Front Door Makeover! (On a Budget!)

 FINALLY! I've been wanting to get this little project done for the past 5 years. Almost the minute we moved in, I wanted to paint our front door. I couldn't decide on a color, so I just never did bring this project off of the back burner.

Link to the blog containing this photo is available on my "The Honeymoon Cottage" board on Pinterest.

Until I found this photo on Pinterest. I fell in love with the look of this, because, mainly, it's almost the exact same color brick as our house. I loved the color of the blur against the color of the brick, and the galvanized buckets (still working on that one!) and the chalk board... I adored it. I showed it to Aaron, he loved it. My father in law loved it. My mom loved it. My best friend in Alabama loved it and bugged the crap out of me asking me if I'd gotten it done yet....


And then the wheels started turning at warp speed. This was another instance of, I can do this project but it has to be on a super tight budget. Aaron and I decided that I could do it only if I did it for less than $70.

I did my research, which included a planning trip to Lowe's one Saturday afternoon with my Mom. I knew I needed new hardware, so I found a great oil rubbed bronze set (knob and deadbolt) from GateHouse for $21.97, I also decided I wanted to add our house number to the door.  So I found the oil rubbed bronze GateHouse numbers for around $3.95 (I think) a piece (they were a few cents shy of $4). And finally I needed the paint. No need to buy a gallon to paint a front door, I purchased a quart of Valspar Duramax at Lowe's for $18, after about an hour of looking at every aqua blue they offered, I decided on the color "Crystal Aqua."

All together, that brought my estimated total, pre-tax to $55.89, I rounded it up to $60, told Aaron, and he gave me the ok. In the end, the total, plus tax, was $59.20. Score!

Because of Memorial Day and the fact that we had a big day planned with my in-laws, I ended up finally painting on Tuesday. I think I drove my sisters in law crazy talking about how excited I was to get to finally paint my front door!


It was an all day job. Because I can't do anything the easy way. NOTHING.

First I had to sand the door down. Just a titch. I used 180 grit sand paper(just whatever I had on hand) and gave both sides of the door a quick once over. Next I cleaned the door off with a vinegar and water mix. I let that dry while I mixed up my paint and my Floetrol. It's supposed to help eliminate brush strokes, however, in this instance, it didn't, and, in this instance, I like it. So I left it.

I turned on the TV - Space Jam was on VH1 and, because I'm 12 years old at heart, I watched it, and then some of.... wait for it.... The Borgias - and got to work.

I got to work taking the old, nasty hardware off.... and that was a task, let me just tell ya.

As you can see, the hardware was in BAD shape. The doorknob was plain embarrassing. Or at least it was to me.  Taking the plate out of the wall for the deadbolt took me, literally, all day off and on. The heads in the screws were stripped out, badly, so finally I had to get the drill out and drill the heads out. Always my last resort. And then once it came off, the new deadbolt wouldn't go into the hole... I had to widen the hole with my drill... it was a hassle. But, in the end, the door closes, and the deadbolt latches! So yay for that! I only broke one screwdriver head and one drill bit.... that's not too bad.... right? 


So I got to work painting once all the old ugly gold hardware was gone. I painted 3 coats on the front door after the first two were horribly brush strokey. Glad I did too, the three coats really makes the paint solid looking, like it was made that way. And I only did 2 coats on the interior or the door. And by the time Aaron came home, it looked like this! (However, I do believe it's time for a different wreath on the door.... hmmmm....let me put that on my shopping list! For now, this works.) I painted the window trim, some wouldn't have, but I did, because with the blue door and the stark white trim... it kinda looked like a baby blanket. No... not good.

The new hardware REALLY pops against the aqua! (The best news, to us, is that we now only have 1 front door key instead of 2!)

I think adding the number to the door just makes this project! I'd wanted to have our house number actually on our house for a while, and the way the exterior of our house is set up, putting it on the door makes more sense than anything. I absolutely LOVE this! 


I still have a few things to get for out front. I've been on the hunt for a milk jug for the longest time, but can't find one I like, that's a reasonable price. I need to get some new flowers for the bucket (I'm thinking hydrangeas and peonies, they're my all time favorites) and I'm toying with doing the chalkboard, like my inspiration picture showed. But idk, I'm attached to my star (they're like my favorite things ever) and my pineapple welcome sign. When my Mom and I were in Charleston, SC, the summer before I got married, they told us all about the history of the pineapple as a welcome thing and ever since she and I have made it a point to have a pineapple welcome at our front door. Plus, the one in the picture below was a gift from a very special lady to me and so I don't think I'll ever be able to part with it!

I also used to have a garden flag waving there at the door, but during our last set of storms it blew off into the abyss and I haven't managed to remember to purchase a new one.

