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In most cases, I don’t like buying new gadgets because it’s just a matter of time before something better comes out. I also *try* to avoid buying ‘just in case’ things because turns out, I’m usually too lazy to use an item that I don’t use on a regular basis! However, here are five products that could definitely save us time and energy.

Dishwasher

I get it, most people have a dishwasher. I had one for most of my life! Sadly, this house doesn’t have one. We cope by trying to wash the dishes after dinner, so the dishes stay manageable and we don’t run out. It’s not a big deal to wash dishes by hand, but it obviously takes time out of our day. Our kitchen would look clean all day long if we could put dirty dishes in the dishwasher as we use them, and the time we spent doing dishes by hand could instead be spent wiping down the counters and appliances (which we don’t do every night!). [Note that I just grabbed a random dishwasher picture, we don’t have a brand or model picked out!]

Glass Rinser

I never knew these existed until I watched a video by THELIFESTYLEDCO. You just push any size of cup down and it rinses the inside! I totally wish we had one now just to help avoid milk getting settled at the bottom of glasses. I have high hopes for this being a game changer when it comes to baby bottles someday!

Food Processor

Once a week without fail, we have burgers. For me, I have a black bean burger. We’ve now started eating a ridiculous amount of chickpeas in the form of chickpea smash sandwiches (kind of like a tuna sandwich?) and chickpea fritters. All of these recipes call for smashed beans, which we do by mashing them with a drinking glass. Beans aren’t too bad, but the chickpeas (being round and a little hard) just fly all over! A food processor would make this process less messy and definitely faster!

Cordless Vacuum

Brandon loves mowing the yard, drink in hand and music blasting. No one can bother him! When we build the new house and have floors that aren’t all thick carpet, I plan on zipping around with a cordless vacuum, drink in hand just like Brandon!

Cat Drinking Fountain

I currently maintain two water dishes for the cats. This is not to make sure they have ample water sources wherever they may be, but mainly because I notice my cats go through phases on which they prefer to drink out of. I would prefer to just have ONE water dish to refill, and I’ve read that water fountains take care of the issues cats normally find with standing water, like it tasting stale. This fountain also looks like it can hold a lot of water at one time!

Do you have any gadgets that made a big difference in your day to day life? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Davien

Today I watched another home design reveal done by THELIFESTYLEDCO! I will let you watch their video and read their blog post to hear more about the renovation that was done and style they were aiming for. Really, I’m just hear to go over the pictures from their project! This design has all the good elements I love to see from their team, those beautiful floors (that I’ll try to replicate in the new house), dreamy marble, and a knockout fireplace.

Let’s get started!

First, the kitchen. Right off the top of my head, I’m loving the lights, the marble, and the wood cabinetry. The countertops are a white quartz with gold veining, and I think it plays pretty well with the marble!

Here’s a look at the walk in pantry (I refuse to say butler’s pantry unless you have a butler!!). You’ll see later that they carried the stone in here that they do in other primary areas. In the Youtube video, they say that the black countertop is a granite (Black Mist) and is very cost effective! This is good to know because I am considering a black granite to pair with our marble slab backsplash in the kitchen. The water dispenser in here is also a very efficient, nice touch!

The powder bathroom is the typical design you see from THELIFESTYLEDCO: dark! I actually love the floor tile they did. The light oak counter with the dark roman clay looks nice too! I’d love to have a dark moody room somewhere in our house, but we aren’t planning on having any half baths (and if you’re showering in a bathroom, you should have good lighting to get ready). However, the mudroom could be a great place to play with this moody paint!

Next I’d like to show the living room right off the kitchen/dining. They really did great with the concrete fluted fireplace surround! I love the herringbone tile within it as well. And the furniture looks SO cozy!

Here’s a second seating area that’s close to the front entry. The rug looks SO soft. I love the arches and ceiling details (some aspects of this may be thanks to the original architecture). In the Youtube reveal, they say the owner will use this space to host her book club meetings. How cute is that!

I believe this built in shelving area is on the way to the primary bedroom. This also gives you another look at the beautiful floors!

Ok, the bedroom. I love the rug under the bed… the CUTE cottage door, and those taupe swivel chairs in the seating area. The accent tables are built from the leftover marble slab in the kitchen, which is such a wonderful idea to get use out of any remnants! While I’m not crazy about how tall the headboard is on the bed, I do love the coziness of the bedding.

