5 houseplants for anyone.

  I'm a sucker for houseplants, and I know that makes me sound trendy. But before you assume that, know that I grew a houseplant in 3rd grade for 4-H that I'm 80% sure is still alive and thriving at my parent's house. Basically, I've been a nerdy houseplanter for 20 years.

  Our last home didn't have a ton of space for plants, so I've only had a few over the years. I always kept one in my office when I worked (my favorite, Sally, lasted forever and I gifted her to a co-worker when I left my last job). Since we've moved, however, I've rediscovered my love for having pots of greenery around our house! I want to invest in a few more.

  Right now I have 5 planters around our house: an herb box with basil and oregano that I grew from seeds, a vintage planter gifted from my mom (I have no idea the name of the plant inside!), a dienffenbachia, an orchid that was birthday gift from a friend, and a super cute plant I found at Wal-mart last year but don't know the name of. Its sort of silly how much I love them all and how fun it is to take care of them. Also, so simple (well, I'll keep you posted on the orchid)! Here's my no-fail way of keeping them thriving:

Read the care instructions! Every houseplant comes with a plant marker when you buy them- it tells you how much sun they need, how often to water, etc. So if a plant needs full sun, I know to find it a place on our dining room table or kitchen window sill. Having too much/not enough/just the right amount of sunshine is KEY to keep houseplants happy!

Water them every 1-2 weeks (basically whenever I remember or notice the soil has dried out- houseplants are pretty durable and just need a few good soaks every month). I do them all on the same day and let them soak in our utility sink so all excess water drains out before I put them back in their places around the house! *I did lots of research on orchids and everything says not to over-water, so I simply put 2-3 ice cubes in the pot once a week*

Prune often. If there are dried up, yellowed, or dying leaves- I tear them off at the root. For spider plants, philodendron, pothos, and ivy specifically (they grow like crazy!) I cut off shoots to keep the plant from getting bigger than I want and to keep the plant healthy.

Re-pot when necessary. I buy most of my houseplants as little babies and most of them actually outgrow the planter I put them in. This is a good thing! The biggest signs your plant has outgrown its container are that you can see the roots coming through the soil and it stops thriving despite appropriate care.

Here are my top favorite houseplants to buy for myself and gift to others- and I promise, they are nearly impossible to kill! In fact, I've learned that with some TLC you can revive virtually any plant. So don't give up! Give it a good pruning (it may look as if you've pruned the entire plant and there's nothing left, but I promise it'll grow back!), a good watering, and the right amount of sun. After three-four weeks of that I would put money on you having a happy plant again!

Ok, but back to my favorite houseplants!

Spider plant

Philodendron

Dienffenbachia

Pothos

(and if I can ever find out the name of my mystery plan, I'll add it. Because it has been the easiest to care for!)








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Our new(ish) house.

  We've officially been in our new house for a year, so it seemed like a good time to finally do a tour. I realize I talk about our house a lot (too much?) but have never done a full tour. So today's the day! Before that, let's do a check-in on where we are a year after moving in...

   We still love this home. (We're pretty open-handed about it and know that it is just a house, I feel as if I should lead with that before I dive in to our favorite things about it!) I could gush on and on with all the reasons we love it so much, but here are the highlights:

• Our new neighborhood is super friendly! We are working about being more intentional with neighbors and love actually getting to know the people that live on our street and next door.
• We have great space for hosting and inviting others over- a finished basement for kids (and toys!), a separate dining room, and lots of sleeping space.
• The big backyard might rival the basement for our favorite place to hang out!
• All of the bright, natural light through the entire first floor.
• Our neighborhood pool! Not technically part of our house, but dang, we love having access to a pool one block away.

  It really has been such a blessing to be in this house. We prayed intentionally for lots of things like chances for hospitality, fun for our kids, investing in our neighborhood, etc- and we've truly seen each of those things happen or grow since we've moved in. But enough of the emotional stuff! Let's talk about the actual house. 

