Yus. We bought our first house. An upgrade from a one bedroom apartment to a three bedroom house with formal dining, two baths and a huge basement. Even better, it wasn't a foreclosure so it was able to be lived in immediately.
As is usually the case, we completely disagreed with the decorating choices of the former home owners. (It worked for them though.) Sooooooo we are on the long route of renovations and decoration.
(slow goings are from the husband being in school and having papers to write... but school is over soon!)

Bookmark us and watch us as we go! Give any tips or inspirations! We sure need them.

Before = the night we moved in
During = "limbo" or the stage we rest in before we can get serious

First off is the living room. You should know that I hate red... so this place is a bit of an eyesore to me.

Plans:

• rip up horrible carpet, try to salvage wood floors
• paint, paint, paint, paint. we're thinking semi-glossy espresso for the fireplace and all the wood trim (no energy to strip the paint...), matte gray for the walls, cream ceiling
• accumulate more free furniture or thrift it (there's a whole other side of the living room you can't see that has our falling-apart couch

Next is the dining room. Same story... red!!!

Plans:

• rip up carpet (the wood is incredibly beautiful underneath but needs a makeover)
• get a bigger table/more furniture and stuff
• paint. we were thinking a gray-blue but lately I have had an inkling to have a burnt orange color scheme. any ideas on what colors would work well with that?

Next up is the acting study and guest room/future guest room alone/future-er kid's room alone. Take note that I am so mad at the former homeowners for this room... It had beautiful hardwood floors which... they... they painted PURPLE! Good golly, miss Molly, that can't do!


There's the husband, slaving away at writing his paper.

Plans:

• fix that darned floor... restore it's natural beauty
• pick a wall color and mean it... no more changing my mind a lot (help???)
• turn into the guest room alone (involved completely remodeling the third bedroom (pic below) and bathroom)

Now I will show our third bedroom a.k.a Blue Room, Smelly Room, Don't Go In There. Acting Store-All-The-Painting-Supplies room, future study, future-er study/guest room when purple room is used up by kids.
Former owners seemed to use this room as a work-out room/guest room or something. So it smells. And vinyl sticky tiles over hardwood? ...tisk, tisk, tisk. That's going to be a PAIN to remove and refinish. Any tips on how to get rid of the sticky residue? And how to quickly remove these tiles without spending hours on our knees, peeling?

Plans:

• get rid of that tile, finish floors
• repaint  (hopefully repainting and getting rid of the tile will also get rid of the smell)
• when the bathroom is re-modelled(sp?) it will cut into the size of this room a bit, so the feel of the room and space of the room will be drastically changed

Anyway... I will post more rooms as we come to them. I'll just start off with these bits. Inspire me, please! We have a lot of work to do.  [/list][/list][/list][/list]

This used to be an odd, old, really tight reallllllly short dress. I loved it because of the sunflowers.
The skirt used to be really short and tight and yeah. I loved the blue.
So the other day I decided I wanted to make something out of something I have but don't wear, and though of this.
I now love it and want to wear it all the time.

Plus, as a bonus, I made that skirt out of old American Eagle capris that were horrible. (And also sooo hard to take the seam ripper to, sheesh) The skirt was unfinished at this point. I hate it. And apparently it was crooked while I was wearing it 



P.S. Those were my first darts, and I think they turned out pretty darn well.

[Before:]

So... I read these forums often and get really excited to do my own projects to the home. I was inspired to redecorate/fix up our bedroom. I will show before photos, and include current photos and will keep y'all up to date on what we do.

Before:
This is the view from the entry.


This is the view from the closet.


(please ignore the bowl of cereal and winter stuff that my husband made a mess with  )

Current: (There is more room than you think between the furniture. Very easy to walk between.)
Entry-way view.


Closet view.



Plan:
-Get ahold of French/Asian styled room divider for a "headboard".
-Curtains or shades, definitely.
-Think about repainting the craptastic job some contractors did on a non-hole in the wall ugh
-Wall hangings or corner shelves near the desk
-Make more decorative pillows for the bed. It's currently boring.


Any tips or ideas? We're on a very low budget, we rent, and I am quite a crafty person, so keep that in mind. Thanks!

Anyone who knows me can testify to the fact that I never wear pants or shorts. It's always skirts (unless I'm on the back of my husband's moped   ). So it seemed natural that as soon as I got my first sewing machine, I would take all my pathetic attempts at finding a good pair of jeans and turn them into skirts. This one is the second one I've done. I love it.



-Excuse my scoliosis-ness in the second photo ew

It's shorter in the front than it is in the back (which was a bit of a pain to get done evenly) and is intensely comfortable and stretchy.
Thanks!

This was designed, drafted and sewn (the first 100% me project) by yours truly. It is made with two layers of denim with linen around the edges and red shoe lace... things or something.  

I gave it to my mum-in-law for mother's day and she loved it.



P.S.
That loopy thingy in the bottom right corner was a pain.