And the final stop, primary bathroom! The flooring is a limestone look porcelain that is so good, they won’t reveal their source! They did however reveal how they get that edge on the vanity countertops. They do a single ogee edge, then a band, then finish with a dome! Three pieces to make that, wow! This bathroom overall is one of their more simply done bathroom designs, but it’s still very nice!

If you want to see more from this project, I HIGHLY recommend watching the reveal video or reading their post on THELIFESTYLEDCO. I really did just pick the spaces I liked the most, so there’s still more to see!

Going over a design like this was really fun for me, so I hope you enjoyed reading! I think I’ll plan on going over some new projects from Studio McGee, Amber Interiors, etc. This will give me some steady content when there’s a lull in dream home updates/designs!!

Thanks for reading! ❤

Davien

You know what is more stressful than being 2.5 months away from our wedding? Trying to find house exterior ideas that we not only like, but can afford! The builder still has not reached out (which is totally fine), but when we consider that we want to be building next spring… the window to plan our home design gets shorter and shorter! We trust that it will all work out so it isn’t as stressful as I’m making it out to be. In fact, I finally landed on an exterior idea that I could see us using and plan on sharing it in the future (once I make sure I don’t drastically change my mind again).

It’s been a while since I showed some of my recent pins, so let’s take a look!

I love the wood floor, stone tub, and those marble entries! This is such a great way to have marble in your design without it being an absolute budget buster.

This ‘plunge pool’ is a backyard hidden retreat! The fence not only lets you hang towels, but also gives you privacy!

The main reason for this pin was the cozy bedding and the ruffle trim pillows!

I’ve been loving the look of drywall niches, especially ones with arches!

I have also been loving limestone flooring (just as an accent, not all over) and especially how it looks next to wood flooring. This would be my ideal mudroom to main floor transition!

Another look at wood next to stone. This was my exterior inspo for a while before I realized how expensive stone veneer is!

Love the look of these darker dressers with the lighter floors and walls.

There’s a good chance that the stone in this picture is Super White marble, which is probably why I didn’t hesitate to pin this picture! It’s also an Australian design, which always catches my eye.

Another look at limestone x wood transitions. Beautiful!

I liked the Shiplap next to the marble, and the integrated handles of this vanity!

Gorgeous marble! With especially funky details in the mirror and lighting choices.

What do you know, another marble vanity. I love the rounded edge they did on this.

All of the hard finishes in this space look so nice, and I love the cute curtain too!

Those are my top pins lately! I hope you enjoyed reading this short post. There will be more to come in the future, especially with dream home designs!

Davien

Today I’m talking about a semi-controversial topic, money! I am no financial expert and have no experience but my own (and Brandon’s!), but I thought I’d share some tips that have really been helping us reach our goals faster, stay financially motivated, and avoid stressing or arguing about money!

Our biggest influences have been Dave Ramsey (his show and books) and YNAB (the book written by the creator of the YNAB budgeting app we use). Below I’m going to share the tips that have been working for us and how we put these concepts into practice!

Identifying our goals

When Brandon and I started dating and quickly realized we’d spend the rest of our lives together, we decided that our big goal was to build a dream house. Every month without fail since Fall 2021, we have worked towards this goal whether it was paying off debt to free up more of our monthly income or saving directly for the house. Now that we’re debt free and just saving up for the associated costs of our dream house (closing costs/contingencies), we have pushed our goal further. We want to pay off our next mortgage as soon as possible, so we can return to the peace of owning our home! It really makes the economy, job security, and inflation less stressful when we don’t have a large payment coming out each month.

Having a big goal also makes all other financial decisions easier. We can weigh options in terms of whether doing or buying something gets us closer or further to where we want to be!

“Say no, so you can say yes!”

Having goals is a great way to keep our priorities straight. With our goal of having our dream house built and then paid off as soon as we can, we are willing to delay gratification and make some short term sacrifices. For example, we have one trip later this year that we already saved for but besides that, we don’t plan on doing any big travel or family vacations until we are mortgage free again.

This is also something we’ve been keeping in mind while we design our build. Once we work with the builder, we’ll go over the cost of certain things we like and determine what makes sense to do now versus later. I know people say it’s best to do everything at build time, but it’s way too easy to become house poor and in a bind due to YOLO when you’re designing a house!