  One of the best parts of this house is that the previous owners did a handful of great cosmetic upgrades. They repainted the entire house (in colors we like!), added trim work, and changed out lots of light fixtures (adding recessed lighting!). Those things have made a huge difference and we've hardly done any other projects since we've moved in. Here is what we've tackled in the last year:

• finished the basement (which also included finding/treating mold and repairing an exterior wall)
• painted upstairs bathroom
• painted Tyler's room
• painted guest room

 Such a small list! I have a much bigger running list of smaller projects in my head that I want to do over the next few years. Most are pretty simple, but a couple require some tools I don't have or just a bigger budget than we have right now. Overall, its just really fun to love this space and know that we might be here for years. We aren't in a big hurry to tackle projects and want to save money for them over time. Add to that my tendency to just be extremely slow with decorating and making house decisions and, you know, we're just in no hurry :)

  Without further adieu, here is a not-so-quick tour of our house! Stay tuned for a quick update soon, since I forgot to include Caleb's room and the basement. And gold star to anyone who actually watches the entire thing!

Tyler's nursery.

  We're scheduled to move in two days and 95% of our house is packed up and ready. So you're probably assuming I took these photos weeks ago, right? You'd be wrong- I took them today. While we don't have any dishes to eat off of or more than three outfits for each of us to wear, Tyler's room is in perfect unpacked condition! Because I've been meaning to take photos of his first nurser before we pack it in boxes and set it up (probably identically?) in the new house, I keep procrastinating to pack his things. Justin thinks it's silly and overly sentimental. But you guys! My baby's nursery! Probably the last nursery we'll ever set up and even though his new room will look identical, this was where he slept his first night home from the hospital, where we've nursed through the night, where I folded onesies and prayed for him before he was born. I wanted to capture it!

  So anyways, I finally snapped some photos of his neutral nursery. Here was my inspiration for his room- I knew I wanted to keep it simple from the beginning. I started with my most favorite greige paint and layered grays on top with a few pops of blues, red, and yellows. We bought the same Ikea crib Caleb has, just in white (its crazy affordable!), painted a somewhat janky hand-me-down dresser, and moved the chair from Caleb's room. 

  I bought three big-ish things for the room that I love- this rug, this adorable wolf print, and this beautiful sign. Other than that, I pieced together inexpensive things or borrowed from Caleb's room. Those picture frames above his dresser? From Walmart! Super cheap and cute. Oh! And I found this really cute felt ball garland on Etsy for above his crib. I have plans (and all the materials) to make another pallet coat rack, but by the time I decided to start working on it we listed our house. So I'll make it (maybe?) once we settle in to the new house. 

  Anyways, there you have it. Tyler's nursery- simple and sweet. Less colorful and busy than Caleb's room. Which is ironic, because he is a much more colorful and busy baby than Caleb was!

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Kitchen dreams.

 So I realize its Christmas week and most blog posts are about Christmas-y things. But I like to be different? Really, I've just been thinking a ton about updating our kitchen lately. We'll be putting our house on the market this Spring/Summer-ish and all the talk about it has me making a mental list of things we need to update or change to get ready for that. Including some updates to our kitchen!
  To be honest, I'm pretty bummed we haven't updated our kitchen during the past four years. When we bought our house, it was the only project I really, really wanted to do. There has just always been somewhere else to put our time and money and its been hard to get Justin on board. But I'm determined now! Maybe its the perfect winter project?
  I love our house. Its been the perfect starter house for us. But it is pretty builder grade and the neighborhood is very starter, so when I say I want to update our kitchen, I'm not talking about custom cabinets and granite countertops. Just a coat of paint on the cabinets and walls and maybe some new light fixtures. I've been dying to paint our cabinets white since the moment we first walked through this house! It would be silly to do any expensive remodeling, since we'd never get that money back when we sell it. But the little updates of fresh paint would just brighten up the space and make it look so nice!
  So, help me out. What tutorials or tips do you have for me? Honestly, we've though about hiring painters to tackle our cabinets. The guys that touched up our outside trim gave us a super cheap quote. But is it worth it to just do it myself? 

5 Laundry must-haves

I love hearing what others put on their 'must-have' lists. Whether is cleaning, books, clothing, organization, recipes- I just really love hearing what works and what other people are doing. Maybe you're like that too? If so, read on sister!

