Adding personality to your home

When we built our current home we knew it was going to be a short term home for us. A stepping stone. A practice run. Rex has built many many homes but this is the first home I have been a part of. This is the first home I’ve had that I didn’t rent. It might be official. I might be an adult?!?! Wait!! That doesn’t sound right?! I’m only 36, I can’t possibly be an adult yet! Right?

Being a short time house we designed everything in this house to be easily saleable. Neutral color palettes (although that’s my usual choice anyway), nothing fancy, something that will suit every style. I feel like we did a good job with that but I made sure to leave my stamp on it. I love pretty things, I love personal touches, I truly love our home. I’m going to share with you ways that we personalized our home without sacrificing that saleability we needed.

Our living room in this home is quite small, there are only 3 of us, and although the living room is the most used room in our house, it suits us just fine. We have a couch, a coffee table, and a media stand. What more do we need? Despite it’s small space it was lacking in any sort of style. I couldn’t figure out what I could do to make it beautiful. I tried hanging pictures on the walls, I tried adding some décor to the media stands, I outfitted the couch with nice pillows and blankets, but still it was missing something. One afternoon we were catching up on some Fixer Upper and the sun was shining through the window and making it difficult to see the “dream team” of Chip and Joanna so we starting talking about putting up a set of curtains. Then suddenly it dawned on me. Barn doors! We’d seen Joanna do it on one of their flips. Barn doors over the window in place of curtains! We talked about whether we would order doors, or make them. It’s easier to just order doors but there are 2 electrical outlets on that wall and they wouldn’t be usable if we had full length doors so we decided we would make some short ones. After a few weekends at the shop we had some beautiful shortie barn doors. I heavily distressed them then stained them in a beautiful English Chestnut finish. After the very painful 48 hours of waiting for the stain to dry, we hung them with some barn door track that Rex had purchased through the store. And I’m telling you, I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. They add so much personality, so much style, and so much function to our living room! We won’t take them with us when we move as they were custom built for this house, but there will definitely be more barn door building in my future!

 

Another thing we did in this house that I will be repeating in the next house is the homemade wood countertop in my kitchen. In my original plan I wanted all of my countertops to be wood, but we had such a short timespan that it was faster to order countertops for the majority of the kitchen and we made the wood counter for just one side. In hindsight, I am happy it worked out this way as I think the combination of the beautiful white fake carerra marble and the richness that the wood counter offers is a great combination. Wood counters definitely need maintenance, I oil the countertop on the last day of every month while Rex is doing the month end for the store, but in my opinion, the maintenance is totally worth it.

 

 

When we were working on the railing for our stairs, our friend Ernie, who was helping us with some of the finish work, suggested that we should have a shabby looking newel post. We had so many other rustic elements in our home that a flawless newel just didn’t fit right. And I’m so grateful for his suggestion. I think our shabby newel just lends that special personalized touch to this home that makes it so much more than just a builder-grade home.

 

 

 

In our bathroom (and our bedroom) we opted to put tongue and groove pine on the walls that we painted instead of just plain drywall. It lends a shiplap-esk style to those rooms and I love it! With the texture of the boards I didn’t feel the need to hang lots of pictures, they look nice just as they are. When it came to picking a towel rack for our bathroom I scoured and scoured and couldn’t find anything that fit with the theme of the house until one day we were in Burns Lake at an amazing antique store I love to frequent. I came across this chair back that had a brace rail across the bottom and it just hit me, “That would make an amazing towel rack!”. And it does. It adds a little farmhouse style to our bathroom and if the future owners don’t like it, it’s easy to change!

 

 

The only room in our home that we didn’t design with the future owners in mind was Maddie’s room. She was 6 when we moved into this house and we wanted her room to be something special just for her. After throwing ideas around in my head for weeks I settled on a feature bird wall! I ordered stencils online and late one night during the painting phase I got to work. I used tape for the lines, then I had some fun with some bright colors for the birds. She loves her room and it was really easy and fast to do! Unless we get lucky and find buyers who also have a little girl, I’m sure the birds will be one of the first things that gets changed after we move, but it was worth it for the last 18 months of enjoyment Maddie got out of them!

 

When all else fails, add some beautiful flowers in some unusual vases and every room instantly looks better! We brought these hydrangeas home from the Chamber of Commerce Business Awards that we attended last night. They are one of my favorite flowers and I am so hopeful that the 3 hydrangea plants that I planted last year come back after the strange winter we had! Flowers also make everything better!

Xo K.