Considering the homes we saw, this bathroom was in great condition.

This is right before we painted. The only thing we did was remove the towel bar and add Aaron’s old shower curtain from his apartment.

After we painted, we changed the shower curtain to one I had from college, hung a poster and added some rugs. The shower curtain rod is also new. The box from the new faucet is there on the counter. We replaced the light too, but you can’t see it here.

We changed the face places and the mirror too. The mirror was a little too skinny, so it was swapped with the one in the master bath later on.

We changed a lot of details to get to the finished bathroom:

The mirror was swapped, the poster was moved downstairs and a new shelf was added. The shower curtain came from Target. The floor mats are now gray instead of blue. I painted the vanity with the same process from the kitchen cabinets, the counter top was bought on clearance from Menards, and the tiles from the back splash came from Lowes. The new towel rack, which you can barely see, came from Ikea.

Next, we installed clearance counter tops from Menards and tile and repainted the entire bathroom, including the vanity. We didn’t intend to replace the counter tops because they were in decent condition, but we chanced upon matching granite tops in the sizes we needed for both our bathrooms. They were about the same price as laminate tops, so we couldn’t resist upgrading. We also installed a new faucet, which surprisingly has a pull out sprayer faucet that you usually only see in kitchens. That all happened in a couple of days, so I only have a picture of when we finished.

We’ve begun looking at houses to buy next, and have yet to see one that is as much of a blank slate. Here’s the loft when we moved in:

The picture’s blurry, but there’s nothing to see. The loft got the first home accessory purchase. Before a dining table, before blinds or curtains, there was the lovesac.

We put the cover on and added a few more items after that.

Once we bought the new couches for downstairs, the smaller couch came up here, but that was during the peroxide of lost pictures. This is the next oldest picture, taken right after we bought our new sectional. There were five pieces in all, which we switched from room to room. I think the other two were in our bedroom at this time.

Aside from having a few screw holes, the 1x4s I used when painting the cabinets were like new. After hanging the old bathroom mirror in the living room, I decided to make a frame with the leftover wood.

 I figured I would upholster it or something, so I didn’t worry about making the edges meet perfectly. I used basic hardware to hold it together. At this point I remembered some paper sticks I had made but never used. I broke out the hot glue gun and got to work.

The paper sticks were made with magazine pages, rolled up with Elmer’s glue from corner to opposite corner. It’s easy to do once you get the technique down, but time consuming to create enough for big projects like this one. I also liked to pick pages with interesting edges, because the edge is all you see once it’s rolled up. My plan was to glue them on, paint them brown, then rub on black paint that would collect in the grooves. I hoped that when done, it would look similar to the floors. However, once I glued them on I like it so much that I didn’t want to paint it.

 

We bought a large flat screen TV, but never bought a stand for it because they were expensive. I wanted a bench style stand, one that was long and low. I had assumed, when I got the tools, I would make one myself. I had found a design I liked and sketched it out when I happened to go to Whitley’s with a friend. Goodwill and garage sales were the only places I had been for used furniture. I was overwhelmed to say the least. Whitley’s is like shopping in an episode of Hoarders. Just by luck, I found something near the main aisle that caught my eye.

They wanted $50 for this solid wood stereo cabinet with broken speakers. I took it home and suspended more important projects to start removing the insides and cleaning it up. Like a lot of used furniture, it has a dusty, smoky smell that I tried to wipe out with Clorox wipes. Most of the electronics came out easily. Even though I can’t imagine using it as an actual record cabinet, I kept the guts just in case.

The other modification I made was to cut the legs to make it shorter. I thought at first that I would just take them off completely and set it on the floor. Cutting the legs was a better choice. Being able to see underneath it makes it look a little less heavy visually. Also, the extra few inches make it a better height for a TV stand.

After using small makeshift stands for so long, we appreciate having something that actually fits our television now. I may stain or paint it in the future.

This was a quick little project I did with some old records. I originally intended to melt them in the oven and make bowls. When I needed some extra wall art, I decided to use the records. I simply laid them out in a pattern and hot glued them together. It took only minutes to complete and was easy to hang on nails through the center of the records. The songs and artists are nothing I especially care for, so I may cover them with something else in the future.

 Like the other rooms, it started out as a blank slate.

 We moved in and realized just how big the house was. Most of what we moved in filled just a fraction of the living room.

 We replaced the carpet quickly and noticed how sad and awkward our couches looked in our new home.

 

We bought our first pieces of brand new furniture from Kittles Rooms Express. We gave away one couch and moved the other one to the loft.

There are some lost photos that show the coffee table we bought and other small improvements. The next one I have is right before we replaced the flooring.

 The TV cabinet came from my parents house, and fit the TV that had been sitting on the loft floor. I painted the half walls before this, but not the taller outside walls. The following picture is a bit random, but it does show when half the room was painted:

Here’s the room just before we painted the final walls:

 And finally, this is the room as it is today.