Updating My Daughter’s Room
Remodeling our home feels like what I imagine a marathon would be like – slow and steady but honestly, it’s more like slow and erratic. The latest project is updating my daughter’s room. When we moved in, her room had one small light hanging in the middle of a dark gray room with some pretty cool industrial shelves. We knew we would need to update the space to suit her needs.
This is a shot of Lilly’s room with the paint color on her walls at the time we moved in.
Design Elements
For a year, Lilly and I have discussed what she would like for her bedroom. Our upstairs ceilings are slanted with the slope of the roof. The existing ceiling and wall colors were contrasting and draw the eye to the sharp angles of the slant. Adding one color to these spaces, softens the sharp angles and gives each space an open feel. The elements Lilly requested were: an accent wall and double doors to her closet.
Our paint color of choice for this home is Benjamin Moore’s White Dove. With the warm tones of the hardwood floors, White Dove gives a nice contrast. However, I wanted some type of pop of color for her space.
Boutique Rugs
I have utilized Boutique Rugs in a variety of areas of our home. In fact, sometimes I have changed up the location of a certain rug to multiple rooms based on the home we were living in at the time. What impresses me about Boutique Rugs is the quality for the price. There are over 40,000+ varieties of style, color, and sizing. We wanted a new rug for Lilly’s room and they had just what we needed.
Lilly helped me select a gorgeous 6’7″ x 9′ rug titled Bood Area Rug. While I have purchased multiple rugs from Boutique Rugs, the ability to select this new rug of my choice was gifted to me for product review. The Bood Area Rug has beautiful grays and subtle blues throughout as well as varying pilling sizes which offers a cozy texture to the space.
Here is an after shot of her updated paint color and new rug.
I have yet to be disappointed in a rug that we have from Boutique Rugs. Our living room is host to a beautiful area rug as well as my oldest son’s bedroom showcases another rug from Boutique Rugs. In our last house, I decorated the sun room using the rug that I now use in my son’s bedroom. You can view a picture of it here. I had one more but I am embarrassed to share that I decided it would be a good idea to pressure wash it. I have pressure washed other rugs. Unfortunately this particular rug was a shag rug and pressure washing is a no-no. My lesson has been learned and maybe you too can learn from this cautionary tale!
I love the beautiful grays and subtle blues in the horizontal lines of this rug.
Stay Tuned
If you are in the market for a new area rug, check out Boutique Rugs. The code: HELMSHOUSE will get you 5% off your order. There are still details to finish up in Lilly’s room. She has expressed she wants to try moving her bed to a different wall. Stay tuned for future updates of the completion of updating my daughter’s room and I will share all the design elements we used in this bedroom.
What I Learned from 365 Outfits
Let me share my takeaways with you about what I learned from 365 outfits. 2022 proved to be the year to get out of a rut – clothing wise that is. Ever find yourself wearing the same articles of clothing over and over? I am not sure who to credit but I remember hearing or reading that you utilize only 20% of the items in your closet. I believe that.
1. I learned to evaluate my closet.
When wanting to get out of the rut of wearing the same clothes over and over, I needed to take stock of what I owned. Evaluating each piece of clothing in your closet allows you to determine if you still like the item or if the item still fits. Eliminating unloved or outgrown items gives you an accurate view of what you are working with.
Once you have only items you love and fit in your closet, you are able to shop for any items that might fill in any gaps in your wardrobe.
2. I learned to take a picture of myself in each outfit.
Part of me feels like taking a selfie is prideful or ostentatious; however, the pictures themselves allowed me to see what my body actually looked like in the outfits I picked. I highly recommend getting a full length mirror. You can even purchase a cheap mirror from Target or Walmart – the point is to allow yourself to view your outfit in its entirety.
Some pictures I snapped allowed me to see what outfits were not a good fit for me and I could then get rid of the ill-fitting piece or match it with a better article of clothing.
