I wanted to let you gals know I have tried leaving messages and sometimes I can’t see anything I am typing, (which is quite a challenge and impossible to correct typos)it’s like my lettering is set to white. I went ahead and left some and once posted I could see what I had written but then I got an e-mail from someone saying their message was blank.
I want to thank Rachelle from lovin my love bugs for participating today. We had 3 scheduled for today but unfortunately one had a death in the family and there must have been a misunderstanding in dates with the 2nd one, because I never got any of her info. She was so excited to participate, so I know something has happened, so we will see their project at another time. Rachelle has been so sweet since joining my blog. I have never told her this but she looks so much like one of my girlfriends from Kansas City and she also has 2 girls (and her little girls even remind me of my friend’s girls) isn’t that funny-they must be long lost sisters.
Everyone please be sure and leave Rachelle some super sweet notes. She pulled through and didn’t even tell me her two girl were sick and she is too. Our first ever Its So Very Cottagey would have been tour-less without her.If you would like your name on the list-leave me a comment. I have enough homes to cover the next 3 weeks-doing 3 homes a week, so we will be looking for more homes to tour.
Rachelle and her husband have re-done this entire house in the last 2 1/2 years. They looked for the best deals, sometimes changing plans to be able to save some money. The only thing she didn’t include in the tour was the basement, which was also renovated last month. The house before, they moved in, was basically never taken care of, none of the previous owners lived in it for over a year, per the neighbors. She said if you think bright lime green high gloss (lead based) paint, through the.whole.house! The kitchen had the green cabinets that were painted over in flat white, but chipped away so you saw a lot of the green. There was wallpaper in the house before they painted, it was the orange (Ew) and mold was under the wall paper because of no back splash. I bet that was fun. The dining room was a un-usable sun room, the previous owner built an addition but didn’t insulate it so it was scalding hot in the summer or freezing in the winter. She said he did however put two layers of drywall up? Stupid, and a pain in the butt to remove!
Once they moved in they painted, then did the carpet, the bathroom and then finally the kitchen. They really wanted new siding…so so so so bad! But, since they just put her on the market last month, they figured the less money they put into it now, the more they’ll get out of her. The landscape also got a uplift, before there were no plants, now they have tons of Hydrangeas, Hostas and Day Lillies, really easy plants. Rachelle’s not the type of chick to remember to water 24/7 😉 They only spent approx. $5300 redoing the ENTIRE house and that includes the kitchen renu, bathroom, all paint and new lighting, the outside landscape and deck. Now that you all have picked your jaws up off the floor, you can you get ready to see our very first Its So Very Cottagey home tour. They have enjoyed doing the work themselves, and her dad is a contractor so for a few free dinners he’s been a big help. 🙂 $5300 WOW
Welcome to my humble abode.
I’ve shown you my kitchen about 1.4 billion times, but here she is again, in all of her glory! Being the biggest project that we took on, it’s definitely the one I’m most proud of. You would be proud too if you lived through a week of drywall dust.all.over.everything.
Before: 
After:
Two steps this-a-way, is the living/family/tv/rec room. Basically the room we do everything. It’s my office. A nap room. And where we watch the wiggles– over, and over, and over.
I love the simplicity of this room. It’s too small to really clutter up, and when it does get a little messy.. Because lord knows I wouldn’t let it look really messy… 😉 It’s an easy 3 minute tidy up. The room started out as a dark brown with horribly ruined hard wood floors and floral curtains. None of which are up my ally. We changed every nook and cranny, adding the carpet, paint and window treatments. Just little touches that changed this room dramatically. I so wish I would have taken pictures the day we moved in. Why didn’t I see the future blogging potential?
Lets go down the hallway- My cabinets took an overhaul a while back, remember? Mr. P still hates them.
I love them more.
