How to update your laundry area, under $60.

Typically Tyler does the laundry (I know lucky me), at some point in our relationship he got really picky about how he wants his clothes washed and dried so he decided to take over the duty, obviously fine with me. We both wear a uniform for work (pre light duty for me) but somehow we always have a ton of laundry at the end of the week so I definitely don’t mind it.

When I started separating the baby clothes and cloth diapers to wash them before Baby P arrives I was less than enthusiastic about our laundry situation. It’s really a laundry area or closet rather than room and it has an older washer and dryer set it in. Although I’d love a nice new set it’s really not necessary at this time. We have more practical things to purchase before Baby comes. So I decided I’d take a few days and a small budget to do a little makeover. Tyler asked me my budget and I didn’t really have one at first, but then decided it would be less than $100, but probably cost more than $50.

To start my laundry room “nesting” project I went to Pinterest for some inspiration and made a few calls to my mom for some advice to decide on a design.

This is what I started with, and believe it or not this was actually after I “cleaned” it up a little bit. We moved into our home last July, so it’s been a whole year and I had never cleaned out this space. I started by cleaning the space and removing the wire shelves.

Removing the shelf was harder than I thought but Ty helped before he left for work. I had to remove the shelf because I wanted to move it up and also paint the area. Once I removed the shelf I took it outside and cleaned it and also cleaned all the walls and the washer and dryer. The shelf was secured to the wall with anchors so there were large holes in the wall.

I had to patch all the holes, and let it dry before I could sand and paint.

Once it dried, I sanded all the spots so I could paint. I had not spent any money at this point. We already had the putty and sand paper.

I used the same paint color in the laundry area as I did throughout the house. I had a small sample paint and quart left over, so I didn’t have to purchase any new paint for this project. Same with the brushes, we already had a few at the house.

Tyler put the shelf a little higher so that we could hang dry clothes, and so I could hang some decor. Since it’s a little high I have a small foot stool I use to reach the shelf. The laundry sign was purchased from hobby lobby. The sign was 8.99 and I used a 40% coupon.

The sign was a teal color, and in true DIY queen fashion I spray painted the sign so it would match with our decor. Spray paint is SO easy to use to transform or repurpose decor to fit your style.

In an attempt to match the wire shelves I purchased these white shelves from IKEA. My mom suggested these, she has the gold ones in her laundry area. The shelves were 12.99 each, they didn’t come with screws but we had some at the house and they were super easy to put up.

I also purchased the bins from IKEA. They were only 2.99 each. They have some nicer ones but they were all $10 or more. Since these bins are only holding cleaning supplies and light bulbs it didn’t seem necessary to purchase the more expensive ones. I purchased some gray hangers as well for 3.99 from Aldi. Gray looks armored neutral than the black. It was only a pack of 10, so I’ll have to grab another pack.

I purchased this skull dispenser from Ross for 9.99. But full disclosure it pours out very slow, Tyler hates it and we will have to replace it with something else. Whatever I find I’ll purchase 2 so I can use one for baby’s detergent as well. And the glass canister was purchased at hobby lobby. It was 5.99 (I think) and 50% off.

We don’t use dryer sheets so I didn’t have anything to put on this shelf. For now it holds the extra laundry detergent, which was a steal from Walgreens $12 including shipping & tax for all 6. I think I’ll add some other small decor here once these detergents are gone, we typically don’t have this much extra detergent.

*I’m watching unusual suspects in the background

And this is the final result! Super simple, functional and affordable. Now maybe I’ll help more with the laundry.

I also posted a video on my YouTube channel about this update. You can view it here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TYWliTZfdlw

Please like and subscribe to my channel if you’re interested in DIY home renovations. I have a new one coming up this Sunday!

As always I appreciate you spending some of your Friday with me.

xo

10 Ways To Easily Update Your Home This Weekend

There are a lot of small things you can do to update your home that won’t cost you a lot of money. Maybe one day when we have a disposable income things will change, but for now we don’t pay for anything we can do ourselves! We have had some help painting, doing other small projects, and had granite countertops installed but everything else myself or my husband has done. In fact, as I am writing this weeks blog Tyler is cutting the treads to install new stairs! I’ll update when that project is complete.

For all these projects prices will depend on what you choose, and what fits best for you budget. For our first home we kept cost low by purchasing items on the lower end of our budget. For our current home we we didn’t do the cheapest, but also not the luxury items. I’d say gray is the new traditional nowadays, gone are the days were people want wood cabinets, and tan walls. Now most new houses or renovations have gray or white kitchens and gray walls.

1. Update faucets: Depending on your style you can easily purchase a kitchen faucet off of amazon or from Home Depot for less than $100 and bathroom faucets for less than that. This specific faucet was around $90 and we ordered it off amazon. Updating fixtures can make your home look more modern. We went with a chrome finish on all of our fixtures.

