The Bailey House

Bargain ottoman

2010-09-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Mike and I got up early to check out some yard sales. I came across this ottoman. I knew I wanted it. We got it for just $7, such a bargain! I had a plan for it. It goes really well with the chair in our living room.

Before:

After:Love this fabric!

Slipcover

2010-09-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

We have had this chair since we first moved in together. It is a really comfortable chair but doesn't match the colors of the living room now. I decided to try out a slipcover. I got it at Bed, Bath and Beyond and of course used a 20% off coupon. I am not positive I like it just yet. It doesn't fit a close to the chair on the sides and I thought it would. I am going to give it a couple days.

Before:

After:

Little things

2010-09-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

Our house how shower doors. I hate shower doors. We had a shower curtain that I loved but I could not find a bronze color rod to hang it on. Finally found one. I think it really change the look and feel of the room. We will take down the doors soon but for now covering them up works just fine =]

Before:

After:

Trash to treasure

2010-08-30T11:01:00.002-07:00

I love a good deal. Mike and I stopped by the Goodwill store near our house on Saturday morning. So glad we did. We found some great deals. I knew when I saw this dresser I liked it but when I saw the $10.95 price tag I liked it ever more. A little paint and new hardware and it is ready for the master bedroom.

The dresser has great detail so I thought it would look great in white. I was right ;) The top 2 drawers are angled and the legs are great!

Before:

After:

Master bath vanity

2010-08-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

The master bath vanity was stained a dark brown by the previous owners. It was not the best staining job. We decided to sand it down and paint it blue, since nearly everything else in our room/bathroom is brown, working on fixing that. It only took about 3 hours to get all the drawer fronts, cabinet doors and actual vanity sanded. It took 5 paint samples to get the right blue, blah!After it was done Mike and I were very happy with the outcome. New hardware helped too!

Nearly forgot a before picture:

All primed:

Finished! I love it!

Guest bath vanity

2010-08-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

Our "guest" bathroom needed some love. When we moved in it was all black and white with a wallpaper boarder. We took that down and painted to match the rest of the house. The baseboards were black which was super fun to paint over. The vanity was also painted black. We decided to paint it and glad we did. It was not so fun sanding all the black paint off but worth it to make the room look more "us".

Before:

During:

After. The paint didn't photograph very well. It is green but not THAT green. We also added hardware, which I think adds a lot.

And a new toilet paper holder.

Next for this bathroom: removing the shower doors and putting up and shower curtain.

Different kind of picture frame

2010-08-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

Our master bedroom is very bare. We have furniture and a wall art but other than that it is pretty bare. It is also huge so covering the walls is a task. I saw this idea in the Pottery Barn catalog some time back and I thought it was a great idea for over our bed.

Here is the space above our bed before:That is a window in the middle.

Here is what I used to create this "picture frame" All from Wal-Mart and all for under $10. Two silver command hooks (I love these things!), clothespins and 1 inch ribbon (mine is brown)

I stuck the hooks up as evenly as possible then tied one end of the ribbon on one hook and draped it across to the other.

I think used the clothespins to attached pictures from our wedding and vacation last year. Our love letters from Valentine's day are up there too, mushy I know!

I love this idea because you can change things up easy and quick.

Dinning room lighting

2010-08-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

It has been a while, a very long while. We haven't done much to the house recently but we are about to embark on a few things so hopefully I will have more updates than just the 2 I am going to post about today. I promise to try harder!

Our dinning room is on the back of our house with a sliding glass door. It faces west. It gets real hot while the sun is setting aka dinner time most nights. I have wanted to put a ceiling fan in there for a while so we finally did it!

This is what the fixture looked like before. I like this fixture so we moved it to the entry way.

And this is the after. Mike had to get a little creative putting it up as the fan bracket didn't line up the way it should. But he is handy and figured it out =]
It matches the one in the living room but only has 3 lights instead of 4. It is keeping the dinning room nice and cool now!

It's been a while

2009-09-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

I know it has been forever but we haven't done a home project in a while either. I finally found some fabric napkins to make curtains out of, my mom taught me this secret. I love the way they turned out, a little vintage and match the colors of the kitchen perfect!