My teensie tiny bathroom. A main reason we NEED TO MOVE. I have barely enough room to brush my teeth let alone bathe two Little’s in this room! But, for being pretty teeny tiny, she is a pretty little thang. What once was tile on the walls, which were painted none the less, with flat white. Eh.. okay? Is now beautiful bead board, easy to clean, easy to love. The floors got a overhaul and we covered up the pink and grey with the stick-ons from the rest of our house. Remember? Like, -.3 cents a tile or something of the sort. Can’t beat that. We did all of the work ourselves and saved a million dollars, so even if it is a tiny bathroom..sometimes, just sometimes.. She makes me proud and happy.
The wanna be real room, closet, shoebox “master” bedroom is a hop skip and jump away from the bathroom. It just got a mini makeover for the open house, remember? It may be small but there’s enough windows in the room to bring in so much natural light it’s amazing! Not at dawn it’s not amazing, but throughout the rest of the day? Lovely.
Wanna see the closet that matches the “master bedroom”? You know you do.
Yeah, it’s really that.bad.
Go ahead, pick your jaw up.
Scroll back up.
Shake your head.
I know, right?
The only good part is you learn to live without 100 different blue shirts and 52 pairs of black shoes.
Upstairs we pass the Other Mothers door,
and we see the girls’ rooms.
LB1 had a lot of input in her room. Pink. Uh, okay easy enough. So to break away from an ocean of pink we chose different shades of pink. To add some spunk we went with polka dots. So easy to do. These are what we used to outline them.
Then you grab your paint. I chose 4 different colors, I so smartly numbered #1,2,3,4. Then I numbered the dots on the wall so that no two colors were right next to each other. Wouldn’t that bug you? Oh how it would bug me. Over and over. The one dot would taunt me.. The wall between the two dressers still hasn’t gotten #4. I’ve learned to overlook the twitch it gives me when I’m in the room. Someday somehow I’ll get to it. I pinky promise.
Oh, right anyways. Then you take a sponge brush and paint away. Two coats each and voila! In a day you can be done! A room fit for a polka dot queen!
LB2 had zero input in her room. We already had the moon bedding from her sister so we went with that and I truly wanted a pretty boarder or some chair rail and stripes. But for money saving purposes we went with paint. Easy to put up and easy to change when she gets older. I made my own “Border” by writing the words to twinkle twinkle little star around the room. And took the paint and re-wrote it. Easy peasy. So far little miss likes it, works for me! 🙂
The last part I would like to show you is the outside deck. I promised to show that forever ago, and well. Didn’t.
The deck started out in really bad shape. Whoever built it decided to cut costs and only put one support throughout the whole thing. Needless to say the deck was dipping. It was only a matter of time till one sweet summer day BBQ party would go horribly wrong and end up with a pile of people on a crushed deck. Bummer. So, since LB1’s birthday party was a week away, whats a momma to do? Nag and nag and nag some more and POOF. A new deck was built in a week. It’s lovely. Sturdy. I don’t have to have cold sweats in the middle of the night about people dying at our picnics. Wait what?
Note: we do not use the fire pit on the wood deck. I promise you, we didn’t replace one hazard with another. 🙂
Well, that’s my house everyone!
So again, thank you for stopping by! It may be a tiny ol’ cottage. But she’s loved!
Her is another post I think you will enjoy as well the dresser
This is one thrifty gal who loves DIY as much as me.
Thank you so much Rachelle-You Rock.
I love your “Cottage”.
Cheri
If you enjoyed this tour, we there are many more to come. Please grab the button, link to us, and tell everyone about it so others can come enjoy the tours too and submit their homes as well. A home can be ANY style, it does not have to be a Cottage. I think as the weeks go by people will see a good variety of styles and understand that but for now I wanted to make that clear.
Sign up as a follower and I will do the same.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Look at that, my 15 minutes of fame and I'm a snotty, fevering mess! You'd think I'd pick something cuter to wear for this event than sweats and a tee! 😉
Thanks Cheri! I emailed you the missing picture links. Who knows whats up with Blogger lately!