2. Paint the bathroom vanities: Well in this case it’s stain. But instead of replacing the whole vanity, which would have been at minimum $100 each, I purchased a can of stain for $16 and used it on the guest room vanity and master bedroom. Looks like a whole new vanity!

3. Replace blinds: In our in our house we have 9 windows, we decided not to do curtains down stairs so we invested in new blinds. When we moved in the blinds were a dingy yellow color. By replacing them we brightened up the whole down stairs.

4. Change the lights: We had multiple “boob lights,” as I like to refer to them, they are outdated and hard to clean. Instead we changed every light to the same light. They are easy to clean and cost about $16 each. The lights are also very bright, the bulbs last forever and are energy efficient, so will save you a little money.

You can see one of the “boob lights” in this photo

5. Paint: Obviously it’s cheaper if you do it yourself. Get a 5-gallon bucket and a few friends to help and knock it out. Our house was a tan color and we painted it a cool gray.

6. Update the stairs: We updated the stairs in our town home and are currently working on it in our new home. It was much cheaper in our old house. So this may not be very cheap depending on what’s under the carpet. We pulled up the carpet and under the carpet the stairs were wood. So we just sanded them and purchased a can of stain, again about $16, and stained the stairs.

Our current stair project costs much more and is more labor intensive. Under the carpet is particle board. So all steps and risers have to be replaced before they can be stained and put down. Each step is about $10 and each riser is about $8, times 16 stairs. Not a cheap project by any means, but check what is under your carpet you may just get lucky.

7. Replace cabinet pulls: This is especially important if you replace your faucets. Change the cabinet pulls to match. We went with chrome pulls to match the rest of the house. The ones we purchased were about $30 for 10 from amazon. We used them in the kitchen and the guest and master bathroom.

8. Replace hinges and door knobs: Our door knobs and hinges were gold. We changed them to chrome and used an egg shaped knob.

9. Update floor in bathroom: Most outdated bathrooms have an ugly tile. Home Depot or Lowe’s has a variety of different pattern sticky tiles. This particular pattern was about $30 a box, and I think we had to get a few extra single pieces. It was also super easy, my mom helped me and we got this project done in just about 2 hours.

10. Update you decor: This can be done a few ways. You can sell what you have, and purchase new or used items or repurpose what you have. I’ve used paint, stain and spray paint (a lot of spray paint) to repurpose items we had. Some items were purchased new or new to me, but they weren’t the right color so I just painted them. I don’t have many before photos, but 90% of our house and decor is DIY, definitely a trait I get from my mom.

I recently wrote a blog about purchasing and redoing our town house, you can check that out here

We are currently redoing our new house. We’ve been in it a year this month! And almost to the finish line. The house is larger so it’s taking a little longer, and costing a little more. I’ll be sure to update when we are done. In the meantime follow my YouTube channel, I’ll be posting some different projects as we get them completed. You can check out my channel here

What are some projects you have done or want to do in your home? Leave a comment and let me know!

Now back to the projects!

xo

How We Completely Renovated Our First Home, then flipped it

In April 2016 we bought our first (town) home. At the time we weren’t married, I was only working 20-hours a week and we had a modest budget. But we were paying almost $1200 in rent for our loft. And prior to that we lived in a 500 sq ft studio for $1000 a month. We were use to living in small spaces, so we were excited to have more than one bathroom, a bedroom door that closed and most importantly to start saving money!

When we were parents of 1

I think it is important to be transparent about our house buying process, so I am going to try my best.

We purchased our townhouse for $60,000. It was a 900 sq ft home with 2 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. It was listed significantly below our budget so we went in full asking price. It was the 4th house we put an offer in, and we didn’t want to miss another one. Our lease was up and we were fortunate enough to have friends let us stay with them for 3 weeks while everything was finalized. So there was no grace period moving in, we moved in the same day we closed and our families came up to help us get started on the house.

You will see from the photos below that there was a lot to be done in the house. But the location was perfect (at the time), and that was a huge factor for us. It was a quick uber ride uptown and we had access to the light rail right across the street .

The main question I get from people looking to purchase a home is what is the most important thing, and for us it was location and layout. Two things you can’t do a whole lot to change so you have to be okay with them. We knew when we purchased our home we only wanted to be in it for 2-3 years. It allowed us to save money for our wedding and make a profit when we sold it 3 years later. We knew we wanted a home with a little more space with room for our family to visit. When we purchased our first home we didn’t look at school districts, proximity to parks or anything like that. It wasn’t important at the time.

We were very fortunate to have help getting our house together. Tyler and I did not have a clue what we were doing. We (I) knew how we wanted everything to look, but did not know exactly how to accomplish it. Between Pinterest, visits from my parents, and many FaceTime calls and texts with my mom everything turned about great.