3. I learned to follow accounts that had similar body styles and/or outfit inspiration.
To create 365 different outfits, I needed to tap into any creativity or inspiration I could find. Thankfully Instagram provides inspiration at your fingertips. Over the course of the year, I found a variety of women I enjoyed following because either their body types matched mine or they gave wonderful outfit ideas. I absolutely fell in love with the fact that I could follow a plethora of body sizes. Not any one body type/size provided all of my outfit inspo! The fun was in the variety 🙂
Here are a few of my favorite accounts to follow (you may find all accounts on Instagram):
@maddy_gutierrez_
@loverlygrey
@stylenright
@the_other_mk
@retailcheapskate
@wandalovessharing
@taryntruly
While I do not see a career in the modeling industry, I am grateful for the 2022 year and the goal of wearing 365 different outfits. I did not achieve absolute perfection on my goal but I learned a lot along the way! If outfit choice is not your ideal topic, you can always check out some of our home projects like this one.
Tips and Tricks when Painting
Experience creates the opportunity for expertise. My experiences with renovating or building homes have made me an expert when it comes to tips and tricks when painting. I want to share what I have learned with you.
Tip #1: Buy quality paint
Quality paint not only means quality of the actual product but also the customer service. For our current home, we have used Benjamin Moore paint. This choice means we must go to the specific Benjamin Moore store in our area. I’m not upset about this considering the customer service we have received during our home renovation. Buying paint from a box store means you are at the mercy of whichever employee may or may not be working in the paint section at that particular time. In my experience, the employees at our local Benjamin Moore store have gone above and beyond to be helpful.
For the majority of our home we selected White Dove for our interior walls and Simply White for our trim. For accent rooms such as the laundry room, we selected Blue Heather. All of our paint colors for our current home are from Benjamin Moore. You can read more about our master bathroom here.
Our master bathroom has White Dove for the wall color and Simply White for the trim color. Tip #2: Buy the right type of paint
When painting ceilings, use a flat paint. For walls use eggshell and for windows, interior doors, and trim use semi-gloss. The types of paint determine the shine and level of difficulty when it comes to clean up. Flat paint is the most difficult to get dirt off of; however, you typically do not need to worry about getting your ceilings dirty. Also, you really do not want your ceiling to shine. For walls, eggshell gives a nice durability and a little shine but very minimal. The window trim, baseboards, crown molding, and interior doors should be in a semi-gloss finish. This finish is a high shine and helps with easy clean up of spills or fingerprints.
For our laundry room, we used Benjamin Moore’s Blue Heather. Tip #3: Buy quality brushes
I will go even farther and say, “buy Purdy paint brushes”. A good quality paint brush such as Purdy will last longer and give a better paint finish. When you factor in longer usage of your brushes then you really are not spending a fortune. They will outlast the cheaper competition. I like to use a slanted, small width Purdy brush for all my cutting in and trim work.
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Trick #1: Use Shur-Line edgers
For our stairwell, where the borders of our walls met the ceiling, it was a challenge to paint clean lines in those high places. A trick I use is utilizing the Shur-Line edger to get a clean cut by placing the edger on the end of an extendable paint pole.
*As an Amazon Associate, I am eligible for commission from any viable link.
Trick #2: Use aluminum foil and a refrigerator
You may think, what does aluminum foil and a refrigerator have to do with painting? If you will be painting for multiple days and do not want to wash your brush out each time, you may wrap your brush in aluminum foil or a ziplock bag and place it in your refrigerator. This trick will keep your brush from drying out. The important information to remember is to wash your brush out as soon as you are finished painting!
My hope is that you have learned something that you may put to use the next time you are painting in your home!
Kitchen Update
Making a house a home is an ongoing evolution of beauty and function. The kitchen is our latest space to update. To be honest, we are not entirely finished with the space but I just couldn’t wait to share the progress!
Factors to consider when updating your kitchen
In our current home, each space has to be well thought out. We do not have a large footprint for a kitchen. In fact, I would call our kitchen a galley style kitchen. Therefore, when looking to update, I needed to make sure we utilized every square inch. Working with the existing footprint of the home was our biggest factor when creating our kitchen vision.
Initial layout of cabinets. Upper cabinets that extend all the way to the ceiling were a must for this area as well as an entire wall of cabinets on the opposite side of my appliances. The wall of cabinets not only holds dishes and cups but houses our pantry as well. Because the square footage of my kitchen is small, we used upper cabinets stacked on top of one another. Upper cabinets do not have the same depth as standard floor cabinets and this change allowed us to increase our floor space.
