Inspiration and a sneak peek....

I'm going give you all a sneak peek of our master bedroom- (which is seriously getting closer to completion...seriously) but, I wanted to address a few other things first :)

Firstly, um did you see who decided to feature our bathroom last Friday? One of our favorite blogs: Young House Love, whom we honestly adore and very much respect in the blogging land! They have been a very positive and huge source of inspiration to us (as another young couple crazy enough to renovate a home!) so we truly, truly, appreciate them showcasing our master ensuite on their blog.

So that distracted me a weeeee.....and we've been overwhelmed by the love and support from our fellow readers :) I was also very touched by the sweet comments some of you left under our "reality" post, so thank you SO much for that.

I always think it makes blogging much more fun when you have great support from amazing readers (like yourself) as well as other bloggers. People you can talk openly to, share with and be inspired by. Here are just a few of the ladies I admire...plus they've been doing some pretty amazing stuff lately...

Burlap and Lace

Shannon is my BBB (Best Blogging Buddy- Shannon, I may have just made that up?!) however, check out this table she recently re-did. No other words...except AWESOME:

Burlap and Lace

Our Hiding Place:

Not only does Lauren do home renos, decor, fashion, but shes also SUPER handy! Want to know how to save money and make your own laudry detergent? Well, Lauren solved that for you! Check out her post on that here.





I have to give a BIG kudos to my awesome brother for taking that photo of our bedroom for us. He actually works in photography, so it helps to have a talented brother to help a girl out (especially when her camera lens does not do fancy things!)

Hope are you are all having a great week! Have you been working on any new projects lately? Pinning anything!? :)

Our Hiding Place

Just Bella

Christine has the cutest little girl ever. Plus her name is Alice, and I completely adore that. Christine shares the coolest finds, plus she always looks stylish and I MAY love every single article of clothing she posts about.

Plus this salad she posted about made me SO hungry...

Just Bella

Kickittogether


Katy is just the sweetest. Recently we've become acquainted through the blogland over stripes. Yes stripes. Remember our stripe post? They painted the same stripes on their walls and we shared many an email discussing... "umm...did you want to pull your hair out when you realized this was taking FOREVER?" Ya. Love the stripes. LOVE THEM.


Anyho, Katy and Nick recently re-did their patio, and it looks fabulous:

Kickittogether

So there you have it! Just a few blogs I read daily and am inspired by. Also, a thank you to all of YOU! Our readers who have been with us since the beginning and those who have just found us! We've received the most wonderful emails and messages from you all lately and it means the world to us. Plus, it inspires us to keep working away on new projects to share :)

While Ian and I finish up a few projects around here this week, here's a sneak peak of the master bedroom to give you an idea of what we've been up to. This room still needs a bit of work, but its getting there!

Guest post from Burlap and Lace!

Today I'm super excited to have a guest post from my blogging BFF Shannon over at Burlap and Lace! She's insanely creative and has done so many incredible things to her home. Thanks so much Shannon for guest posting today!

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Thanks Melissa! I'm super excited to be posting here today!


I wanted to share with you some of the updates going on in the house right now, particularly in the dining room. Since I last posted about our dining room, we have installed laminate flooring, and made a few other minor changes!


This is what my dining room looked like BEFORE:



and (semi) AFTER, when I thought I was finished:


[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="View the full post for the story behind this dining room reveal!"]

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But now, just to keep you in the loop (and to keep myself in check!), I will be posting about the
endless small list of things that we still need to do in this space. Here is the dining room NOW:



We installed the flooring, but we still need to install quarter round in this room. Remember the great deal for the area rug? Well, we bought a larger jute rug for the living room, and moved this one in here. I like it much better in this space.




I'm keeping the mis-matched china for now, because I'm still diggin'it.





Nothing screams "SPRIIIIING!" more to me than feminine flowers and milk glass (and yes, that is exactly how I hear it in my head).









Remember this lamp makeover from waaaay back when?! I moved it down here from the guest bedroom. I'd still like to find two matching lamps to flank each side of the buffet.



Can't go wrong with a stack of books and a bird!





The DIY tissue paper flowers made their way back into the dining room. Those suckers get around, if you know what I'm sayin'...







My DIY painting is also staying in the room...for now ;)





I also bought some cabinet hardware at Hobby Lobby when it was 50% off. I believe these knobs ended up being $1.50 a piece, and I like them much more than the original ones.



I also added some chandelier crystals on a whim (about three months ago) and haven't taken them down since. They need to be tied with clear thread, but I'm still not sure what I think about them. My plan is to add enough paint and other crap to this builder's grade brass chandelier until my husband gets sick of it and buys me a new one (I can haz?)



DINING ROOM TO-DO LIST:

• install floor
• buy new area rug
• refinish table
• find buffet
• refinish buffet
• paint
• install chair rail
• reupholster chairs
• hang plate wall
• hang picture molding under chair rail
• frame out window with molding
• install quarter round
• find new curtains (gray/ patterned?)
• new chandelier
• arm chairs for table
• art for both sides of window
• two new lamps
• and much, much more, I'm sure...

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Thanks again Shannon, you've done an amazing job! If you want to check out more of what Shannon's done (which of COURSE you do!), go check out her blog at Burlap and Lace!

Blogger BFF and a Special Delivery!

Sometimes in life you meet people that can only be described as incredibly special. When I first started my blog, Im going to be honest...I had NO idea what I was doing (not that much has changed, but still). I didn't really know any other bloggers that I could turn to for help or advice or just to talk to about blogging.

One day I came across Shannon's blog: Burlap and Lace. The odd thing was, that we had a TON in common. To begin, we had used similar design aspects in creating our blogs and seemed to have very similar tastes. I emailed Shannon directly to compliment her blog and our conversations began from there.

Weird things began to happen...lol. We found we were updating similar items, worked on the same furniture as each other, had the same fashion sense and obsession with Diet Coke....lol. We chatted more frequently and literally every day, found something else we had in common. WEIRD.

The only challenge is that we live nowhere near each other (sad face). I know if we did, we'd probably hang out...a lot. And talk decor and fashion and how our husbands would freak out if we brought home one more thing from the thrift store...lol. Thankfully we have Facebook and email and all those other media tools out there to keep us in touch.

Over the past little while Ive been dealing with a few struggles, and on a particularily hard day I got a package in the mail. Not just any package...a beautiful one:

It contained this:

and this:

and a little bit of this sweet smelling stuff:

Now if that doesn't cheer a girl up, I dont know what does! I feel that people are meant to come into our lives for different reasons, and Shannon is one of those people that I am so thankful to have met, and can call a friend :) Thanks Shannon :)

So pop on over and check her blog out!
On top of all of this she's featured my vanity table on there today!

You rock girl!! Wishing we could be out at OG with diet cokes rocking our matching wardrobes right now...lol ;) xo