Replacing Interior Doors

*This post is sponsored by Woodgrain and some of the links below are affiliate links. For more detailed information please see full disclosure.*

I believe that the toughest jobs can be accomplished with the right tools.

Would you agree? 

I am really happy to finally be creating this post as it means that we have completed yet another huge project in our house – the interior doors. We have replaced all of them! ??

Most houses on the market come with builder grade doors and this house was no exception, except our doors were in really bad shape. They were old, dirty, smelly and just plain outdated. 

Just look for yourself…

These are the same doors you see in 90% of homes today. I mean, let’s be serious, those doors did NOT go with these windows…

And then there was the door to the basement with the smallest “doggy” door in the world… we don’t have pets FYI. 

Also, brass knobs? No thanks! 

I was on a mission… a mission to customize our home by replacing our interior doors…. all of them! 

We have partnered with Woodgrain when we cased out our windows (shown above) and we have partnered again with them for this makeover as well. They have the best quality custom interior doors with an extensive selection of door patterns and styles to suit any home with any aesthetic. 

My husband and I decided to go with a more simple craftsman style door.

It’s simple but pairs beautifully with our cottage farmhouse style. It can also be used in more modern or transitional decor by simply painting them a color other than white. 

Either way the difference is amazing! 

If you have ever considered replacing an interior door, two doors or even all the doors to your home the thought can seem pretty daunting, but I want you to know everything you need in order to start the process.

This tutorial will be in video format for you to get the best instruction possible, but I want to go over the tools you will need ahead of time.  

First thing’s first, doors come in slabs – this means the door will come in one solid piece. No hinges, no holes, no knobs… nada. You will need to do the rest. 

So, you will be drilling holes and making notches, but rest assured it’s simpler than you think. 

Tools

The first tool you need to know about is the door hinge kit and we use this one from Ryobi.  

This will allow you to create a template for you to go over and notch out the where the hinge goes.  You will do this with a router. We own this one shown below. 

The hinge kit is adjustable to any hinge size and stays firm on your door while you notch it out. 

We decided to replace our hinges so we went with these hinges to match our hardware. 

If you measure everything correctly, you will get a perfect fit. 

Before you do anything else you will need to hang the door back on to its frame. 

And then you will need another kit, a door lock installation kit.  This mechanism will allow you to place it on the door to fit the latch on the frame perfectly. We show you exactly how in the video below. 

After your holes are done, you will need your final kit, a door latch installation kit. This will help create the template that will allow you to notch out the latch area. 

You will need to use your router again for this. 

Then it’s time to install your hardware. 

We chose these knobs and I am in love! The rectangular piece in the back mimics the pattern on our doors and I love that antique bronze look. We bought them here. 

After that it was time to paint the doors and I used my trusty Sherwin Williams paint that I use for all of my cabinets and trim. 

Once they were dry my new doors were complete! 

Aren’t they so much better than what was there before? This seems like such a simple idea, but when you finally see how drastic a change a gorgeous well made door is in your home, it elevates everything else in the space!  

It’s no longer cookie cutter, builder grade blah… it’s a statement!

These doors are solid and heavy. They are built differently than builder grade doors since they are not made with particle board. They have an interior wood slat that is flanked by two thick MDF pieces in order to create the crispest lines when cutting the customized pattern on the doors. 

And it’s like those doorknobs were specifically made for those doors!

What’s even more exciting is that now that I have all of these architectural details added to my home, I can finally start transforming the rest of my rooms! 

And nothing speaks more than a side-by-side.  

I want to give my husband, The Latino Engineer, a huge shoutout. He was the lead in this project and I was his assistant and painter. I think he did an amazing job! 

Now that you know what you need and are inspired, it’s time to get to work and if you have been thinking about doing this yourself, check out where you can find a location near you that offers custom interior doors by Woodgrain. 

Simply go HERE to check it out! 

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Replacing Interior Doors: Video TUTORIAL

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I hope you liked the new doors and perhaps you learned something new! We love sharing anything we can that may help you with fixing up your home and making it the house of your dreams. 

We will continue to learn and share the knowledge we gain along the way as we continue our journey. 

Don’t forget to share this with anyone you think will appreciate it. ?

I look forward to seeing you in the next one… until then, adios! 

 

DIY Window Trim

*This post is sponsored by Woodgrain and some of the links below are affiliate links. For more detailed information please see full disclosure.*

Hey everyone! How was your weekend? I hope you were able to enjoy some time with family and friends. It has been pretty chilly here these past few days and I have been cozying up by the fire inside our house. 

I mean, is there anything better than a wood burning fireplace??? ?

As promised, I am back with my other post that I talked about last week. This post has been a long time coming, however, since it has been just my hubby and I that do this as we progress through our house (and he has a full time job), this project has taken a little longer than expected. 

But alas, here we are! 

The minute we walked into our new home I noticed something immediately – there were no casings around my windows.

They looked naked. ?

I had never owned a home without window casings before and the windows just looked bizarre to me. I knew that the windows were going to have to be addressed at some point. 

Of course, we had to remove the popcorn ceilings, repaint the walls, remove and install new flooring, replace the baseboards and fix the kitchen…. 

So after all of that was done it was time to get started.

I went to Pinterest to see what kind of inspiration was out there and naturally, I went to Canva to draw up what I had in mind after I decided on a look.

This is what I ended up with.

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You can also watch the video tutorial on Youtube as well!  

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I used 3 different sized pieces of millwork for my window casing. I wanted a large 5.5″ inch (actual size) millwork piece for the top. 1.5″ pieces for the top trim pieces and 3.5″ pieces for the sided and below the window sill. 

I didn’t want the casing to be just a square so  I wanted the top part and the sill to come out the sides a little more. 

They ended up being 1.5″ wider than the side casings. Feel free to take a screen shot and save these images for future reference if you wish to do something similar. 

Once the drawings were done, it was time to get to work. The first thing we needed to do was demo the existing window sills. You will need to score the edges with a box cutter and then use a hammer and crowbar to remove the existing sill. 