Finally, next month we are saying no to our typical restaurant budget or any personal spending money, so we can say YES to cash flowing an unexpected dentist bill while still meeting our monthly savings goal. We’re already missing our favorite restaurant, but we’ll just go the following month!

No more debt!

We didn’t really go into our financial journey with a goal of paying off all our debt. In fact, we were prepared to carry our loans out to their full terms to fully focus on our dream house! Last year when we realized that we could use our land equity as a down payment, we paid off our house with some of the cash we had on hand. This big move then inspired us to go ahead and get rid of our next biggest debt, a Jeep that didn’t get driven very often. At this point we were definitely listening to Dave Ramsey and starting to get influenced. We decided selling that vehicle would be a good decision. Next up was paying off my car. I had more than the $1k emergency fund that Dave Ramsey recommends having during Baby Step 2, so I paid off the remaining balance of my car despite the 0% interest. Paying off debt just felt so good! Brandon soon after paid off the little bit left on his truck, and by that point all that was left was a student loan. For a few months we decided we’d wait for a decision on the student debt forgiveness program, but we didn’t like having our lives and financial future tied up by people outside of our control. Instead of buying something fun with our bonuses from work, we eliminated our final loan and became debt free!

After all of those changes, we decided that we will not be taking on more consumer debt with cars or kids’ student loans. If we have an unexpected expense, we will have to pause on our big goals and either budget for it or pull from our emergency fund (then replenish it of course!).

YNAB: our budgeting app

This past year, we transitioned to a budgeting system called YNAB (you need a budget). Before, I’d been using Google Sheets and Brandon was using a boring looking open source budgeting tool. When we contributed money to our individually recorded house fund, we then updated our shared house fund to reflect the combined balance. There wasn’t a good way to see our category balances or record transactions on the go, since both methods worked best on our laptops. We knew there had to be a better way, but neither of us were sold on the other’s method! We decided to try a couple of new (to us) systems like Mint, Every Dollar, and YNAB. YNAB turned out to be the most confusing to learn, but it has the level of granularity that works best for us. It does have an annual cost, but we set aside $8 towards it each month. It has paid for itself with all of the time and energy we now save when managing our budget.

Sharing our budget

The way that Brandon and I are able to manage our money as one team, you’d think we had a single joint account. We actually have a few accounts each, and none are shared! All of our accounts link to our YNAB budget, so our paychecks comes into one ‘Ready to Assign’ category. We treat it as our money to assign to our budget. This has helped relieve the burden and stress that comes with whose card we use, who should be paying, etc. Before YNAB, I would get stressed out if a few unexpected items were bought with our groceries because those weren’t in ‘my’ budget (I covered groceries while Brandon covered any eating out). Now, if we go to Walmart and buy house maintenance items, groceries, and maybe something fun for one of us, there is no stress. We can split the transaction into different categories of our budget and not worry about who paid for what.

It’s also helpful to have shared accountability and responsibility. ‘We have X dollars left in our restaurant budget for the month, what should we do?’ vs ‘I can’t keep spending this much money on us eating out!’. We’re both able to see what our expenses are and work together to problem solve.

Budget for the entire month

We’ve also worked to get our budget one month ahead. This is a big principle in the YNAB system. On the first of the month, we have all the dollars we need to pay for the month’s expenses. This makes it so much easier than the previous system where I’d budget for the next two weeks. We can spend the bulk of our grocery budget in one trip and know that the other trips throughout the month will cost less and balance out.

Short term goals/sinking funds

While we take a lot of inspiration from Dave Ramsey, one area where we haven’t followed his rules is with credit cards. We don’t necessarily like credit cards, but they are convenient for us and we always pay them off each month. Since we use YNAB, we know that our money must come from a budgeted category which also takes away the mindlessness of credit cards that makes impulse buying easy.

Anyways, each month we get a decent inflow of extra cash through credit card points and our savings account interest (one perk of saving for a house!). Currently we are putting this into a small savings fund so we can save for a baby in the future. We treat any extra inflow of money (meaning not part of our paychecks) as change like you’d find in a couch! There’s no pressure that it has to go to a certain category or go towards our big goal. Some months, maybe we’ll put it towards something boring or decide to just spend it. But having a smaller, short term savings fund is a great way for us to stay motivated while working towards our long term goals. In the future, we could use this same method to save for furniture, a weekend getaway, or maybe a couples massage!