I'm excited to see how the blue does with fall and winter decor! The possibilities are endless, folks!

Excuse the glare on the door, it's a bright, beautiful day here in KY!

My home isn't one of those Pinterest Perfect homes, but it's my home. It's where my heart is! And the blue front door just makes it seem so much more homey, in my opinion!

I Know What You're Thinking....

.... what a slacker this girl is!!

Well, I said that my best friends Dads surgery was going to be on Wednesday, and immediately after that post went live she called me and said it was pushed back to Friday. You'd think that would give me more time to do things, it didn't. I found myself in full on housewife mode making sure my house was in order in case I ended up having to spend days or nights at the hospital.

Fortunately he came out of his surgery with flying colors and is now home and doing well. I'm so tickled.

I will try and be back on track with my Home Style Evolution post on Tuesday, but I make no real promises, for this reason:

I hope to be able to paint my front door on either Monday or Tuesday. So it all depends on how that goes as to whether a HSE post goes live that day.

I'll try to supplement with a different post if that is the case!

Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Downey Unstoppables in Your Wax Warmer!

My Wax Warmer. The Simple Life © Please excuse the brightness.

Why didn't we, as the human race, think of this before??

A lot of you are probably familiar with my post on my Better Homes & Garden's Wax Warmer (See the post here) and in that post I raved about how much I loved my warmer.

The warmer I was raving about had been a gift from an old girlfriend of mine for my birthday and was the white version of the warmer shown in the blog post.

Sadness struck not too long after that post was published. The warmer got knocked off the shelf and broke into two pieces. Because I loved it so much, I glued it back together and continued to use it.

 One afternoon I was in Wal-Mart with my Mom and we wandered over to the warmer isle and I saw one I just had to have, on sale for $10, $5 off the original price. It now lives on my piano, next to a picture of me and my Dad when I was a baby. (My big brother had dressed me up like a wild Indian at Cracker Barrel one afternoon and thought it was hilarious. Brothers.)


Here's the tip! And it's been going around for a while now, but I thought I'd mention it because it really does work and I love it! You can find lots of pins on Pinterest in regards to putting Unstoppables in your warmers, so you may want to check some of those out as well.

Instead of spending the $2.00 for a package of the warmer wax, use some of your Downy Unstoppables in your warmer!

Downy Unstoppables.

I use the kind with the blue top, in the"Fresh" scent. It fills my house with the smell of cleanness and I love it. I just pour out a cap full and dump it into my warmer and in a few minutes the little blue dots melt together and the smell starts floating through my home.

I find that I don't have to change the wax out hardly at all, because the Unstoppables have such a good staying power to them... if that makes sense.  This is a great trick that everyone should try! I haven't used a single square of my wax since I started using this tip! 



Ok, now for a funny story!

On occasion I will ask my Aaron to run by the store on his way home from work and pick up some household items that we need. Paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent etc. Whenever I ask him to get Downy Unstoppables, I ask him to pick up the one with the blue top. It's easy enough for him to understand and we have no problems with it. He always gets the right one.

Well back in December I was laid up (for the entire month it felt like, I'd be sick a week and better a week and sick a week and so on...) with the stomach bug that swept through our community. I was vomiting a lot and making a general mess out of my clothes, so I was washing a lot of nasty clothing and I ran through my "try me size" bottle of Unstoppables (the only size offered at Dollar General at the time) within a couple of days. One Friday afternoon my Mom was heading to our house after work and stopped by the store to get me a few things to try and eat. She asked if I needed anything household wise and I told her yes, I needed some Downy Unstoppables, the kind with the blue top, like I always tell Aaron. "Ok, no problem," she says. A few minutes later I get a text message from Mom with a picture of the Downy Unstoppables shelf, with the blue top one front and center, and it says:

"They don't have one with a blue top, They have Light Pink, Dark Pink, Purple and this Aqua type color. Which do you want instead?"

I start laughing and tell her that the Aqua is the one with the blue top and she starts laughing and grabs me a bottle. When she gets to our house about 10 minutes later, we are still laughing and I tell her that next time I'll be more specific with her, and that just saying "blue" usually does it for Aaron. I'm not used to having to state the specific shade of blue! That's the difference between men and women folks. Blue works for my hubby, however I have to specify that it is Aqua for my Mom to understand it! HA!

We laugh about it every time we are in a store together and see the Unstoppables. "No blue!" she'll say.


Ok, so there's your tip (and funny story) for today!


Hope you have as much success with this as I do!! Have a great rest of the day!

*I am not being perked by Better Homes & Gardens, or Downy for mentioning their products, I just love them!

We Interrupt This Blog...

Sadly there will be no Home Style Evolution post today for Transformation Tuesday.

