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A Festive Home For 2024!

balloon-window

One of my big goals this year is a huge house renovation. We’ve finally decided to put down roots here in Reno. After looking for a home for what seems like forever, we finally found one. My favorite house ever.

Finding and getting this house has been such a crazy experience. We have been offering on it since August and we were turned down 3 times. Gah… It was such a heartbreak.

After seeing a place I felt was perfect for us we must have looked at about 1,675 other houses throughout the fall and every time (even some much nicer homes) just didn’t add up to this one I knew was right.

I am happy to say that eventually we wore them down. ;) Persistence and patience can be helpful virtues. They finally accepted our offer and we plan to close in just a couple of weeks.

I am so happy!

I’ll be documenting the entire renovation process (or at least the fun parts:) here in a new weekly festive home series. We will be DIYing our way through the place, adding festive touches and simple ideas that will work in any home. I’ll be sharing before/afters each month with new room reveals and partnering with a few favorite companies to showcase the space in the way I am dreaming it can look.

Here are 15 home ideas I am super excited about…

bed-love

The house is large enough for full guest quarters (we get many visits from the grandparents). And it will have a full built out studio for me. Even with all this the house is somehow still cozy enough to feel like home. It’s on 1/2 an acre in walking distance to downtown and it will be so amazing once it’s been all fixed up.

We’ve already invested in a few fun new pieces for the bedrooms. I know I definitely want to do something eye catching on one of the walls, like this pretty diagonal paint. And I want to include some amount of pink without making the rooms seem to frilly – still working on exactly what this will look like.

hello-door

Although, I couldn’t get Matt to sign off on the whole hot pink front door thing, the house has a great front door that we will be painting some color (any suggestions)? I just adore the sweet hello detail. It’s the little details like this that make a home feel really special to me.

floors

molding

You guys, this house needs A LOT of work. Not just a little work. Basically every square inch of the house needs to be updated. Which is fine with me – I am ready to work on a house. Every other home we’ve purchased has been basically move-in-ready (read: not exactly my style) so this one is going to be a lot different and so much fun to tackle.

One of the biggest and most immediate issues we will be handling is replacing the flooring. I am dreaming of rooms that are open and filled with wide farm house planks throughout the top level and skinny whitewashed planks throughout the bottom. Since I already know I am going to be incorporating a lot of color and spunk in the lighting and details, a space like this will allow our eyes (and feet!) to rest well.

lipstick-walls

And speaking of fun details! This wallpaper – eeek! We have a number of bathrooms that will need updating and I’d love to include wall details like this along with our larger renovations.

bath-love

This image was originally from a Target catalog that I had cut out and pinned on my fridge for the last year. It is a bathroom I would be so pleased to have.

Our master bath will most likely be one of the last rooms we tackle as I’d like to bump out a second story wall which isn’t cheap or easy. The bathroom has a crazy view of the Sierra Nevada mountains and I want to put an entire wall of windows in there to enjoy the breathtaking beauty of where we live. Even if I have to wait a couple years – I can already imagine how great it will look.

concretes

Besides the flooring, the one other thing we are going to get done before moving in is the kitchen renovation. We are gutting the entire space and I can’t wait to show you what we have planned.

One thing I am really looking forward to is putting in concrete countertops, thick ones like this. We’ve found a great company to work with and are going to attempt doing them on our own. Do you know anyone who has tried it? I’ve heard it is a challenge but doable. I’m planning on leaving the counters light grey to go with the marble and brass we have picked out – dreaming of how pretty they will be.

house-love

Another project that will be more down the road is painting the house. It isn’t a horrible color how it is now, but I know it could be so much better! Love this image of the red home with all white trim. It has that perfect balance of striking color and simple beauty.

stairs-and-books

There is a staircase leading down to our lower level that has an adorable little nook room to one side of it. My vision is to create a huge wall of custom bookshelves and have it be a secret spot for a little quiet reading time + super cute stairs to lead there.

striped-wall

I love the idea of a high contrast striped wall for the studio. I want to see how it could be done using something other than paint?

The house will be a great place for daily revelry with my family, for running this crazy growing blogging business out of, and for entertaining friends – which is a huge value to Matt and I. You may remember from this post how important it is for me to continue working on the blog from home vs. getting a studio downtown.

However, it has become obvious we have outgrown out current situation. To solve this issue we will be building out a huge part of the bottom level (the house is on a hill so this level gets great light) to form a huge white dedicated studio space. It will be great for building out larger photo shoots, hosting events, and continuing to run our business well into the coming years.

beams

The house also has vaulted beamed ceilings in the dinning area. The beams are painted white and I originally wanted to cover them with wood, but then I saw this photo and really liked how the white + the floors looked. I’m still deciding on what we will do with the beams, but I adore the texture they give the space.

floral-wall

I’m also crushing over the idea of a floral wall in my daughters room. I’m wondering if I can find a way to DIY something that would look not too perfect, but fun. Love this concept photo by Petite Vintage Interiors, in fact their whole site is completely adorable for kid room inspiration.

pool

And lastly another project for down the road someday… because of the amount of land we have we will definitely be able to put a pool in eventually! It won’t be this year, but what a gorgeous wooden deck to plan on for whenever it does happen.

We close early next month and I am so excited to get working on it all. Have you ever renovated a house that really needed love? Any awesome tips you’ve learned along the way? In the meantime I’ve started a Pinterest board with lots of ideas I have. Some of the ideas will be tackled right away (like getting balloons in the studio window!), while some will be projects we will be working on for years to come.

I am super excited to share the journey with you. xoxo

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