I hope you got some good ideas or motivation from this post! Our financial health has become very important to us since we associate it with the freedom to do certain things in life. If you’d like some financial podcast ideas, we like to listen to The Ramsey Show, Smart Money Happy Hour, and Caleb Hammer’s Financial Audit videos on Youtube! If you have any tips to share, leave a comment below!

Thanks for reading!

Davien

Yesterday I finally finished re-rendering our primary bathroom in Sketchup! Most of it was redoing what I’d previously done before I lost my progress, but I did have some new changes. This render unfortunately won’t be as high quality as my Dream Laundry Room Render because I needed to turn off shadowing to address a frustrating lag issue.

The finishes themselves should be pretty similar to what we laid out in our Dream Primary Bathroom Design, so please check that out if you want to know more about the materials in the renderings. Now let’s jump right in with a top down view!

I’m very happy with this layout! I could not make our space work with a tub, but I feel like we don’t use a tub often enough to justify having it be unused and collecting dust.

The windows would be at a second story level due to our land’s steep slope and would also face our timber. That said, we’d still install curtains in case additional privacy is needed.

The shower/toilet are against the closet/fitness room wall. You can be sitting on the toilet and not be exposed if someone enters the bathroom without knocking! I also wanted the door to not turn into the shower for the same reason. With the shower head/pony wall placement, you’d be decently covered if the door opens unexpectedly.

The vanity is against the bedroom wall, and the door leading out goes to the primary hallway. I made sure to put the door far enough away from the vanity that someone could be standing at the sink or counter while another person enters the space.

Here’s another view of the layout.

This is the style of curtains I’d pick. I couldn’t find a good curtain rod to snippet, so I just didn’t use one. In reality, we’d definitely have curtain rods lol.

Here’s the vanity wall view. I went back and forth on whether we’d have single or double sinks. The single sink on one side looked awkward when I rendered it, and I wasn’t willing to make it a designated vanity and lose cabinet space. Having a single sink directly in the middle made sense and looked ok, but I thought the lighting would be spaced too far apart given that the mirror would be scaled larger. Plus, you’d have to do your hair/makeup over the sink anyway to keep the lighting even, which negates the extra counterspace argument. I ultimately went with double sinks and plan on keeping the countertop free of clutter.

For the tall cabinet, I thought it’d look cool to have it framed into the drywall. I’ve been seeing that design here and there, and I like it! This cabinet would be used to store less frequently used items, towels, toilet paper, etc. It’d also be great for storing bottles that need to be upright.

Here is what I’d start off with on our bathroom countertop. Before you come at me for not hanging up the hand towels, I didn’t have wall space to install/hang towel rings or bars due to the built in shelves. I also came up empty handed after lots of searching for cute towel stands and an amazing designer demonstrated that you don’t have to hang your towels. Look at those links! There isn’t even any hardware to hang hand towels in those beautiful designs! Now, for all other bathrooms I’d include a towel bar or ring for our visitor’s sake.

Here is how I’d style one of the sets of built in shelves. We have some art, a candle, extra towels, a dish for storing jewelry, and a small marble canister I’d fill with cotton pads (I don’t use them that often, so wouldn’t mind having to remove a lid). You may be wondering why I don’t have a live plant in this bathroom that gets so much natural light, but honestly we’re not doing so great with plants except for our Monsteras. I loved putting together our wedding flower arrangements, so maybe I’ll do a faux arrangement that fits our bathroom theme someday.

And this is what I’d use for decor for the other set of shelves. I have more art, a pedestal bowl filled with shower steamers (haven’t tried them yet, but have heard good things), a glass canister for q-tips, and our everyday perfume/cologne.

This is what the shower/toilet wall would look like. I’d keep the trash over by the toilet and there’d obviously be a toilet paper holder.

It’s hard to see, but the bath rug is actually a light pink checkered pattern! I thought it would tie in the other pinkish elements. I also went with white towels so the marble baseboards, wood flooring, and white pony wall would be the focus.

And here’s a final view of the bathroom, from the other direction!

What did I learn from this render? Well, I originally had the tall storage cabinet going to the ceiling, but I made it door height with drywall above because it was feeling ridiculously tall. I also learned a lot about what spacing would work best for the lighting and mirrors.

Finally, finding decor that is the right size, matches the functionality of the room (a tip I learned from Made For Living by the designer of those bathroom links), and is the right scale is HARD. I spent hours looking for objects that fit our bathroom’s style and I later eliminated a few after mathing out what would actually fit on the shelves. I can now see why styling shelves is an art and to limit the areas of our house that require styling! Extra shelves = extra money for decor and upkeep with dusting. However, in this space I knew we’d have a few things we’d want left out and making a shelf moment out of it was going to keep our counters clear.