Before:
After:

Project:: Organizing

2009-05-24T20:11:00.000-07:00

I love my kitchen. We have a loverly pantry right next to the fridge but it is hard to store too much there because the cupboards are deep and once you fill it up you can't see what you have in the back. Solution: Slidey basket thingies. We found them at Home Depot for only $20 each. Super easy to install....seriously I put them in while Mike fixed the toilet. I plan on putting them on all the shelves in this cupboard.

Here is the cupboard before:

Here is the after. The baskets hold a lot more than I expected. They also give the cupboard some nice division which makes them so much easier to organize.

Close up:

I have stored my jewelery in a dresser drawer for a while now. I never wear any of it because I never remember I have something to match until I am already out the door or I can't get it untangled from the mess in the drawer. Solution: cork tiles in my closet. I have a very nice walk in closet all to myself so I took advantage of the wall behind the door of my closet and put up cork tiles. They were less than $6 at Target and I bought a $1 pack of push pins. So for less than $10 I have easy access to all my jewelery and I freed up a dresser drawer.

I attached some ribbon to the center tile with hot glue to hang earrings. I felt pretty genius.

Houston we have grass!

2009-04-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning Mike told me he saw grass. It had only been a little over a week since we seeded. I couldn't wait to get home and check it out. He was correct. We have a lot of patches all over. Never thought I would be so excited to see grass grow but that is part of home ownership, you get excited about things you never thought you would.

Project: Backyard

2009-04-15T17:57:00.001-07:00

When Mike and I bought our house the only problem we had with the house was the backyard or lack there of. The backyard was more dirt and weeds than flowers and grass. We had not planned on landscaping the backyard for a while but once winter came with rain weeds 3 feet tall spouted in the yard. We spent a Saturday morning hacking the weeds down and spraying weed killer. We realized the weeds would eventually grow back if we didn't landscape or do something! So we decided to get the yard together and we could not be happier with the results so far.

This was the view from our patio door after we hacked down the weeds. Lovely.

There were 3 big concrete stumps in the ground that supported the deck that was in the back yard before the previous owners took it out and then did nothing, thanks!

We hired a landscaper to come remove the concrete things, till and level the yard. The yard was very lumpy and had potholes all over.
No more concrete stumps!

This is the yard after the landscapers were done, nice and flat.

Oh and our new tree. It is a fern pine. We wanted an evergreen tree because we have enough leaves in the front yard cover a small island, no joke.

My dad was awesome enough to come help us move sprinklers and put new heads on the current sprinklers....my dad rocks!
Dad also hooked us up with a concrete guy for the patio. He did the patio in just 2 days and did a great job.
Now that we had concrete we needed a table for BBQs since we bought a BBQ a couple weeks before.

Last step was the easiest: seeding the lawn. We thought about sod but the money we could save quickly changed my mind.

The fun stuff!

2009-03-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

We have finally gotten to the stage of buying fun things for the house. We sold our "apartment" dinning table to a co-worker of mine about a month ago. The empty dinning room was a sad sight. I have had my eye on a table from JC Penny(of course) since before Christmas. I decided it was time since we were eating all meals at our coffee table, no good.

I ended up getting half price delivery and they even put it together, I am sure Mike was happy about that. It includes a leaf but we don't need it all the time. I found a table nearly just like this in the Pottery Barn catalog but could not bring myself to pay the PB price, insane! The table looks better in my house than expected.

We spent a Saturday afternoon not long ago looking for bar stools. In conclusion the tall ones are pricey and of course we needed tall ones. We could not find any we liked that a store also had 2 of...we could only find them in pairs??!?! I came home and poked around on the internet and found these at Target for 32 bucks! Killer deal. They fit in nicely with the rest of the dinning/living room area.

This is my favorite thing in my whole house: the picture wall. I always loved the picture wall in my grandma's house and knew I would have to have one. We have been collecting different blacks frames for a while. I picked some of my favorite pictures and had them printed in black and white. It is looking great. I want to add a few more but for now it looks awesome!

Here are some of my favorites. Some are blurry but you get the idea.