My best friend's Dad (who was, in fact, my Dad's best friend) is having a very major and scary surgery tomorrow, so this entire week is filled with them and their family and I simply haven't had time to work hardly at all on that particular post.

With that being said, I plan on (unless something happens) having the Home Style Evolution post for the Living Room up next Tuesday.

Thank you all for your understanding!

Netflix: What I'm Watching

I love you Netflix.

Hey everyone! It's kinda late....early....it's 2:30 in the morning. 

I'm an insomniac, in case you couldn't already tell, and so I was up, just me and my old buddy Netflix, and I thought it would be fun to share with everyone the shows I'm obsessed with on Netflix these days.






The following synopsis's include spoilers.

All 3 seasons available on Netflix.

So, the very first show I want to mention is The Borgias. I am obsessed with this show. Like....OBSESSED.  It stars Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, and it follows the "reign" of Pope Alexander from his election. If you liked The Tudors you will probably like this show. If you like history or historical fiction you will like this show. Pope Alexander VI wasn't exactly on the up and up. For starters, the man had 4 (plus) children. He bought his way into the papacy, he kept a mistress at the Vatican and it was nothing for him to "dispose" of his adversaries. Mario Puzo based his novel The Godfather on the Borgia family. Rodrigo's oldest son, Cesare (a French-Canadian dreamboat named Francois Arnaud), is a teenage priest when the show begins and is quickly promoted to Cardinal (at age 18!!), however his heart does not lie in the church. He wants to be in armor...but that position is already filled by his younger brother, and their father's favorite son, Juan. Juan has a "I'm so much better than you" complex and he and Cesare never, and I do mean never, see eye to eye. The Popes youngest son, Goiffre, is married off in the first season, at the age of 13, and we never see him again. Rounding out the "unholy family" is the only daughter of the bunch, Lucretzia (played by the stunning Holliday Grainger). She is just a child when the show opens, but by the end she is a mother, wife, ex-wife, widow, seductress, adulterer, murderer.... Lucretzia Borgia is a name that is shrouded in legend in history. 

The Family, season 1

Season 1 of The Borgias was wonderful, the first episode showed Rodrigo buying the papacy, being "crowed" Pope, and placing his sons in positions of power. By the end of the season, Cesare has been reluctantly promoted to Cardinal and fallen in love with a married woman, who, after he killed her husband to be with her, joined a nunery, Juan has flubbed up an attack against a threatening French invasion, and spends most of his down time in the company of "ladies of the night." The Pope himself has taken a very beautiful mistress, Julia, much to the dismay of his children's mother, Vanozza (played exquisitely by Joanne Whaley), a former Spanish Courtesan. Lucretzia has been married off to a brute, fallen in love with a stable boy, and become a mother. 

Cesare and Lucretzia - Season 2

Season 2 picks up several months later and deals with assassination attempts, an ever present in this series, Cesare and Juan's rivalry, threats from Lucretzia's former in-laws, alliances, deaths, murders.... it's action packed. Mid-Season SPOILER ALERT (but it's history, so it isn't really a spoiler) Juan and Cesare's rivalry shoots through the roof and results in Cesare murdering his now syphilis stricken brother and tossing him in the Tiber River. There is an out of control Friar in Florence that Pope Alexander has to deal with throughout this entire season, and let's just say things end a bit heated. (I'm winking.... ;)The end of the season closes with Lucretzia becoming engaged to a new suitor, Alphonso d'Aragon, and the Pope nearly dying from an attempted poisoning.

Season 3 is the best season, in my opinion. It opens immediately following what we saw in the season 2 finale. BUT, and to me, it's a big but.... Ceasre's hair is quite different.... It's obvious that it's longer, but personally it's his best look aside from the way he looked in the first season. Francois Arnaud is a hunk (he was almost Christian Grey, btw) and so he would look amazing in a garbage bag... In Season 3 Cesare comes into his own and becomes a very strong leader. Cesare was like Michael Corleone, he was never supposed to be "the one" according to his Father, but he always was "the one." This season reminds me a lot of the scene in The Godfather when Michael is planning the hit in the restaurant on the cop that busted his face. The way he is so calm about planning a heinous murder... Cesare is definitely like that. (Juan is a mix of Sonny and Fredo, to me, and, of course, Lucretzia is Connie.) Following the events in Season 2, Cesare Borgia became the first man to ever resign from being a Cardinal, he made history. So I thought that was pretty cool. He takes absolute control over the situation when his father almost dies, and it's....frankly, quite sexy. ;) 

Another theme in Season 3 is the rumored incest that was said to have occurred between Cesare and Lucretzia. For hundreds of years there were rumors that brother and sister were in an incestuous relationship, but it's never been 100% confirmed, nor has it been 100% denied. And at first thought, you're like INCEST!?! EWWWW!  But the thing of it is.... you actually want Cesare and Lucretzia together. They have one crazy night after Lucretzia's wedding to Alphonso, and then she's off to Naples with her husband. Cesare, now free of his priestly robes, finds himself a noble bride in France and finally gets what he's craved for since the very beginning, an army.

