My 3 Year Blogiversary

You guys.  It’s been 3 whole years since I started this little blog!  WOW.  In ways it’s hard for me to remember life before my self-admitted obsession with home décor, thrift store upcycles and all things vintage and farmhouse.  But at the same time, it’s truly astonishing when I realize that I have actually been blogging for that long!

My last two “blogiversaries” I’ve taken some time to post about the progress that I’ve made over the previous year as well as the goals that I have for the upcoming one. 

Since I can be super critical of myself it’s easy for me to forget my achievements. so this has been a great way to remind myself how far I’ve come from the very beginning. 

Speaking of the very beginning, let’s take a look at how much better I’ve gotten with my camera!  This was from my very first blog post about Building Our Corner Mudroom.

Here’s another fun one!  A picture of our dining room from 3 years ago…

Quite the difference! I also took both of those newer pictures this past weekend while it was super cloudy and dreary outside, so that’s saying something!

Okay, now for the progress that I’ve made on the house. 

Last fall I participated in my very first One Room Challenge which is an event hosted twice a year by Linda over at Calling It Home.  I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, but I got such a rush from being on a 6 week timeline. It was the perfect way to keep myself motivated to create my dream bedroom!

Here are a couple of before and afters!

After the holidays came and went, I ran into a big toy storage problem.  The frustrating thing about having a small open concept home is that we don’t have space for an official play area.

When we first moved in Tristan was only a couple of months old and didn’t have many toys so I just got a small laminate cube unit to store them in our living room.

 Ready for another throw back picture?

The chalkboard labels keeps things organized and easy to find–most of the time.  I also like that the stair step design fits that space perfectly and utilizes as much of that space as possible.

Once spring arrived I was already diving into my next One Room Challenge and this time I worked on our master bathroom.

Here is how it looked before the challenge began…

And after 6 weeks of hard work it now looks like this!

I love everything about new bathroom, from the peel and stick vinyl floors (that look exactly like wood!) to my froofy shower curtain that the hubby tried to fight me on (and lost…).

All of the details that makeover can be found here. 

Once summertime hit I was really craving a nice outdoor space for us to enjoy.  If you’ve followed along since the beginning you may remember that our yard used to look something like this…

Weed central.  Yikes.  You can find the full breakdown of the progress in this post here.  Last summer I cleaned it up pretty nicely and we even had new sod laid down.  But sadly it didn’t make it until the end of the summer because it wasn’t properly installed.  Whomp whomp. Luckily the company has aweseome customer service and replaced it for us this year. 

Here is a view of the whole yard from the back corner…

Oh and our gazebo!  I’ve wanted one for a long time and when I spotted this one on sale for a price almost too good to be true I finally got one.

It’s been so nice spending time out here underneath it.

I also built some flower boxes for the raised retainer wall in the back so it’s not quite so bare when you look out here. 

At the end of the summer I took a huge step by deciding on the perfect floors for our main level.  I debated for months before finally deciding on these beauties.

Check!

I actually started this but I never fully finished it so I haven’t shared it yet.  Truthfully if I wait until it’s 100% done you probably won’t ever see it!

This is still on the list but the hubby took his desk hutch down a couple of weeks ago and the wall is looking pretty bare.  We agreed that some industrial pipe shelves would look awesome but it makes sense to get the shiplap up first so I’ll hopefully tackle that after we finish that later this year.

This will possibly get done sometime next year as long as nothing else comes up first!

When this time rolls around next year I hope to check off the following:

• New floors on the main level along with a new rug, coffee table and possibly board and batten?
• Basement updates: shiplap, faux wood beam, laundry room shelves, coffee table and new desk for the hubby.
• Lucas’ big boy room (geesh I feel like I was just pregnant and doing his nursery!)
• Exterior painting if we’re lucky!

Thanks for stopping by to hang out and celebrate this little milestone with me today. You all truly keep me going and your kind words of encouragement make it all worth it. I wish I could reach out and hug every single one of you!

I’ll be back later this week for this month’s Thrift Store Décor Upcycle Challenge! see you then 🙂