I had been planning a gallery wall for our new house since before we had even found a house to buy.  I had in my head, plans for a wall in our house to be filled with different items, both sentimental and trendy.

So when we purchased our house, I knew that the massive wall in our living room would be "the wall."  Luckily, I'd been collecting items to add to our gallery wall for months.  Literally. 

The inspiration (via Pinterest):

Some will suggest you plan out your wall, specifically measuring each area.  I placed all of my pieces out on the floor and kind of "went with it."
I wanted to mix some trendy pieces with some that were special sentimentally.  I used mainly items I already had, altering them as needed, and added a few new items. 

 One of my favorite new pieces is this large flower painting from Hobby Lobby.





Some of my sentimental pieces were a doily that my great-grandmother made and some of Katherine's artwork.

My DIY items were done by taking scrapbook print paper and cutting it to fix a matte and frame.  I also used a painting of our dog, Callie, that was done by a former customer from my old job.

A lot of the extra pieces used were from Hobby Lobby, Target, or thrifted.

Jason's expression when he saw the finished project:
"That's a lot of stuff on the wall."


He's always so observant. 

It's apparently home improvement week here at SWS, although it wasn't planned that way.  I'm sharing another inexpensive home project today:  our master bathroom.  Although, this project still isn't completely finished, but anyway....

When we bought our house, this closet-sized bathroom had (what I can assume were) all original fixtures, straight out of 1983.

Enjoy the following breathtaking photos of the bathroom as it was when we moved in:




I wanted nothing more than to immediately rip everything out and replace it with brand new fixtures.  Unfortunately, this particular project took a backseat to all of the other items on the house to-do list, due to time and budget restraints.

Soon I was on Pinterest looking for simple, inexpensive ideas to make the bathroom situation better for the time being until a full overhaul was possible.  This project has literally been a process.  I've done little things over time to make it feel less like 1983 (although that was a fabulous year) and more like now.  Though this room still isn't completely finished, I'm ready to share my progress so far:

{Please ignore the toddler-proof contraption on the toilet lid.}

{Shower curtain:  Target (no longer available)}

{White shelving: Target; candy dish: thrifted; hair accessory organizer: TJ Maxx; glass jar: Hobby Lobby; birdbath jewelry holder: TJ Maxx}

{Glass jars: Hobby Lobby; white metal basket: Target; hair styling tool organizer: Bed, Bath, & Beyond}

{Candy dishes: info here}

We replaced the light above the vanity, painted the gold mirror on the medicine cabinet, painted the walls, and repainted the cabinet also adding new hardware to it.  I also added white shelves above the toilet.

I loved the green and white shower curtain and basically designed the rest of the room around it.  Since this bathroom is pretty small, organization was key.  Everything is stored in an easy-to-see manner using clear jars and/or old candy dishes.  (I mentioned a while back about finding candy dishes at a rummage sale and using them to store my make-up.  You can read about it here.)

The floor is still the same so I didn't show it.  It's bad anyway.  That's next on the list.

The budget for this bathroom was very small.  Tiny actually.  I'd still eventually like to demo the whole room and re-do it, but for now I like it.  A lot.  Well, minus the ugly floor.

I claimed this bathroom for myself when we moved in because a) it had a counter top where as the hallway bath has a pedestal sink which is no good for putting on make-up or doing your hair and b) because of the window and natural light.  It's really the only room in the house that's all mine, which is ironic since every time I go in there I have a toddler and two dogs follow me.  Oh well.
    

Last spring I decided it would be a good idea to repaint the shutters on our house.  They used to be blue, but sun and weather had faded them to a gray-like color.  Fast forward a whole year later, and our shutters still hung there looking sad as ever, and driving me nuts every time I looked at them.

I decided to paint the shutters black.  The front door was blue, which probably originally matched the shutters, so I decided to repaint the front door red.  I've always loved white houses with black shutters and red front doors.  I put off this project for a while longer because I really dislike home improvement projects that involve paint, and I'm also a little scared of change.  What if we painted everything and I hated it?

