A few people have asked: “Are you living in the house?” Yes, we moved in November 22 after an absolute 2 month whirlwind of husband working like a madman (while still pastoring- he only took two weeks of vacation; everything else was mostly done during early mornings and on nights and weekend. We’ll probably never recover. ); spending a LOT of money in a very short amount of time; contractors and electricians disappearing into thin air; packing up our entire 2500 square foot home and getting rid of a TON of stuff to fit into our now 1776-square-foot-home; then moving into our home a few days before Thanksgiving. All while I’m trying to keep some semblance of homeschooling going. To say we couldn’t have done it without help is an understatement.

I wanted to show you some updates on our bedroom. Hard to believe this is where it started:

Excuse my VERY rudimentary skills on showing where walls are now/aren’t any longer. The white line took 16 feet off our (very long) living room and created a master bedroom. The red lines show where we cut a door to enter the master bath/closet from our bedroom. We got VERY creative with the floor plan to get in 3 bedrooms (it was originally 2); a spacious living room, spacious kitchen, two decent sized bathrooms, and a tiny dining room and small play area.

Paint on the walls- Sherwin Williams Sea Salt (but color matched with Behr paint)

Partial window casings- I’m SO glad we went with the bare wood!

Here’s my husband and our friend Daniel laying the floor. Daniel came at least once a week for about 6 weeks- SO much help! I’m in LOVE with these whitewashed floors- our room is the only room in the house where we have them. I wanted to set the master off a bit since we did the same paint color all throughout the house and this did the trick!

Some of our stuff moved in! Getting exciting!

Check back Monday and I’ll show you the (mostly) finished product! And you can settle a dispute between Ben and me.

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A reminder of the before:

Um yes we’re crazy.

I’m so excited to be sharing these photos. We just love this room- it feels so cozy and homey. We (meaning I lol) chose to keep the trim around the windows unpainted. We just brushed some polyurethane on it them. I love the rustic look it lends to the room.

Our recliner seriously needs a cover- any recommendations? I bought it for like $150 at HEB when we first moved to Houston and it’s super comfy, just needs a little TLC like the rest of the room did.

The line on the picture above is showing the wall we added to create our master bedroom. (And coincidentally it’s also pointing towards the horse that resides in our house.) The original living room was 40 (!) feet long. The house only had 2 bedrooms so we (meaning hubby) threw up a wall and made our living room 24 feet long (it’s sort of two areas) and our bedroom 16 feet long.

See you next time!

Linking up: The Dedicated House

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As a reminder, here is the “before” picture. It looked like this until September 30, when we bought it. We moved in a mere 53 days later. Yes we’re insane.

Here’s the other end of the living room. The living room was originally 40 feet long! The house only had 2 bedrooms though so we added a wall on one end to create our master bed room, taking off about 14 feet from the length.

You can see the white line on this photo- this is where we added the wall. (And by we, I mean Ben. I did paint the wall, though!)

We also added a half between the living room and what would become the kitchen. You can see it below: (the wood with the pink on it is part of the half wall.)

Here’s the half wall with sheetrock and a little paint.

And, here is the wall we added to make our bedroom with a little paint on it.

And I’m going to be mean and make you come back tomorrow for the after pictures! It’s worth the wait I promise!

The post The living room- Part 1 appeared first on Farmhouse Flip.

We did move in the house right before Thanksgiving. It’s not completely done- we are still functioning with one bathroom, and surprisingly, it hasn’t been an issue at all!- but we’re here! My favorite room by far is my kitchen. As a food blogger and someone who truly loves to create in the kitchen, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted, and I am so very happy with the results. As a reminder, here are a few “before” pictures of what would become the kitchen:

Charming, eh? Notice the floor rotting out? But I had a vision!

With the window looking outside, it was a natural choice. The room that had been designated as the kitchen by the previous owner- but by no means a kitchen when we bought it- was in the middle of the house with no windows. That was one of the first (of many!) changes we made in the floor plan. The view is too pretty here to not have a window in the kitchen.