 

Once you remove the sill, you need to make sure that all the nails are removed and any debris is vacuumed up with a shop vac.

Then it was time to cut the new casings! 

For this we used Woodgrain’s Finished Elegance millwork from their Timeless Craftsman collection. The pieces are all pre-primed and their finish is super smooth. They are all cut with square edges that are slightly rounded so the corners aren’t so harsh. 

Woodgrain is celebrating 65 years of manufacturing and their dedication to providing great wood products is exceptional. They offer millwork of all styles and they are both manufacturer & distributor of their wood products. I was honored to actually go and visit one of their distribution centers here and they have such an amazing operation. Woodgrain also manufactures doors and windows. 

Another great thing about Woodgrain is that they really consider the environment. Whenever lumber goes through their sawmills and millwork facilities they capture the wood fibers and shavings from when they cut down the lumber and then use that for animal bedding (the type used in stables etc.). That’s pretty awesome! 

And the best thing about their millwork is that you can buy it at your local Home Depot. So, if you are looking to update your home, definitely give their products a try! 

Okay… so after we took the necessary measurements we cut each window based on their exact measurements. Since our home is older we knew that there were going to be slight differences here and there.

We used our miter saw to cut the pieces to length, and used the jigsaw only for the window sills. 

Next, we set the sill in place and nailed the sill in with a brad nailer. 

We placed the sill first and then the 2 side pieces. We made sure to use liquid nails along with the brad nailer to install the rest of the trim. 

The top piece was assembled before it was installed as shown below. 

Finally, the last piece that was installed was the trim piece that went underneath the window sill. 

After everything was attached, we went in with Woodgrain’s Finished Elegance caulk and made sure to seal all the seams so that it looked like the window casings were always there. 

And even though these are pre-primed I still went in with my favorite paint to cover all of the nail holes and the sides that were cut exposing the MDF. I wanted to make sure everything was seamless and that the casings matched my new baseboards as well. 

After everything was done, this is how they turned out! 

They totally changed the look of the windows! 

By adding casing in this design the windows look even bigger and are now a focal point in the rooms.  

And they go perfectly with our new Woodgrain baseboards!

What do you think of the change? Here is a side by side. 

Now, there were a few windows in the home where we could not case out the windows completely because of the lack of space between them. So, we made sure to replace the window sills and paint everything light and those windows still look great! 

I am extremely pleased with their new look and how simple it was to add so much character and value to our home. 

Let me know if you have any questions below! And share this with anyone who wishes to “level-up” the look of their windows. ?

I will see you soon! 

Until then…adios!

Cottage Farmhouse Dining Room Reveal

*This post is sponsored by Lamps Plus and some of the links below are affiliate links. For more detailed information please see full disclosure.* 

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I took a much needed break and I will be honest it has been hard getting back to the rhythm of things. There are a couple of posts that I am excited to share with you all and then going forward for the rest of the year I decided to figure out a better schedule for myself. 

As of right now I will be doing one post and one video per week. I am hoping it will give me adequate time to get each video and coordinating blog post out at the same time (which is something I really want to do for this new year). This is not to say that there may be more than that per week on occasion, but there should always be a new one every Wednesday. ??

Okay back to our scheduled programming…. ??

One of the things I have been dying to tackle for a while now is our sad dining area. It’s actually comprised of 3 areas: the entrance, the dining room and the transition space from the dining room to our newly updated kitchen. 

First off, the entrance is so sad. The door is outdated and the furniture in the area is a mismatch of items that we kept after we sized down to our new home. We sold a lot of things on FB Marketplace and only kept the essentials. This meant that not everything went together. 

The large dark cabinet is an entertainment center and the blue cabinet is a really old makeover when I first started painting furniture…. I have come a long way folks . ?

The entertainment console (as you can see from this angle) also weighs everything down and blends into the dark floors giving no character at all to the wall behind it. And the lamps are outdated and just between you and me, the one on the right doesn’t work anymore. ?

The secretary you see on the corner will be a furniture flip I will share here soon. The fireplace is also outdated and will eventually be given a facelift… just not today! 

In regards to the dining table, that is actually a new purchase off of Facebook marketplace. We sold our old dining table and purchased this one. I love how it’s so large and fits the room perfectly so that is definitely staying. 

Finally, lighting has been a huge issue as well. We only have one large window in this space and it’s underneath a porch so not much light shines through. You can see below that there are areas more lit than others and I still have the ceiling fan base up after we took off the blades to remove the popcorn ceiling.

Yep! Full transparency here folks!?

You can also see how sad this transition wall to the new kitchen is. It had no character and looked extremely cluttered with all of the items we were keeping on top of my old coffee bar table (originally an IKEA hack). 

So I am sure you can see how all of this was driving me crazy! Everything was disjointed and not coordinating at all. 

I will say that one thing I do love about the space are the window casings that my hubby and I installed ourselves (more on that soon!). I am also grateful for our floors being done, the updated wall color and new baseboards that we replaced. 

So in essence the place has good bones, but it just needs a furniture and decor overhaul.

So I got to work!

Initially I had wanted to turn the transition space into a pantry because I currently walk all the way down the hall, but I did several renderings and honestly, all of the options I liked were just too large and overpowering for the space. Plus, there was still the issue of the area being too dark. 

So I nixed that. 

Pantry shown above is a design from Ana White*

I decided that I wanted to make this a feature wall instead with lighting, shelving and a unit that would not only give me style but storage. 

RELATED: How to Create a Mood Board Tutorial

Lamps Plus reached out to me during the time I was planning everything and wanted to be a part of the transformation so I checked out what their website had to offer. And let me tell you their selection was amazing! 

Not only do they have lighting options for all areas of your home, in different styles and for different budgets, but they also had home decor accents and furniture pieces to transform any space in your home. 

I went to Canva online in order to put together a rendering of the entire space to make sure that I coordinated everything for a seamless flow, but also to make sure that there was adequate lighting in the space with what they had to offer. 