Obvious disclaimer that we don’t have set floor plans yet, and this design may change once we determine what’s feasible within our budget and on our lot.

I hope you enjoyed this post! Thanks for reading! 🙂

Davien

Today I will be doing my first post showcasing my renders in SketchUp! Last year I was putting a lot of work into the 3D render of our dream house until I decided I needed to focus on our wedding planning for a bit. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that my saves were going to a temp folder! I came back to a lot of lost work (an entire basement, roof, new primary bath location, fine cabinetry detail, etc), and it was devastating. With Brandon’s support and encouragement, I was able to start back up again. ❤

Do you remember my Dream Laundry Room Design from a few posts ago? Well, since I didn’t have a lot of hard work lost in the laundry room, I decided to focus there!

**Please note that we do not have a set floor plan yet. We did reach out to our builder, and we are first in line for designing once they finish the designs of their Spring 2023 builds! That is fine with me because I’m busy with wedding tasks (and my blog!), but until then, these plans are all tentative. I will say, our custom floor plan has immaculate flow, so I hope there are only minimal changes!

Now, let’s tour the laundry room!

As you can see, we have a barn door that opens to the laundry room just off the main living area. I think the room is cute enough to leave the door open!

Here is the view you’d see if you were exiting our bedroom. Notice how this is the only angle where you can see those laundry baskets? That was intentional!

We realized that a hanging rod above the washer/dryer was not practical for us. I am the only one who has laundry that needs air dried, and it wasn’t feasible for me to have to hang things so high up. Having a lower hanging rod directly opposite the washer/dryer is much better! Plus, it’ll be easy to drape items like workout leggings over the bar without having to use a hanger.

These cabinets and walls are white, but my render has some shadows. Ignore the gray tones! We were originally planning on putting a sink in our laundry room, but we quickly noticed that we’d have three sinks in a small area if we kept the one in the pantry, too. I chose the pantry sink as more functional for us. I want one of these bottle rinsers, but not near our island sink where it’d distract from the marble! Plus, anything too dirty to wash in the kitchen or pantry sink can be washed in a garage sink or with the garden hose.

Finally, this is a bird’s eye view of the flow. The left opening is from the pantry, which makes access from the kitchen perfect. The right opening is just steps from our bedroom door, which will make doing our laundry a breeze! It also serves as a shortcut to the pantry.

Creating a 3D rendering is a great way to try out your ideas and see what does or does not work. In an hour or two, we learned that a laundry sink is either excessive or means losing our pantry sink. We also learned that the idea of the hanging rod above the washer/dryer doesn’t make sense if the person most often using it is short. This is what I mean when I recommend space planning! I use a measuring tape tool when working in SketchUp, so I’m able to work out in real life how certain distances or heights will feel.

We also learned what does work in our design. I love the combination of the marble and wood paneling, and even took a marble baseboard for a spin (with only one full wall, it wouldn’t be much square footage!). The amount of wall that’s left after the barn door opening leaves the perfect nook for storing things out of the main line of sight. And finally, I did try out some wood cabinetry thinking it’d look better with the paneling, but when I switched back to white, it really blew my hair back! It really was the perfect choice when I created my flat lay materials render.

I can’t wait to share more 3D renders with you as I get back to SketchUp. Rest assured, I have everything saving to Brandon’s OneDrive now (my computer doesn’t have the specs to run the SketchUp software LOL!), so I shouldn’t have any more losses in the future.

Thanks for reading!!

Davien

Part two of this designer spotlight will be all about the various projects done by THELIFESTYLEDCO. While I love watching their house walkthroughs on Youtube, I don’t find inspiration with every aspect of their designs. Because their clients are usually higher end, I feel like they can get away with more impractical features than the everyday client would like. That said, I will be going through my favorite parts of some of their projects. Since there are so many pictures, I will try to keep my commentary short!

All project photos can be found at the linked design project name.

#notsobuilderbasicproj

THELIFESTYLEDCO is a big user of Dutch doors! They’re located in Arizona, so this style of door suits the climate well.

I love both bricks used in this living area. THELIFESTYLEDCO does fireplaces so well, that I’d be open to this style of fireplace (despite my fire fears), just so I can do a nice design on the inside.

