Today I am excited to share great home staging tips from a local interior decorator, Debbie Jacoby! Debbie is selling her beautiful Tudor-style home in NW Ohio and her home …

for all beginner bloggers so they can avoid my mistakes. Starting a blog is hard and scary. For most people starting out, you have to learn an entirely new skill to create your own website. Along with learning this new skill, you have to be vulnerable and open when writing about your experiences. Learning to tell a story in your own voice is harder than it looks!

The first project at our third flip house was to build a legal bedroom in the basement with an attached bathroom. I was pregnant with our second child and we made the decision to hire an au pair once our daughter arrived. Not only did the cultural aspect of this experience excite us, but it made more sense financially in terms of childcare in Denver. The basement was a blank canvas that was perfect for creating a guest suite for our au pair, Maria.

Today I am sharing 7 kid-friendly activities in Toledo to check out this winter. The cold winter months in Northwest Ohio can make you want to hibernate in your home, but these activities encourage learning, exploration and are enjoyable for both kids and parents. This winter break we visited many of these places and had a blast!

This year we built another raised garden box in our backyard using pressure-treated wood and corner brackets. I documented the entire process and am excited to share this easy tutorial with all of you!

LED light bulbs are the easiest and quickest way to make your home more energy-efficient. If you haven’t made the switch to LEDs yet, add this to your 2020 New Year’s resolution list right now! LED light bulbs have become much more affordable than they used to be and there are numerous benefits to making the switch from old CFL bulbs.

Are you a new real estate investor who is looking to find their first property? I am breaking down five simple questions for you to answer that will help you move forward and find your first real estate investment property!

Outdoor DIY projects seem to have a domino effect in our household. What started as a simple tree removal project quickly devolved into installing a brick paver border around our pool. We are always guilty of project creep and this time was no different!

hoosing the type of flooring for your home is a BIG decision! It has to hold up to the wear and tear of your family, and not all flooring is created equally. I am breaking down my top tips for choosing the best flooring material for your family and home.

I am excited to share the playroom progress and our design plans! We are in the process of decluttering the entire space and coming up with storage solutions for the …

Welcome to our new, temporary home for the next year in Toledo, Ohio!

For our first year in Ohio, we will be living with my in-laws. Our boxes are all unpacked and we are settling into our new routine in Ohio. We want to take our time finding the right neighborhood for us to move into as a family considering location, school district, etc. But for now, we are living in a fantastic neighborhood and have enjoyed meeting our new neighbors. Check out our temporary, Ohio digs!

I am so excited to share my interview with Jen McMurray, real estate broker, investor, and owner of Bachelorettepadflip.com. Jen started flipping houses with the goal of paying off over …

When purchasing an income property the goal is obvious, to make income! We purchased our second income property (site unseen) and had the rental ready to list within 30 days. Today I am sharing the steps we took to get our rental property ready for renters and making money quickly.

Blueish green paint colors are a popular choice for the interior of homes. These two colors complement each other really well when combined. Green adds warmth to a space, while blue adds freshness to a room.

On today’s episode, we are reviewing how to easily find comparables for your home or investment property. Understanding how to pull comps is a valuable skill as a real estate …

On today’s episode of From the Nest Podcast, Chris and I talk about buying an investment property site unseen! We are breaking down how we found this deal and our …

On today’s episode, Chris and I are sharing our top 5 lessons we learned from our many home inspection experiences. Home inspections can be stressful and it is easy to …

Earlier this year we began work on our backyard to prep for the English garden I planned to build. Today I am sharing a quick and easy DIY project that has helped to camouflage the ugly electrical meter on the back of the house.

I am constantly drawn to the beautiful and popular Farrow and Ball paint colors. Unfortunately, the accessibility and pricepoint are two reasons why I have yet to purchase this paint brand.
I know this is old school, but there is something about purchasing paint in a store that brings me comfort! Farrow and Ball paints are sold in limited stores so the purchase would be made online. While I am not opposed to purchasing online, the biggest detractor is the price point. I am usually scraping together my budget for DIY projects, so $115 for a gallon of paint is hard to justify.

As I write this blog post I am sitting on my back porch enjoying one of the first warm days of Spring. I love when I am able to work on outdoor DIY projects that improve the look of our home while also enjoying the fresh air.

On episode 21 of From the Nest Podcast, Chris and I are reviewing 1031 exchanges and capital gains tax with our listeners. We are by NO means experts, but we …

Once you identify a flip house and have it under contract, there are a few actions investors can immediately take. Along with being an active realtor in NW Ohio, I have experience with three live-in flips, one fix and flip, and as well as owning a few income properties.