And this is what I came up with. 

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As always you can watch the transformation on my YouTube Channel as well. 

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Now while some of these pieces were not what I ended up going with in the end, this gives you an idea of what it will look like when everything came together. 

The most complicated and time consuming part of the project was the transition wall. This included hardwiring sconces to our existing electrical and then stenciling the entire wall and adding shelves.

I chose this stencil and decided to give the wall a very light painting treatment. I didn’t want to overpower the space with too many things going on, but adding a stencil gave it a more high end and cozy feel.

Once the hardwiring was complete thanks to my awesome husband (don’t worry, he is professionally trained), it was time to add the actual sconces. 

After that was complete we picked up these brackets and installed them on the wall with some wood pieces that I stained to match my existing plate rack in my kitchen wall. 

Also, the screws that worked for this installation were silver, but I took some metallic black paint to camouflage them. 

Once that was done, I added some drapes to the window at the front. The window (while it looked amazing with the new casing) was still lacking something and adding the drapes I used in my office at the last house worked perfectly for this. 

Finally, I couldn’t leave my front door as is. It was outdated and dingy and I couldn’t wait to give it a facelift so I used Magnolia’s Wedding Band in a Semi-Gloss to give it a refresh. Perhaps someday in the future I can replace it, but for now, this will do. 

Once the larger pieces arrived and we set them up, it was time for the accessories. Most of the accessories I used were from our last house, but they paired perfectly with the new pieces from Lamps Plus. 

For example, this task lamp from Lamps Plus was perfect for the entrance. I paired it with this greige table and added items to the shelf on the bottom. 

Plus, I love the fact that this table lamp is so unique and it has a base that allows you to plug in your phone or tablet to charge. So handy!

On the other side of the entrance I added this server that functions as 3 things: storage, another entrance table and a buffet when needed. Win-win-win!

Plus, look at how much those lamps light up the space. It doesn’t feel as dark anymore. 

Again I used more of my old decor for the area and replacing my outdated lamps with these made a huge difference -plus they were more my style. 

Replacing the chandelier was the only thing needed over by the actual dining table. But by just doing that it elevated the space so much and created such a focal point! 

Now, over to what is possibly my favorite area of them all – the transition space. I LOVE how this came together exactly how I envisioned it. It doesn’t look like the same space anymore (as a matter of fact, it even looks larger!). 

And not only does everything work perfectly to get that high end Cottage Farmhouse style, but the light this space now has is amazing.

The stencil gave it that personal touch, the shelves filled in the empty wall space, the storage console gave me storage and a surface to place things on and the sconces added so much life to this dreary space. 

Look at how everything came together and brightened up the entire space! 

JUST WOW! I am so in love! Do you have a favorite piece from the updated space?  I would love to know below! 

It’s definitely a huge change from before and the look of everything is elevated! The space looks more cohesive and sophisticated.

The best part about this is that there was no huge demo involved. By adding one pair of sconces, replacing the current light fixture above the dining table replacing the outdated lamps and adding one task lamp by the entrance, I resolved all of my lighting issues. In addition, by adding some key pieces of furniture with similar materials and styles the entire space was transformed. 

Another great thing was that I was able to accessorize with things that I already had on hand allowing me to appreciate everything even more. 

If you are looking at updating your space with either new lighting and/or furniture I would highly recommend Lamps Plus as they have such a large online selection with different styles and price points.

In addition, their items ship fast and their furniture pieces are packaged so well in order to protect them during delivery. We were really impressed with the care of packaging because in the past we have received items from other vendors that were damaged, split or broken so that definitely is important to us. Plus the quality of the actual product is hard to beat! 

I look forward to seeing you all back here very soon! 

*Some of the following links are affiliate links, please see full disclosure for more details*

One of the things I knew I needed to change right away about this kitchen as soon as we moved in was the lighting. It was just way too dark. So I knew I wanted to not only change out the lighting that was already in the kitchen, but also add more lighting. 

Check out our previous update progress here.

I knew that under-mount lighting would give me what I needed as far as more light, but I also wanted ambient lighting when I didn’t want to have all the lights on. I partnered with Eshine who has some amazing under-mount cabinet lighting options that are not only easy to install but quite innovative. 

More on that in just a second… Plus there is an exclusive discount you don’t want to miss! 

Before I could do any of that I wanted to be sure that I had a nice clean backsplash that not only would add character to my kitchen but also help bounce off the light and make the area feel brighter. 

The most inexpensive option for us was beadboard. We used 2 boards and it only cost us $40! 

The most important thing for us in this process was to get the measurements right and start on one end of the kitchen and work our way to the other end. Once we put the first board up to dry fit it, I knew I had made the right decision. 

Cutting the boards was easy with our circular saw and rip cut tool.

Things got a little more complicated when we were reaching the stove area. There was a lot of things to consider where seems met so we came up with a plan below…

Yes, I know, it’s hairy…

I could not imagine following this on a blog post, so I made a video explaining what all these arrows meant. I promise there is a method to the madness.

Everything I explain in the video takes into consideration the area above the stove where more of the beadboard is exposed.  I also go over why you also want to work towards your corners even though you are still generally working from one end of the kitchen to another. 

In addition you will see how this little template works to get around any window trim you may have in your kitchen.

The video is below. 

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Beadboard Backsplash and Under Cabinet Lighting

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The next thing after measuring where you want your seams and cutting them accordingly, is you need to cut your outlet holes. You will need a jigsaw for this. 

This is something you want to take your time on, and in the end everything will fit in place smoothly. 

I did paint them with one coat of white paint first before we even cut them. The type of paint I used was the same white color that I used on my kitchen cabinets in my last kitchen.  I prefer the Urethane Enamel paint for the durability and wipe-ability especially since the kitchen gets used so much. 

Installing is also easy… liquid nails in the back and a brad nailer to nail it in place as it dried.

Once installed, I added caulk to hide the seems. 

