6 Months in Our First Home — An Update!

Remember 6 months ago when I said we bought a house, and I'd be back to share all of the exciting renovation updates?? Turns out updating a home while you, like, have a job and stuff doesn't go so quickly. 😆

We've been making progress, but Austin's had a pretty busy work schedule with his company (including a trip to Africa), and we've taken some weekends off of housework since we want to live a little, too. The good news is, even with our house not even close to being finished, it already feels like home. This makes updating it even more exciting because it can only get better!

I wanted to take a little record of what's been done over the last 6 months, in case you're trying to do some house projects while you live a little, too. Real life isn't an hourlong episode of Fixer Upper, and that's totally OK! The photo above was literally taken the day we moved in, and it hasn't changed much since. Ha! We're planning to update some of our living room furniture, and I'm excited to share this space when it feels "done"—but here it is now. This is still pretty much the only room that's totally settled, which I'm weirdly OK with as long as I have *one* space that feels really homey. 🙂 This is also the room that we tore wood paneling out of, and I'm SO glad we did.

This photo above is from the first spot that I styled, and if you look close, you'll notice we still need to replace the old trim. This is in the same part of the house as the photo of me and my dad from my last house post!

Austin and I are considering this "phase 1" of our renovation project, and we're lucky to be saving some money by doing a lot of it ourselves—and with help from Austin's dad! To finalize this phase, we need to finish laying our wood floors (we're inches away!), replace the trim, and update some old doors. Once we're finished with phase 1, phase 2 (plus phase 3, 4, 5? We've only named phase 1 😂) will include updating the two bathrooms in the house and the kitchen. Eventually we want to do some landscaping and paint the outside of the house, but we're currently focusing on what's inside the house because that more directly affects us. (Sorry, neighbors!)

Here's another process shot of Austin prepping to hang a mirror. Just need to finish the trim here + get a new door, and the entryway will be DONE! Feels good to check things off the list.

Anyway, that's what's been going on in our neck of the woods! Looking forward to spending the holidays at home this year—maybe even with a new fireplace mantle to hang our stockings on. ❤️

Read More

Our First Home Renovation!

In case you missed our big news (which you probably haven't if you follow me on Instagram), we bought our first home about a month ago! Annnd it's been the setting for nearly all of our nights and weekends since then. When we were on the house hunt, we knew we wanted to find a home that had good bones (such an HGTV phrase!) but needed a little love, and we're thrilled with the one we found.

We bought a ranch style home built in 1970, located in Springfield's Brentwood neighborhood. We're quite a bit further from our downtown offices, which we've become pretty accustomed to being close to, but I am unspeakably excited about living near TREES! Tall ones, too! We're really looking forward to having neighbors on our street and a few blocks away, including some great ones we're already lucky to call friends.

When we bought the house, there was wood paneling in the main living area, which we ripped out on day one and replaced with new drywall. On top of that, there was a wallpaper border in almost every single room, and some rooms even had floor-to-ceiling wallpaper! We spent a good chunk of time peeling wallpaper, and it's almost completely gone at this point. We've had to do some patching up on the walls since tearing out the wallpaper — mudding, sanding, etc., and that's what Austin's doing here.

Before we move in just a couple weeks, we're hoping to have all the walls painted (white!) and we'll be replacing carpet in the bedrooms with wood floors to match the main living areas. We likely won't get all of the floors in in time, but the look and feel of our house has already changed so much in what feels like a really short amount of time.

I'll of course share before & after photos once we've made some more progress, but I wanted to give a little look at the in-between because that's the stage we're in right now, and it's the one that sometimes goes undocumented! Figured I should highlight the blood, sweat, tears & less sexy portion. 😉

Thankfully, our hard work hasn't felt as hard thanks to all the great help we've had, especially from my father in law, Tim. A HUGE thank you to our family and friends who have been so helpful as we've been renovating and preparing to move! Whether you've texted us, brought us coffee, sat and listened to us talk about our house reno, let us borrow tools, peeled wallpaper, painted, etc. etc. etc. we're beyond grateful.

Next comes the really fun part — picking out fixtures, furniture and decor to make it feel even more "us", and I'm excited to see where this stage takes us. I've been chronicling most of this on my Instagram stories, so if you're curious to see more of our progress, you can find that on my highlights!

Oh, and if you want links to any of my outfits in this post JUST let me know 😝💕

Read More