The Borgias was an extremely expensive show for Showtime to produce, and therefore it only lasted 3 seasons. 4 had been planned, but had never been contractually negotiated. Following the shows cancellation, the creator of the show, Neil Jordan (a genius in the world of historical fiction) wanted Showtime to produce a 2 hour movie to tie up all the loose ends and to give the viewers (of which there were many) some closure. Showtime said "no, we're done." And so Neil Jordan released his screenplay for the film as an e-book. I purchased it off of the Amazon Kindle Store, and read it, and.... I don't know, I like the way the show ended. It was an ending very open to interpretation.

I've watched this show in it's entirety about 4 times, and then pick and choose my favorite episodes. I LOVE this show. I LOVE this show. Let me say that again, I LOVE this show. I binge watched all 3 seasons in a weekend (one season per day, I was glued to the TV) and since then, I usually can't go a full day without seeing at least 1 episode. Also, watch out for Sean Harris as Cesare's manservant, and hired hit man, Micheletto. He's as cold as ice. 

Of course, there are some adult themes in this series, ranging from the above mentioned incest, to homosexuality, to STDs, drug abuse, murder.... this is not a show you need to turn on to help your child with their history lessons.

5 stars for The Borgias!

New Episodes unavailable in the US.

The next show that I started watching and then couldn't turn it off, was The Fall. Now, my Netflix had this listed as a Netflix Original, but from what I'm understanding, it's an Ireland based show that is also shown in the UK on the BBC. I also understand that, hallelujah, it was picked up for a second season, so I'm hoping that Netflix will upload that as soon as possible...

Ok, The Fall stars Gillian Anderson, from The X-Files, as the "Detective Superintendent," Stella, who has been flown in to Belfast to help investigate a string of murders that are basically leaving not a single trace of the murderer. She looks amazing, by the way, in this show. She is amazing, in this show. Stella is an astonishingly smart, very "in tune" woman that is the type that can just look at the crime scene and basically tell you what happened, in great detail.

The best part of The Fall, and the part that drew me in to watch it in the first place is *sigh* Jamie Dornan... you know, Christian Grey in the new Fifty Shades movie. Yeah.  Jamie's character, Paul, is gorgeous -- I mean, is a grief counselor, married to a neonatal nurse, with two amazing kids. But right from the get-go you know he's weird (can't nobody be that good looking and sane, shame) and I like the fact that the show wastes no time in letting you know he's the guy that Stella is on the hunt for. 

Paul has a type, "professional" women with long dark hair. And he has a specific way he likes to end their lives. He likes to suffocate them, then he bathes them and poses them in their beds. He's a sicko. He really is. On one occasion he even paints one victims nails red, which sends Stella's mind into overdrive. Paul is a very detailed assassin. He does prep work for weeks in advance before he claims another victim. He is meticulous in his delivery, which we can plainly see is why he's never been caught.

A lot of this show deals with Paul's internal struggles, and Jamie Dornan performs his character beautifully. It's hard to hate him, I think, because, at points, he really is struggling with what he's doing. As the first season comes to a close, Paul and his wife start to have some troubles in the marriage, a lot of it stemming from the fact that their daughter is obviously disturbed (the poor thing really is disturbed) and Paul's admission of infidelity. 

Just as Stella is closing in on Paul, just as she all but knows his name, he and his family take off on a getaway to put their lives back together. Paul swears he is through with the killing, but Stella knows better and won't rest until she catches him...

I WANT MORE of this show!! I was SO enthralled by it. I watched the first 4 episodes one night after my husband went to bed and wanted to watch the last one, but it was daylight, and I needed some rest. So I napped for a few hours then got up and watched the last episode, and then, for the rest of the day kept repeating "That can't be the end! She's got him! That can't be the end!!!"

Another outstanding performance in this series is by John Lynch. I knew him from Sliding Doors and The Secret Garden. He is the police chief in Belfast, and he is being pulled in a thousand different directions. Very fine acting from Mr. Lynch, indeed. 

This show also has some adult themes in it, and is definitely not something I'd watch with kids. 5 stars for The Fall!

All new episodes now showing on Thursday Nights on TLC.

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this. But I have an unhealthy obsession with My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding. Yeah. I've even got my husband hooked. 