Cute way to fill this empty wall.

#georgiapeachesproj

I love the colors going on in this kitchen! The beautiful countertop and slab backsplash are porcelain.

#pvvistabuild

I LOVE these chairs! They are a beautiful brown and so unique. Also love the flooring and the art.

What a beautiful tapestry! The clients for this project are collectors, if you couldn’t tell! So many unique pieces.

I love the reeding on either side of the range hood. The creamy and brass colors in this kitchen make it cozy and welcoming.

Cozy powder bath.

You’ve definitely seen this picture on my blog before! I love the look of this tub corner.

#alwaysonvacaproj

I love the light they used in here! On the left of this entry, they used exterior sconces as a design feature. On the right, they have a huge custom floating cabinet with a ginormous mirror! It’s the perfect scale for this large space.

How cozy would it be to sit and read in this primary bedroom? I love the seating they chose!

#haciendavibesbuild

I’m not a big fan of patterned tile.. yet I love a tile pattern!

Brandon has informed me that we likely can’t have a little nook like this in our house. Bummer!

Loving the casual vibes in this bedroom paired with the wall’s design feature!

I love the detail on the walls here and how it looks with the beams! Both the rug and the loveseat look soft.

#79thbuild

I love the look of this dark countertop/cabinet combo! I also love how the floating shelf is boxed in!

These dainty pendants are so cute and similar to what I have in mind for our future kitchen. These were actually sourced from Etsy!

#64thbuild

I love the wood tone of this cabinetry and the terrazzo flooring. The sink is also very interesting!

I could definitely live in this bedroom! If I remember correctly, I think they installed flooring on the ceiling!

Another great fireplace done by THELIFESTYLEDCO!

Love the look of the white, slim shaker cabinetry and the different metal tones.

This is similar to the inspo I have for our mudroom! Love the reeded detail and the storage below.

How neat is the reeded detail between the countertop and cabinetry?! So cool!

A close up of this quartz cooktop!

This is quite the kitchen. I love the barstools and pendants as well.

A look at the living area. I like all the options for seating in here.

#cortez-build

Another great fireplace, with a nice seating area in the primary bedroom.

A beautiful bed. My only critique with this primary bedroom is that it’s too big and looks empty!

Love the marble sinks here! Also, look at that shelving! Very functional.

The different metal tones work well together in this powder bathroom.

Love the traditional look of this fireplace. The lantern lighting up above is a cool design element as well!

Wow that was a lot to go through! I hope you enjoyed looking through these pictures and found some inspiration. I recommend you check out THELIFESTYLEDCO on Youtube if you want a closer look at any of the projects!

Thanks for reading!

Davien

THELIFESTYLEDCO is an interior design company that has grown from one designer, Kristin Forgione, to a high end interior design company with a handful of different designers. The company also has an interior design/fashion shop. I’ve never purchased anything, but maybe someday!

Part one of our design spotlight is centered all around the founder Kristin Forgione’s custom home. The design was in the works before I started following the company/founder, so luckily I didn’t have to wait too long for the reveal!

#theodlhouse

I love the Calacatta slab backsplash that Kristin used in her kitchen, and the windows flanking the range are what I would like for our own home someday. The tone of the wood cabinetry is a beautiful tone, and while I wouldn’t choose it for my own home, I like her two tone design with the white oak and white.

I also haven’t seen many designs with open shelving in the lower cabinets. It’s very interesting, and I’m sure our girlies (cats) would love jumping up there and dirtying our dishes!

I thought this built in shelving was very cool! I would love to explore having something like this in our new house. In our entry way design, we currently have a barn door on each side of the entry, which makes the typical entryway table seem tricky. If we were to create a built in like above (without the shelves), we could have a mirror and some sconces recessed inside it, without getting in the way of a barn door. I’m loving this idea!

Kristin’s house is an H shape, which allows her to have an entry way that you don’t need to walk through. This table is in the middle of the entry without disrupting flow of traffic. I thought it was different that she did extra tall baseboards in this space, and I love the arched doorways.

Another look of her kitchen and those two tone cabinets.

This is a shot of her pantry. I’m not crazy about the design of this space, but I love the concept of having countertop holes for garbage or cans! Maybe we’d do something like this in the garage or the downstairs kitchenette for when we have guests over for sports games?