I am by no means a laundry expert. At all. But after being married for 6 years, having a 1.5 year old, and being a stay at home mom {somehow I just feel like that means I do more laundry than I've ever done before}, I have some go-to's that I stick with.

white vinegar// There's a reason your grandma talks about how amazing this stuff is. I use a cupful in nearly every load of laundry I do! Between Justin's workout clothes, Caleb's outfits {toddlers are messy/stinky}, and the millions of bath/kitchen towels that seem to pile up, using vinegar is just essential. It cuts out any stink and leaves clothes feels extra soft and smelling fresh. Trust me, this stuff works!

sunshine// Ok, I was super skeptical about this. But when Caleb was a newborn and had his first blowout in an outfit I just didn't want to toss, I rinsed it and set it out on our deck to see if the sun would take any of the stain out. YOU GUYS. It works like absolute magic. I'm not sure if you've ever tried to remove a breastmilk-poop stain, but its nearly impossible. Since then, I've learned that the sun is the best bleach of all and can get rid of so many stains!

bleach// Next to sunshine, this stuff is the best. Nevermind that I love the smell! Over the last few years, we've moved to all white bedding and towels. They're so much easier to keep clean {ironically} and I just throw a bit of bleach into each load to keep them bright white and germ free. So maybe this tip is really that I stick with white bedding/towels AND I love bleach?

routine// Almost every morning before Caleb wakes up, I toss in a load of laundry. Towels, workout clothes, Caleb's hamper- anything. I'm able to move it to the dryer before he even eats breakfast and have it all folded before lunch {usually}. This really really easy task helps me stay on top of everyone's laundry and honestly, it never piles up!

Gain// So, I know organic and all-natural stuff is ALL THE RAGE right now. But give me all the glorious laundry scents. We use scent/dye free detergent on baby clothes until we're confident our little ones aren't easily irritated by regular stuff, but otherwise I'm 100% about using Gain. It smells AMAZING. I will always and forever amen use Gain (original, in case you're wondering). 

The Everyday Home Tour. {fall}

  I love Pinterest and big blogs because they contain so much inspiration for, well, everything. It's nice to peek inside my favorite big blogger's home and see how she decorates or organizes or spends her days. But truthfully? I am the most inspired by real people and real homes. Not completely staged photos containing gorgeous goods that are just out of my price range. In real life, who has $200 to spend on pumpkins, gourds, and mums that will die in a month???

 Enter the Everyday Home Tour. I assure you, my house is so normal and average. And that's ok! I'm average! I stay at home with my toddler {and very fluffy husky and wild weimaraner}, so our budget doesn't have tons of room for just stocking up on holiday decor or instantly decorating our house from top to bottom. We've lived here for 4 years now and still have complete rooms that are untouched {unless you count piles of junk...}. Real life!

  I'm teaming up with Katie {great name, huh?!} to share a peek into how we're decorating for Fall this year and not breaking the bank. Share your home with us! Leave a comment with your blog or tag us on IG- #TheEverydayHomeTour.

  I really wanted to have a new wreath for our front door and it was a great excuse for a crafternoon with one of my besties. I used a cheapo {$4!} grapevine wreath I had leftover from a Mother's Day project and picked up a few sheets of felt for $2.50 total to make the little flowers. I sort of love how it turned out, but not the fact that my front door gets so hot from the sun that every single flower melted off and I had to buy some E600 to get them to stay! Lesson learned. But I love having a bright little spot on our blah green front door.

  Outside of our front door, I pretty much only every decorate for the seasons in two rooms of the house: the kitchen and living/dining rooms. Those are the main rooms people see and that I walk through and the places that aren't cluttered with toddler toys. One of my fall staples? This candle. You've surely heard me talk about it before and I'll definitely say it again. Plus, who cares what your house looks like if it smells this good??

  My mom gifted me this old scale last year for Christmas and I just love finding new things to stack on top of it. These pumpkins were $.79 each and I just cut the stem off the bottom two to create a cute little stack. 

  Maybe I should just give my mom all the credit for my home decor?? She gifted me this dough bowl that I break out every fall/winter to fill with whatever I can find. These pinecones were a post-christmas steal a few years ago and I decided to buy a bag of $2 mini pumpkins from Wal-mart to mix it up this year.

  This year's fall mantel looks a ton like last year's. I'm a creature of habit! I just shopped our house and grabbed some fall-ish colored books, my two glitter pumpkins {probably the only actual resuable fall decor I own?}, a green Juliska pitcher {thanks, mom!}, and these signs that had to be taken out of the guest room to get the nursery ready anyway. I had pretty much forgotten about these signs I made 3 years ago and am so glad to have them out again! 

