Our Home

How to add charm to your garden with discarded bricks. Install a brick border for instant English garden charm! Easy DIY for beginners!

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.

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!

The first big project in 2020 will be my laundry room! I am excited to take you through my laundry room design plans today and give you a tour of the current space. The plan is to incorporate big design into this space on a little budget! I am looking forward to this project because I love to get thrifty and creative in with home renovation projects. My goal is to spend under $300 for this entire makeover.

If you own a home built in the 50’s or 60’s, there is a good chance you have at least one retro bathroom. Our home was built in the late …

If you are just dipping your toe in the gardening pool, planning your first flower bed garden can be intimidating! I have a few close people in my life who are incredible gardeners and I always seek out their advice when I have questions about my flower garden beds.

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!

I still can’t get over how amazing my freshly painted, old linoleum floors look in the laundry room! For this project, I partnered with Rust-Oleum to try out their interior paint product, Rust-Oleum HOME Floor Coating.

Our small guest bathroom lacked character and needed some extra oomph. Adding decorative trim to the wall for a traditional look was just what the room needed! Today I am going to share how to easily install box molding to a wall for this classic look.

Filling the walls in a large room can be a little challenging for me. My goal is always to hang unique artwork that is interesting and doesn’t break the bank. Whatever I hang on our walls, I want it to feel like our family. For week 4 of the One Room Challenge, I am going to share some of the artwork I will be hanging in our living room and where I find them.

This year, I really wanted to give the basement a more finished look and began planning a budget-friendly basement makeover. We built a utility room to hide the mechanicals, updated the overhead lighting, sprayed the exposed ceiling black, and painted the concrete floors.

Painting the exposed basement ceiling may have been the most physically taxing DIY I have ever done. Don’t get me wrong, it was totally worth it for the look and the money saved, but it was exhausting!

ks, I will be getting started on a bedroom makeover for my daughter and, unsurprisingly, she has requested pink walls. When she told me what color she wanted to paint her walls, I realized that I had never painted any interior pink before! Today I am sharing a roundup of the best neutral pink paint colors that I considered for her bedroom.

The guest bathroom on the main floor of our house is the only bathroom that has had any updates since it was built in the late 1960s. The shower was updated, the countertop was replaced with marble and new wallpaper was installed.

We started working on our unfinished basement makeover about two months ago and I still cannot get over the transformation! Last year we decided to put our large basement to good use when the country went into quarantine and the kids needed a space to run wild.

The master bedroom reveal is here and it looks nothing like it did a few months ago! I love these 6-week challenges so much because they really push me to complete the projects in one single space. I often find myself bouncing around from project to project around the house, but when I really focus on one area, it is so worth it in the end.

This IKEA hack transformation may be my favorite one yet! I decided to give our current IKEA Hemnes dresser an update when I was putting together the design plans for our master bedroom makeover.

Today I am excited to share how we painted our pool and saved thousands of dollars! Would you believe me if I told you we almost walked away from our house because there was a pool in the backyard? We have young kids and the idea of having a pool was really intimidating to me.

For the final week of this challenge, I am sharing the reveal of the dining room transformation AND a festive table setting designed for the holidays.

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!

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!

I have owned a pair of IKEA RIBBA picture ledges (similar) for a decade and continue to love their functionality. I actually don’t think IKEA even sells this particular style anymore. When I began planning my daughter’s vintage-inspired bedroom makeover, I

Creating a functional living space in an unfinished basement is an incredible way to add square footage to your home! Today I am excited to share affordable ideas to create a beautiful unfinished basement on a budget. These DIY projects made all of the difference in our basement and it’s now a space that we use every single day.

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.

We purchased this old bed frame off of Craigslist almost 8 years ago for $100. When I bought it, I had every intention of painting it right away, but it never happened! When we moved into our new home 6 months ago, we planned to use this bed in our daughter’s bedroom.

Welcome to week 3 of the Better Homes & Gardens One Room Challenge! This week, I added some personality into my boys’ bedroom by installing a wall mural on one wall, and LOVE how it turned out!

Welcome back to week 2 of the Fall One Room Challenge! This week I chose the paint color and focused on painting the walls the perfect shade of pink. Check out the design plans for my vintage-inspired girls’ bedroom in the Week 1 blog post. Here is a reminder of what my daughter’s bedroom looked like when we first moved into the home two years ago.

Whenever I begin a room makeover, I always start with paint. The wall color lays the foundation for the design and painting a room makes it feel fresh and new. Today I am going to take you through how to paint a carpeted room in 5 easy steps.

Week 2 of the One Room Challenge is all about dining room prep! This week is all about prepping the room – making it ugly so it can look so …

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.

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.

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.

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 5 of the One Room Challenge! This week I have continued to upcycle second-hand furniture to fit within the design of my daughters’ vintage-inspired bedroom makeover. Last week I painted the vanity/desk from my MIL blue and it looks really beautiful against the warm pink walls. This week I recovered a bentwood chair found at an estate sale to fit within the bedroom design. I also tackled a quick paint project on the existing nightstand to balance the other side of the room.

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.

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.

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!

Designing and building an English garden in my backyard | Building Bluebird #landscaping #gardening #greenthumb

I found this old cabinet at a garage sale and immediately felt the urge to bring her back to life. I decided to paint the cabinet the perfect green paint color that aligns perfectly with the modern designs in my living room and dining room.

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 …

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.

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.

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.

We are so close to wrapping up this basement project and I can’t wait to share it with all of you! Creating beautiful and functional areas in a basement is one of my favorite ways to add value to our homes.

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.

My favorite tools to recommend to beginner gardeners | Building Bluebird #greenthumb #englishgarden #gardening #pottedplants

Are you ready for the boys’ bedroom reveal for Week 8 of the One Room Challenge?! Even though my design plans changed quite a bit, I am SO happy with how Thomas’s bedroom turned out. And most importantly, Thomas is overjoyed with the new look of his bedroom!

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.

I gotta be honest, I wasn’t sure I was going to finish this week 4 of the One Room Challenge! In the final minutes, I finished my Ikea Billy Bookcase hack and I am so proud of how it came out.

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.

My budget-friendly laundry room makeover is finally complete! A few months ago I shared my laundry room inspiration and I can’t wait to show you how I brought that vision to life.

My goal for our kitchen renovation was to create an open concept that complimented the traditional style of the home while also adding that modern vibe for our family today.

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 …

Mood & modern dining room design

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 …

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.

Organizing your kitchen cabinets efficiently is often overlooked when first moving into a new home. Today I am sharing 8 time-saving tips to organize your kitchen. When a kitchen is …

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 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 …

Our retro master bathroom was tired, outdated, and lacking function. After my mini-makeover, our bathroom is now a showstopper without any major renovations! If you have been following along, I …

Today I am sharing simple bathroom organization solutions for our cluttered master bath! After living in our master bathroom for a year, I identified a handful of areas that needed …

Is it just me or does it feel like we just wrapped up the Spring One Room Challenge? Either way, my home is never lacking a space that needs a …

Week 4 of the One Room Challenge was spent customizing our current IKEA Hemnes dresser. In my week 2 update, I shared that I had purchased a pricey new dresser …

For week 5 of the Better Homes & Gardens One Room Challenge, I focused on the design details. I have all of the furniture purchased and in place and I …