Did you know that there were gypsy's in America? But they don't ride around in horse drawn wagons telling people's fortunes anymore. They ride around in 2014 Ford F-150's and black top driveways. 

The Gypsy Wives are what kill me. These women are super wives. From the age of... oh, I don't know, birth they are trained on how to be a wife. Cooking, cleaning, babies, taking care of a husband... it's in their DNA, and they do it all in heels, acryllic nails, teased up hair, lots of bling-bling (you'll hear that term more than you ever thought you ever could), and designer clothes.  

MBFAGW tells the stories of teenage American Gypsy brides, and how Gypsy's like "over the top" weddings, and wedding gowns. It's nothing for a gypsy girl to marry at 15. But the thing of it is, even though they basically dress like a two bit showgirl, and dance around like they live in Showgirls, they're all supposed to be pure white virgins when they get married. Draw your own conclusions. Some are obviously not, some have kids, but some are so young you'd have to think.... Some of these girls have only met their fiancee once or twice before in person. But they all say the same thing "I want to get married, I want to get married." So they get married.

And occasionally you get the gypsy boy that wants to marry a Gorger girl... a non-gypsy.... and that's a big no-no, but for such a big no-no, they show it an awful lot on this show.

And the thing is, they all LOVE to party. And they party HARD, over ANYTHING. And they all have to have custom designed costumes by the Gypsy Dress Making Queen, Sondra Chelli, who is based out of Boston. The woman is a genius. You'll love her. 

Let's not forget about the fact that Gypsy's love to fight!! Over anything...

You will meet a family in this first season, The Stanley family... and it's daughters, Nettie and Mellie (who is the model in the promo pic above), and their first cousins Kayla and Annie (they got their own spin off called "Gypsy Sisters")... fasten your seatbelts. That's all I'm gonna say. So much happens I don't even know where to start!

Alas, only the first season of this show is available on Netflix, (8 episodes) but currently the show is airing new episodes on TLC on Thursday nights! 

This show is addictive! Plus, it helps me get motivated to clean! (You'll understand why when you watch it.) 5 stars for My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding.

And as for movies....

A Royal Affair is on Netflix and Amazon Instant

First up is a foreign film called A Royal Affair. I'd seen a preview for this film a while ago, but didn't think I could handle sitting through subtitles, as the film is entirely (with the exception of a 5 minute opening scene) in Danish. But I got on a foreign film kick a while ago (starting with a film called Bride Flight, which is another must see), and so I decided to finally give this a try. 

I AM SO GLAD I DID!! I simply adored this movie. It is based on the true story of King Christian VII of Denmark and his Queen Caroline Matilde (from Great Briton) and the German doctor Johann Struensee. (pronounced stroon-seh)

They basically rocked Denmark. King Christian was insane, pretty much. He lived in a world all of his own, and he was very difficult to work with. He and Queen Caroline Matilde married and, finally, had a child together before Dr. Johann Stuensee (Mads Mikkelson, from Hannibal) enters their lives. Dr. Struensee seems to have an ability to calm Christian and to make him see things clearly. No one can handle Christian the way Dr. Stuensee does, and so he finds a place at court. 

Which is all well and good until he and the Queen start having an affair and she gets pregnant. Yeah.

During that time, Denmark became one of the countries leading the world. Dr. Struensee was a believer in "the enlightenment" and had ideas on ways to improve life that did not go along with the ideas of the old world. Dr. Struensee starts writing speeches for Christian (telling him that he's "acting" to get him to give them). Denmark reforms policies right and left.

Christian's step-mother, the Queen Dowager Juliana Maria leads a coup d'etat, and regains control of Denmark, leaving Christian to rumble around the castle as an insane old man, raising two children without their mother (who was sent away, only to die from TB, I believe, a short time later, only in her early 20's), and without his good friend Dr. Struensee, and you can guess what happened to him. 

This film is BEAUTIFUL. It captivated me from the very beginning and I enjoyed every minute of it. Mads Mikkelson is simply majestic to watch in this film.  Alicia Vikander appears as Queen Caroline Matilde and plays the role with such beauty! But, to me, the real star of this show is Mikkel Følsgaard who co-stars as King Christian VII of Denmark. The man was simply amazing. 6 out of 5 stars for A Royal Affair.

So that was my first What I'm Watching (Netflix Addition) I think I'm going to turn this into a regular series here on The Simple Life. I am always watching new things and wanting to share them with people. I hope you enjoyed this, and if you watch any of the above mentioned programs, please let me know in the comments below and tell me what you thought!!

Thanks for stopping by! Now grab the remote and settle in!!

I pay for a monthly Netflix subscription and have watched all the above mentioned TV Shows/Movies on my own time.