Progress shot of our wall of cabinets. Components of our kitchen update
From top to bottom, the components we have utilized in our kitchen update are: Blue Heather and Simply White paint by Benjamin Moore; shaker style cabinets, cabinet handles, and drawer pulls from Cabinets to Go; butcher block (stained by us with Minwax Early American stain) from Southeastern Salvage; porcelain tile titled San Michelle from Floor and Decor; and grout in Alabaster purchased from Floor and Decor.
Many backsplashes that I have seen recently have marble as the material of choice; however, marble is beyond our price point. We went with a 36″ x 36″ porcelain tile.
Our backsplash is 36″x36″ porcelain tile. Progress on our kitchen update
At this time, we have all our cabinets installed, backsplash put up, countertop laid, first coat of wall paint and handles and pulls installed. What we have yet to complete is the second coat of wall paint and the crown molding painted as well as the toe mold installed and painted.
To see what other areas of our home we have updated, you can read here. Let me know what your favorite part is. Do you have a question regarding our selections or the process? I want to hear from you:)
Our current view of our kitchen! Wow with Wallpaper!
When I use to think of how to decorate my home, getting a wow with wallpaper was not in my top ideas. In fact, I am not sure if it would have even made my top 10 decorating ideas. However, it is good to admit when you are wrong and I was wrong.
Rifle Paper Co. Pomegranate wallpaper added to our half bathroom. Inspiration
After viewing beautiful examples of wallpaper displays, I was convinced I needed to incorporate this texture into our home remodel. Being new to this scene, a little bit will go a long way. We incorporated a beautiful Rifle Paper Co. print titled Pomegranate. I selected two areas of the home to showcase this gorgeous print: our half bathroom and our laundry room.
There are a few accounts on Instragram that provide ample inspiration of the traditional usage of wallpaper within the home.
Garden & Grace is such an inspirational account. A local construction company first peeked my interest in this feature with the following beautiful space:
Twin Construction, Inc. delivers taste and style consistently in their projects. Tools
Now to the application! My husband and I knew we would be hanging the wallpaper ourselves so I had to take some YouTube crash courses on how to hang it. DIY projects are not new to us, we have been DIYing our homes our entire married life. You can read about one of our recent projects here.
I viewed the following YouTube video before beginning.
Wallpapering is definitely a two person job. My husband and I tackled our half bathroom first but by the time we transitioned to our laundry room, it became a lot easier to install. The wallpaper seems to be a focal point to draw the eye and make smaller spaces seem larger.
Our Laundry Room For our these projects we used a large framing square to guide cuts, a flat surface to spread wallpaper on and make cuts, a razor edge, paint roller to roll on adhesive, Roman adhesive (shown below *as an Amazon Associate, I may earn commission on viable links), and a plastic straight edge paddle to smooth out any bubbles or creases.
If the idea of hanging wallpaper seems overwhelming, start with peel and stick wallpaper. There is a lot of room for error with peel and stick. I will caution against using pre-pasted wallpaper. I have read of nightmarish experiences using a pre-pasted finish. The glue can become too much to handle. Truly, it does not take much to wow with wallpaper. Let me know if you give it a try!
Five Day Trips in Alabama for Labor Day
Labor Day is quickly approaching and I have crafted five day trips in Alabama for Labor Day! As a child, I heard a speaker once share that she was clueless to the notion of Labor Day being a holiday because her father had convinced her family it was a day to labor on cleaning their property. Ha! That was a pretty smart father until his children became teenagers and aware that others were not cleaning their properties on Labor Day.
In preparation for the upcoming HOLIDAY, I have put together five day trips in Alabama that would make for quite a fun Labor Day.
1. Visit WildWater Cullman.
Here in Alabama, there is a new water park located in central Alabama, Wildwater Cullman. About an hour north of Birmingham, this water park would provide a wonderful day of water fun for the holiday. If you live outside of Alabama, do a quick Google search and see what water parks are near you. For most water activities, Labor Day marks the end of the season and a perfect way to celebrate the summer’s end.
2. Plan a hike.
Spend the day outdoors on a beautiful nature trail. Red Mountain Park is a nearby locale that provides miles of trails to hike and explore. Hiking is not the only activity available here. This is a place you can walk, hike, and mountain bike. There is also a dog park on the property.
Red Mountain Park provides ample trails similar to this one to hike and explore. 3. Host a cookout.
