1 x 4 where the top of the sink would be, this way our tiles wouldn’t start to slide down the wall since that was going to be our starting point as we tiled. up the wall. Below is a visual so you get what I am talking about.

This ended up not being necessary since the tiles stuck well to the wall, but it was nice to have it as a guide. This was our first backsplash project so we weren’t sure what to expect. Better to be safe than sorry! 

 

And as you can see we started on the bottom left and worked our way up, then moved over and did the same again (working around the sink/cabinet area. At first, it was hard getting the right consistency of the mortar, but once we got it, we flew through the installation.

And in case you thought my husband laid the tile… you guessed wrong! I actually did this. He assisted. Say what?!

One tip, NEVER EVER attempt to mix mortar or thinset or grout without this tool right here. You attach it to your drill and let it do all the work….. However, if you are the type who wants your arm to fall off from excruciating mixing pain, hey, be my guest (but seriously, so worth it).

Moving on! We grouted and cleaned up and finished painting the rest of the room,  but I won’t bore you with any of that, it was pretty basic stuff. Installing the sink was really simple (hubby did most of that, I assisted). And here is what it looks like now.

BAM!!!! That is one sexy wall. I apologize for not being able to show the entire bathroom in one full shot, but it’s a tight space and taking pictures of it is really tricky without awkwardly showing myself in the mirror with my camera in hand.

I chose those this style of sink and cabinet for a couple of reasons:

1.  I actually liked the contrast of the nice rich brown wood with the sleek white top.
2. It had storage! I could put toiletries in there with room to spare.
3. It had an opening underneath, which is where I store the kids step stool, so it comes in pretty handy. Later I can always dress it up with hand towels in a basket or something, but for now, it suits my needs.
4. It was affordable (which is the most important reason). If I remember correctly it was on sale for $199 at Home Depot and it included the mirror – not the greatest mirror, but I like it better than the oval one we had there originally. I tried looking it up on Home Depot’s website to reference, but I cannot find it – it doesn’t look like they sell it anymore.
5. It had counter space (a little, but nonetheless, counter space).

You like that Bombay Sapphire soap dispenser? You can read about how I made it here.

The faucet was a little pricey by my standards, but affordable compared to most models – those things are just crazy expensive! We got it for around $69.00 if I remember correctly. Again, I don’t see it on Home Depot’s website either so I am not able to reference like I usually do.

The light fixture we got for $66.97. Home Depot currently has them on sale for $53.58 until March 31, 2016. You can check them out here.

Here is some more of that awesome tile work (If I do say so myself). And if you remember, this tile was only $2.99 a square foot at Floor & Decor. When we asked why it was so inexpensive, the rep told us that it was because it was a new line of tile cut thinner than ordinary tile. Cutting the tile thinner uses less of the material so it brings down cost and saves the customer money. Once installed you can’t even tell they are thinner than regular tile.

Fine by me! Woot woot! 

Then across the toilet, I replaced the little wooden cabinet with this baby from Target. It probably won’t stay there forever, but it works for now.

Well, I hope you enjoyed our powder bathroom makeover. It is nice going in there everyday knowing that we accomplished such a transformation. Guests totally dig it which is even more awesome! I would love to hear your thoughts on the work we did and let me know if you have any questions regarding the project!

Pssst! You can check this and other awesome DIY projects at DIY Like a Boss Link Party!