(Almost) Home Sweet Home

I have a serious case of summer ADD. I cannot focus on one thing for very long and I end up with 3 projects going on at the same time. At the end of the day, all I have are various messes all over the house. Its frustrating! Apparently, all I needed these past few weeks was motivation.

My dad came to visit us last week and I wanted to make sure I had the house a close to perfect as I could. That means all the boxes had to be unpacked, all the frames had to be hung on the walls, and all my already started house projects needed to be FINISHED. So, I focused and now we are that much closer to having the house exactly the way I want it! (yay!)

But after all that work, I wanted everyone to see it! The likelihood of anyone coming to visit us in this heat is slim to none. SO, I'm posting some of it here for all to see! (double yay!)

Our first project was to install some ceiling fans in our house. I cannot believe this house has been here this long in one of the hottest states in the country and not a single room had a ceiling fan!! Let me tell you what a difference fans have made in our house. I went from waking up in the middle of the night dripping with sweat to sleeping like a baby to the white noise of our ceiling fan. Neither Hubby nor I had ever installed a fan but everyone tells me how easy it is, so I was confident we could do it.  After trying to install the fans I see now why fans aren't installed in every room.  It was an interesting adventure getting those fans up to say the least... adventure that included trampling around in the attic in 100 degree weather.

Making the hole in the ceiling a little bit bigger...

traipsing around in attic...

finished product!

It works and I'm happy. And not sweaty.

My next project was to recover some particularly awful pillows that came with the couch when Hubby bought it. There are a myriad of pillow cover tutorials online so I chose one of the easiest: the envelope pillow case! (from this super easy tutorial at Rae Gun Ramblings)

 I made the striped accent pillows to go behind our already super awesome turquoise ones (target special!).

I love the look of a million fun patterned pillows on the couch but it makes for a crowded seating area when you're trying to use it for just that: sitting. So, I reluctantly stopped at four pillows on the couch instead of 10.

After the pillow project was completed I went to work on a DIY roman shade for our office window. I am super excited about the way it turned out!

It's an honest to goodness working roman shade made from a super cheap mini blind! Of course from a pinterest found tutorial at 365 days to simplicity blog. Loves it!!

Gallery walls are in style right now and since we have so many picture frames I thought it would be a good idea for us. Luckily, we have a giant blank wall in our hallway that would be perfect for a bunch of frames.

Ours is not 100% done yet, I still want to paint a couple of the frames to make it a little more cohesive. If you attempt to make one, I highly recommend following apartment therapy's recommendations on how to create a gallery wall. The tape measure and masking tape will be your best friends!

Our final project was to figure out what we were going to do with the giant blank wall behind our TV. I had the idea back in Atlanta to decorate with old shutters and we had collected a couple there (Of course we brought them with us!). After showing Hubby some pictures of walls decorated with shutters on pinterest, I had him convinced it would look good to put distressed/weathered shutters on the wall behind the TV. We didn't have enough to cover the wall space so I drove around town to ReStores and Goodwills to find some  more.

We are still trying to decide if we should paint them a color to stand out a little more from the wall. It's a work in progress but I'm happy with how it's shaping up =)

That's it for now but more projects likely to come...

xoxo,