Don’t want to go far? Have no desire to get in your car and go for Labor Day? Don’t! Host a cookout in your backyard or in my case, an alleyway. Invite friends, neighbors, or family over to eat and fellowship together. A cookout is another great way to celebrate the summer’s end. Pinterest lends a hand when finding guides like this one for how to host a cookout.
4. Visit a waterfall.
What is it about a waterfall that makes life seem peaceful? Located north of my home is Bankhead National Forest. It has been nicknamed “Land of a 1,000 Waterfalls”. What an apt name for a locale that hosts such amazing beauty. Labor Day provides a wonderful pause in life to go exploring a waterfall.
Sougahoagdee Falls in Bankhead National Forest 5. Visit a Labor Day Celebration
Tannehill State Park will host a Tannehill Labor Day Celebration on Labor Day. This includes Alabama’s largest Moon Pie eating contest. In addition to this celebration, Bham Now includes other Labor Day Weekend activities to explore. Tannehill State Park is a wonderful campground that we have visited in the past. We love to go camping and we recently purchased a popup camper and put our own decor touch on it. You can read all about our camper and what to do when camping, here.
Bonus activities.
Choose Labor Day to get out and go biking. Another bonus idea is to check out a new spot you have not visited. With the hosting of the World Games, Birmingham did a wonderful job of creating a City Walk. My family and I have yet to visit it. Labor Day would be a good time to check it out! Leave a comment below and let me know what you are doing this Labor Day.
School Supply Shopping
Are you a spender or a saver? A tightwad or a spendthrift? For me, I find myself wanting to find the best deal on anything I can. To pay full price for anything just about kills me. School supplies is an area that agitates me. I want to get the best deal on items that are needed for the classroom. Waste and excess are two words I do not want to hear when getting ready for going back to school and have me looking for deals when school supply shopping. Planning for the routine and needs of school gets me thinking of other areas of our home that need preparation such as meal planning. A good refresher course for how to meal plan can be found here.
Purchasing Options
To acquire your school items, you have a few options. You may shop for each school supply on your own or order the school supply list from your school. Many schools are now crafting school supply lists then shipping them directly to the homes that have pre-ordered.
The benefit of ordering your school supplies from your local school is you do not have to go out and buy your items on your own time. One potential drawback is the overall cost of supplies tend to be higher on the pre-order list.
The down side of taking the time to shop for your own supplies is you are spending your precious time hunting down the best deals. Another option when searching for your own deals is completing a pick up order from Walmart or Target. You can order what you need then drive by and pick it up without having to go in the store.
Price Comparisons
I have wanted to know for a long time exactly how expensive school supplies are. Typically, I run into whatever store of my choice and throw in school supplies last minute with no knowledge of the cost until checkout.
This year, I did a price comparison between Walmart and Target on school supply prices. I will list the supplies I was shopping for and the price comparisons.
Item Walmart Target 1.5″ Avery Binder $7.64 $7.69 5 tab/poly dividers $3.33 $4.49 Wide Ruled Marble Composition Notebook $.50 $.55 #2 Dixon Ticonderoga Pencils 12 count $6.42 $2.99 Plastic Pocket folders with brads $.50 $.50 Crayola 12 count Erasable Colored Pencils $14.99 $3.99 Fisker 5″ scissors $1.47 $1.49 Elmer’s gluesticks .77 ounce $.52 $1.06 Comparison of prices between Walmart and Target For this week, Target has some great prices and selection so I purchased most of my school supplies from there. I was able to find binders cheaper than the Avery binder pricing. The Target brand binders were $4.69 each. Also, the price for the erasable pencils from Walmart seems just too high but that was the only price I could find online for that particular item. It was just too high compared to the Target price and I am hopeful that I simply made an error in looking up that item.
Ways to Save
Money tight in your household? Frustrated with buying the same supplies each year then getting them back at the end of the school year? Create a space to house all school supplies then at the beginning of each year, shop your stock pile first before you head out to the store. Below is a post from my friend JeriKay about a beautiful piece of furniture she has designated to house all her school supplies.
At times we have reused the plastic, pocketed folders with brads year after year. And with the use of pencil boxes and/or pouches, we have held on to crayons and colored pencils that are barely used. Shopping weekly sales in the days and weeks leading up to a new school year is another way to save money on school supplies.
