North Carolina Home
Our Exterior House Tour | Fall 2024
This year has been the (slightly unexpected) year of our exterior renovation! And, honestly, the house has never felt more us. Let me take you through a tour of what we've accomplished this year! All the renovations we've done to our "Modern Colonial" North Carolina home feel like they represent the elements that I loved […]
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September 30, 2024
DIY
Back in Black: The Front Door Color That Just Works
If I could go back in time to over a year ago when I started mocking up colors for my front door, I would have told myself to just try painting the colors on the actual door! It was so much faster for me to paint the front door three times than just thinking about […]
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August 19, 2024
North Carolina Home
All About Our New Front Yard Landscape Lighting
This post is sponsored by Neighborly, Your Hub for Home Services Our neighborhood has a lot of beautiful mature trees, but it can also make the houses, driveways, and streets feel darker at night. Which is great for sleep, but a little nerve-wracking when you're coming home late or leaving the house super early — like […]
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August 15, 2024
North Carolina Home
Turning a Window into a new Exterior Door for the Mudroom
With every change we make to our house, we're always looking to solve problems and make our home work for us and our family in the most beautiful way we can think up. This time, a door was (literally) opened when we turned a window in the former laundry room/now mudroom into a functional entryway! […]
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August 12, 2024
Renovations
Choosing a Color For Our Exterior Trim & Windows
We've been on a journey to find the perfect exterior color to pair with our red brick. You see, our windows need replacing, so we're taking this window of opportunity (see what I did there?) to paint all the exterior trim, soffit, and fascia to match. We color-matched my top window colors, and we've been […]
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August 23, 2023
DIY
How to Hang String Lights
Over the weekend, Chris and I hung some string lights in our backyard, and we wanted to give you a proper tutorial on how we did it! We have plenty of ground lighting, but we really needed some overhead illumination for these upcoming summer nights, and string lights are the perfect solution. Here are 10 […]
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June 1, 2023
North Carolina Home
Our Complete Exterior Renovation: The Final Reveal and Cost Breakdown
In the past two homes we've lived in, we prioritized renovating the inside of the house before the outside. So when we made the move to North Carolina, where the outdoor living is outstandingly better than Idaho, we wanted to focus on the outside first. And I'm so glad we did it right from the […]
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May 24, 2023
Other Makeovers
Maximizing the Layout of a Small Deck in 5 Steps!
This post is sponsored by Article and was written by my lovely sister and brand manager, Victoria. Okay, I have to tell you something: Last year, I bought a dapper dining table on Facebook Marketplace and appointed it on my deck with promises of al fresco suppers, season after season. I weatherproofed it (obviously)(or so […]
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April 19, 2023
Sourcing & Planning
5 Exterior Paint Colors that Pair With Red Brick
We've been making some improvements to the overall curb appeal of our exterior, and so naturally, I've been looking more and more at our bright white trim and wondering if we could do better. We've made no changes to the exterior of the house, and I find the red brick to be incredibly attractive and […]
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March 16, 2023
Renovations
An Overdue Outdoor Kitchen Update
This outdoor kitchen has been a long time in the making! And we're still not done, but it's officially usable and in service. Chris's parents AND my sister Patti happened to be in town over the weekend and so we figured... Why not break in the outdoor kitchen and pool furniture and throw a pool […]
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September 21, 2022
North Carolina Home
The Pool Furniture in Our Backyard Vacation Oasis
This post is sponsored by Sunbrella. This little slice of backyard heaven has been a long time in the making, but it has actually come together at the perfect time. I had my moments of discouragement — when the backyard was a literal mud pit — and it was hard to believe this day would […]
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September 19, 2022
North Carolina Home
Take a Step into Our Outdoor Shower
An outdoor shower was not on our radar AT ALL until our contractor asked if there’s going to be a shower in the pool bathroom (which will be replacing the downstairs laundry room). There’s only going to be enough room for either a stacked washer and dryer, or a shower, but not both. And so […]
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September 7, 2022
Projects
Project Punch List: What's Left On Our To-Do List
I recently made a declaration that I'm not starting any more home projects until our current projects get all wrapped up. There's so many moving parts at the moment and I'm feeling a bit frazzled with all the loose ends. And so! I came up with a list of all the things left on our […]
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August 31, 2022
updates
Our Backyard Exterior Lighting
Our new exterior lights got installed in the backyard, and I'd like to say that while the backyard ambiance is coming together quite beautifully, even with our newly installed lights it still feels kind of dark. I’m not sure we even have enough light in the backyard to have a party. (Check out our past […]
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August 10, 2022
Projects
Inspiration for the Outdoor Shower
We were not planning on doing an outdoor shower until our contractor asked if there's going to be a shower in the pool bathroom. There's only going to be enough room for either a stacked washer and dryer, or a shower, but not both. Lately we've been leaning more and more towards washer and dryer […]
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June 6, 2022
Projects
How Much Is It To Install A Gunite Pool? (And How we Budgeted for it)
This post is sponsored by YNAB. Click this link to try YNAB for free for 34 days, no credit card required. A lot of you know or have been following along with the pool and have asked questions about how much it costs, how we're budgeting, and some of the logistics behind it. When we […]
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January 26, 2022
Design
Our REVISED Backyard Landscape Plans
Chris and I have been busy finalizing the plans for our backyard landscaping, including our pool! The plan is to do the pool and other updates over the winter months and have it usable by next summer. A few months back we compared the pros and cons of hiring a local landscape designer vs. working […]
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November 9, 2021
Design
Falling in Love with Fall in the Courtyard
We haven't done any fall festivities this year. No pumpkin patches, no straw mazes, no pumpkin carving, nothing! The weather has just been so great that I don't think we feel the same urgency we did in Idaho. We had to cram in all the festivities because every day it would just get colder and […]
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October 14, 2021
Inspiration
It's Fire Pit Season! Which one will you be sitting around?
We're welcoming fall by lighting up the evenings with the glow of our fire pit. In Idaho, fire pits were more of a summer evening event. Fall was too cold to be out in the evening without being bundled with a coat and blanket. It's magically different here, and the subtle crisp evenings are just […]
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September 28, 2021
exterior
Pros and Cons of Hiring a Local Landscape Designer vs. a Flat Fee Online Exterior Design Service
Design
Pros and Cons of Hiring a Local Landscape Designer vs. a Flat Fee Online Exterior Design Service
Before we even moved to North Carolina, we had big landscape plans for our new exterior–primarily, a pool. A pool was at the forefront of our mind when we were house hunting back in February. "Where would we put the pool" was a frequently asked question. At first we were only looking at homes WITH […]
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September 2, 2021