  And, would it really be an Everyday Home Tour without some glimpses of real life? 99% of Caleb's toys are in his room or upstairs in our bonus room, but we keep a stack of books and couple of things in the living room for him. I've had the BHG magazine sitting out for two weeks in hopes that I'll find 10 minutes to actually read it...

  Thanks for taking a peek into my house this fall! How are you keeping things simple and easy and practical this year? We want to see! Snap a photo on instagram and tag us with #TheEverydayHomeTour. And don't forget to pop over to Katie's blog to see her house- girlfriend has some seriously good taste!!

House bucket list.

 This pregnancy is flying by and lately that has me itching to get some things done around the house. Because who has time to do things like make a headboard with two under two in the dead of winter? Crazy people, that's who.

  So I'm pretty aware that just making this list doesn't actually mean anything on it will happen. But it's a step closer? Truthfully, the hardest part is getting Justin on board because he's not in love with diys. He always loves the finished product, just not the thought of doing it. If we can jump that hurdle, there's hope for this list! And truthfully, I'd be happy with even a few {just one??} thing being crossed off!

  Here are the top six things I would loooove {hear that, sweetie??} to finish before the baby comes!

make a headboard// Our bedroom is so neglected, it's pathetic. We just have a mattress and metal bedframe. Not even a bedskirt. So a headboard would make a huge difference! I mean, we could buy one. But that's so expensive {we have a king bed!} and we're not made of monies. This one and this one are both super easy, cheap, and look great! I just can't make either on my own, so I'm in the market for willing helpers!

paint kitchen cabinets// Ok, this is lofty. I get that. But I've wanted to paint our cabinets since we first walked into this house! Our gross builder-grade honey oak cabinets kill me {that's dramatic, but you get the point} and I think the room would look awesome with crisp, white surfaces!

baby proof// Well this should be a given. And done already? We have all the drawer/cabinet locks, they just need to be attached. And we're still on the hunt for a gate that fits at the top of the stairs so we don't have to use the storage ottoman anymore {that Caleb will be able to climb over soon!}. 

set up nursery// This is {or should be!} an easy one! The baby will be sleeping in his crib as soon as we get home from the hospital, so it has to be set up before he's born. This can be our easy one to cross off the list!

update gallery wall// I sort of threw up the gallery wall in our bonus room just so we'd have something on the walls. Now that the room is coming together, I really want to update it with family photos and letters for both of the boys! {which means we'll have to decided on a name for baby boy...}

hang curtains// We have 3 sets of curtains resting over various windows in our house that have needed to be mounted for at least a year {classy!}. So that would be awesome to get that done/not be so trashy anymore.

I love my home. {natural light}

  One of the very first things I noticed when we looked at our home with the realtor was the natural light. If you stand in the center of the house, at any time of day, you will be able to see sunlight pouring in from one direction or another. It is wonderful! And makes our space seem more roomy and airy than it really is. Benefit of small house? No true interior rooms and lots of natural light all day long!

  I wouldn't really say I'm a skylight or high window fan, neccsisarily. But this house may have changed that for me. We never have any lights on around the house unless it's nighttime and all the pretty light we get makes for the best photos. All those bright monthly shots of Caleb? I never edit a single one. Well, honestly, I never edit any of my photos because I'm lazy. But thanks to all the natural light we get throughout our house, I never need to!

Its the narrows row of windows above our front door and down the hall, above the guest bath shower that pour in the most light. 

  And that big, awkward half circle window in our dining room- so so much light comes through! At the top of the stairs leading to the bonus room there is a cute round window {with crooked panes inside that drive me bananas} and it pours light down the dark stairway and into our entry. 

  The bay window in our kitchen lets in all the golden evening light and the big wall-to-wall windows in Caleb's tiny room make for the most glorious morning sunlight to wake up to {especially for a kid who is up with the sun most days anyway!}.
  As we get closer and closer to having another little person in this house and make plans to get rid of our guest room in lieu of another nursery, it gets easier to list the growing pains and frustrations with this little house. But the more I dive into making a list and taking inventory of all the things I love about our home- the more I really do love it. What's one of your favorite things about your home? Natural light? Lots of storage? I'd love to hear! 

