kitchen makeover – Love My DIY Home

A Real Life Home Before and After {Love My DIY Home}

Sometimes ya just gotta make a mess…

Better Homes and Gardens? Have you ever looked through the Better Homes and Gardens magazine or read a blog post about a new living room update and thought, “Wow, she sure has it together.” or, “My house never looks like that.” Well, I’m here to tell you that you shouldn’t draw wrong conclusions about the people behind the “perfect homes.” We usually only show you the one perfect moment that we’ve staged just for the story. It only lasts until the photo shoot is over. I thought I’d show you a real life “before and after.” To encourage you To let you know you are “normal,” or at least a normal as the rest of us, whatever that is. Real life is so much better than the pictures you see online or in magazines. These before and after pictures are in reverse order typical to what you expect to show … Read more

Mother-in-law Apartment Reveal

Today was graduation day for my mom. She stepped through the gates of heaven at 12:23 this morning. God is good. Can I say that again? God is good. His grace is sufficient. I thought it fitting that on this day, on this my DIY blog, that I share with you the before and after pictures of her apartment. This one is for you mom… We bought our quad level home two years ago after nearly 2 years of searching for a home in the country with a yard for our grandkids and a MIL apartment for my mom. It was in rough shape, but we knew we could make it ours (and hers). Here are the before pictures. What do you think of that black flowery wallpaper? B.L.E.C.K. The carpet had been…uh…let’s just say, the animals graced the carpet with their presence. When we first walked into the house, … Read more

Keeping Up With the Joneses | Love My DIY Home

Keeping Up With the Joneses – Kitchen Demolition

To start, the Joneses, and other family members including moi, started ripping down and tearing up. Oh, how I enjoy kitchen demolition! Even the kids got their share of demo, which BTW, shows you and I that if a 6 and 8 year old can do it… You can do it too. But for large-scale demolition projects, it is advised to hire professional Heavy Equipment Demolition services. I’m gonna preach it till the cows come home. Too often we say, “I could never do that.” How about, “I could totally do that!” April took off the scalloped hoop-de-do above the kitchen sink. Now, hoop-de-doos aren’t necessarily bad, I recently painted a shelf with a couple of them for my mason jars and it turned out very nicely. It turned from boring to fab, but here it would only look old and outdated. So off it came and amazingly enough, made … Read more

Keeping Up With the Joneses – The Kitchen Before

Welcome to a new series: Keeping Up With the Joneses Join us as we follow the first time homebuyers Jones family as they take a foreclosed house and turn it into a warm and inviting home in just 30 days! Their goal is to have it not only livable for their family of five in just 30 days, but have a 5 year plan to bring it to perfection – to flip it and move on. Not only is this a huge job, but they have a very tight budget as well. The Kitchen Before I’ll let the pictures do the talking here – it’s pretty obvious they have their work cut out for them! Occasionally I’ll photo bomb since I’ll be out there helping from time to time. You can play the Where’s Val game (Where’s Waldo?) with me. We will show you step by step, and occasionally insert … Read more

Our Kitchen Before and After

We vacated our tiny rental house in old people’s land, downtown Wausau, and began our much sought after fairy tale a year ago. Our new Hobbit House was a foreclosure that had been vacated for a year – Hobbitless, you might say. There is something to be said for the hominess of a Hobbit Hole. I wanted my home to be cozy and homey like Bilbo’s. source Fortunately the structure the house was decent – it just needed a little TLC and I had to get my vision. (No, the picture above isn’t my house – it’s a Hobbit-Hole.) Here are before pictures. Not bad, but not what I call home. And certainly not fit for a Hobbit. NOTHING short of fairy tale is good enough. My home is where my grandkids and I were going to snuggle and read stories and have adventures. This is where my family and … Read more

DIY Chalkboard Cabinet Doors {Love My DiY Home}

DIY Kitchen Cabinet Makeover – Chalkboard Paint!

This kitchen is just so adorable. While sitting in church I had a thought…Brad and Jen just re-did their kitchen, maybe they would like it featured. Now, now, it wasn’t during preaching, so don’t think I was playing mental hookey! Grass certainly doesn’t grow under their feet. As I’m printing church tri-folds after church, the pictures are rolling in… I’ve not seen this in person, so just I’m lovin’ what they’ve done. Their space isn’t big, but their ideas certianly are. This just makes me want to grab a cup of coffee and sit down at their table – well, it’s after five p.m., so I suppose it had better be decaffeinated… Enjoy your tour – I sure am! Can you tell Brad and Jen like coffee? They attached rope lights around the window above the sink. Here is a DIY canvas art that Brad created. I explain the … Read more

Carla Aston Kitchen Makeover {Love My DIY Home}

Dramatic Kitchen Makeover

I found this dramatic makeover of a kitchen that went from drab to amazing on Designed with Carla Aston. Her story originally appeared several years ago in the Kitchens and Baths magazine. Her challenge was to take builder standard oak cabinets and make them look good. Well, let me tell you, she did more than make them look good! Homeowners who are searching for Roanoke kitchebn cabinets may contact Roanoke River Cabinetry. Check out https://peelandstickwallmurals.com/ for a wide range of themes and styles to transform any room. Since I like to work with what I already have because I am frugal and try to be a good steward, I see this as a great example of how you can make drastic changes without ripping everything out and starting over. But, on the other hand, if your space needs that major makeover, you can put your trust on companies like the … Read more