This one is my favorite, baby Mike and his beautiful momI took this one during our trip to GA with Mike's Family. It is Mike, his brother Joey and Mike's dad Bob walking down the little fishing pier at like 6 am

My grandpa and I
My mama and me. In this picture she is wearing her original wedding ring which had the diamond that is currently in my wedding ring.Brand new baby Mike and his dad.

Noah and grandpa (my dad). Grandpa was showing him how his new Kawasaki quad works. Of course it was a gift for Noah's first birthday from Grandpa.

1 year anniversary

2009-03-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

A year ago today I became Mrs. Bailey. By far the happiest day of my life to date. My first year as a wife flew by but was really exciting. We got married in March, bought a house is October, and welcomed a new member to our family, Sadie the cat.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from our big day!

This is us cutting our cake. Everyone loved the cake and with good reason. It was awesome. Our baker, Stephanie from Gimme Some Sugar, made us a 6 inch cake for our anniversary instead of having to eat some gross year old frozen cake. Mike wanted cinnamon and it was a good choice. Very tasty!

Good Deals!

2009-02-07T15:41:00.000-08:00

I love a good deal and I love to show them off even more!

I got these pillows on clearance at Target for $13 and $17 for the silk one. They look great on the dark brown couch. I love them!

I have had my eye on this wall hanging for our bedroom for a while. I found it at JC Penny for $140. I would NEVER pay that much for well anything. I saw it was one sale for half price last week but $70 is still too much for me. But then I see it is part of the early bird sale on Saturday morning. So my mom and I got up early and headed to the sale. I got the picture half off plus another 15% off PLUS I had a coupon for $15 off. I also got a bathroom rug so the price of the picture was $48. I am so proud of my bargain hunting skills! Mike hung it today and it looks awesome!

Kitchen

2009-02-07T15:28:00.001-08:00

I realized a few days ago that I never posted pictures of the new kitchen appliances we bought right when we moved in. Mike's super nice parents sent us a generous house warming gift and we were about to get a dishwasher, microwave and range. The dishwasher that was in the house was broken already so we had to replace that but we found good deals on the microwave and range so we went for it! My dad helped Mike's install everything and everything looks great!

Dishwasher before:Dishwasher after:

Range before:

Range/microwave after:

Project: Garage

2009-01-14T13:56:00.000-08:00

It seems like we shouldn't need to clean out our garage already but we do. The garage became a spot to throw things when we had our open house or Christmas party. It became full of ceiling fan boxes, old light fixtures, scrape wood and left overs from the previous owners.

We have always wanted to park in the garage so we took on the task of going to the dump twice and cleaning/organizing the garage. It was an entire Saturday of work but in the end was well worth it.

What we started with:

The wood thing on the right is a waste. It is unfinished cabinets. We took it out. It took about an hour and a lot of cursing but it is gone! Oh and there is the shiny new law mower! YAY

Here is the new and improved garage. Everything has a place now. All our camping gear is tucked away and together ready for spring. We also have our recycling cans all set up again.

Here is Gidget(Yes I name the car too) on the right and the Saturn (Mike didn't name his car anything festive blah!) It is great to get in the car in the cold morning and not have to freeze for half the drive to work and no de-icing the windows in the cold!

Thanks Peter!

2008-12-31T08:19:00.000-08:00

Mike and I received a Christmas card from our friend Peter. Mike worked with Peter in LA. Peter included a gift, how thoughtful.

Ta-da! Oh you don't see it?

See there...the blue square. Let me get a little closer.Peter sent us a B for our collection. Good work Peter!

Happy Christmas!

2008-12-23T08:27:00.000-08:00

Here are our Christmas decorations for our first Christmas in the new house. We didn't have much because last year we only decorated an apartment. Enjoy!

Snowflake on the front door

Our stockings and Sadie little stocking w/her catnip lobster

Our tree. My parents gave us this tree last year since they wanted a tree with clear lights. Oh and yes this tree is fake but have you seen the price of a real tree??? Also it is very green to have a fake tree so get with it! We also stuck all the Christmas cards we got in the tree too, turned out to be a good spot for them.
PS the big blue present on the right is mine...can't wait to see what it is!