Home Style Evolution: The Bedroom

The "Master" Bedroom in our house has seen many a change in the 5 years that we've lived here. It's so easy to swap out bedding and curtains that I find myself doing it a lot. I get so bored with bedroom decor, and my tastes for that room are constantly changing.

Since we've lived here I've had 7... possibly more... different bedding sets on our bed. I told you, I get bored with it. I'm on the hunt for something new even as I type this. So please be advised that this post was written in advance and by the time it actually goes up on the blog, the bedding and/or curtains my have changes. You've been warned!


When we first "took possession" of the house (for those that don't know, we rent this house from my Father in Law, and he gave us permission to do anything to this house we wanted, except knocking down walls or adding on rooms.) I really had no clue how I wanted our bedroom to look. I'd never shared a bedroom with someone, and at the time, I was in a dark and twisty place, so I liked dark rooms and modern clean lines, thinking I wanted to go as far away from the super clean/country look that my Mother has always used to decorate her home.

Our bedroom is nothing special architecturally. It has this long window on one wall and a regular size window on the wall to the right, and a regular sliding door closet that you can step into but not walk around in.

The closet doors. Inside is a ClosetMaid system that my brother in law put in when he and my sister in law lived in the house while they were building their current home,

My bedroom at my parents home had 2 walls painted a chocolate brown and two walls painted a really pretty medium blue. I had an iron scrolling pattern bed with brown and blue bedding. So I just figured, I do the same thing in my new bedroom with my new roomie ;)

So we set out on the journey to make our house a home...

Here is the inside of the closet. It holds SOOOOO much more than I expected it too. My husband and I are such clothes horses. True Story, when we moved in, we considered turning the 2nd bedroom into a closet because we have so many clothes. ;) 

Aaron, and me, a couple of love struck, soon-to-be-wed kids, painting our bedroom.

As you can see from the photo above we chose a very dark brown color for the bedroom (the hallway walls hadn't been painted yet). Again, as with the old paint color in the bathroom, I have blocked out the name of the color, but it can be found at Sherwin Williams,  Don't you just LOVE my hair in that picture?? (Couldn't you feel the sarcasm dripping off of that question?)

We finished the bedroom, added our curtains, furniture and decor, and this was how it looked 4 days before our wedding, and 12 days before we came back from our honeymoon and moved in.

Bedding from Target. Curtains from Burlington Coat Factory. Print on wall from AllPosters.com, lamps and shades from Dollar General.

Oh dear. Looking back at it now I want to beat myself over the head with an iron skillet. I said I was in a dark place. I meant that metaphorically and literally. I began to refer to our bedroom as "the cave." Romantic, right?

Our curtains were a last minute find from BCF, and I ended up choosing them because they were a light color and they were on sale. Almost from the minute they were hung, I regretted them, but lived with them.

Our bedroom furniture set did not come with any nightstands, so we improvised. I didn't realize how badly I needed a nightstand until I didn't have one.

And in the moving process everything got "arranged" on our dresser. People that see this picture joke that our house must be haunted because off all the "orbs" in this picture. It's a dusty old house, what can I say? I love it, it's home. 

There's that light bulb.

We came back from our honeymoon on Dec. 20th, and started living in the house. We were so lucky when we "moved in," my best friend and her husband and I spent a whole day the week of our wedding moving my things from my parents house, which was about 40 minutes away, and Aaron moved his things (basically just clothes and odds and ends) the day before the "big day." Anything else that needed to be taken care of, our parents did for us while we were gone honeymoonin'. We have the best FRAMILY anyone could ever wish for!

So we started our lives together in this house. And really quickly I decided the bedding needed a change. 

Springtime 2010 came along and Aaron and I found ourselves in a tight spot, career wise. Aaron left his job at a bank and started pursuing his current job as an insurance agent (I am so stupidly proud of how hard my man works!) and I was working weekends at a bridal shop while finishing up school. We changed what we could in our house when we could. This was our first try with "shop whatcha got."

AAAAHHH!!! Scary, I know. Apparently I forgot how to make a bed.

 This bedding was what had been in my bedroom at my parents house before I got married and moved. (We still use this bedding in the winter months, it's held up great.) It was from Target and I'm pretty sure my Mom and I found it on a deeeeeeep clearance sale there by accident one afternoon. 

The bedding doesn't even go with the curtains, but I thought I was in Heaven, I suspect. I was young and stupid, can't fault me for learning a lesson.

 We lightened things up a bit in August of 2010 (due to the ridiculous heat and the fact that we only have one window air conditioner in the entire house, and it's in the living room) and started using this reversible brown/beige quilt, also from Target. "GOES" better with the curtains but this poor room still looked like a mish-mosh. And I can't do mish-moshes. Sorry. I just can't. 