I taped the countertops before applying the caulk on the seem between the backsplash and the countertop. 

Then I gave everything a final coat of paint. 

It doesn’t show here, but I did come back and paint the underneath part of the cabinets with the same white. 

After that was done it was time to install these amazing lights! 

This is an LED lighting kit with hand wave activation! Say what!?!?

Yes, you heard right! 

These lights plug in unlike a lot of the ones you see that have only batteries and die way too soon (that happened at our last house).

And they are super discreet! 

They install easily with either screws or double-sided tape which are both provided in their kit. We chose to screw them in. 

You can choose how many you want underneath and by simply clicking them together you can make an entire line of light under your cabinets. 

The system is so easy to work with. 

Their cords are easily hidden and they also provide the hooks you need to tuck away the cords. And in order to turn them on, you place your hand under the light strip with the sensory dot.

In order to dim or brighten them, you simply hold your hand in place until your desired setting.

My kids love them, I love them, and even the Latino Engineer loves them. Everything is so much brighter in our kitchen and I don’t have to worry about plugging them in or out. I just wave my hand and I get the lighting I need. 

You can see them in action in this video.

I love how the lighting highlights the backsplash and all of our hard work. 

You don’t even see the cords! 

I turned off the kitchen light so you can see how bright they can be on their own. 

Amazing! I am so happy with these!

If you have been thinking about adding under-mount lighting for your cabinet definitely check out here and their line of lighting for your kitchen. 

USE COUPON CODE: TheLatinaNextDoor for 10% off your purchase. 

The sets of lights we used for our kitchen were as follows: 

• Eshine Cool White 12 Light (single)
• Eshine Cool White 12 Light (4pk)
• Eshine Cool White 12 Light (6pk)

We wanted to have a nice consistent line of light so we needed several kits to link together. But that’s the beauty of this system; you can use as little or as many as you need. 

I hope you enjoyed this update and I will see you in the next one! 

Until then… adios! 

*Some of the following links are affiliate links. Please see full disclosure for more details*

Hey there! 

Many things have changed in our kitchen since my last post and since there is so much to cover I am going to jump right in.

After removing the cabinet doors, I primed and painted all of them. I used my tried and true method using the combination of Pro Block oil based primer and Sherwin William’s Urethane Trim enamel. I have an extensive video on my process on cabinet painting and you can get all the details here. 

We first started by sanding these cabinets (unlike my last cabinets) because of the condition they were in. You can see why we did this extra step here. 

After all of them were sanded, I cleaned them all with Krud Kutter. It works great for removing grease and oil. I did the same with the drawers and I used an old toothbrush for the crevices. 

Afterwards, I set them out to dry. I made sure they were perfectly dry before setting them up in my basement for the next step. It’s best to prop all of them off the floor using these or whatever else you have on hand that will work (like those jumbo legos). 

I primed all of the doors (as well as the cabinets that were not removed). When painting cabinet doors, I start on the inside of the door and then once dry do the exterior of the door. I start with a brush for the nooks and crevices and then I go in with a roller. 

Once the primer was dry, I paint them with my favorite cabinet paint. I used the color Eary Gray from Magnolia and color matched it at Sherwin Williams. There were  A LOT of doors (the most I have ever painted in one kitchen, yikes). 

 I gave both sides two coats and as always I started with the inside of the doors first (again, more on that in this video). 

While that was happening, we were removing the old countertops and replacing them with butcher block countertops. 

This is what our countertops looked like. They weren’t in good shape and I was NOT a fan of the color so out they went. And the Latino Engineer was eager to get his hands on them. LOL!

Actually he didn’t take a hammer to them but they were the so difficult to remove. The Latino Engineer and my father did their best to remove them without damaging anything but still things happened. 

More on that here. 

 

Once everything was removed it was time to add our countertops. We purchased these butcher block countertops at Lowes. 

They were fairly simple to cut and install. The hard part was honestly around the new farmhouse sink that we installed ourselves. That Kreg Tool Rip Cut kept our circular saw straight while we cut. 

The hard part was honestly around the new farmhouse sink that we installed ourselves.

We did have to use a router for the first time for the countertops so that we could connect them from underneath. 

We also had to patch up around the sink area since the sink was smaller than the opening that was there to begin with. 

But before we could start putting that cabinet doors back, I had to clean and paint all of the hinges. We decided to resuse them to save some money. 

They were pretty filthy but still ingot shape. I set them out to dry in the sun once they were clean.

After they were full dried, I primed and spray painted them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint. I also painted all of the original screws. 

When everything was finally dry and had cured for a few days, we began putting back the doors. 

We also got a new faucet. I had always wanted a farmhouse style kitchen faucet so I was so glad to partner with Gerber faucets for a Youtube video collaboration. It’s gorgeous and really easy to install!

My farmhouse faucet can also be purchased here. 

My new faucet, along with my countertops and painted cabinets definitely has transformed this kitchen! We sealed out butcher block counters with this and I apply this oil to maintain it looking great ever couple of months. I actually don’t mind doing that as I enjoy wiping my counters. 

The countertops give it that sweet cottage farmhouse feel. 

The light gray on the cabinets make it feel so light and airy, yet cozy and charming. 

We chose these for our cabinet pulls. 

Finally here is the sink area! I am in love! 

I will be sharing more on the backsplash and how we added more ambient lighting to the kitchen next so stay tuned! 

Until then… adios! 

Hello friends! I hope you all are having a wonderful week! Our first full week of summer vacation has started out great and I am ready to continue tackling our kitchen. 

If you have been following along, you know that I shared my mood board for my kitchen. I also explained all of the plans for the kitchen which I am so excited about. I also listed all of the sources in you like anything you see. 

One of the things I mentioned was that we were changing the layout of the rooms in the house. 

The former dining area will now have an island. We ordered them from a local cabinet company (B2B Cabinet) here in North Georgia. They were fast and had amazing prices. 

I wanted a dual sided island that would give me the most storage. The cabinets needed to be no more than 36″ x 60″ due to the size of the eat-in area.