I told Mike we wouldn't put lights on the outside of the house but I lied...sue me. Growing up my mom put together strands of lights with only red and green bulbs and I always loved them and knew I would put those on my house when I had one.
It took 4 people 2 days to find enough red and green bulbs to fill 3 strands but it looks awesome. It only took Mike 30 mins to get them up. He didn't complain...too much. I think our house is the best looking one on the block =]

My husband is so handy!

2008-12-08T12:43:00.000-08:00

Seems like we haven't worked on the house is a while but that was not the case this weekend. Last weekend we out out Christmas tree up and put lights up outside, those pictures are coming soon. This weekend we went on a lighting rampage. Lighting is one of the less expensive ways to change the look of a room. We have no replaced all the lighting in the house to updated fixtures, yay us! I don't have before pictures, I know boo, but here is what we have been working on.

New hall lights. So much better than the old gold ones. We bought these in packs of 2 and put one in the laundry room and my walk in closet.

We replaced the entry way fixture a few weeks ago but I didn't get a picture until now. I love this light fixture. We put these ceiling fans in both the guest bedroom and craft room. I heart ceiling fans.We also hung some shelves. Mike hates these shelves. I must admit they are a pain in the butt to hang but they look awesome. We got them at Ikea when we lived in our apartment. Super cheap but nice looking at the same time. I need more dust collectors on the top shelve. I will find some soon I am sure.

My mom gave use this awesome candle/wall thingy. She feels it was meant to be on my fireplace instead of waiting for a place in her house. I love it so I gladly took it! I also got the cream colored B at TJ Maxx on clearance for $8, I love bargains. Those are our Christmas stockings and little Sadie's too.

Our house is famous!

2008-12-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

Our local paper publishes recently sold houses on the front of Sunday's real estate section and they include one photo of a recently sold house. Well this past Sunday our house was in the list and also was the front page photo! I am so proud of our house. There are leaves all over the yard but I think it looks fally.

Here is the link (I hope it works):

http://www.bakersfield.com/hourly_news/story/623175.html

I have not had pictures of our recent improvements because we have lost oh I mean mis-placed our camera. I think our cat stole it and hid it somewhere. I will hopefully find it soon.

We put up Christmas lights yesterday. They look awesome.

A new Bailey

2008-11-10T14:17:00.000-08:00

Meet Sadie Bailey. Mike has wanted a cat for as long as I can remember. He loves animals and they love him. He is the animal whisper, no joke. We went to the SPCA on Saturday morning and picked out this little lady. She is about 6 months old, we guess. Her tail was broken and her previous owner never took her to the vet to get it fixed so it is like a corkscrew. We love her extra for it. She is super playful and lovey. She enjoys watching TV. She also loves her cat nip lobster and hiding under the bed. She is rather photogenic too.

She enjoys napping on that shelf

Her tail :(

House Warming

2008-11-10T13:54:00.001-08:00

We had a house warming party on Saturday. It was great to show off all our hard work. The entire house is painted. I thought it would never be done. Here are some pictures of the finished paint job in each room. Thanks to everyone that stopped by!

Living room:

Fire place, the "B" collection is getting bigger

Dining room. Window treatments from JC Penny and I love them!

Master bedroom. Our bed actually looks small in here. Window treatments from Wal-mart and I love them too.

Master bath. Doesn't look too different in here except the new towels.

Guest bathroom. Now that I look at it this is a terrible picture to showcase the paint.

Sewing/Craft/Office room. This is actually my favorite room. My mom got me the little wire dress form. LOVE it! Desk is from Kohl's. The white cabinet was in our bathroom at the apartment but wouldn't fit in either bathroom of the house so it will help me organize sewing supplies.

Guest bedroom. Another one of my favorite room. The crown molding in here is awesome.

What a difference a weekend makes!

2008-10-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our first weekend as homeowners. We were super productive and we are so happy with the way things are looking. Our goal was to get the master bedroom, master bathroom, living room, kitchen and dinning room all painted before we moved in. All these rooms are painted! YAY US!

Master bedroom before:

Master bedroom after:

My parents came by with a new ceiling fan for our master bedroom. They are the best! My dad was even nice enough to put it up so Mike could keep painting. My dad is awesome!

