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8 Things To Consider When Purchasing a New Home

Nearly a year being in this home I am still often haunted at the process it took to get here. Selling and purchasing a home in last year’s market was not for the weak. Outside of the market dictating some of our issues I thought I would give those of you considering the leap a few tips.

1. Decide What To Do With Your Current Home: If you currently own a home, don’t assume you have to sell it. If you would like to keep it as an income property speak with a mortgage specialist before starting your search. We found out months later into our process that we could’ve kept our home. Had we known earlier we may have put the search off a few months to save the additional monies needed to keep it as a rental property.

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DIY• Home

{Laundry Room Makeover} Wallpaper Lined Cabinet

It’s hard to believe that on July 31, we will have been in this house for a year. For those who have been reading for awhile, if you can recall the whole process really consumed me and I am again thankful for blogging as it provides the opportunity to go back and see areas of struggle and triumph. Oversharing has its privileges.

If you are new here, and want to be nosey feel free to go back and see what all of the drama was about. Click here.

Prior to moving in I had all of these grand ideas of changes I would be making immediately. People kept telling me live in the house a year before making any changes. Give yourself a chance to feel the house out, they said.

I brushed them off, nonsense. Clearly they weren’t looking at this

I had grand plans of coming in here and getting to work. Wouldn’t you know a whole year has passed and not a piece of bedroom furniture, nor a kitchen table have been purchased. My intentions were real good but the reality is the majority of my grand ideas are still hanging from “pins” on the virtual corkboard that is Pinterest.

Welp, looks like I in advertently took their advice and I’m glad I did, but it is time to get to work tackling some of the smaller projects….like finishing the laundry room.

When I started on the laundry room one of my favorite people handed down a bit of wallpaper that she had left over from when she had her dining room done. It wasn’t a lot but enough to line the back of of the cabinet shelves. At the time I hadn’t started refinishing the cabinets so I wasn’t sure if it would get used. After deciding to go with the wallpaper lined cabinet in place of returning two of the doors it only took me six months to get the paper up. I’m glad I decided to leave them off.

Here is another before during the painting process:

Here is the after.

After carefully measuring the space, and that wasn’t easy I applied Mod Podge to the back of the wall paper and applied to the cabinet making sure to wipe out any bubbles. That took a little effort but after I did the first one I was on a roll.

I am pleased. I still have to do a little more decorating to do to the shelves. I’ll be back with an update when I’m done.

I recently read something on a décor blog that stated in summary, our homes are ever evolving and the beauty comes in completing small projects and over time seeing the spaces become those that we love. I concur.

What do you think?

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Home• Living• Our Home• Recipes• Summer

{A Quick Meal} New Orleans Style Barbecued Shrimp

Y’all know I loves a quick meal. Nothing grinds my nerves so, than being stuck in a hot kitchen in the summer.

This week I went with a recipe that I’ve made before but it’s been awhile. I even mentioned it last year on my 5 Quick and Easy Meals for Summer post.

I got the recipe from Martha Stewart. The only tweak I made was substituting Old Bay for the Cajun Seasoning in hopes that it wouldn’t be so spicy this time around and it worked. I served ours with rice but I could easily see subbing the rice for grits. I wish I would’ve thought of that. Nothing like creamy grits with fish or shrimp.

Anywho.

Mimimal chopping was involved

You do know everything tastes better with a little butter.

5-7 minutes in the pan

Ready to eat

Here’s the recipe

Ingredients

- Coarse salt
- 1 1/2 cups long-grain white rice
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 large celery stalk, diced small ( 3/4 cup)
- 1 small bunch scallions, white and green parts separated and thinly sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 2 teaspoons Creole seasoning
- 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 1 large lemon, sliced into 1/4-inch-thick rounds
- 1 3/4 pounds shell-on extra-large shrimp, deveined

Directions

In a medium saucepan, bring 2 1/4 cups salted water to a boil. Add rice, stir, and return to a boil. Cover, reduce to a simmer, and cook until rice is tender, about 15 minutes. Remove pot from heat and let stand, covered, 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.
Meanwhile, in a large heavy pot, melt butter over medium-high. Add celery, scallion whites, and garlic and cook until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add Creole seasoning and cook until fragrant, 1 minute.
Add Worcestershire, lemon, and shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, until shrimp are pink and coated with sauce, about 4 minutes. Serve shrimp over rice with scallion greens on top.

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Home

{Kitchen Makeover} Accént Wall and Curtainworks Reveal

I’ll keep it short and sweet.

The kitchen started off like this. My woes with this burgundy wall ran deep. Was certainly happy to see it go.

Painted the wall and while it lightened up the space it also made it very bland.

As I work room by room transforming these spaces I really want to inject pops of color and learn to properly layer.

As mentioned in my inspiration post, I ordered 4 pairs of pinch pleat 108 in curtains from Curtainworks. I received them in record time and was itching to put them up.There was a ton of selections and I had a hard time choosing but I was so thankful that I could take the time to peruse versus getting in and out of my car going from store to store to find what I needed. Curtainworks selection not to mention pricing has me sold and I will be using them again as I move to the other rooms in the house.

When I received the curtains I was thrilled at the quality. Although these particular curtains are not pure silk, they feel very similar to the touch. I won’t tell you how affordable they are, you have to go and look for yourself but I will mention that they are lined which really makes them a great deal for the price. As with most packaged curtains I had to iron out the creases from where they were folded in the pack. I opted to use rings to hang them but there are tabs on the back as well as a hole to run the rod through depending on the look you select.

Prior to installing them, I had the Mr. fix the paint on the other walls and I painted the bay area Spicy Hue by Sherwin Williams.
I toyed with the idea of putting the curtains between the windows but the area was so small and I wanted something that would make a statement.

This is how it turned out. It’s a little out of the box and I may decide to put blinds above the shutters, and hem the bottoms but for now I am happy with the outcome.

Next up….a new table!!

What do you think?!

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