Here’s the room once it’s been cleaned out and swept.

This picture is taken in the corner of the kitchen looking into the living room. The mattresses are in the living room. The beam on the left wall was used to build a half-wall to separate the two rooms.We replaced the full-sized window with a half window so we could put the sink under it.
Ben putting in the cabinets.

One thing Ben didn’t feel comfortable doing himself was the tile on the counter tops and the backsplash. (Which reminds me, I haven’t yet told the story of our counter tops! I will soon!) We had an awesome guy named Lupe that was very reasonable and did great work. If you live in the Houston area and need tile work, we’re happy to share his contact info!

And here it is all (well, mostly) done!

I love my stove! We ordered if from Costco and it’s 6 inches wider than a standard range. It can hold 5 pans at the same time and believe me, I’ve put them to good use! Since we got off fridge off Craig’s List for $200, we were able to spend a bit more here. It’s an investment worth every penny to me!

In this shot you can see the half-wall that we added. (and that we still need baseboards in this room! ha!)

This is the same view that had the mattresses in it above. A bit of improvement, eh?

I am 100% happy with how this kitchen turned out. It really is the kitchen of my dreams. I’m in there SO much and it’s very functional but also has plenty of space.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I’ll be updating more soon, like the story of our counter tops!

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We are over the moon excited- here are a few pictures to keep you somewhat updated.

Here is my sweet blogging friend Sharon. We met at a blog conference last year and just recently reconnected. She came by a few weeks ago to see the house. Sharon just published her first book, Creating Success at Home, and I’m so excited for her! You’ll be hearing more about her soon.

This picture is a little strange but it shows that I conquered an IKEA project. A friend from church also helped me put together several of these. You can also see the colors of the girls’ room- lavendar and pink, and the carpet Ben and another friend from church installed.

Ben and one of our Wednesday workers, Daniel, laying floor in our master bedroom. What’s a Wednesday worker you might ask? It’s two people from our church that have showed up every single Wednesday since the beginning of October to help out on the house. And they are awesome. And I just named them that awesome name. #legit

Our bedroom- I spy packing boxes, IKEA goodies, and trim! It’s getting there!

There you have it. Quite possibly the most random photo dump ever. I’ll be back soon-ish with more, including a few “how to” posts! (Think how to install IKEA closet organizers. I may or may not have spent 3 hours working on our closet to find out that the main components are installed UPSIDE DOWN. But because I’m channeling my inner Joanna, I did not get mad at the person who installed them upside down. Ahem. My own Chip. )

See you soon!

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I did a one week update here, so you can what we did the first week. This is what’s been done since then:

Entire house sheetrocked, taped, floated, and textured (we did not do this ourselves, hallelujah)

Had a new well installed. Also, didn’t do that ourselves. Here’s proof in this picture: we do NOT know how to operate that kind of machinery, except maybe the tractor.

The rest of this list, Ben and I have done with the generous help of friends (including actual help on the house, childcare, child running around, and meals). And lots of epsom salt. And Advil. And Dr. Pepper 10. And Chick-Fil-A- it’s in the parking lot of Home Depot, what can I say? Okay, we had a LOT of help.

Kitchen cabinets installed (and oh, they are so pretty)

Kitchen/dining room/living room is floored.

One bathroom has flooring, a toilet (also hallelujah) and the bathtub and vanity are sitting in their places. Waiting for plumber to hook those 2 things up.

Entire house, minus one closet, is P.A.I.N.T.E.D. I could have not done this without a ton of help from friends in both painting and helping with child care. In the last 12 days, I have personally painted over 30 hours. One day alone, I painted for 9 hours. I couldn’t move that night, but whatever. My biceps better be rockin’!

Our sink is here, just not installed. See how pretty it is by clicking here!

Hot water heater installed. (we went with a tankless this time)

New septic tank links (important things, ya know!)

