Now and Before on Orleans

Our home was build in 1973 and was a model home for the builder. It was rented out for many years but has also had several owners. The home has a little over 1,300 square feet with a garage and partial basement. The neighborhood is quiet, friendly and full of many diverse families. The house had a kitchen renovation about 15 years ago and the current condition of the home is good. The house had many characteristic we wanted like, a large backyard, three bedrooms, fireplace, open kitchen, and great neighborhood. Although the home was seemingly perfect it still needed many important fixes like, a basement wall replacement, roof, water heater and flooring. But this is just the beginning of our story and interest in this house.

My husband and I learned at the beginning of that year {2012} our family was growing! A new little boy would be here in September! Around that same time our hearts become restless about renting. Interestingly enough our current lease was up in that May and no apartments we wanted were even available in the area. We explored homes and drove by this one. I had no interest when we drove by, but from one look at the photo of the home on-line in February, I told my husband this was our house! This home had been unwanted for over four years, yet it took almost 5 months of us fighting for it, loosing it twice and praying that we are living in it today! 

As an interior designer I didn’t want just any house as my first home, I wanted to take an uncared for house and turn it into a well loved home. This house gave us that opportunity to share in creating a beautiful home together. 

To this day getting this home is a God-sized blessing. It was on the market so long, but right when we were ready to buy it turned into a foreclosure. Every contractor and appraiser that has been in the home has commented on how rare of find this house was. Since it was a foreclosure, we were able to add to our mortgage to fix the house and it still be very affordable.  Also, we can’t even count the number of “accidents” that have fallen in our favor and all the resources that were freely given to us!

We thank God for this home and all servant hands that helped us flip this house in one summer in 2012!

This summer marks our 3 year anniversary into our first home and I can't belive how far its come! Here are some now and befores:

Freegan Interior Styling: Oh Yes, I'm making it a thing...

Freegans, if you'd ever heard the term are those who scavenge for food to help reduce and sustain resources. I on the other hand, would consider myself a freegan in the terms of interior design and styling. I  honestly enjoy the power of  reuse in all it's facets. I would NEVER build a house, its not sustainable, especially with all the old home that are already here.

Confession, although I own my own business as an interior designer and stylist, I only take on a few jobs a year. We are mainly a one income family, plus we are just starting our family and it's humble.... very humble. I love our life and our small home. We flipped it 3 years ago, and with our "freegan" mindset we have created a beautiful home with equity! We hope to build off the equity and flipped our next home. I have styled our home on "no budget, " not the fun no budget but the literally no budget for that! I have the eye, schooling and passion to see the potential. Things sometime just need to be cleaned or painted or just put together with the right stuff. We  used this to our advantage!

So, I wanted to to share with you my steals, deals and flipped decor. You won't believe how much stuff in my house was FREE, I was actually surprised too! Below is my freegan interior styling our own humble home.

#boycottperfection

As, you have seem in my recent post, I've started using Instagram. I've been enjoying taking photographs of my life, my designs and my kids. I don't have time to scrapbook or journal anymore but my Instagram has been that for me. Pretty quickly, I found some amazing women, that were doing the same. They have beautiful homes and totally awesome blogs. I clicked follow to many and with wide eyes have been oooooing over these women's lives and homes. I have been so inspired! Here are some pictures I've share of our home...

However, there is a flip-side. Perfection isn't relateable. I was doing the inevitable, comparing. I was feeling like my life wasn't that pretty in pictures, my skills as a designer are lame and why on earth can't I get an followers and then saying to myself,  "see I totally don't have the gift to inspire,boo." Those feelings really made me evaluate my heart and that  I truly spend too much time worrying about the condition of my house. I value being authentic yet I put up fronts that my home is tidy, always. So, I'm boycotting perfection today and not sharing my picture worthy house (or myself for that matter) but sharing a video of my everyday house (and my everyday self) with you.

Homemade Tent Project!