We painted the whole house a light gray color, and dark accent walls in some rooms. Honestly, we bought the cheapest paint I don’t even know the brand. But it was about $80 for a 5 gallon bucket, and then I grabbed a gallon of dark gray paint from the clearance rack at Lowes.

The house was carpeted, but old dirty carpet. We decided that we didn’t want carpet wherever we moved because we have dogs. So putting down flooring was the best option. We went with a grayish laminate flooring because we knew the rest of the house would be gray. I don’t remember the exact cost but my husband remembers it was about $50 a box. We put it down in the entire house including the restrooms and kitchen. My dad was a huge help to Tyler and showed him how to do it in the living room. Then later Tyler was able to do it in the rest of the house.

One of the the easiest projects, that I was able to do all by myself, was the stairs. The stairs were carpeted and I had no hesitation ripping it all off. Luckily the stairs were wood underneath so I just removed all the carpet, nails and then stained the stairs and repainted all the white.

I also eventually ended up removing one of the banisters, it wasn’t necessary for us to have both. Over time the stairs did get a little worn, but I actually liked the way that it looked and never re did them.

Possibly one of the hardest projects, but my favorite room in the house was the kitchen. Tyler worked HARD on getting the kitchen together. At one point we didn’t have a kitchen for a week and didn’t have water for 2 days. He had to turn it off to get everything connected, and we used the shower at the gym (strugggglllle).

The original plan was to repaint the cabinets white and just change the handles. But after further inspection we noticed mold under the sink. My parents gifted us new lower cabinets so that we didn’t have to worry about the mold issue. We ripped the old cabinets out and cleaned where they were and left it open to air out for a few days. The new cabinets, a new sink and new faucet were installed. We also got a new stove, dishwasher, fridge and range.

We went with open shelving on top since the space was so small I thought it would open it up.

Okay the countertops were tricky, I say that but I didn’t do anything but pick out what I wanted. I really wanted concrete countertops but we decided to go with concrete looking tile. This was something else that Tyler had no experience with but my dad brought his saw and showed him the ropes. These were done almost 8 months after we moved in and I remember both of them outside working all day and it was kinda cold. But they looked soo good when they were done. They were a dark gray, with a dark gray grout. The tiles and supplies were also purchased from Lowes. We weren’t exactly sure how we were going to do the counter top edge but my mom had the idea to use the grout and create a rough edge, we did and it worked out perfect and went with the concrete look.

We purchased the peel & stick backsplash from either Home Depot or Lowes cut it in half and used it for the backsplash.

The appliances were a little tricky because it was an old home. A standard fridge did not fit in our space so we went with a 30 in whirlpool fridge. The house also had an older drop in stove which wasn’t standard size either. So we purchased a new stove and have to purchase a mini dishwasher to fit in the space. Since there is just two of us this wasn’t an issue.

Before

Before

He had no idea how to hook anything up, lots of youtube help make our beautiful kitchen

After

My next favorite room was the living room. It was small, but so cozy and I moved it around often. There was wallpaper so we removed it, painted and put in new floor. Then I just spent way to much time decorating and re decorating.

Bar was from Craigslist, stained it to match the stairs.
And the shelf was from our previous apartment, I just spray painted it gray.

Then we got some new bar stools from my mom, which I also spray painted and used some new fabric for the seats. The shelves were a steal from the IKEA “as is” section for $20.

Then I spray painted the shelves and pretty sure moved this area around 3 or 4 more times.

See it’s moved again in this photo 🤣 I spray painted the end tables and our coffee table to match with everything else. We mounted the tv because we really didn’t have room for a tv stand.

Upstairs we had 2 rooms and a full bath. One room was used as an office. Just like downstairs we painted, put down floor and decorated.

Before

I don’t have an after. But this is close, I used 2 of those book shelves and added some decor.

We did the same in our bedroom as the other room, some paint and floor.

This area is where my vanity went

Since our bathroom was so small I was able to squeeze in a little vanity area in our room.

Unfortunately at some point when I switched phones I lost a lot of photos so I don’t have any after photos of our bathrooms. But we painted, our down floor and replaced the vanity in both. In our full bath I took off the shower door. It was gold and a paint to clean. Added some decor and we had a whole new space.

Last, but not least was our backyard. It wasn’t difficult but the previous owner left a lot of stuff back there so we just had to clean up and get some furniture.

WHY is patio furniture so expensive? This simple set was $199 from world market and is living its best life with my in-laws.

Okay that’s the super long version of purchasing and renovating (ish) our first home. We are in the process of doing it all over again, with a less help and way more knowledge. When we are done I’ll be doing another blog showing you our new house.

Our new home, doing it all over again.

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If you have any questions or want to share about your home buying process comment below.

xo