Many of us (myself included!) have found ourselves creating a small home office due to the pandemic. I went from working from home one day a week to full-time literally overnight. Since the luxury of a dedicated room for a work area is not always an option, I thought it may be helpful to pull together a compact home office idea that is easy on space AND your budget.  If the ultimate plan is to return to the office, investing in office-specific furniture is probably not ideal. The home office setup idea below includes a desk that I think is a bit more versatile than standard computer desk ..read more

When we bought our house, one of the few things I disliked about it was that it had the laundry room off of the kitchen and it was very far away from the bedrooms. It is crammed into a corner in the eat-in-kitchen and enclosed with bi-fold doors. Inside were those builder grade wire racks in an awkward U-shape. The laundry closet is just deep enough to house our top loading washer and dryer but not much else. I never snapped a photo of the inside, but here is how it looked right when we moved in. It is just Brian and I, so we don’t go through a ton of laundry, but I knew that I wanted to max ..read more

This particular project was so fun because we got to see this screened in porch addition come to life from the ground up! The space started as a deck, but the homeowners hired a contractor to transition it into a screened porch. Here in Raleigh, we get more than our fair share of sweltering summer days and pesky mosquitoes, so a screened in porch is a pretty solid investment! Here is how it looked when we first came over to measure and get the plan together ..read more

The homeowners did most of the heavy lifting when it came to this adorable girl’s nursery, so we can’t take much credit. We did come in with a few accessories to add the icing on the cake and I think we’re all in love with how it turned out. This room doesn’t get a whole lot of natural light and was painted a soft robin’s egg blue before, so we swapped it out for a bright white paint color and once again, it created the perfect backdrop for everything else ..read more

This room was pretty amazing before we began the project. Originally, this room was the back of the house before the homeowners added on a dream kitchen and family room addition. All that this room needed were a few finishing touches since 90% of the items you see had already been curated by Meg and Gary. Also - can we talk about that fireplace for a second?! The homeowners sourced the mantle from another historic property but it looks like it has been there for a hundred years. Seriously - swoon ..read more

THE PARLOUR DOWNTOWN RALEIGH BUNGALOW Back in 2015, I was working for a Home Builder in their design center. One day I had an appointment scheduled with a new home buyer and her real estate agent, Meg. To be honest, I usually dreaded appointments where a client's agent was in tow. They were often condescending and didn't trust that I also had their client's best interest in mind. Turns out Meg was the complete opposite. She was so positive, kind, helpful, enthusiastic and just a ..read more

I’ve gotten a couple of emails over the years asking about our experience with Lowe’s stock cabinets - specifically the Diamond Now Arcadia White Shaker Cabinets. First and foremost, this post is not sponsored by Lowe’s (or anyone for that matter). When I was researching these cabinets for our first kitchen renovation years ago, I couldn’t find any detailed reviews for the Diamond Now Arcadia Cabinets, so if you’re in the boat I was in, I hope this helps! To start, I’ll give you a brief overview of the cabinets. The Arcadia ..read more

It’s been about six months since we wrapped up our $500 guest bathroom makeover for the One Room Challenge. You can go and see the before and afters, as well as budget breakdown of this room here. We used a new-to-me product in that project called FloorPops by WallPops which are cheap vinyl floor tiles that are self adhesive and printed with today’s popular patterns. In other words, they’re not your grandmother’s vinyl. :) During that project, a few people asked about the product and how I thought it would hold up. I totally get the concern - we too were skeptical about using a peel and stick ..read more

Thank you to everyone who sent us congratulatory messages on our newest project. This 1949 house is 2 beds/1 bath and all of 924 square feet on half an acre lot. The selling features for me were the hardwoods, gas fireplace, arched doorways, and circular driveway. We’'ll call her the Saint Mary House. Here are the listing photos (ain’t she cute ..read more