I have a toddler. His best friends are the ones with tents. I am not a fan of cheesy looking kids toys, accessories etc, as decor in my home. Nothing screams beautiful family room like mountains of obnoxious colorful kids toys. I am really not this annoying about toys but I really wanted to have a kids tent that could sit out, be cute and not feel like I was at the circus! I found this family's blog who made these awesome homemade tents. I used their template and made my little guy a homemade tent for just  $18!

The tent is a hit! Photo finish on the inside and now our new favorite book reading spot!

A stick pile to a faux fireplace

This project I am so excited about to share! 

The story.

The other day my son and I was leaving a friends house and as we were walking down the sidewalk a little treasure caught my eye in a stick pile. I picked it up examined the soggy old scrap and then put it down. A few minutes later it was sitting in my trunk. I actually thought about it for a second and then took the find back to the pile, when I spotted it's bother, gasped and took them both home.

Here are the treasures...

I am sure you were thinking , "gross and how did you even notice that apart from the trash pile it was in?"

Let them tell you.

My original find was the bigger scrape and the little one was the brother I just happen to find. My thought was, "wow this was apart of something beautiful and old that someone just rip off and discarded." I actually have no idea where it came from or what it used to be apart of but I was like it belongs on a fireplace. And right away I went home and started a new project!

I evaluated my scarps and went to home depot. For $8 I now had everything  I needed to assemble my faux fireplace. The back of the fireplace is a scrape piece of particle board that I made into a chalkboard. I used the board as was my dimensions of the fireplace. I placed the pieces- not forgetting the stars of the show, nailed them into place and watched something beautiful come together.

As for the mantle, I actually had a pile a old barn wood form a family farm that I've been wanting to use. We cut a small slice, I cleaned it up and stained/polyed it with leftovers.

I then painted the rest of the fireplace with an odd yellow that we didn't quite like when painting our house, but it looks beautiful on the fireplace!

 I made the fireplace without actually having a place for it. It turned out so nice that I mounted it in up in our master bedroom. I put some pretties on the mantle and chalked a burning fire. I just love it! What a fun and nearly free project that kinda found me!

Phase 1: Unfinish Basement Project

 

As for phase 1 of my making my unfinished basement pretty, I organized the junk and painted a mural wall.I heart birch trees and I really wanted them on wallpaper in my house somewhere. However, I never found one that I liked. As, I was searching for inspiration for our basement I came acrossed this idea from a blog and just had to do it! I grabbed 4 cans of leftover paint and mixed them until I had about 3/4 gallon. I used the white already on the walls for the trees and free handed the rest using the lady's picture from her blog as a guide. If you count a few foam brushes I bought, a bucket to mix my paint and new light bulbs then this project cost about $8 and an a few hours. Love it!

before pictures

Unfinished Basement Project

My current basement is a dirty catch all. However, it does contain our laundry area and every day or so I have to slip on shoes and make my sad way down there. During our flip of this house last year we did replace the basement wall with 1/2 our budget for the flip, so the basement, I suppose was an investment already, why not make it pretty, right? Our basement does have potential. We have no desire to finish the walls or floor, which would have no return on our investment in this house, so we are gonna at least make it so I don't have to put my shoes on to go down there out of fear of the unknown.  So the budget for this space will be almost nonexistent. But I'm gonna make it awesome!

Perks in our basement do include a few things, like an open space, it's warm and it has high ceilings. I would like to create a pretty and clean space to do our laundry comfortably, with a corner for storage, and a craft space. Plus, an open strip for my toddler to ride his bike. I plan to make a dynamic space through paint and a mural wall. I also, want to figure out something for the floor. Since its winter and coming up busy season for my accountant hubby, this project will take some time. But I quickly snapped a few candid, SERIOUSLY CANDID, photos of the basement before I get started. She may have cleaned up if she knew you would be taking pictures of her. Beware...

 The ceiling is white. The bank painted it because of the mold. But hey, ill take it it makes the ceiling look even taller!

 Would you want to do laundry here?

 Yes, we have two sets of washer and dryers. Do you want these ones?

 The uglyist color of stairs ever! Those will be painted.

Yes, most of this pile is baby stuff!!!!!

Project Phases
1) Phase 1: Organize junk and paint wall mural: Complete

First Residential Flip Summer 2012