Our House

As our (extended) family has grown, so has our collection of folding tables & chairs. They come in super handy when we’re hosting a big group for the holidays, but we’ve never had a great place to keep them all the rest of the time. For years, we stored them all in a bump out…

I feel like winter is closing in on us fast. It’s already snowed and we have another couple inches forecasted for Halloween tomorrow. Crazy! I had a long list of projects I was hoping to get a start on in the yard this fall, but it looks like they will need to wait for next…

Invariably, when we update something in our house, something else (that we thought looked fine before) stands out as not looking as nice/fresh/updated as we had previously thought. Why is that?!? When we added on to the front of our house, the new entry way felt so nice – and the adjacent wallpapered foyer almost…

I think we can finally call it – summer is over. Around here (northern Illinois), fall has already had a couple of false starts this year, but this time it looks like it’s here to stay. So, it must finally be time to close our swimming pool for the season. Closing our pool isn’t difficult,…

Our formal living room has been a work in progress since we moved in to our house. At the time we moved in, the (slightly pink) paint color in this room was one of the least objectionable wall treatments in our house. It was (at least) a fairly neutral color in comparison to the various…

I feel like window treatments have been an ongoing project since we’ve moved into this house. We started out hanging shades only where we needed them for privacy – and, now, we’ve been adding them in other spaces too to help with temperature control. Most recently, we added shades on the little side porch off…

Our PVC Basement Flooring

Our 100+ year old basement will probably never be true finished living space, but earlier this year, we decided it was time to fix it up a bit. Our goal was to clean out anything we weren’t going to use again (primarily old construction materials), freshen up the surfaces, and – most importantly – have…

Our New Azek Deck

When we bought our house, one of the features we really loved was the huge, free-standing deck in the side yard. It extended our living space outdoors, had a pretty view of the ravine, and provided an excellent place to entertain larger groups. Over the years, we’ve enjoyed lots of Fourth of July cookouts, birthday…

New Carpet

You guys!  We have new carpet!  It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here and we love it.  We had been planning on replacing the carpet in the master bedroom since we moved in 8 (!) years ago … and then we decided to go ahead and replace the carpet on the stairs &…

New Chandelier

When we ordered the new light fixtures for our bedroom, we decided to also order the new chandelier we’d been liking for the upstairs hallway at the same time. The old one was brass and crystal-ly, but not in a good way.  It was looking pretty dated. We’d actually started looking for a replacement chandelier around the…

I mentioned earlier that we had decided to finally update the master bedroom – woo-hoo!  And, clearly, the first thing that came to mind as needing to be replaced was the carpet.  So, I promptly went to the carpet store, brought home about 8 samples, laid them all over, looking at them in different lights and…

Master Bedroom Facelift

We’ve finally decided it’s time to make some changes to our master bedroom.  I’ve never loved the room – it’s been on the “must renovate” list since we moved in 8 years ago, but it’s funny how you can just go blind to how bad something looks when you see it all the time.  Anyway, I’ve…

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