A little background knowledge about me: My name is Haleigh, I go by Haleigh Belle. I am from Austin, Texas and currently live in Abilene, Texas due to school. I have been blessed with artistic creativity from both sides of my family. My dad and his dad before him are architects, and my lovely mother does interior design (one of the many hidden talents she has). Because of their love for the arts I grew up with the same love, in other words, I absolutely LOVE architecture and interior design.
A little over a year ago I was house hunting in the North Abilene area and stumbled upon this little diamond in the rough. . . and let me tell you this place was rough. It was a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom, an open[ish] layout that connected the living and dining areas, kitchen, laundry, and an additional sunroom. As soon as I walked into this beautiful disaster I fell in love because I could see the potential. Going through the home I could see that the (now previous) owners did not put much thought or time into keeping the place up to modern standards. I'm sure the ratty old brown carpet and the non-gender specific shades of yellow that engulfed every wall in the living room, dining room, and bedrooms was up to par for the previous owners but it was not going to cut it for me. The first thing to go was the stained russet colored carpet. It didn't take much ripping out that shoddy thing. However, the outrageous 1980s vinyl that covered the floor of the kitchen was a hassle to rip up. Not long after we started ripping up the floors I came to a decision on what color I wanted for the living room, dining room, and kitchen. I choose a stone grey color white white trim.
After my family and I spent most of the night painting, the following day my older brother and I took on the task of sludge hammering the tile off the fireplace.
The fireplace didn't stand a chance against my brother and I (mostly my brother because he is so much stronger than I am).
Once the fireplace was taken care of, the painting queen (my mother) and I made our way to my room to start painting. The master bedroom was a color combination of - get this - yellow and brown! Oh my goodness, did anybody think that through? Yellow and brown?! After the shock of being swallowed up by yellow and brown walls, I selected a sky blue color for a nice relaxing feeling in my new room.
So far all that we have done is cosmetic changes in the house. Such as ripping up the carpet and vinyl, painting the walls, and sludge hammering tile. While, I wasn't too much help with the boys in laying my new flooring in the living room, dining room, and kitchen; I decided to start work on the cave (also known as the master bathroom). The previous owners rented out the place to college students. Well being a college student myself I know all the positives to using stick on command hooks. I love them, they are great for dorm rooms. . . however, they are not so great on wallpaper. Well, in my bathroom the previous tenets had used command hooks to hang up their towels. . . and that turned into a problem when I tried to remove the command hook from the wall.
This is what happened. . .
All from ONE little command hook! And because of that one little thing it gave me the wonderful job of having to sand down my walls before I could paint over them. (I choose to paint over my wallpapered walls because I hate having to deal with taking wallpaper off walls. It adds so much extra work).
For my bathroom wall color I choose to continue the flow from my bedroom into the bathroom by using half the color of my bedroom and half white.
Above is an in-progress picture of my bathroom. However, no matter how light I went with the color in my bathroom, my bathroom still seemed so dark. So I went to Lowe's hunting for a solution. I knew that in my bathroom there were two can lights, but these can lights were so out of date that I knew I needed something to help pull the light out. I found my solution in the clearance section of Lowe's, two can light converters. These light converters screw into the light bulb socket like a light bulb would but have a plate cover and cord that covers the recessed lighting and hang down like a pendant light would. I was fortunate enough to find two similar light converters on clearance for $8 as apposed to the original price that ranges between $25-$50 (those were the prices I saw at Lowe's).
Ta-Da!! Look at those beauties! Easy install pendant lighting! Which Gives off WAY MORE light!!
Look at all that beautiful light!
Now, while I was dealing with the entire bathroom ordeal (the command hook, the painting, and the installing of new light fixtures) my father and older brother finished up the flooring in the main living area of the house.
Look at those beautiful dark wood floors and that stunning paint job (if I do say so myself)!
After all that hard work we then moved on to decor!
Above is a picture of the dining room. Painted walls, new floors, new blinds, new kitchen table and chairs (new as in slightly used and purchased off of craigslist).
Above is a picture of the living room. Couch was purchased new from a furniture store in Austin, the pillows on couch from Target, the rug from Lowe's, side table and coffee table was a gift from my lovely parents, accent chairs were found at various antique stores that my mother and I refurbished, and lamp was a refurbished piece as well.
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