Living room before:

Living room after:

Mike and I put the ceiling fan up in here. It looks awesome.

Dining room before:

Dining room after:

Homeownership: Day 1

2008-10-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

I am tired.

Mike and I got our keys this morning at 9 am. Being alone in the house with no real estate agent was strange. Knowing it was ours was strange. But the strange feels soon turned to joy when we got to do some demo work. FUN!

We ran into 2 small issues today.
1. there were 2 holes in the fire place under that facade thingy
2. the floor tile in the master bathroom was not complete but hidden by a bath mat.
No biggie on either. The previous owners left us a few boxes of tiles so we can fix the floor no problem. Mike is confident that he can fix the fireplace up too.

We primed SO much today. We have 2 spots left to prime. Mike is an AMAZING painter. I never knew. Our bedroom is 90% complete, once it is all the way done I will take pictures. PS on the bedroom: dark brown stripes suck to cover up.

So I would rate our first day as homeowners a complete success. It is a great feeling having completed the biggest purchase a person makes in life. We are so happy!

FINALLY

2008-10-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

We just heard that our loan was funded and will be recorded tomorrow morning. The escrow agent also told me there will be a check at the title office for us since out closing costs were less than predicted, YAY!

We are meeting out real estate agent at the house at 9 am to get out keys then the real fun begins. We are SO excited and I honestly felt like this day would never get here. YAY!

Still waiting...

2008-10-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

Well we have 4 days to go till we get our keys and we are unbelievably excited. We took a trip to Lowe's on Sunday and made our first, of many, purchases. We bought paint and all the supplies to paint. We both took Friday off to get a jump start on painting. We plan to paint all weekend. I called today to put all the utlities in our name starting Friday. I also made an appointment to have the house re-keyed. We are itching to do something, anything to the house!

T-minus 4 days!

Signing

2008-10-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

We are signing our escrow papers at 4:15 today. After that our part is done and we wait to get keys on the 16th. I can't believe we are going to be homeowners. We are both so excited! Can't wait!

**update** signing went off without a hitch. We did our final walk through last night too. Now we just wait for our agent to call with or keys. YAY

Escrow a go go

2008-10-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

Our escrow is going so well our mortgage broker thinks we can close early. We will close on the 16th or the 17th if everything works out just right. Our mortgage broker is really good. She had us get all the documents during our pre-qualification so that once we got a house it was easy pesy.

So 16 days and counting!

For your protection get a home inspection

2008-09-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

The home inspection was today and went well. A few things here and there but nothing major. Well maybe one major thing in my opinion...the dishwasher is not working right! That means we can get it fixed, buy a new one or hand wash dishes. Since it is the OG dishwasher we don't want to repair because it is 13 years old. I have never been without a dishwasher so it sounds like we will be buying a new one...YAY!

We also found out today that we will be closing on Oct 20th and maybe sooner.

We are stoked!

Appraisal

2008-09-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

YAY the appraisal is done and it is good. So the only thing left is the inspection on Monday. We also locked our interest rate today at a pretty good rate. With the rates changing as much as they are we decided to do it to be safe rather than sorry.

The waiting is the hardest part!

Pest Inspection

2008-09-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

Courtney, our realtor, received our pest inspection yesterday and all is good except some dry rot. Luckily the bank is going to be paying for the repairs to be done early next week. So one step closer.

Finally!

2008-09-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

After 5 months of looking and 8 bids we finally had an offer accepted on one of the houses we really wanted. It is an awesome first house and we are SO excited about it. We plan to update everyone here with our projects so check back!
Here are some pictures.
The Bailey House

The house has a front porch. Those French doors are off the kitchen.

Entry way
hate the light fixture but love the screen door

living room
the red will be gone for sure

Dining room
red will be painted over here too

Kitchen
love love love the kitchen

Lots of cabinets and I love the French doors to the patio

Master bedroom
needs some paint but love the 2 closets

Master bathroom
we love the granite and all the upgrades in here

2 additional bedrooms
we will make one a guest room (YAY) and one will be my craft/sewing room!

Guest bathroom