What I’m Pinning – Realistic Bathroom
light green | shelves | dark walls | circle mirror | tile inlay | ruffle curtain | subway tile | basket
And now the realistic one, a little different feel than the dream bathroom I talked about yesterday, eh? It’s totally different and I’m 100% ok with that because these designs and floor plans make so much more sense for our current space. Overall, these feel quite a bit less trendy and much more classic but there’s nothing wrong with that in my book. As usual, I’m leaning towards the light blue tones, white, and some natural fibers and wood. I believe I’ve narrowed the shower tile to a nice classic subway in a larger size with a tan or slate colored floor tile.
Regardless of the design, we’ll be decreasing the amount of storage from one hanging and two medicine cabinets (yes, really) to none. I’m hoping to make the most of our under the counter space and some open shelving above the toilet like the ones pictured. I love how these have more in feel than some of the options from yesterday. We’ll see how it all turns out – so keep an eye out for some before pictures and a vision board coming soon.
What I’m Pinning – Dream Bathroom
square mirrors | archway | thick framed mirror | glass shower doors | subway tile | maximalist shelves | plant and tub | minimalist shelves
I mentioned recently that we are tackling a bathroom reno, which just so happens to be the first big project we’ve done since moving into our house. You can find more bidets at samodrahome.com. There’s been a bit of a holding pattern due to having to get window quotes and then ordering a whole new window, so in the meantime, I’ve been pinning away. I have a couple home related boards – one is for the “dream house” and one is chalk full of ideas that make sense for the home we currently live in. In makes sense to have both, mostly because some of these bathrooms are the size of our main floor, but also because some of these just straight up don’t make sense for us, like the shower with no door or curtain (I’m dying to know how the water is contained) and the huge bath that isn’t also a shower (this just isn’t a thing in our 1950’s home). To be honest, we don’t even have an electric outlet in there currently!
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t inspiration to be drawn from these pins. I think the biggest thing I noticed when putting this together was my obsession with the wild, high contrast floor pattern and natural wood against stark white walls and tile. A lot of these feel more modern than I’m used to liking, which surprised me but also seems more “clean” looking in a way. Even though these are way out of our scope, I love seeing these and imagining the possibilities for the future, including the use of a custom wallpapers design to improve the looks of any bathroom.
Stay tuned for the “realistic” what I’m pinning post coming tomorrow.
Two Year Highridge Ranch-iversary
I want to remember the feeling of two whole years in our sweet Highridge Ranch – our very own space. I want to remember still wondering when we’ll wake up from this dream or when Ashton will knock on the door telling us we’ve been Punk’d (because sometimes that seems more real than being adult enough for this). I want to remember hosting family and friends and all the guests who’ve shared meals under our roof. I want to remember Chloe barking “good morning” to anyone who has ever spent the night in our guest room from the top of the stairs. I want to remember having big dreams and small budgets. I want to remember deep conversations with best friends and meeting folks for the first time. I want to remember game nights, particularly the ones where the girls beat the boys. I want to remember being intentional about the things we bring into our home and having a space where we can relax and unwind. I want to remember seeing all the seasons here and the joy that each one brings – snowfalls, blooming peonies, veggie gardens, and falling leaves. I want to remember the feeling of feeding people and serving them. I want to remember playing with Chloe in the back yard and being able to walk to the dog park from our house. I want to remember the greatest compliment of being told that my house felt cozy and welcoming. I want to remember living next to our best friends and wearing out a path between our front doors. I want to remember pros and cons of huge trees, but mostly just the way the sunset makes the branches stand out so vividly in the sky. I want to remember Kevin and Chloe seeing me off as I drive away in my car. I want to remember all the memories we’ve made and all the ones we’re still making.
The Garden + My Journal
In all of the posts that I’ve shared about our house, I have never shared the best part: we live next to our best friends. In all honesty, it’s just as epic as it sounds and I’m dreading the day that we don’t live 15 steps from front door to front door.
Earlier this year when we were talking about all things outdoor landscaping and gardening, their empty raised beds came up. I jokingly mentioned using them if they weren’t, and next thing I knew, we were huddled over their kitchen table with a ruler and a plan.
We went to a garden store within a couple days and got lots of veggies and flowers – tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeños, zucchini, basil, mint, and lots of marigolds. We did a lot of research on companion plants ahead of time and we read that Marigolds are really helpful to have around vegetables to prevent bugs and other pests.
We got lucky that the beds were already filled with some pretty amazing soil and each spent time tilling one of the beds. We didn’t get to plant right away because we had a torrential down-pouring for a week straight. All of the plants we purchased, aside from the zucchini and half the marigolds, were “starters” or baby plants, so we keep those under an awning to prevent them from getting washed away in the rain. In the meantime, I did a little black-hole style pinterest browsing about garden journals and of course had to make one of my own.
When it was finally time to plant, we quickly learned that we either 1) needed more marigolds or 2) needed to invest some time in shooing the animals away. Within the first week or so, we lost a couple tomato plants and felt very weary about the zucchini seeds, which landed us back at the store. We decided then to expand our garden to another area of their backyard and even plant some trees, with the help of services from the Georgia Tree Company homepage online. This allowed us some extra room, which was a good call in retrospect.