I first learned about investing in mobile home parks through my friend Kate. We both loved learning about real estate investing and decided that this could be a great strategy to partner up and work together. We booked a three-day course in California to learn how to buy ourselves a mobile home park.

Thanks for tuning in to episode 6 of From the Nest Podcast! On today’s episode, Chris and I are discussing 5 different ways to finance your first investment property. 1. …

Going to estate sales is one of my favorite weekend activities! I love the thrill of the hunt for beautiful, unique home decor and furniture to fill my home. It’s also a great place to check out great architecture and stunning properties around your city. Estate sales are an incredible place to find high-quality pieces at a discounted price, but you have to be quick to snag them before someone else does first! You can find a list of local estate sales through the app estatesales.net.

Using materials that we already owned, I was determined to give our basement staircase a fresh and modern look. My goal was to complete this DIY project spending zero dollars!

I absolutely love the simple scalloped furniture detail that is having a moment right now. I recently gave my daughter’s bedroom a makeover with a Grandmillennial style and added the scalloped furniture detail with this easy IKEA hack. I am breaking down the entire process with this beginner’s level tutorial!

Today I am sharing 10 simple ways to make your bathroom more eco-friendly! Bathroom renovations have been on my mind because the bathrooms in our new home are original to when the house was built in the 1970s. This means that they are very colorful and not very efficient.

The most effective way to whiten your tile grout is with a simple homemade grout cleaner made of 4 ingredients. If your tile floors were installed with white grout, there is a good chance that it is stained with dirt. Using household products that are usually stocked in your kitchen, you can whiten your tile grout without any chemicals!

When you buy a fixer-upper, it is imperative that you prioritize and plan your home renovation projects! Renovating a home can be overwhelming and I have learned quite a bit living through renovations these last 10 years. Today I am sharing my tips for how Chris and I plan our home renovation projects and prioritize each one.

I have always loved the look of an English garden! Since moving into our home last summer, I envisioned creating an English garden in our yard. I have spent hours researching features and flowers found in these gardens and have started the beginnings of my very own English garden in my backyard.

I say this all the time, but paint is so transformative! On the blog today, I am sharing a step by step tutorial on how to paint a room like a pro.

Looking for the next good book? I have put together a long list of the best self-improvement books to read or listen to this year! I am a big reader and love peppering in self-improvement books throughout the year.

Today I am sharing 6 ways to create less waste during the holidays. These simple changes helped me to use less and not sacrifice all of the beautiful decor that comes with the holidays.

My husband’s family has always had beautifully wrapped gifts with bows of ribbon adorning each package under the Christmas tree.  A festive ribbon wrapped around both sides of the present and a simple bow on top is my favorite look. With this type of gift bow, the recipient can easily unravel the ribbon with a tug of one tail. I asked my mother-in-law for a tutorial on how to make these gift bows and I have been making them ever since! 

The foyer in our house is very grand with vaulted ceilings and a winding staircase. It was one of my favorite features of our home when we first walked through it and I immediately envisioned it decked out for the holidays. Brand new garland from the store can cost a fortune, so this year I found creative ways to hang garland on the stairs for less than $20.

Dried orange slice garland is all the rage this holiday season and I am loving this trend! I happily hopped on this bandwagon and made some dried orange slices of my own to decorate our home.

Christmas decor can be expensive to buy all at once and personally, I enjoy collecting meaningful decor throughout the years. I have compiled a list of easy and inexpensive decorations for the holidays while the collection grows.

Today I am sharing my step by step tutorial on how to install your kitchen backsplash. With this tutorial, you will get all of the tips and tricks I wish I had when I tackled my first tiling project!

We made it to week 8 of the One Room Challenge and the reveal of the vintage-inspired girls bedroom! For my daughter’s bedroom makeover, I tried to incorporate primarily second-hand and already owned items in the design. My goal was to create a beautiful and functional bedroom that encouraged creativity.

For the last 8 years, I have used the Shutterfly program to create our family yearbooks. It is rare that I print photos out anymore and these yearbooks are a great way to compile all of our memories and favorite photos each year.

Welcome back to week 7 of the One Room Challenge! Incorporating vintage artwork into a design is a great way to create a one-of-a-kind space and save money. One of my favorite items to find at estate sales is artwork and included quite a few second-hand items in Evelyn’s bedroom makeover.

Welcome back to week 6 of the One Room Challenge! The bedding selection is always important because the bed tends to be the focal point of every bedroom! The goal for Evelyn’s bedding was to find an affordable and durable option that looked great too.

Welcome back to week 3 of the One Room Challenge! This week I spent time upcycling a thrifted peg rail and two IKEA Ribba photo ledges and I think it may be my favorite IKEA hack to date!

