My Own Fixer Upper?

Welcome to my little house!

That tree may be obstructing the view a bit, but it sure is pretty.  This picture was taken in 2008.  The house has been painted since then, but I will save the recent pictures for later.  

After renting my house out for eight years, I am getting ready to move back into it.  And by getting ready, I don't mean packing up my belongings and renting a truck.  I have decided to do some work inside, including a complete renovation of the kitchen, new flooring throughout, and painting, quite literally, every square inch of the interior!  It is turning out to be quite an undertaking, as I'm using a slow, but hard-working and economical painting team consisting of me and my dad!  I seem to have inherited his painting perfectionist gene; he is so proud!

Here are a few pictures of my house in 2008, after I moved out, and before my tenants moved in.  

I'll start with the kitchen.  This kitchen is functional, and the cabinets are cute and cottage like, especially since these were the builder grade default cabinets.  I like that the kitchen is white, as I love white kitchens!  You can bet that my new kitchen is going to be white, too.  

The living room is adjacent to the kitchen.  In the model home of this floor plan, this room next to the kitchen was the dining room.  However, since this space is larger than the actual "living room" space, many homeowners, myself included, swapped the dining and living spaces.  The entire downstairs area is completely open concept, and on the small side, so swapping the living and dining room isn't that big of a deal.

 Living Room

Dining Room

And now to head upstairs.  At the top of the landing is a cabinet, presumably for linens, and a laundry closet.

To the left is the master bedroom, complete with a large bathroom and walk in closet.  The bedroom looks small in this picture.  It's not a gigantic room, by any means, but it's a pretty good size.  And I have no idea why they put carpet in the bathroom!

This red room is my office.  I loved this red paint - all four coats of it!  If memory serves, it is Cherry Cobbler, by Behr.

The guest bedroom is small, but has a nice closet!

The guest bedroom and office share a Jack & Jill bathroom.

The only area that is getting major work done is in the kitchen.  However, it feels like I'm renovating the entire house, with the new paint and flooring throughout.  So, even though I'm the original owner, and my house is in pretty good shape, I'm considering it to be my own Fixer Upper!!  It is so much work, but I know it will be worth it!

Cheers!
Jenn

Reviving the blog!

Well, it's been 5 years since my last post!  I won't make excuses, I just stopped posting.  In the past five years, I've graduated from nursing school, moved back to California from Colorado, and have been working as an RN in clinical research.  I have a pretty major project coming up and thought it would be fun to blog about it!  I'm going to be moving back into my house, which has been rented out for about 8 years.  But, before I do, it is going to get a pretty major overhaul.  Some of the projects that I have planned include:

• Repainting EVERY room.  My tenants painted all three of the bedrooms in colors that are just not my style.  Everything needs to be refreshed and painted.
• Replacing the flooring.
• Replacing the baseboards.
• A complete renovation of the kitchen!  This will include altering the footprint, new cabinets, a new backsplash, new countertops, and a new dishwasher.

I have quite a few before pictures from when I first rented my house out.  I want to take some current before pictures, and of course, progress and after pictures.

More to come!!

Cheers!
Jenn

One Wreath, Two Ways

Greetings and Happy Easter!

I wanted to share a simple wreath that I made that I used for both St. Patrick's Day and Easter.  I used the same technique with fun fur that I used on my Halloween wreath.  But instead of using black, I opted for this lovely spring green shade.  I think it looks like grass.

For St. Patrick's Day, I hug it with a green houndstooth ribbon and suspended a shamrock in the middle.

Once it was time for Easter decor, I switched the ribbon, and added some foam eggs and the cutest little rabbit.

This wreath is really a lot of bang for the buck!  For the rest of spring, I might remove the rabbit and eggs and add some flowers.  But for now, it looks pretty with some other simple Easter decorations.

Wishing you and your family a very Happy Easter!

Cheers!
Jenn

Signs of Spring

Happy Spring!

I'm afraid I've been neglecting my blog for awhile.  I could say that I've been busy with school, which is somewhat true, but honestly, I just haven't felt very inspired to write posts lately.  I do have a bit of good news, though...I got in to nursing school!