What I love about my house.

 Have you read this book or this book? I've read each of them over the past couple of months {this one is my favorite!} and they've both given me a new perspective on my house. I loved them both so much, I'm adding them to my birthday list. Lots of thoughts about being content, using what I have in front of me, and making this place into a home I love. 
  Honestly though? There's a lot not to love about our house. It's small, cramped really. And feeling more and more cramped all the time {ahem baby number two ahem}. It's builder-grade in every sense of the phrase. It's located in a very transitional neighborhood. We have tiny closets. And hardly any space to host guests, which will turn into no space to host guests when the baby comes.
  Of course, I wasn't blind to any of those things when we bought our house 3.5 years ago. But that's ok! It's just our starter home! We'll upgrade all of those things in 5ish years! That's what we told ourselves. And it's true, we will move one day, probably sooner rather than later. But instead of waiting for that day, I've decided to spend more time thinking about what there is to love about our house instead of the things I wish I could change.
  And when I start to list them, I realize there are a ton of things I do love about our house. So, that's where I'm starting. With the things I do love about my house. And an impromptu mini-series was born! Stay tuned over the next few weeks for little bits of what I love about our home. 
  And I have a feeling this little mini-series is going to motivate me to paint a room or two and plan some small home projects. Maybe I'll even be able  to convince Justin to help me paint our kitchen cabinets?? A girl can dream!

Around the yard. {June}

 It's no secret that I love gardening, even though I'm still a complete beginner. We have a small raised bed and really modest landscaping around our house. And I love it. Maybe one day we'll have the money and time and space to really go crazy. For now though, in this little starter house {that we're outgrowing quickly!}, I love all the little burst of color and life around our yard.

  I don't know what I did right, but it looks like I'll have an earlier garden harvest than usual this year. No complaints here! We already have zucchini and peppers growing. My basil is sprouting up fast and the tomato plants are starting to blossom.

  But my very favorite? Zinnias. 1/3 of my garden plot is devoted to flowers and I get excited every year to watch them grow from seeds to big, beautiful blooms around my house all summer. They take awhile, so we still have a few weeks before we see the first pops of pinks, purples, and reds. I can't wait!

A few years ago, Justin ripped out some ugly bushes by our bay window and planted some baby boxwoods. Every summer, I pick up these gorgeous {and totally prepotted} flowers from Wal-mart, of all places, and they grow like crazy. I had to settle for a different mix last year but was able to find my favorite go-to a few weeks ago. After one dose of Miracle-Gro and some good rain, they are off to a great start. I also pot some impatiens every year by our front door. It's a tricky spot, since it gets a weird mix of heavy sun and shade. Since I have two planters flanking our door, I'm pretty diligent about rotating them from each side so they don't get too much hot sun. I'm always so amazed at how resilient they are and how they literally bloom all summer.

And last, but definitely not least. My day lilies. For most of my life, I lived on a gravel road in the middle of the country. On both sides of our road, and all around our house, were corn and bean fields. But lining most parts of the road were also big patches of deep orange morning lilies. We also had a huge patch of them along the side of our garage and I love to water them in the summer and pull the dried stems out in the fall. So when I discovered the previous owners had planted yellow day lilies by the front of our house now, I was so excited! They were getting a little overgrown and we had a stretch of our side yard the was bare, so I split them two years ago and transplanted them. It took them a season, but they are finally filling it and blooming like crazy now! I love that little reminder of my childhood.

The mundane.

  Did you see my post from yesterday? I shared this from Sarah. The last few weeks, I've been itching to do a massive spring cleaning. To take two entire days and just do some deep cleaning. But there's the baby and life things and you know, I can't just take two entire days and do that right now. But. BUT! I have slowly started some of those not so fun tasks that make our house feel just a little bit lighter. I deep cleaned our couches {you guys. The things lost in my couches are amazing}. I dusted some baseboards. I purged my closet {capsule wardrobe, anyone??}. Slowly but surely, this house is being deep cleaned.
  And it's so mundane. No big, fun projects like this one {although I do want to recreate that in our master bath}. It's funny though. These little tasks that I dread so much and put off for too long are making me love my home more than those bigger wow projects do.
  Next on my list: tackle the junk drawer. Dun dun dun. What spring cleaning tips do you have for me?