I think that about sums it up. It makes me tired looking at it, and I didn’t think I could get any more tired. One day this week, I painted the entire bathroom the wrong color on the 2nd coat. At that point, I knew it was nap time and I went home and slept like a baby for 2 hours. And it was glorious. Now, I’m feeling sick, hopefully just allergies. On that note, good night!

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You may remember what our bedroom looked like a mere 3 weeks ago:

Really nice and cozy. Don’t be jealous. And also, in this pic the master is part of the living room. Now there’s a wall separating it from the living room (whew) and a gorgeous color on the wall! Here we are getting ready to paint…

And the color on the wall! It’s so nice and calming. I’ve been eyeing this color online for years- it’s called Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams, but I had it color matched with Behr Paint + Primer at Home Depot because it was much cheaper this way. They did a great job matching it.

Look for more painting updates this week! With the major help of friends, we’ve painted a TON in the last week!

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Aaaaand…. the new color!!! I love it so much.

You just never know if you’re going to love the color that you chose en masse as much as the tiny sample you paint on the side. But I love it even more! Oh, and I  was away at a blog conference while it was being painted so Ben  was giving me real-time text updates which was fun but also made me nervous!

One of my favorite pictures EVAH!

The white trim really makes the color pop. (Oh, did I mention that I LOVE that tree right there? Okay, I did, but I still love it!) Paint color = Liquid Mercury by Behr at Home Depot

Please pray for our family, that no one else gets sick. (Evie is already sick, too). Ben actually took 2 weeks vacation starting tomorrow so we could work hard and heavy on the house, and now he’s down for the count. He has worked SO hard the last few weeks and I think he’s just worn out.

See you soon for another update!

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I love this house and just about everything about it, but there’s definitely one feature that had my heart from the beginning. (Besides the front porch- swoon!)

It’s the backyard. Oh goodness it’s gorgeous. Every time in the last two weeks that we’ve been over there in the last few weeks, I’ve stood there and said out loud, “I can’t believe this is ours.” Look at these trees:We have a big back yard in our current house, but the trees are mostly pretty small- our neighborhood is about 10 years old and our house about 6. It’s a great backyard and our kids have had tons of fun in it, but there is pretty much zero shade. If you know anything about Houston, you know that means that we don’t go outside in daylight hours from about May- the end of September. It’s just too hot with no shade.

These trees are so huge, that even the house stays shaded most of the day. We went over there in the dead of August in the middle of the day and the inside of the house would be no more than 85 degrees with no air conditioning, while outside in the sun it was about 102 degrees. Hopefully our electric bill will be very nice and low.

I know this new big back yard will be TONS of work, but I’m actually looking forward to that. I can’t wait to make it our own and even more beautiful- although I definitely want to keep the “natural” look going as much as possible and not make it look too manicured.

Oh, and one of those trees is a pecan tree, and there’s another one in the front yard. I’m SO excited about that!

If you’re just reading for the first time, be sure to start at the beginning- click here!

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The TON of junk has been cleaned out. I mean a TON. About 25 industrial-sized garbage bags were taken to the curb.

Roof leaks fixed

Exterior of the house painted. (I’m in LOVE with the color!)

Plumbing almost complete

Septic tanks cleaned out

Sheetrock begun

Kitchen cabinets ordered

A/C installed

Our bedroom area before it had a wall separating it from the living room, and DID have tons of junk.

Now it’s all cleaned out, and the wall has been built. We added this bedroom because the house was technically only 2 bedrooms to begin with. So now we’ll have one, the boys will share, and the girls will share.

To say Ben and I are exhausted is an understatement. But we’re SO thankful to have this place. Seriously. We sat outside tonight just so thankful that everything fell into place after coming thisclose to having the whole thing fall apart!

We’ll see you tomorrow (or the next day, or the next ) with the next update!

Oh, and if you want to keep up with our daily-ish happenings, you can sign up here for e-mail updates!

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