I have also been wanting drawers in my kitchen forever. I have never had large drawers so I wanted to make sure they included that as well. So the cabinet company created this for me:

The Island

And because of the size of the measurements, I could only have upper cabinets on the back side. 

 

But that was fine with me. I will have a countertop overhang on that side since I do want an eating area on the island. 2 beautiful legs will hold up the countertop. That will still work out well since I will only be storing items that I don’t use that often in those cabinets. This will then free up space in the main kitchen area where I do use items frequently. 

Here is a kitchen island that is already done to give you an idea of what the island will look like with the legs. 

Source

Here is what the island looks like right now.

The Latino Engineer made platform boxes to raise the upper cabinets on the left to match the counter height ones. And the island may look off center now, but it will all be centered once the counter top with the overhang on the left side is installed. 

 

The Latino Engineer will add outlets on either side of the island (good thing he has an electrical background). We will cover the side seams with shiplap. 

Aren’t those drawers pretty? 

They still need hardware and I plan on having them match the ones I purchased for the rest of the main kitchen, but I think I need to tweak the ones for the drawers. They are too small for them. 

By the way, those floors are made from plywood (tutorial coming soon!)

Here’s what it looks like from farther away. 

You can see there are still some floors yet to be finished and that is our breakfast table you see in front of the island temporarily. 

The kitchen has no pantry, so the plan is to add one to the wall you see on the right. We will build it ourselves. It won’t be too deep but it will be the entire length and height of the wall so it will be a good size.

It may not even be done this year, but that is definitely going to happen.

The New Layout 

So where do we put the dining area?

Right here.

This is actually the living area of the home, but right now we spend all of our time in the sunroom. I think this area will be perfect for a dining room since it’s right off the kitchen. It’s a great size so there will still be space for a proper entrance to the house. 

Plus lots of houses have the formal dining right near the entrance so it still makes sense. 

Of course this leaves us with no real main living space. 

Truth be told, the minute we did our first viewing this house, The Latino Engineer and I knew the house was short one living space.  We both agreed that turning the garage into living space would be the best idea… and then I came up with this! 

I want to add 2 cased openings on either side of the fireplace. I want to modify the fireplace into a dual faced fireplace and have a step down into a large living room (currently the garage).

He loved the idea! 

I think that would look darling with a dining table and chandelier in front no?

Anyways that is not going to happen anytime soon, but it at least shows you the big picture of what we plan on doing here and how it’s all going to come together. So for now, TV time is in the sunroom.

But that’s totally something we can live with! 

So that is what we have been doing here at the “farmhouse”. It’s been so much easier to write about now that I am taking it one room at a time. 

What do you think of the progress so far? I can’t wait to share more with you all! Hopefully the next time I share an update the cabinet doors will be painted (but I won’t hold my breath!). 

Until then… adios! 

 

Happy Friday everyone! It is time to get down to the nitty gritty of all the behind the scenes going on over here. There has been so much work going on I just can’t keep up. Good thing is I have been documenting all of it (just not writing about it). 

Truth be told, it has been extremely overwhelming and my house has been nothing short of a disaster these past several months. I have been sharing updates on my YouTube channel and find that sharing there has been easier because I can just show clips of the process along the way. 

Let’s face it, showing us installing cabinets in the laundry is easy to follow along via video….

Writing each and every detail and showing images…. totally different story! 

Why do I suck at this?

For me it’s easier when everything is nice and cohesive and in super duper order on a blog post and I am still trying to figure out my style when posting about renovations. So as the progress continued, my images became overwhelming and I honestly didn’t know where to begin. 

See, the only place we have made progress on is the sunroom, but then that came to a halt when we encountered our flooring issues along the entire first floor. And because we had to rip out all the floors, the whole house was under construction and everything has been a slow going process. So there is nothing but just a hot mess to share. 

Seriously… not one Instagram worthy shot. ?

So because everything was a mess, so was my brain. 

But I knew it had to be shared so I sat down and thought… how can I share everything without it being overwhelming (and extremely unpleasant) for me to write about???

Million dollar question right there.

I knew I needed to take baby steps. Just one step at a time. 

?Lightbulb!?

I will just share one room at a time! 

Doesn’t seem like a difficult conclusion, but there was just so much, I didn’t see things clearly. 

Okay, so where do I start? 

How about the room that I look forward to changing the most?

THE KITCHEN!

This was a space I actually wasn’t going to do this soon and frankly it’s not our ultimate dream kitchen, but we just need to do it. The room is so terrible I found myself less inspired to spend time there and actually cook there as time went by. 

It was dark, dingy, yucky and just plain ugly. 

Who wants to make meals in that?!?! 

So let’s take a trip down memory lane… do you remember the original house tour where I shared all the images of the house’s listing? Well, here are some images of the kitchen when it was listed. 

HOUSE LISTING IMAGES

Yep, it’s old. 

And simple. 

It’s an eat-in kitchen and the bay window area is where the dining room table goes, but after months of eating there we realized it was just too small of a space for our family of 5. 

As you can see everything is outdated and the colors were so dark and completely different from our last house, however, the house has some great potential. 

So I got to thinking about what I wanted for the space. 

Of course, all of the floors had to be ripped out and all of the popcorn ceiling had to be removed. The ceiling was done completely by my husband and the floors were done by him with some help from my dad. 

RELATED: How to Remove Popcorn Ceilings (with minimal mess)

Of course the minute you start removing stuff you start finding stuff… like patchwork on the ceiling and self leveling cement on your subfloors in your kitchen (that’s over a basement!). 

The one good thing we found was that there was not any animal damage on the kitchen and dining area floors that there were in other parts of the house. 

We wanted a clean slate with this house so we also removed any wall molding and even window sills. 

Once all that was done I came up with a mood board. 

I saw this beautiful kitchen on Pinterest and I fell in LOVE!

