Mama Knows Best » Home & Garden

i can see it now.

Jessica — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:50:21 +0000

Yesterday was a day of achievements. I was finally able to catch up on a lot of various things– filing the kids artwork, cleaning, laundry, painting the spare bedroom and filing my taxes.

Having spent so much time inside of the house yesterday, I got the sudden itch to flee the scene. We had already eaten dinner and both kids had been bathed– it was 6:30 and I was going stir crazy. We packed up and headed towards Menard’s, our family’s favorite home improvement store (seriously). After wandering the store for a couple of minutes, we made our way over to the flooring department to pick up a few boxes of tile for the kitchen project. And then somehow found ourselves looking at appliances.

When I began planning out the new kitchen, I had my heart set on stainless steel appliances. There really is not a need to invest in stainless steel for this house when I know that I will be leaving this house sometime in the next three-five years. I will not live here forever– this is more or less a temporary home and investment opportunity. The logical part of me chose to go with black appliances. Last night was the first appliance purchase I have made up to this point- a new stove and dishwasher. They are absolutely beautiful, functional and NEW! I was excited to bring my new stove home with me last night, but will have to return in ten-fourteen days to pick up the dishwasher.

Now if only the rest of my kitchen was already shiny and new. Hopefully by the end of February I will have a kitchen I can scream from the rooftops about.

in which i don’t really say an awful lot.

Jessica — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:47:29 +0000

It is amazing how much a home renovation can consume a person. You set goals for yourself, dreams of what the house will look like one day and expectations of how you want to maintain your home and how quickly you want something done. I have plateaued on my desire to work on the house lately. My motivation to get things done is pretty much gone. I get these short bursts of energy when I look around online at ideas, but that quickly fades too.

My two biggest projects are my kitchen and dining room. I’ve sort of changed my original plans on those rooms. There is a wall that separates my kitchen from my dining room and if the gentleman working on my floors gives me the go ahead, I will be tearing our that wall completely. It would open up those rooms completely, give me more entertaining space and quite honestly, the open concept that I love about so many areas of my home. It’s amazing how many different styles and tastes one can go through when they begin a process like this. I’ve gone from wanting rustic bedroom furniture to a having a more modern kitchen. My style is all over the place and quite honestly, it’s getting harder and harder to make it all blend together– especially between my kitchen and dining room!

Of course there is also another matter at hand when it comes to my home renovations.. the back yard. I’ve declared that it is in dire need of an overhaul, as it’s just completely hideous. My shed has no siding, the yard is just sort of blah and it’s missing a nice big ‘ol deck. My big plans for the space? I am planning on blocking off the back yard with a partial privacy fence. I will not be completely enclosing my backyard, but just enough to eliminate the view from the road into my yard. I will be putting a rather large hole in my backroom wall to install french doors that will lead out to a large deck. I’m still tossing around layout ideas for the deck and furniture. And then there’s the whole flowers, shrubs and trying to find a place for the kids swing set.

What I’m trying to say is renovating is hard work. It is so completely time consuming, frustrating and exciting simultaneously.

christmas twenty eleven: home decor wish list.

Jessica — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:00:36 +0000

Always Kiss Me Goodnight Wall Decal

Fondest Memories Wall Decal

Family Rules Wall Canvas

Laundry Time Prints

Mosaic Wall Cross

Fairytale Wood Wall Sign

Tomorrow, Yesterday & Today Sign

Spread Your Wings Wall Sign

dining room frustrations.

Jessica — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:00:21 +0000

I am desperately trying to figure out what to do with

my dining room. I absolutely LOVE my table/chairs, I

somewhat like the paint color on the wall. I will have my

hardwood floors after the first of the year (hopefully). Now

I am just stuck trying to figure out what to do with the rest.

I am struggling with window treatments, wall decor, accessories,

etc. Any and all suggestions are welcomed with open arms!

sprucing up the good outdoors.

Jessica — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:40:52 +0000

While the inside of my new home may be in complete chaos, I am turning my attention to the outside before the weather gets too bad to get a lot finished. It’s not as though I have a lot of projects to finish outdoors, but rather cleaning things up, finishing mulching (only three more bags to go) and replacing my address plaque (mine blew off in our last wind storm).

And who knew it could be so hard to look at address plaques for houses? There are so many choices- square, circle, oval.. horizontal or vertical. And the colors! I’ve become obsessed with finding one that looks nice on the outside of my house, that you can see from the street and that accents the current color/themes in my house.. So maddening.