If you have an old house, you don't need a hobby!

Slowly but surely we are completing our home improvement projects!  Next up, taking wallpaper down in the hallway and bathroom and painting (if you have ever removed layers of hard stuck on wallpaper, you know why we have put this project off!).  After that, we plan to replace the countertop in our kitchen, which I am SO excited about.  We got a dishwasher, but right now it just sits between the end of the sink counter and the fridge.  Not a bad place for it, but there is no countertop over it, and it just looks unfinished.  The money we used to fund our projects was given to us at Christmas from generous family members.  We have a little home improvement fund sitting in our savings account for our "big" projects.

While my mom was here, she got me these frames and some fabric to go in them!  We bought the frames new, but if you have some old ones laying around (you could spray paint them whatever color you want), this could be a really cheap wall art project.  Any fabric (or decorative/wrapping paper) will work.  I actually found inspiration for this project from my friend Jenna who framed some pretty paper above her bed.

Our next project was a little bit bigger, and we finished it just in time for my parents to arrive.  We "finished" our basement, or rather, improved upon the previous owner's "finishing" of the basement.  We painted all the walls and ceiling and replace the lights, but decided to hire out the carpeting job.  Normally we are willing to try to do our projects on our own, but after the blood, sweat, and tears of refinishing our wood floors, Ryan (and I) decided it was worth the money to save him the time and headache of learning to install carpet.  The carpet was actually given to us by Ryan's parents after they had their basement re-carpeted.  It was still in great shape and was a much better quality carpet than we were really able to afford if we bought it new.  And with 2 little girls, carpet is bound to be stained at some point. I guess having older carpet lessens the blow of such accidents. 

The before and after pictures tell the story.  We have a bed down there right now, which is not ideal I guess for the "look" of the room, but it makes for a great guest living space.  It is so nice to have a big comfy space for the girls to run around it.  We have moved a lot of their toys down there, so there is less clutter in our upstairs living room.  It also was nice to have this space finished when the tornado came through last week!  If you have to hide out in a basement, at least it was a comfy one to be in.

This is what it looked like when we first moved in.

This is after removing the carpet and putting all our junk in there.

And this is after painting and carpeting!

stairs before

stairs after!

view from the other side of the room

before

after!