Coffee table diaries.

  We've been in our house for 3 years, but only just stopped using our $15 Goodwill coffee table as our entertainment center. Keeping it classy over here, folks. So anyways, we've been taking full advantage of having a coffee table again! {Read: a place to let junk build up} How did we go three whole years without such a necessary piece of furniture? A place to prop our feet up! To keep our drinks on! To stack up all the baby things {burp clothes, pacis, toys}. To build a stack of books! To hold our kleenexs! Who knew coffee tables were so dang useful?

  Anyways, I thought I'd start a {sort of?} series- coffee table diaries. I always love peeking into people's lives and homes. Maybe you're the same? So here's an unedited peek of my coffee table {though I did dust it over the weekend!}. The landing zone in our living room. It's pretty reflective of life right now. The last remnants of a winter cold, a camera on hand for capturing everyday moments {not pictured though, since I had to use it to snap these}, a bottle of water (with no coaster because, I'm lazy), my stack of go-to books {Bible, prayer journal, this month's book club pick}, Caleb's favorite accessory, our Apple Tv remote, and my most favorite candle. All on top of our vintage {cheap, budget friendly, and scuffed up} table. What's on your coffee table right now? Do you keep it edited and pretty all the time with one of those cute trays that holds all your stuff? Or do you let it stack up with real life stuff?  

Joyeux Noel. {DIY}

  Who doesn't love a good holiday craft? I'm finding my time is really precious these days and I'm opting to buy lots of things instead of making them lately. But that doesn't mean I'm not crafting at all anymore! I'm simply prioritizing. I've got some baby things in the works, a really big housewarming gift {even though you moved in 6 months ago, Lauren!}, and some baby holiday crafts on my current DIY list. And I really wanted to make one nice Christmas decoration this year. 
  I've been eying all those gorgeous rustic-ish wooden signs for a few years now, but never wanted to pay such a large price tag for one. And then I discovered Royal Design Studio's new Christmas collaboration with Jennifer Rizzo and I had my solution! You know I already love Royal Design Studio's stencils {have you seen Caleb's nursery here and here?}, and I absolutely love Jennifer's style. Have you seen her new book? It's full of ideas for decorating your home for Christmas- with real house tours. I'm swooning over all the gorgeous decor! Her stencil line is also gorgeous, and I had a hard time choosing which ones I wanted to try out. My favorites were the classic letters, garland border, and Santa reindeer stencils. They're each so versatile and I have at least half a dozen ideas on how to use them still floating in my head. 

  But for this project, I stuck with the classic letters and garland border.  It was SO easy. The stencils are really durable {same great quality as the one we used on the nursery wall} and simple to use. Besides the stencils, the only thing I had to buy for this project was some red chalk paint- I had everything else on hand! I found the board in our garage, already cut to the size I was looking for, and had all the other paint and brushes from past projects. 

  I started by spraying my board white {after cleaning it off a bit}. I fully planned on leaving it white. I started lightly tracing the letters to gauge spacing and to start lining them up to paint. But then I didn't love that spacing I chose, so I just painted over then entire board with some neutral chalk paint leftover from my bathroom makeover {I love chalk paint right now}. After some good sanding, I kind of fell in love with the accidental color- distressed and pretty! Then I simply lined up my garland stencils, taped it into place, and painted away! Chalk paint is perfect for stencil project because it dries so fast- so the wait time between each garland piece and letter wasn't very long. The rest of the project is pretty self explanatory, right? I painted the other side of the garland and then each letter, one by one. While I chose a more subdued red color and purposefully didn't keep my painting too clean, it was still a little too bright and simple for me. So I used more sandpaper to distress the whole sign some more until I had it just right. And then I immediately propped the sign on my mantel because I'm in love with it! So pretty! And cheap! And easy! All the exclamations!

  It looks pretty perfect between some of my collected nutcrackers. Such a simple project, but I know it will be a Christmas staple around my house for lots of year. A little french wording to remind me of my Christmas spent in France during college and a pretty piece I love even more because I made it myself! 

  This is a sponsored post and I was given complimentary stencils from Royal Design Studio to review. All photos, opinions, and project ideas are 100% my own!