See anything different in the above picture? The little canvas basket tower sitting to the side of the bed... ok. Those were gifts from my father in law for Christmas in 2009. He knows how I love to organize things and so when he saw those he said he knew he had to get them for me. We used them as nightstands for a couple of years. It was big enough that I could lay my cell phone and my glasses on at night. It served its purpose and is now in the big cheap organizing/furniture store in the sky. (I saved the baskets, they're the perfect size for little odds and ends.)

Finally in July of 2011, I'd had all I could take. I had started a new job, and Aaron's new career was taking off like a jet plane, and so we had a little extra money, so I decided that I was going to repaint the bedroom, and give it a good updating.

I took a day off work, and my Mom did the same to come help me - she's always up for any project I ask her to help me with- and while my sweetie was gone to work, she and I did a bedroom overhaul!

Please excuse the blurry photo. I was very excited.

Pretty amazing change, yeah?

I found this bedding from a website called KingLinen.com. I've bought several items from them before. Their bedding is SERIOUSLY discounted, like this was a $150 set I got for $60. Not all of their items are super high quality, and not super luxurious and fluffy, but it is all really nice and very pretty and will last a good while if you take care of it properly. 

I fell in love with it cause it "matched" my curtains, and therefore I didn't have to buy new ones!

Do you see my old teddy bear peeking out? My Mom made him for me when I was 2 and I can't part with him.

 We spent $30 on a set of cheap, put-them-together-yourself nightstands from Family Dollar. They were so wonderful compared to what we had been using. I will never regret spending the money for them and using them for the time we did.

Our dresser.... still a mish-mosh. I did really like having my jewelry right there, but the little organizers kept falling off the wall and chipping the paint. So I finally got rid of them. Do you recognize the shape of those candle sticks?? They're the same ones from The Power of Spray Paint at 2am!

We had almost completely overhauled our bedroom. We took it from that "poop brown" color - that was what I was calling it near the end - to this beautiful light tan shade called "Oak Barrel" from Sherwin Williams. Now both of the bedrooms in our house are painted this same color. Not a whole ton of money was spent, but the room itself was so much brighter, and happier. We really were pleased with the outcome. 

For a while... c'mon, you had to know that was coming.

One night, Aaron and Tabby (our dog) and I were sound asleep in our bed, when all of a sudden we hear a snapping sound and the mattress falls clean through to the floor. The cheap slats in our cheap bed had broken, and the side rails had split in two. Our bed was broken. We didn't go to a high end furniture store to buy furniture in our early days. We went to a discount store and bought the cheapest of whatever we could. 

So...to keep from having to sleep on a mattress on the floor (nothing wrong with that, but we tend to have mice in this old house), Aaron and I propped the bed up with milk crates and crawled back in to finish out the night.

This lasted for a good few months before I'd had enough. We had recently purchased a new set of living room furniture from Ashley Furniture, a cousin of Aaron's works there, and I knew she could get us a dynamite deal on a new bed and maybe some real nightstands. Our dresser and chest of drawers were holding up very well, so we really didn't need to replace them. And we still haven't. Maybe one day we will, but for now, what we have is working just fine. 

I thought changing out the bedding might help me "deal" with it. I mean, as long as the mattress was centered on those milk crates, we were fine and everything we level and even. I started referring to the bedroom as "The Beige Palace," because everything was so monotone. So I changed up the bedding to this and a few weeks later my Mom and I decided to rebuild the bed from the inside out. And for a while, everything was hunky-dorey again.

Quilt from Overstock.com, white throw from SAM's club, pillows from a local fabric store. Big pillow in front was made by my Mama and has our names and wedding date in a big heart. ;)

 That bedding lasted until it got cold outside and we needed something warmer. (Me and my bedding, jeez.)

 So one Sunday afternoon after church, Aaron and my Mom and I stop in at Ashley's "just to look." Yeah right. 

Just to look my foot. 4 hours later Aaron and I have looked at every bed in the store, and argued over more than a handful. The one we both really wanted simply would not have fit in our room, and we toyed with the idea of whether to just deal with it and buy it. But when I saw the bed we eventually got, I knew I could dress it way up and make it look really rich, or dress it down and make it look really country. It took some wiggling on my part, but I finally got Aaron on board and we left that night having purchased the queen size "Porter" bed and matching nightstands.

