Hii friends,

I hope everyone had a great weekend!! I wanted to write a little bit about some house updates I’ve done lately because a lot of people had questions on facebook and instagram.  I’ve lived in my house now for a couple weeks short of 3 years, crazy!! I decided to use some Christmas money/money I’d been saving up to make some updates.  I hadn’t really done any changes since I moved in so it was time!  One thing about my house is THERE IS NO NATURAL LIGHT.  As a photographer, I am always analyzing the light in different situations and I knew I needed to do something to brighten up my house.

I decided to hire someone to paint the trim in my bonus room (it was previously brown) and paint my kitchen cabinets.  Trim and cabinets are two of the hardest things to paint so I knew I wanted a professional involved.  I got 5 quotes for this job, the price was all over the place.  I had someone quote me $400 to paint the cabinets and someone else quote me $3,700.  I ended up going with a company that quoted me $1,100 total for the cabinets AND all the trim.  I’m not going to say the company name, I’m happy to tell you if you ask, but I wasn’t completely happy with them.  So I advise you to do your own research and find someone you’re comfortable with.  The company did a great job painting the cabinets and trim and BUT they didn’t put my cabinet doors back on correctly and they spilt paint all over my bonus room floor that they couldn’t get up.  They did have 5 workers and were able to finish the whole project in 2 days.  This was amazing because I didn’t have to be without kitchen and living room space for long.  Keep reading under pictures to learn more.

I knew I wanted white cabinets to brighten up the room but I last minute decided on the blue and I’m so happy I did.  The blue is a a BEHR paint color I picked out at Home Depot called “starless night.”  It’s the perfect color for the kitchen, I couldn’t be happier.

The paint used was:

Blue cabinets: Base #7123 BEHR Interior Semi-Glass Cabinet Trim and Enamel

White cabinets & trim: BEHR interior/exterior Urethane Alkyd Semi-Glass Enamel.

The paints are oil based and don’t need any top coat, they are specifically made for cabinets!
I asked my painters to fill in the previous hardware holes.  I did this because I wanted to put in all new hardware.  I went to Home Depot and picked out the gold knobs and handles from their kitchen hardware aisle.  Each handle was $6.50.  They weren’t too hard to put on myself.  I drilled the holes and put them on in a couple hours.

The next thing I wanted to do was update all of my brown blinds and my dining room chandelier.  I bought the white faux wood cordless blinds that Home Depot makes and had them cut each blind to size.  This was a process because Craig and I had to measure every window in the whole house.  Craig installed the new blinds over two days.  It was a very easy process.  Each blind was roughly $30.
The chandelier was one I had been looking at for close to a year at World Market.  Click HERE to be directed to the chandelier.  I waited until I had a 30% off coupon and paid around $180 for the chandelier.  I sold all of my blinds and old chandelier on facebook and made just enough money for this chandelier, yah!! This photo below was my living room around Christmas time.  I had brown fans and brown trim, oh and brown blinds, yuck!!
This is the after.  The trim, blinds, and fan brightened up the room SO much.  Click HERE to see the fan.  The fan was only $114 and it was delivered right to my house.
The last update I did was wallpapered an accent wall in my downstairs bathroom.  Anyone who had been to my house before the wallpaper knew that this particular wall was peeling.  The paint would fall on the floor.  The wall was so messed up (#oldhouseprobs) that my mom and Craig helped me buy a thin piece of wood and nail it to the wall.  Once we had the new wall up, we used water based wallpaper that I ordered off of amazon.  Click HERE to shop all of their amazing, cheap, floral wallpaper.

So overall, I am very very happy with these updates.  It adds value to my house but it also makes me want to be home in my house to enjoy it!! Let me know what questions you have, I love talking home decorating!

Ashley