Rachelle
Hi Cheri. Thank you for hosting so we could all enjoy visiting Rachelle's cottage. It is so cute and I know it must give Rachelle such satisfaction knowing they've done it themselves. Even after diy – you did an amazing job with that budget. Great job…Tracy
i had a great time visiting. so many neat ideas 🙂 thanks to the host too.
blessings,
aimee
Cheri,
What a great idea! I am looking forward to next Friday! Rachelle, you have done a great job redoing your home and I'm impressed with the budget, esp. love the tiny bath! Thank you Cheri.
Dee Dee
If you have a minute come join me for Art Wotk Friday at my site!
Thanks Rachelle for showing us around your lovely home. The polka dots turned out great !
Oh my goodness….I totally love this house. My first house (and now it's my rental house) looked just like this (except the decking) and was laid out very similar! Bathroom is the SAME!
I love what you did with it and I love the 'feel' througout the house! Great job and even better saving tons!
Thanks for the wonderful house tour!
Adorable! Small but lots of love. The girls room is gorgeous and I am so jealous of that deck! :O)
What a lovely home. Just proves it doesn't have to be big to be beautiful and charming. You can tell you've put a lot of work into this place. It is terrific. Thanks for sharing. Hugs, Marty
I loved the tour and cannot believe she got all that done for that amount. Great Job. I really loved the kids rooms.
Willow
I love the kitchen and the girls bedroom. They have done a great job fixing up their lovely home.
Rachelle that house is positively obviously full of love, after all that is a home. Your family is so blessed. I have someone very dear to me who has a huge, beautiful house that is "staged". I am afraid to even sit down there. I could not live like that. My home is like a nest, even though empty nest. Thanks Cheri for this wonderful idea. I will visit all the sites but won't sign up cause I can't remember when or what to do sometimes.
Blessings
QMM
LOVE your home, Rachelle! You have done an amazing job of keeping it simple and cozy, love it!!
Blessings,
Cara
Hi,
Been here several time and jst scroll all your posts.
Today, I can't stop fingers to leave my footprints coz I feel what you feel. My house is also lil poorman´s house but you can see that she's love.
Am proud of your effort, both you & hubby.
Job well done.
greetings from Stockholm
congratulations, cheri! your 1st "it's so very cottagey" tour was great. looking forward to next week's.
What a great cottage! She did such an amazing job, I love her little girls room.
I posted the home cottagey link on my other/craft blog. http://crystalscraftspot.blogspot.com/
I really enjoyed the tour and look forward to it next week!
-Crystal
Thanks so much for stopping by. I grabbed your button and it's on my sidebar. It's a great tour and a neat little cottage. Hugs, Marty
Cheri-This is such a good idea! I really think having one a week is not such a bad thing–more time to enjoy the details! This house is really a fantastic makeover. Thanks for hosting this. I enjoyed it. Hats off to Rachelle!
What a fun home tour! I love the updates, the kitchen is fabulous and everything looks so wonderful! Cindy
Love the house tour! That Master Bedroom closet is great! Sorry. I thought mine was bad but I have a "walk in" compared to that. I do love the house though. I would just love a cottage like that!
Hugs, Lisa
Love it!
Oh so cute.Rachele and family did a great job !
Rachelle has a very beautiful house. Thanks Cheri for showcasing it. The paint job on the kids' rooms are amazing….Christine
Cheri – I enjoyed the tour and look forward to more features!
Rachelle – your home is so pretty and so organized! I loved seeing each room! Thank you for sharing!
Roeshel
Cheri,
This was a wonderful tour, so well organized. Thanks for taking the time to treat everyone. I can't wait to to see more homes this week.
Rachelle,
You have a beautiful home. Everything is so well organized and
you have to be very proud of yourself and your husband for the work you have done. The girls room is just to cute. I bet they really enjoy the room. I love the colors you choose in decorating. Makes everything feel warm and inviting.
Sandy