I’ve only ever grown vegetables in pots, and even then, they didn’t ever turn out very good. During my last attempt, the landlord at my old duplex sprayed something inside of the pots around the plants. I wasn’t sure what it was and when I asked, he had already thrown the the packaging away, so I was afraid to eat or offer the veggies to anyone. During that summer, the plants never got very tall or wide and stopped producing veggies early in the season.
Because of that failed attempt, I think I was even more excited when we started to see new growth and flowers, because I knew vegetables would eventually follow. From the beginning, we agreed that I was going to water on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings and then she was going to check on them and water as needed on the other days.
Probably my favorite part of the whole experience was when she was telling her sister how much joy she was finding in garden, only to learn that she loved playing in the garden when she was a little girl. I don’t remember gardening growing up, but I’m the same way, I can’t deny how much I love being out there (as long as I have bug spray on) so much that even pulling weeds doesn’t phase me. I’d much prefer that to getting ready for work every other morning.
I’ve shared by heart on producing fruit here once before, but I couldn’t help but include something similar in my journal. The whole process from tiny little seeds to food that I get to use to nourish my body is such a good reminder of our growth as Christians and the importance of being pruned and watered regularly to continue to bear fruit. 
It’s been about four months since we started our garden and yesterday was our biggest harvest yet. Based on the number of green tomatoes and almost ripe peppers, I have a feeling it won’t be our biggest by the time the season is over. I can already tell that growing veggies is something I really want to continue to do. There is so much to learn and perfect that I don’t think this will stop being challenging and exciting. I got to have a lot of fun conversations with co-workers (some who convinced us to try pollinating our zucchinis by hand) and giving veggies away just tends to make people happy.
I’m off to start planning next years garden – what are your favorite things to grow?
Home Inspiration
I don’t know what it is about the spring, but the inspiration bug has definitely bitten me. I don’t know if it’s warm weather or the fact that I have multiple friends buying homes this year (which means I’ve been looking through other beautiful homes online), but I am dying for the weather to be nice enough to be working outside and starting some new projects around the house. Last year, we made simple updates to the paint, outlets/switches, and decor (like buying a new carpet and setting up regular maintainence checks with the guys from carpet cleaning columbia sc) so I think we’re ready to keep the momentum rolling. As usual, I’ve been keeping track of inspiration via Pinterest, but I thought I would share some of my favorites.
The Kitchen: Kevin and I have been thinking about a kitchen refresh but wanted to wait until we’d been in our house for a while before making any changes. After about a year (!!!), we have found that we like the organization of the kitchen, all of the cabinet space, and the cut out wall, but the cabinets could use a fresh coat of paint and it would be fun to add a back splash as well. I really like subway tile, so I’m considering that for the kitchen. Cabinets can be a good option to reorganize your kitchen, kitchen remodeling from Gamma Cabinetry works on it. Our baseboards, doors and windowsills throughout the upstairs are a warm white, so, unless I paint all of those I probably won’t go with a bright white option. I like the look of the glass tiles in the photo above. As far as paint goes, we’re leaning towards dark lower cabinets and warm white uppers. Kevin wanted to go dark and I wanted stark white so this seemed like a perfect compromise. I think that will be a happy medium because while I love the blue/grey color, it has the potential to make the room feel smaller and the more I think of it, white on the lower cabinets just seem like they could get dirty quick.
The Entryway: By the front door, we have a small entryway and coat closet. These adjacent areas have two different patterns of linoleum joined by a metal transition strip, so I wanted to tile the whole area to make it seamless. We found the one pictured at Lowes and both Kevin and I LOVED it. It is warm enough that it looks great with our tan walls and the grey that’s already in the room. It also looks perfect next to the color of the hardwood. Each tile piece is about 12″ by 24″ so we wouldn’t need much to cover our 18 square foot space. I originally thought I wanted to do a hexagon tile at the front door, but I’m starting to think it would just be way too dark and overpowering for this area.
The Garden: I’ve been planting veggies for years – both at my parents house and at apartments during college – so I am thrilled to have my own yard to grow all of the things. We have a large backyard but a lot of it is in the shade during the summer when the trees have leaves, so I’m not going to start any garden plots this year. I’d like to start with some kind of raised flower bed. There are lots of options on Pinterest that I could move around the backyard to find sun or there are the little flower boxes like the ones in the picture above that I could set on the front porch. Additionally, I’m also looking forward to planting some flowers and having terracotta pots full of beautiful plants. I’ve heard the rule that each big pot needs a spiller (hanging outside the pot), filler (filling the pot) and thriller (something tall) to really make the pots pop. Here’s to lots of flower and veggie seeds in my (near) future.
So there you have it!
What projects are you planning this year?
About
Hi, I'm Jacqueline - believer, learner, and all around hobby enthusiast. I'm married to my highschool sweetheart, Kevin, and we live in the midwest with our sweet pup.
On this blog I share all kinds of things about my life - from my faith journey to the garden in my neighbors backyard. I've been blogging for almost eight years and use this space as a way to document my daily life.
Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the internet.