mini home makeovers

Welcome 2018! For my first blog post of the year I've decided to try something new. As most of my friends and family already know I have a passion for decorating (and sometimes redecorating) my home. I'm not sure exactly when I became so interested in home decor but in college I distinctly remember watching a television show on painting techniques and I was hooked. I asked my parents if I could paint vertical strips in my teenage bedroom. I know they probably thought I was nuts but I really enjoyed the project. They must have liked it too because they haven't painted over it yet! I've carried this passion into my own home. I've painted every bedroom in our house and our finished basement. Eventually I hope to share more about those rooms, but for now I'm going to share some of my smaller home makeovers. Because let's face it, as a full time working mom I don't have time for bigger projects right now so I'm focusing on the smaller areas of my house!

After taking down the Christmas decorations I felt inspired to work on some overlooked areas of our home.

living room corner

This corner was the first space I decided to redecorate. For Christmas we decided to gift ourselves this floor lamp from West Elm. We've had our eyes on it for years and this year we finally decided to go ahead and get it. I ordered this on a Cyber Monday sale. Once it arrived and Bobby assembled it, it totally transformed the room, making it feel much larger and brighter. This dark corner now feels like a warm and welcoming space. The framed photo above the table is one that I took while visiting the Valley of Fire in Nevada. The frame is from IKEA. The table came from Bobby's bachelor days. The clock was built by my grandfather and gifted to me in 1992. The white vase was picked up at a West Elm sale, and the blue vase I found in an antique store near Deep Creek, Maryland.

Dining room buffet

This area gets a lot of attention year round, but after I put away the Christmas decorations I wanted to redecorate it a bit. It also is currently one of the last areas in my house that remains inaccessible to my infant son. My cat also has never shown much interest in the buffet so it's where I put my 'most breakable items'. The buffet was a Wayfair find that my parents bought for us a few Christmases ago. This painting hung in my grandparents living room when they were still alive. I decided to decorate with blue, white and gold colors which seem to mesh well with winter. All the vases are West Elm finds except the large blue vase in the middle. I ordered this from an online clearance sale on the Crate and Barrel website. When I ordered it, I clearly didn't read the dimensions because I thought it was going to be a small vase but when it was delivered it was huge! I was shocked at how big it was and probably would have never bought it in store but have grown to love it as the centerpiece of my buffet.

living room book shelf

My living room book shelf is also a Wayfair find. Originally I found open book shelves like this at Crate and Barrel, but they are really pricey. I searched several sites before I found this one and was quite pleased with how it turned out.

This area required a complete overhaul as our infant son started crawling. Previously I had only used the bottom two shelves for books and the upper shelves to display pictures and keepsakes. Then one day my son started pulling out my albums from the bottom shelves and not treating them so nicely. I did what any first time parent would do: panicked and removed everything from the bottom shelves and tossed everything into my guest room. I quickly realized that this was a mistake though as I frequently update my albums and no longer had them easily accessible. I decided it was time to bring my books back to the living room and make the bottom shelf more baby friendly. I stacked his books on the bottom shelf and purchased a soft bin from Big Lots to store his toys. Now he has easy access to his items and mine are out of reach! I might be applying this approach to the second shelf as well very soon!

So there you have it! My first three little projects of the year! I hope to have more small projects as the year progresses. What about you? Do you have any upcoming projects? Did you have to redecorate when you had little ones roaming about?