If holding onto leftover supplies and hunting down the best deals is not worth your time, I totally understand! Do what works best for you and your family. School supply pre-orders may be just the option for you! Whichever you chose, may your school year be filled with peace, learning, and fun!
Let me know in the comments how you shop for school supplies. I would love to hear from you!
Back 2 School Ready!
For fellow Alabamians and many across the south United States, school begins within the next few weeks. I’m spending some time now preparing in order to be back to school ready. Read along for some quick tips for how to ready yourself and your family for the upcoming school year.
Out with the Old
A couple of weeks before school begins is a great time to go through your children’s closets and see what items no longer fit or have been stained or torn. Get rid of any of these items that are taking up precious space. Determine what needs to be donated and what needs to simply be thrown away.
Take inventory of what materials and supplies you have available at home. Do you have left over school supplies from last year? Will last year’s backpack still be a good choice for this year? From your assessment, create a list of what is missing for the upcoming school year.
Plan for the New
Once your children’s closets and backpacks have been cleaned out, determine what your needs are. Does your son need more pants? Has your daughter’s shoe size grown? Make a list of all needed items for the school year. Include school supply lists to your master list of needed items. Now, shop! Look for some great deals. Like to Know It has some amazing influencers to follow that will show you wonderful deals to check out.
I found a few clothing deals for my kiddos and linked them up here. You can also check out my Liketoknow.it images on the right sidebar of my blog.
In addition to clothing items, school supplies such as: colored pencils, binders, and pronged folders will all be on sale at area grocery and box stores. Publix usually does a great job of running Buy One, Get One sales on school supplies in the weeks leading up to school. I am so excited because I was recently able to purchase the Bentgo Kids lunchbox I have had my eye on for a while from Amazon during its Prime Day sales.
Establish or Reestablish Routines
Lastly, think through what your school days will look like: nightly routines, morning drop off, and lunch plans. As I shared in an older post, I had the privilege of sitting in an Organized Mom small group led by one of the children’s ministers at our previous church. This woman is amazing! She shared so much wisdom for back to school routines. Her guidance on preparing for each school week and how my morning ride to school should look like still has a positive influence on my family’s lives.
What did I learn? 1. Prepare your family’s outfits the weekend BEFORE the upcoming school week. Iron each day’s outfit if necessary and place with the appropriate shoes, underwear, and socks together or in a hanging organizational bin such as this one. (*As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission off any viable links.*) 2. Prepare lunches the night before or get one of your kids to help prepare lunches. The last semester of last year, I worked in long-term substitute positions and my daughter would make our lunches every morning. This act of service was greatly appreciated! 3. Rides to school should include NO LECTURES. Proper preparation before the school week helps to avoid running late to school. Not being in a rush, reduces the chances of frustration and parental lectures. Play worship music and pray together. 4. Don’t bail your kids out. This one was and is a challenge but man, it has some good fundamental lessons for kids. Your kid left their lunch at home? Don’t deliver it. Homework come up missing from their backpack? Don’t go searching for it. Sometimes our children need to fail in order to learn how to thrive on their own.
Now You’re Ready!
Taking some time to purge the old, plan for the new, and establish positive routines will have you and your family back to school ready!
Styling My Master Bathroom
Styling my master bathroom is a task I have taken time to think about and I enjoy creating an inviting space. Since moving into our home (you can read about our recent move here), I have been extremely excited for creating a home filled with spaces we will both love and enjoy. Due to much time spent in a master bathroom getting ready for each day, I wanted ours to have features we would use and like.
What to Consider
When styling your master bathroom, what features are a must and what are luxuries? Do you need only a shower? What is the size of your space? Do you want a tub/shower combo, a stand-alone tub, or a huge shower? Taking the time to ask yourself what you want out of your bathroom then researching what you can afford, will help avoid headaches down the road.
For our bathroom, my husband wanted a large, tiled shower with glass walls. I wanted a wonderful, freestanding soaking tub – we both planned for these items. Likewise, we both knew we wanted a double vanity. The selection of sconces and beveled mirrors as well as the color of the walls and trim and the design and pattern of tile, were decisions my husband gladly turned over to me. I happily accepted these decision making tasks 🙂
Where to Shop
The internet can be a wonderful tool when shopping for items, materials, and decor for your bathroom. While oftentimes good deals can be found online, sometimes just plain old word-of-mouth helps you locate the best materials for your bathroom.