Welcome back to week 4 of the One Room Challenge! We are at the halfway mark of updating my daughter’s bedroom and I still have lots of fun projects to share. This week I tackled another fun IKEA hack in Evelyn’s

Welcome back to another exciting One Room Challenge! This exciting design event was created by Linda Weinstein back in 2011 with the goal of cheering on and supporting online friends to complete a finished room in their homes.

Today I am sharing tips for one of my most effective renovation strategies – how to remove wallpaper! My latest home project is giving our dated master bathroom a little refresh.

e in a home that gives them energy every day and brings them joy. This book has helped me to understand how simple design choices can brighten our moods.

Today I am excited to share 5 easy ways to make your laundry room a little more green! These simple changes can save energy and reduce plastic while doing laundry every day.

Today I am excited to take you through one of the most popular Airbnb listings in Toledo, OH – The Gas Lantern Cottage. This beauty is 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and within walking distance of downtown Sylvania.

Chris and I grew up taking family road trips every year and have naturally fallen into the same pattern with our kids. While air travel is nice, we often decide on driving to a destination to save money and have our own transportation.

Week 2 of the One Room Challenge was dominated by painting the bedroom. Six weeks can really fly by so when I didn’t have a paintbrush in my hand, I …

You may not have a charming English cottage in the countryside, but you can still create a beautiful English cottage garden in your backyard. English cottages are definitely having a moment and I am all in with the cottagecore and grand millennial trend!

We have made it to the MCM living room reveal and I am so happy with the finished product. Our living room is the first area that you see when you come into our home and I am really excited to have a finished space that reflects who we are. Over these last 8 weeks, I have bought a few new items for the room, reused materials that we already owned, and finally put some of my thrifted items on display.

Welcome to Week 7 of the One Room Challenge! I gotta be honest, I have struggled with my time management on this project and am a little bummed that I missed writing my weekly post last week

This week of the One Room Challenge is all about budget-saving DIY projects for the living room. I have always been thrifty when it comes to decorating and this makeover is no different. The saying, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” definitely applies to me and I get such a rush out of creating something beautiful out of items that were discarded by others.

I have been hard at work creating my English Garden and the beds are starting to fill up! All of the perennials that I have put in my garden were given to me or transferred from another spot in my yard.

If this first time stopping by, welcome, and thanks for visiting! A few years ago I decided to quit my corporate job in Denver and my family moved back to …

The mudroom makeover came with plenty of surprises but I absolutely love the end result! The architecture of our home includes many cottage-style elements including a sloping cedar-shingled roof, large bay window, and carriage door entrance on the front of the house.

Welcome back to Week 2 of the One Room Challenge! Our living room has great bones and the first improvement we made to the room was installing new floors and painting the walls. Check out all of the living room design plans in the Week 1 post.

Home renovation costs can add up quickly! Today I am sharing my top 5 money saving tips for your next big home project. After flipping four houses and renovating our current home, Chris and I have learned lots of ways to save money with each project we take on.

Who’s ready for the Spring One Room Challenge?! This time around we will be working on our living room and I can’t wait to pull it all together! For the last two years, this room was set up with furniture we purchased 10 years ago after we were married.

When it comes to painting projects in my home, I always choose to paint myself instead of hiring it out. The cost of labor adds up quickly and I prefer to use that money in other areas of our home. Today I am sharing the best paint supplies I prefer when painting interior spaces in our house.

Last Fall I finished our master bedroom makeover and I am finally getting around to writing the closet organization post. Just in time for Spring cleaning! Our home has incredible storage with large closets in every bedroom and even more spacious closets in the hallway.

With the walls finally painted, I spent week 3 of the One Room Challenge installing closet organization systems and assembling our new bed frame. Our master bedroom has three huge …

Building a compost station at your home is a great way to reduce waste and create nutrient-rich soil. My family has been composting for a few years now using a rolling bin and decided to take our composting one step further at our new home.

For the mudroom makeover, I was excited to hang a printed wallpaper above the newly installed plank wall. I chose the mudroom design to reflect an English cottage vibe and the Flora print was exactly what I was going for.

This beautiful Victorian-style home was built in the late 1800s and is located in Toledo’s Historic Old West End. If you are a fan of architecture and old homes, touring the Old West End is a MUST!

The Bosler house was built in 1875 by Ambrose Bosler and became one of the first homes built in North Denver (now the Highlands neighborhood). This home was built right before Colorado received statehood status.

Steve and Jan wanted a home that functioned for their family today while also fitting in with the period when the home was built in 1875. Unfortunately, because the roof had been removed for 6 years, there wasn’t much to salvage in terms of original materials.