 It's a really dark photo, but it had taken us absolutely all day (from like 10am to dark) to get the bed put together and made etc. That is the same Target bedding from my teenage bedroom, many years ago. Our lamps came in a set from Lowe's and you will see where they had originally been when I take you through the evolution of our living room next week. The bench sitting at the foot of my bed was a surprise from Aaron the Christmas before last in 2012, from Kirklands and I believe it was around $170 (I have since this photo moved it so that we can see our beautiful foot board). Our curtains I got for a steal off of... wait for it... AMAZON.COM for about $7 a set (just search sheer curtain panels and they should pop up). I kept the brown swag at the top to kind of bring all the browns together, but I may remove it later on, depending on what I come up with for my bedding.  We have new artwork on that side wall! That came from Kohl's and it was originally $80, and I got it for $15. (Don't worry, I didn't get rid of the couple kissing in Paris, I love that picture too much. You'll see it again next week!) The two little pictures to the side are some of our wedding shots that I had printed from my partner lab/ And hanging above my lamp is a little hand stitched sign that says "I see the moon and the moon sees me, God bless the moon and god bless me. Amen." I bought it at a craft fair the summer before we got married.

So that is what our bedroom looked like throughout the first part of this year, the winter months, and now that we are on into spring, Aaron and I were simply suffocating at night underneath that big comforter, even with our trusty floor fan going. So I decided to swap out to the beige quilt we'd been using before it turned cold last year. I am on the hunt for a beautiful blue quilt to replace it. If anyone has any ideas, please comment below and let me know where I can find one! 

Our little master bedroom has underdone so massive changes in the 5 years that we've lived here, and frankly, it's still evolving. I'm happy with it for the first time in a long time, and I am insane over my new bed and how beautiful it is.



Thanks for walking through the transformation with me! Next week I will share my LIVING ROOM with you, and how it has changed (intensely) in the 5 years that we've lived here! 

Quick Tip: Go Green, Save $$, DIY Pledge

My bottle of DIY Pledge. Practicin' what I preach!

Let's get honest here. I hate the smell of Pledge. I hate it so much that for years I didn't use Pledge to dust my house with, I just used a multipurpose cleaner, or Windex to dust my house with. And that's all well and good, I suppose, but when I stumbled across this recipe for a DIY Pledge/Dusting Spray and saw that you could add your own essential oils - basically your own scent - I knew I had to give it a try. 

Let me get even more honest... I hate dusting. It's time consuming, and I have to handle a damp, stinky rag and then my hands dry out and get crusty and dust goes flying everywhere and I start sneezing and then the dog starts sneezing... it's a mess. And we live in an old house, so lots of dust accumulates very quickly, especially recently when it's been too warm to run the heaters but not hot enough to run the air conditioner, so I've had the windows open every day with the ceiling fans going... yeah.

I cannot take credit for this recipe, I'd love to, but alas, cannot. I'm going to share with you my biggest secret weapon... my YouTube subscription to a channel called "DoItOnADime." Her name is Kathryn, and she is probably the most amazing youtuber out there. She is my absolute favorite, and I get all excited like a little kid whenever I see a new video from her.  Seriously, she will change your life. 90% of my tricks come from her. She's changed my life. Click the link above and go meet her, her husband Charlie, their son Carson and their doggie Luna! You'll love her, I promise!! She has so many wonderful cleaning tips and organizing tips and recipes and she's a Goodwill/Thrift Store queen....she's amazing. I can't praise her enough. She's a nice enough person that when I message her to tell her I've tried another one of her tricks, she messages back! Big deal for this girl!!

Now, when Kathryn said she used this, I knew it had to be like liquid gold. 

All you have to do is mix:

2 tablespoons of Olive Oil
1/2 teaspoon of essential oil (whatever scent you like. I use lavender, but you could use citrus, or whatever floats your boat!)
1/4 cup of white vinegar
1 1/3 cup of water. 

I just mixed everything in a bottle I already had, and because I have everything on hand that I needed to make this, it cost me absolutely NOTHING.  Money Spent: Zero Dollars and Zero Cents. Now THAT is how you save money!

Give her a good shake and spray away. I use a regular cotton cloth, like an old cloth baby diaper (clean of course) or one of my husbands old undershirts (over time they thin out and he can't wear them anymore, and thats when they become phenomenal cleaning rags), or a nice microfiber cloth (you can get them at the Dollar store). I have found that since I've been using this, dust doesn't go flying around so easily, I don't sneeze when I'm dusting, neither does my Tabby girl, and the best part of all, it seems like I don't have to dust as much. Like it used to be an ever other day thing having to dust my furniture. Honestly, hand to the Bible, I dusted on Friday (we had friends over) and haven't touched my furniture with a dusting rag until today, and really didn't need to. And I have DARK furniture scattered all throughout my house. I love this stuff! Thank you SO MUCH KATHRYN for sharing this on your channel!!


I hope this works as well for all of you as it does for me, and for Kathryn! Give it a shot, and let me know how it goes!!

Thanks for stopping by The Simple Life again today!! Don't forget about my Home Style Evolution series, new posts every Transformation Tuesday!