Farmhouse “Cottage” Kitchen Plans

Related: How to make a Mood Boardboard

You know I love the coastal farmhouse look, but this screamed Cottage Farmhouse and I think it will still go well with my blue and white accents and coastal feel. Plus our house is smaller in size than the last one and a cottage vibe would go perfect here. 

So I got started creating my look. 

And because we don’t have a huge budget and are paying as we go, we won’t be able to get really high end finishes and of course the work will mostly be done by us. So we made concessions in some areas and will be splurging a little in others. 

*Some of the following links are affiliate links. Please see full disclosure here*

Farmhouse “Cottage” Kitchen Plans- Sources: 

• Chandelier 
• Butcher Block Countertops
• Beadboard
• Faux Brick 
• Cross Back Counter Stools
• Farmhouse Sink
• Sink Faucet & Sprayer
• Oil Rubbed Bronze Cabinet Pulls 

We found the farmhouse sink on super duper sale here. This thing is huge! And the best part about it is that even if we change up the kitchen later, this is something I can reuse. 

Instead of going with stone countertops we will be going with butcher block for now. It is much less expensive. We can install it ourselves and later on when we redo the kitchen we can always reuse them somewhere else. Plus it has that farmhouse and cottage feel in one! 

I found this faucet online and I think it will go perfect with the sink! 

So we got to work! 

The Latino Engineer began removing all the cabinet doors. 

What a sweetie! 

Look at all that dust! UGH!

Next, I began painting the cabinets with my tried and true method. 

RELATED: How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets Yourself

This time instead of painting the cabinets white, I chose to paint it Earl Gray by Magnolia, but I got it color-matched at Sherwin Williams with my favorite cabinet paint. Check my detailed video here. 

We painted the walls Shiplap by Magnolia as well and you can see instantly how much lighter everything looks! 

Of course that is pretty much what we have done so far (with the exception of the floors, which is a whole ‘nother story!). 

We did get some cabinets ordered because we will be adding an island to where the dining area is supposed to be and moving the dining area to the living room, but I figured I can share all the details in another post. 

I will be sharing all about that next! So stay tuned! 

Let me know what you guys think about the plans so far!

I will see you guys in the next one. Until then… adios! 

Our 2020 Plans for our Fixer Upper

Happy Monday! Now that February is well underway and I got a few DIY’s completed, I thought I would share this year’s plans for our home. As you know we moved into our forever “farmhouse” on 2.5 acres this past October and since then things have been a little crazy. 

I feel like now is finally a good time to get projects moving along and (hopefully) completed. There are so many things on this list, I hope I am alive by the end of the year… but for real, if done at a steady pace, it should all get done just fine. 

As always, you can watch/listen to this post on the go by playing the video below:

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First off I would like to finish the sunroom which I started back in late October. We painted the walls and the tile floors, but here is the before… 

(These images are from the listing of the house so everything is empty. I wish I knew who took them so I could properly credit and also let them know how amazing they are because the house doesn’t look like that in real life, LOL!)

Of course, it looks better now, but I will need to add blinds and window treatments as well as more decorative pieces. You can see the furnishings in this post. 

Next, we need to finish the laundry room. We started working on it this past November as well but we took a brief halt when I went to the hospital and then switched our focus to enjoying the holidays so not much happened since then. 

This ended up being more than we bargained for because as you can see the opening below covers part of the washer and dryer below which made up purchase a new top loader set even though we brought a perfectly good front loader set from our last laundry room.

RELATED: Laundry Room Progress 

But even after buying them new, we still had to make the opening larger. We had to take it to the studs and move them out further and replace the header. This was all done by my hubby by the way. 

 

 

So while we were at it he removed the popcorn ceiling, painted, retiled and added new baseboards. 

You can watch the process here. 

Of course, there is still more to do because I need storage, so I created a design board for this space in order to finalize how I wanted everything to look. 

I create these all the time because it helps me figure out whether or not what I envision will actually look good and it keeps me focused on getting what is on my vision board and doesn’t allow me to stray (too far at least…). 

If you have ever wanted to learn how to make one, I share exactly how I made this one (without expensive editing software or any photoshop skills).

Full tutorial here. 

Next, and probably the biggest thing will be the floors and guess what, we have a teeny tiny budget for this, so completing it will take a serious amount of ingenuity and hard work on our part. We wish to add hardwoods to the entire first floor. 

But before that we need to remove the popcorn ceilings all over the first floor, which my hubby has already started (full tutorial coming up soon). 

The first 3 rooms that have to get completed are the kids, but of course they all need:

• New Floors
• Smooth Ceilings
• New Closet Systems (since our closets are so much smaller in this house)
• Add New Paint
• Install New Trim Around The Windows
• Order and Install New Blinds
• New Light Fixtures
• Install New Baseboards

I will be so happy once they are in their rooms. It will be nice for them to get their own space. 

After that we will tackle the kids/hallway bath. This will actually be my son’s bath as well as the guests. The girls will have their own bathroom but it’s much larger and we probably won’t be able to redo it until next year. 

We thought that since this one was in the hallway it would be best to redo so any guests can use it as well. 

Not that we have any guests other than my parents cause my house is total disaster right now. ?

 

Of course we need to remove the popcorn ceilings out of the rest of the main floor – kitchen, living and hallway. 

The house is also a bit dark, so we need to add quite a bit of recessed lighting throughout. 

I cannot tell you how relieved I am that my husband is in the electrical field. 

Of course, I would also like to add shiplap throughout several areas of the main floor. Cause I just LOVE shiplap, I mean this is supposed to end up being a legit farmhouse in the end. 

One of the things that I am looking forward to is building a pantry. This house does not have one and I have to go all the way down the hallway (to the linen closet) to get my food items. 

Cause I totally set up my pantry in there. ?

It’s not a terrible situation, but I love to forget stuff when I am cooking so most days it’s like running laps. 

And my mom gave me a great idea of adding a pantry on the wall between the dining area and living area. 

GENIUS! Now you know where I get it from. ?

I’m so excited and I actually think I can do it all for about $200. I cannot wait to share what I plan for it, but this will most likely happen toward the end of the year. 