Our mudroom makeover is complete and I am excited to share how we installed the tongue and groove plank wall in this room. I chose this wall treatment because it worked well with the cottage architectural style of our home. This project is definitely doable for beginners and is affordable too.

Adding a bathroom in our basement was the first project on the list when we moved into our third flip house. The basement level of our home was huge with half of the space finished and the other half unfinished as a storage room.

Living in a flip house is a great strategy for beginner investors and offers many benefits. One big challenge that new real estate investors encounter is capital. This strategy is beneficial for investors who are just starting out and can only afford one property.

Today I am excited to share a beautiful restoration of this classic, colonial style home. Who doesn’t like to see an old home be brought back to life? My brother and his wife spent two years restoring every piece of this home and the transformation is jaw-dropping.

One of the most common questions I get is how to choose the best paint colors for your home. Often it is from readers who are moving into a new home and don’t know where to start in terms of paint colors.

If you are looking to sell your home, one of the easiest ways to maximize its value is to create a blank slate with neutral paint colors on your walls.

I am SO excited that I can finally share the big plans I have in store for Building Bluebird! Chris and I have made the decision to move our family home …

Episode 22 is really a time capsule of our journey to finding the perfect family home. We share our experience buying this house and all of the ups and downs …

Welcome to our new home, our Cape Cottage! It is still a little surreal that we now own our own home in Toledo, Ohio. It’s also a little crazy that …

I am excited to take you through a before and after tour of our first flip house! Along with being our first flip house, it was also our first home! …

Today Chris and I are discussing 8 easy and affordable ways to make your home more energy efficient. With Earth Day coming up this month, we thought this topic would …

Thanks for tuning in to episode 12 of From the Nest Podcast! On today’s episode, Chris and I are discussing the kitchen design at the Drummond Flip House. Designing the …

After renovating four homes (while living there), Chris and I have a few tips for renovating a home with young kids. Over those 10 years, we both had full-time jobs and were raising two rambunctious kiddos and still survived living through construction zones.

It has been almost a week since my last day at SpotX and I am continuing to adjust to my career transition.  I started SpotX when I first moved to …

Today I am sharing our next big project – installing a new roof and painting the exterior of our home to improve the curb appeal! I have mentioned this before, …

Our second house had a tiny, closed off kitchen. By removing half a wall in the kitchen and installing a breakfast bar, we were able to achieve an open concept …

In the last 10 years, Chris and I have moved 6 times and consider ourselves experts when moving and into a new house. We have learned lots of tips and tricks when we organize and unpack our new home and I am excited to share our top 5 tips today. These organizational tips are sure to turn your new house into a home.

The Better Homes & Gardens Fall One Room Challenge is here and I am so excited to be a guest participant! For the next 6 weeks, I will be transforming our dining room just in time for the holidays. Every Wednesday I will be posting updates on my progress and you can check out all of the behind-the-scenes fun over on Instagram.

Week 3 of the One Room Challenge brought on the biggest transformation yet. I say this all the time and I will say it again…PAINT IS SO TRANSFORMATIVE! I spent …

The dining room was in need of a buffet and week 4 of the One Room Challenge was all about finding the perfect piece. When I couldn’t find the perfect buffet online, I decided to go thrifting and refinish a piece myself. We blew past the halfway point of this 6 week challenge and I love putting this room back together!

We are so close to the finish line for the One Room Challenge! This week we are getting art and decor up on the walls in our dining room.

The dollhouse makeover is complete! In the words of Pinkalicious (my daughter’s favorite show), “it’s pinkatastic!” This was such a fun project for me. I loved designing this house with …

Today I am sharing my favorite functional kitchen ideas to maximize efficiency and organization! When a kitchen is organized well, valuable time is given back to the homeowner. In the last 10 years, I have moved 8 times and have learned a thing or two about efficiently organizing my kitchen.

Laundry rooms are one of my favorite projects to makeover because they are often left as boring and uninspiring spaces. It is so refreshing to do a not-so-fun task like …

The Better Homes & Gardens Spring One Room Challenge is here and I am so excited to participate again! Over the next 8 weeks, I will be transforming my boy’s …

Last week I found an old iron arbor on the side of the road with “free” attached to the front. Aside from the arbor being my favorite price, the design …

We are in the final weeks of the One Room Challenge and I am FEELING it! Last week was heavy and to be honest, the Challenge felt a little trivial. …

Week 7 of the One Room Challenge and I am looking forward to wrapping up this project. There are definitely some challenges that come along with renovating a child’s bedroom …

Today I am excited to show you how to color block a piece of art for your home! This DIY is great for artwork that is usually passed over at …

Today I am sharing how to update a lamp with spray paint. I love the challenge of updating a space on a budget. Along with saving money, I enjoy finding …