Tour Through Blogland

You guys, I am so excited to be part of the Tour Through Blogland today! I was nominated by the fabulous girls, Kat and Melinda, from Home. Made. Interest. These two are so creative you’ll want to break out the toolbox and craft supplies after spending some time on their blog. Take this IKEA Billy Bookcase Built-in or this Scrabble Tile Wall Art, for example. See what I mean? AMAZING! Thank you SO much for thinking of me, guys!

Now for a little peek inside my home. I haven’t shown much of my house here on the blog due to a severe lack of decor. My husband and I have lived in apartments since back when we were dating (2004, yikes!) and I just never felt like buying a bunch of stuff that may not look right in our future first home. Not to mention, the lack of inspiration that came from living in a place with plain white walls and ugly carpet.

{Living room- Need to do something about those bare walls.}

All that to say that basically we are living in an empty box; a shell of a home, if you will. I’ve learned that it takes a lot of time, hard work and MONEY to take a house from “blah” to “bangin’!”. I decided that it would benefit me to focus my decorating efforts on one room at a time instead of hopping around from room to room, tackling a project here and there.

{Living room- Note the extra long curtain panels and unfinished console table.}

{Dining/breakfast room- Window treatments, anyone? Dark furniture in need of painting.}

Now that you’ve seen a little bit of my home, let’s move on to the questions.

#1 What are you working on?

The real question is what am I not working on. Currently, I’m in the middle of making over my living room. It’s where we spend most of our time and, obviously, is where guests hang out when they visit.

So far we’ve painted the walls (Sherwin Williams Anew Grey), completed a major fireplace makeover, decked out the mantle with a beautiful Sunburst Mirror, bought a TV armoire off of Cragslist, dressed up a window with window casings, made a DIY roman shade for the backdoor window (tutorial coming soon!) and added some IKEA Ritva curtains to the other window.

This week I am working on making over my coffee table.

{Living room- Another bare wall to tackle.}

There’s still lots to do in here, though, like adding casings to the other window, building some built-ins, finding the perfect area rug, adding crown moulding and finishing a few other secret projects that are in the works. 😉

#2 How does your work differ from those in your genre?

I think my work differs from most in my genre because, as I mentioned earlier, I’m coming to this home decor game with a completely blank slate. When we bought our house, we seriously only had a couch, TV, beds, dressers, a kitchen table and a few other odds and ends. We’re a young family living on one income so we’re working on a limited budget. I have to work hard to find deals and steals that I transform into my own. You won’t find me buying a whole living room set at once or plopping down thousands of dollars at Pottery Barn (I wish!).

#3  Why do you write/create what you do?

I want to encourage and inspire people to take their home decor projects/renovations into their own hands. I’m not saying that it’s always easy but I guarantee that it is always satisfying. It’s so gratifying to create things with your own hands and to be able to enjoy those results for years to come.

{Fireplace Before & After}

I want to show people that if I can do it, they can too. I know there are certain projects that are better left to the professionals, like plumbing and electrical, but there’s no reason why you can’t build a beautiful piece of furniture or lay those gorgeous tiles you’ve been eyeing.

#4 How does your writing/creative process work?

This is an area that I struggle to stay organized with. I’m always trying to find a way to stay ahead of my projects but most days I am photographing projects while the paint is still giving off fumes. I’ve been working to build up a cache of projects so that I’m not burning the midnight oil on the eve of my next post. I’d like to get to a point where my projects are completed two weeks before that post goes live. As it is right now, my process goes a little something like this:

• Get inspired to do a project.
• Gather supplies.
• Take three times as long to finish the project as it should take.
• Wait for a sunny day to photograph.
• Stay up too late drafting the post.
• Publish!
• Pimp that post on my social media outlets.
• Pray that anyone gives a hoot about it. (LOL)

Well, enough about me. It’s time to introduce you to a few inspiring bloggers that you should definitely be following. Make sure you head over to their blogs next Monday, August 11th, and prepare to be amazed at all of the creativity!

Erin & Dan | DIY Passion
We’re Erin and Dan from DIY Passion and we’re so excited to be part of this Tour of Blogland! Our blog has been around for a while but we started getting serious about our DIYs, projects and blogging earlier this year. We live in a townhouse by the ocean in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. We love rock’n’roll, great fish and chips, walks on the beach (at the bottom of our street!), our two kitties, Zuzu and Louie, and our lovable rescue dog, Buddy. We try to blog about our real life as a couple with full time jobs- Dan works for a career college and Erin is a television anchor and producer – and be honest about the challenges and victories we face along the way. There’s no paint project Erin won’t tackle and no demolition Dan won’t do! Somehow, we make it work… well because DIY is our passion 🙂

Karisa | Petite Modern Life
In our Petite lives we’re remodeling your standard 1970’s rambler into a modern day home with an industrial flare one DIY project at a time.

Kendra | Joy In Our HomeStriving to create our home and my heart with JOY & LOVE