It was a beautiful day today and I just couldn't help but take a few pictures.

I am taking a class on Saturday to learn how to use my camera, so hopefully my pictures will keep improving.

Cheers!
Jenn

An Irish Blessing

May the road rise to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

The rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

May God be with you and bless you:

May you see your children's children.

May you be poor in misfortune,

Rich in blessings.

May you know nothing but happiness

From this day forward.

May the road rise up to meet you

May the wind be always at your back

May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home

And may the hand of a friend always be near.

May green be the grass you walk on,

May blue be the skies above you,

May pure be the joys that surround you,

May true be the hearts that love you.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

God Save the Queen

Question:  Where do you buy a Christmas present for a friend who has everything and wants to be British?
Answer:  Nowhere.  You make a Union Jack pillow for her!

I got to use my Mom's sewing area for this project.  It's a great place to spend an afternoon.  You can't see it in this picture, but the view is really of the hills behind my parents' house.

I started with a 16-inch pillow form and red, white and blue fabrics.  For a little added fun, I purchased a red on red patterned fabric.

I didn't free-hand this project, but I didn't have a pattern, either.  I based it on an image that I found on Google.  Here it is on my new iPhone!!

And then I measured.  A lot.

These are the approximate measurements I used:

• blue fabric
• 18 x 18 inch square for the front
• 2 - 18 x 12 inch rectangles to create an envelope opening on the back
• 144 x 6 inch piece for the ruffle.  I sewed together three 48 x 6 pieces.
• white fabric
• 2 - 18 x 5 inch strips for the horizontal and vertical strips
• 2 - 25 x 3 inch strips for the diagonal strips
• red fabric
• 2 - 18 x 3 inch strips for the horizontal and vertical strips
• 2 - 25 x 2 inch strips for the vertical strips

After all of the measuring, I cut everything.  And then I ironed.  A lot.  I ironed each strip with a half an inch on each side, so the finished pieces measured 18 x 4 and 25 x 2 inches for the white strips and 18 x 2 and 25 x 1 inches for the red strips.  

For the diagonal strips, I sewed the red on top of the white off-centered.  If you look at the flag image, you can see that the strip from the upper left to lower right corner is the same all the way across. However, the strip from the upper right to lower left corner is different on the top half than it is on the bottom.  To achieve this, I cut the strip in half so I could invert it before I sewed it to the blue fabric. 

I stitched both pieces to the blue fabric, and then I pinned and stitched the other diagonal piece to the blue fabric.

Next, I pinned the horizontal white strip over the diagonal strips and sewed it to the blue fabric.

The next step was to stitch the vertical white strip perpendicular to the horizontal strip.  Once this was done, I pinned and stitched the horizontal red strip.  I measured carefully to ensure that it was centered on the white one.

Finally, it was time to affix the vertical red strip.  Again, I measured carefully to make sure that it was centered.

I love how the pattern turned out!

Next, it was time for the ruffle.  I folded the ruffle piece in half so it was 144 x 3 inches.  Then I ironed it to keep the fold nice and crisp.  My Mom's sewing machine has a really cool gathering foot, so I used that to help gather the ruffle together.

I pinned the ruffle around the edges of the front piece and sewed with a 1-inch seam allowance around the edges.

This is what the pillow front looked like with the ruffle attached:

For the back, I folded, ironed and stitched each piece on one side, to ensure a finished look.  I pinned each piece over the ruffles to create the envelope back.  Make sure that the back pieces overlap each other by a couple of inches.  When I sewed the back on, I used the seam from the ruffle as a guide of where to sew the pieces together.  I'm not going to lie - the corners were a bit difficult to sew through, because the fabrics were so thick.  I love how the back of the pillow front looks with the different colored threads!

Before I turned the pillow right-side out, I trimmed all of the edges so they weren't so bulky.

And...voila!

This pillow turned out to be so beautifully.  I am a little sorry that I didn't make one for myself!  

And my friend, well, she loves it, too!  Here is a picture of the pillow on her couch.  You can see it is in good company.

And a picture of my friend, Heather, posing with her Christmas gift.

Cheers!
Jenn