Lastly for the inside, I would like to paint and decorate my master bedroom. It looks like gray walls, but it’s more of a beige color and it’s not pretty. So I hope I get to do that too. 

Then for the outside.

You totally thought I was done, didn’t you?

 Welp! Nope. 

The outside of the house was really overgrown when we moved in. We have a lot of land but a lot of it is unusable because of the overgrowth. We also had (according to our neighbor) a previous pine beetle infestation issue and a lot of our pines got affected (especially this one that is completely DEAD and dangerously close to our house). 

So we will be hiring out the removal of a lot of our problem trees.

If you live in Georgia you know that pine trees love to fall on houses and we don’t want that. Nor would we want one to fall while we are outside, so out they will go and in will come peace of mind. 

And the crew coming has an amazing machine that brings such a new concept on tree removal you won’t want to miss. I will definitely record the process. We are looking forward to seeing it get done. 

And there are 2 more things for the outside for sure. 

One, is installing an above ground pool for the kids. We don’t live in a subdivision anymore and we don’t have access to amenities like that so we need to have our own. We have had one before and love them – they have come a long way and are so huge! Needless to say, the kids are excited about it. 

And finally, one more thing for the kids is tackling the playhouse. 

When we bought the house, we loved the idea of this playhouse/fort/treehouse. 

But before we can get our kids to play on/in it, we want to make sure it’s structurally sound. We want to add new swings and a new slide.

I want to paint it white, add shutters, and basically give my kids the playhouse I never had. ?

You know you would do the same! 

And once the overgrowth is gone it will be a nice open and safe play space (that large tree to the right is not being removed, it’s actually a beautiful hard wood that will supply wonderful shade). 

Okay, I am sure I probably missed something. That’s the list for now!  

But I am curious to see what you are looking forward to seeing done the most. Let me know below! 

If you like before and afters, the next several months are going to be candy to the eye! And I cannot wait to see all of this come together.

I hope to see you in the next one. Until then, adios! 

 

*This is a sponsored post. The Berkey Water Filter was gifted to us. Please see full disclosure here.* 

Hey there again! 

I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s easy DIY Christmas Tree T-shirt. I have been getting lots of great feedback on my video which makes me so happy….☺️

However, today we are talking about something a little more serious. 

Our water…

As you all know we moved into this house a couple of months ago and it has a well water system – something that was very new to us. We had never dealt with well water before so we were clueless as to what it might mean for us. 

Besides the obvious…

No water bill! Woot woot!

And while it is a rather cute feature to look at, we definitely wanted to make sure we were getting the cleanest possible water for us to consume. 

Yes, the well is completely safe for our kids. There is no long vertical hole in the ground where a scary lady with long dark hair might crawl out. We checked. ?

Our house does have a filtering system for the well water that feeds all our faucets, showers and toilets, but we began doing some research on what might be found in our water naturally and we definitely wanted to do something more for the safety of our family.

Because my water is not cleaned by the city, there are many mineral deposits that can be found in my well water, aside from natural pathogens.

Other things that could be found in our water include:

• Viruses
• Bacteria
• Heavy Metals
• Micro-Organisms 

And many more… as a matter of fact, you can find everything a Berkey filters out here. And it’s kinda scary the stuff that can be found in your water. ?

Oh and the stuff you can find also applies to city water, not just well water. 

We definitely knew we wanted to select the best possible option for filtering our water and the Berkey was it. Whether it was price per gallon, ease of use, filtration capabilities, filter life, aesthetics (since it is a large filter system), daily output, to being the least wasteful… you name it, Berkey was on top every time.

So you can imagine how excited we were to partner with Berkey and try it out for ourselves and it did not disappoint!!!

 

Isn’t she a beaut? ? She fits perfectly on my IKEA hack table that I transformed at the last house. 

We have the Royal Berkey system that holds up to 3.25 gallons at a time a fits a 4-6 person household and as you can see it’s not terribly large (as you compare it to my hubby’s coffee maker… I have a cappuccino machine, cause ?I’m so fancy ?)

Oh and don’t worry, Berkey has filtration systems for all size households, so you can find the right one for your needs. 

The Royal Berkey system comes with everything you need to set it up. And we (the hubby does most of the work, I mostly talk ?) share just how easy it is to do in our video below. 

How We Filter Our Water – The Berkey Filter

I hope this helps you get a little more information on what is available out there as a water filtration system, in case you have been considering a switch to something more robust. 

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask below! 

And as always, please feel free to PIN and share with your friends!  

And I will see you back here soon! 

 

 

*This is a sponsored post. I partnered with Wagner for the transformation of these walls. For more info, see my full disclosure* 

Hey dear friends! So, as you would have guessed I am a little behind on posting my update on my sunroom (but apparently, I don’t miss a step on my YouTube channel???‍♀️).

The struggle is real ya’ll! 

By now you know we bought our forever  fixer upper a month ago. And I just shared the plans I have as well as  the “before” images of our sunroom. 

It was pretty dingy and dark. 

But not anymore!

I had the opportunity to partner with Wagner and we tested out the Wagner Control Pro 130 to paint our sunroom walls.

We knew we had a lot of painting to do in this house and we wanted a machine that would work for a large amount of painting. Also one that wouldn’t tire our hands out. We thought this was the best solution and boy, were we right! 

I keep saying “we” cause my hubby did all the painting ?

See, we had these exterior vertical panels in our sunroom with a TON of texture.

We knew that getting into all of those grooves was going to be a pain in the you know what, so naturally we were excited to have the opportunity to test this baby out. After all, it also said it would cut our painting time by 14! 

We are naturally fast painters (because of all the walls we have painted in our past). But this made our jaws drop.

All of the walls, doors and trim were painted in 15 minutes…. ?

Of course, my Latino Engineer (aka the hubby) did the painting and he did 2 coats, each on different days…. so 30 minutes in all. It took him a couple of minutes to get going, but once he did, he looked like a pro. 