For our bathroom, we pulled items from a variety of locations. Our sconces came from Home Depot, our double vanity came from Lowe’s, our beveled mirrors came from Amazon, and our tub came from Wayfair. (*As an Amazon Associate, I may earn commission off any viable links.*)
How to Decorate
Now that all of our key items are in our bathroom, now it is time to decorate. In addition to a woven basket, a small table stand, and a couple of plants, I am going to hang a few prints in our bathroom. Viewing pins on Pinterest and posts on Instagram as well as creating a mood board, get my creative juices flowing when it comes to decorating my own bathroom. In the right sideboard of this blog is my latest mood board for a master bathroom that I posted to LiketoKnow.it Follow my LiketoKnow.it account as well as my Instagram account to see how I place decorative touches in our master bathroom.
Weigh in! Tell me what are your must-have items in your master bathroom. What did you splurge on? What did you save on? I hope this post gives you a moment to pause and think about how to style your own space. I would love to hear from you! Let me know your thoughts 🙂
The double vanity of our Master Bathroom. What to do at Seagrove Beach
A vacation to Seagrove Beach is a trip packed with fun! My family recently stayed at this beautiful 30A community and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there. With lots of free activities, plenty of eating options, and gorgeous water, Seagrove Beach is a fantastic vacation destination.
The waters off of 30A are beautiful! Where to Stay
AirBnB and VRBO are my two go-to sites for vacation rentals. I am uncertain if AirBnB still does this trick but in the past if you “favorite” a location then come back to it later, the site will increase the price. I have learned to keep a running, written list of houses I like then go back and type in their description in order to avoid the price increase. On one hand, the fees are ridiculous but on the other hand, there are several whole house rental options that are a good fit for my family’s needs.
I do strongly encourage you to read the reviews left by previous guests. Do not only read one or two reviews – do a deep dive to see what a place is truly like. This advice was given to me years ago in an attempt to reduce being scammed or tricked by a fake rental host. Thus far, we have had great experiences with both our AirBnB and VRBO sites.
What to Do
There is an app called 30A and it provides a wealth of information about the stretch of highway 30A that includes several coastal communities in Florida. This app provides a running list of ongoing events in the local 30A communities. During the summer time, there is no shortage of free concerts, plays, and family movie nights.
We had the privilege this year of vacationing during the week of July 4th. The night of July 4th was nothing short of magical. From our beach chairs, we were able to view the fireworks shows from Destin, Seaside, Alys Beach, Panama City, as well as the fireworks shot off at our very own Seagrove Beach. The comradery of other beach goers along with the cool ocean air and music playing freely provided such a neat holiday experience.
This year, we were able to vacation with extended family.
Cousins are friends for life!As I have shared in other vacation posts, here and here, bike riding is a biggie for me on 30A. Another reason I like bike riding at the beach…it’s free! Seagrove Beach has several bike paths and gravel roads that will give you an abundance of adventure options. We would even ride our bikes to the Publix in Watercolor to pick up sundries.
Biking in Seagrove Beach Another free activity is games. Many vacation rental homes will have card or board games available to play. Don’t have a lot of money to go out and spend while on vacation? Stay in and play a board game as a family. We brought the game Taboo with us this year and played with my extended family. We laughed until we cried. This was a cheap way to make good memories!
Where to Eat
While on vacation at Seagrove Beach, we did not eat out every night. The 30a Farmer’s Market provides several meal options to make at your vacation rental. My family loves the tamales from It’s Tamale Time! We also picked up chips and guacamole from Alligator Pear Foods.
Local seafood markets such as Buddy’s Seafood and Goatfeathers Seafood allowed us to have a low country boil one night. We ordered our shrimp from Goatfeathers – it was delicious!
Low Country Boil for the win! Two restaurants we did visit this summer are Le Crema in Rosemary Beach and Bayou Bill’s Crab Shack in Panama City Beach.
Le Crema is located in Rosemary Beach –
a beautifully designed seaside community.No matter your tastes and likings, Seagrove Beach provides a wealth of options to enjoy your beach vacation!