Here is a super old photo of the shutters long ago, before we even bought the house.  (I didn't take a photo of what they currently looked like.):

Enough stalling.  It was time to paint.  This whole project only took two days, and everything turned out great.




Our house looks like a brand new house.  It was literally like giving the house a face-lift.  This was probably the easiest home improvement we've done so far (and the least expensive).

I mentioned shortly after Christmas about the abundance of toys we've accumulated lately.  It's hard to believe someone who isn't even 2 yet has so many possessions.

This is what Katherine's room looked like after Christmas:
I felt like our spare bedroom was a waste of a room.  We never went in there.  Jason was the only one who frequented this room because it was where he got dressed for work.  With Katherine's room and our living room overflowing, it was time to make some changes.




As soon as things calmed down after the new year, I started working on turning our spare bedroom into a playroom.  I picked out a new paint color (light grey) and got to work.  We took everything out of the room except for the bed.  I found this fabulous white shag rug for the floor, my dad put a new ceiling fan with overhead light in, and I bought this toy organizer.  The whole project took a couple of days once we got the ball rolling.

 I love this toy organizer from Target because it's light weight, stores a ton of toys. and is easy for Katherine to get to and get her toys out.  It also makes clean-up a snap.


I brought the metal basket that used to hold toys in our living room into the playroom to leave room for Katherine's play kitchen that stays in the living room.






I bought this canvas print at a resale shop a couple of years ago and finally found a place to hang it.




There's really nothing else hanging on the walls yet.  I'm still looking for the perfect pieces to add to this room.  This may eventually be Katherine's bedroom, so I don't want to go to too much trouble to decorate if I'm going to eventually redo this room anyway.  We kept the spare bed in this room because: a) we didn't have another place to put it, b) it gives Jason and I a place to sit when we're in the playroom with Katherine, and c) this is my current "office."



That's right.  My office space is in the playroom on the spare bed.  I work "dorm room" style.   So far, it's working for me and I haven't taken too many naps when I'm supposed to be working.

Needless to say, Katherine loves her new playroom and spends lots of time in there.  It's a disaster area most of the time.  I try to pick up and reorganize this room at least once a week.



I'm glad to finally have a space where Katherine can play or color or do whatever.  It's also a great room to take naps when Katherine is napping.  Not that I ever do that.

When we moved into our house, we had to paint just about every room.  The previous owners, as darling as they were, had different decorating tastes than we did.  Lots of pastels.  We went pretty neutral in most of the house, but I decided to get crazy with the hall bathroom.  I'd been scouring Pinterest looking for ideas.  I came across a bathroom with bright green walls with black and white accents.  Bingo.  I wanted to prove that I wasn't afraid of color.  It turns out, I should've been a little afraid.  Read about the original makeover here.

{Bathroom before}

{Bathroom after}

I found the brightest shade of green paint I could find and got to work.  I liked the way the bathroom turned out, but over time the green color became nauseating.  Because we had so much updating to do at the time, we didn't upgrade the lighting or faucets when we painted the bathroom (we did update that horrible showerhead).  So last week, bathroom redo-overhaul was executed.



We repainted the walls a more neutral dark gray, painted the gold mirror covering the medicine cabinet, updated the sink faucet, and changed out the light fixture.  Ah.  Better.  Now on to the horribly 80's master bath.  I've learned my lesson when it comes to bold colors.

I wish I could say that the nursery was completely done and ready for Baby Katherine, but it just isn't so.  It is very much still a work in progress.  Because I love before and after photos, I decided to share the progress.

{This used to be our "office."}

{Poor sad, ugly room.}

{Painting.}

{Ceiling fan installation.}

{I found this at Potentials.}

{After a little sanding.}

{Of course it needed a coat of pink paint.}

{The perfect place for Angela Doll to sit.}

{I found this little hamper at Potentials.}

{Now it is a baby hamper.}