Check out for yourself below! 

We Painted The Sunroom

And here are the results! 

 Looks so much better, doesn’t it? 

Now I will say, prep took a bit of work and time, but this room has 3 doors and 10 windows! Most rooms don’t have that many. 

However, I will say, clean up was a breeze! 

Plus, if you are wondering how we painted the panes on the windows so perfectly, it’s a Dollar Tree hack, so make sure you watch the video! 

Now, it’s on to the next step in the vision board. 

The floors! 

See you back here soon! 

 

*Some links are affiliate links, for more details go here*

Hello friends! 

So I am excited to finally share my first plans for the first room that is getting a facelift in our farmhouse “fixer upper”. 

Say that three times fast! ?

If you checked out my last post, you already have gotten to see all the “pretty” pictures of the house when it was listed. However, I think it is only fair to show you what the house really looks like without all the “stagey” photos (I mean, it’s only fair right? Plus, it makes for a better “after”). 

So here is what the sunroom really looks like. 

That door is the one that leads to the kitchen and dining. 

Here is another view.

That is the same door on the left and the one on the right is the one to the garage.

 

Here are the windows furthest away with the door to the garage on the left. 

 

And here you see all the windows with the door that leads to the stairs that go down to the concrete patio in the back. 

I was trying to go clockwise to give you a better sense of the room. 

The room was really drab and dirty. Lots of spider webs, dust, dirt and animal hair. ?

Naturally I began spraying, wiping, vacuuming, dusting… you name it! 

Cause I could not wait until I got my hands on this room. 

I am not sure if I already explained this, but the reason this is going to be the first room done is because it can be closed off from the rest of the house. By having a room that closes off, we can rip out carpets, floors, remove popcorn ceilings etc. without having to be all up in that stuff 24/7. 

This will give us an oasis where we can enjoy family time and forget about the hot mess that is the rest of the house in the mean time. 

Make sense?

So, here are the plans for this… at least the initial ones. 

And as always you can check out the video version of this post on my Youtube channel or by scrolling to the end of this video. 

Of course, I want to paint the vertical panels white so that they look like vertical shiplap. It will help brighten the space. 

And as you know I love incorporating a coastal theme to my farmhouse style. 

I love navy blue and thought about navy blue cement looking tiles, however, I decided I wasn’t ready to make such a bold permanent commitment to one color so I changed the tiles to gray as you see below.

Then I decided to use the carpet from my old keeping room in order to keep costs low and save myself from sweeping a ton of hairs from the jute rug. I had that experience with the one in my son’s room and just the thought of dealing with the reno plus jute strays was enough to change my mind. 

Nope! 

So below is my final vision board. Neutral and simple. I’m happy! Especially since this year I am going with a more traditional farmhouse Christmas theme with pops of red and this will allow me to change the colors as often as I like without having them clash. 

Speaking of! 

Here is a sneak peak of what I plan on doing for Christmas. Since this is the only place inside I can really decorate this year I have to do something special.

Whatcha think? 

Red is not my favorite color decorate with, but I thought the traditional pops of red would be nice for the kiddos this year. 

 

Some of these items I have had for a while but I plan on sharing some links in the next post. 

 

Now it’s all about prep work! 

It’s time to paint and this time we are using a spray gun…. windows are getting taped up! Wish us luck! 

 

Hello sweet friends! It is October 31st, and I just finished making my littlest’s costume last night #momoftheyear #winning. She wanted to be Mickey Mouse so I pieced it together for her and she is so excited to wear it to school today. 

I am hoping the weather gets better as it’s supposed to thunderstorm all day LONG. I would hate for them not to go out tonight because of the rain. 

Pray for good weather!!!! ???

My oldest is going as Super Girl and my son is obsessed with Godzilla so naturally we got him one of those blow-up costumes with the little fan attachments and he has a hoot every time he puts that thing on. It’s quite hilarious. 

But at least I have somewhat of an excuse that I have taken so long to finalize my littlest’s costume (as well as share another post on here) since over the weekend I was in the ER. 

Oh yeah, you heard right. 

If you follow me on Instagram you would have seen my stories. Last week we had to get the upstairs carpets removed and new ones installed (Cause they were naaaaaaasty! More on that in another post) and somehow I became allergic to something during the process…. but it only took like 4 days to fully take over my entire body! 

It started with severe itching behind my left ear on Friday, then it gradually took over my scalp, then forehead, until it began crawling down my neck and onto the rest of my body. 

Hives. 

Of course, my tongue also felt slightly bigger. That is when I knew I had to go to the ER. 

An Epinephrine shot, IV, steroids and a serious cocktail of antihistamines later…. I got better. 

Of course, I looked like a train wreck which is why I didn’t dare show my face when I took the shot below. 

Good times! 

Now I have to have an Epi-Pen with me. And I need to go make an appointment with an allergist to see what the heck I am allergic to. 

Hold on, let me see when I can fit them in. 

Not to mention I am now sick with a cold! The hits keep coming people. 

I feel terrible. And not because I am actually sick, but because I feel like I should be more productive and have tons of pictures and posts ready for you with what has been happening the past week, but instead I got ONE video. 

Yes, one that I managed to do a voice over on despite me sounding slightly stuffy. 

I really wanted to give you all a complete BEFORE of the new house (aka Fixer Upper). But since we had to hit the ground running the minute we moved in, plus all the hits I have been getting (that was a joke), everything just got away from me. 

However there is hope.

I was able to screenshot the images of our house from when it was listed on the market (before they were taken down) and I compiled a video for you all so you can see the house in its bare state before we moved in and made a hot mess out of it!  YAY!

And instead of you trying to figure out the layout and where everything is, I walk you through every image and take you through all 3 floors so you can see exactly why we fell in love with this home and the gorgeous property it sits on. 

I think you will enjoy it! 

Just sit back and relax with a cup of coffee and tell me which part of the new house is your favorite. 

I’ll just be in bed nursing my cold and praying for good weather.