The powder bath. If you look to the right, you can see the walls are a chocolate color! I love the slab she chose for the sink and all the brass tones in the lighting/fixtures! Her design inspiration for this space was not being able to see your face unless you were close to the mirror. Lol

This little area is a separate seating next to their main living room. It’s a nice place if you want to sit with some visitors but not get them too comfortable on the couch! She’s called this her ‘waiting on an uber’ space.

Kristin’s primary bath shower. This marble inspired our shower design! When there’s enough light coming into the space, this type of marble is the prettiest light gray!

A guest bedroom. I love how cozy the bedding looks.

This closet/fitness room came at the right time! I was considering doing something like this before I saw her home’s foot print, but I didn’t know if it was too crazy. The closet is actually her husband’s closet, and hers is a large walk in through that doorway.

Another shot of her bathroom. I’ve probably shared this before, but it’s worth another look!

This little lounge area is framed into the space and has a custom cushion. It’s a nice place to sit and watch TV, and not pictured, is a nice fireplace just to the right of it.

Out of all THELIFESTYLEDCO designs, this house may have some of my favorite elements! It really does inspire you to go with what you want when you’re building custom. I didn’t include a picture of this because it’s not something I’d choose for myself, but Kristin has two large sinks in her kitchen island with three large faucets! Clearly she believes in listening to her gut!

Thanks for reading!

Davien

When I tell you that tile from last week blew my mind, I’m not kidding! I’ve also been loving some wood paneling, despite the irony of me painting every inch of wood paneling in our current house. (But I think that’s different because the tone and quality of our paneling left much to be desired.)

Today I will be walking through our current laundry room design, similar to what I did for the Dream Primary Bathroom Design. I was mainly wanting this room to be light and airy, but still cozy.

Let’s go ahead and jump right in!

Until we know otherwise, our laundry room floor plan is a galley style with an opening on each end, one being an entry from the pantry (quick kitchen access!) and the other being an entry from the main living area. We will only have cabinets on one side of the laundry room, with the other wall bare to leave plenty of clearance for carrying laundry baskets, opening/closing the washer/dryer, passing through, etc.

What I’m most excited for in this design is of course the marble tile! It’s gorgeous, and with it being used in a semi-small space, it shouldn’t affect the budget too much. I also would love to use some floor to ceiling wood paneling on the ‘other’ wall I referenced (the long blank wall parallel to the more functional wall). I think the wood looks SO good with the marble, and it would be a fun surprise to catch a glimpse of the wood in an otherwise white laundry room.

I plan on having a front load washer and dryer with a countertop above for folding (and to prevent losing anything behind the washer/dryer). I’m thinking a white laminate countertop would be a great option for this room since it’s durable, inexpensive, and still looks good from afar.

The cabinets are from IKEA, but that is more out of convenience since they have good, copyable product images. Although, I wouldn’t mind installing some IKEA cabinets ourselves as a fun DIY project! The wall cabinet is meant to be short and mounted high to allow for a wooden rod beneath it for drying clothes. You can look at the below design to get an idea of this function:

The faucet in the design is a spot free stainless steel, but any neutral, matte faucet would do. I want the main focus to be the white cabinets/countertop, marble floor, and wood paneling, which is why I don’t have a standout faucet. You’ll also note that I don’t have any light fixtures in the design! I plan on having something so simple, you don’t even notice it. We’ll also hopefully have a window in the pantry shining into this space to provide natural light.

That’s it for the design so far, nice and simple! And 100% without a doubt, I will be buying a full size of that tile from Floor and Decor. I just want to look at it again in person, all day everyday!

Thanks for reading!

Davien

I recently posted about dream house details we’re willing to wait for. I thought it’d be fitting to also say what we’re wanting to prioritize at build time! I know I’ve posted a lot about our future home and what we want it to be, but things are constantly evolving in this dreaming/planning stage.

the kitchen

The kitchen is the one room where I want to have everything done at build time. It’s the room we’re most excited for since every night we’re cooking or doing dishes together. We dream about our dishwasher, remind ourselves to mind the marble, and look forward to the day where our fridge is not directly behind our oven. I’ve posted our dream kitchen design before, and we truly want to make it happen!

quality plumbing

We don’t have a dishwasher, so we obviously wash our dishes by hand. Every time our kitchen faucet turns on (which is a lot!) you have three options: let it make a loud whining sound while it attempts to stray from its steady stream setting, give in to letting it be the sprayer it wants to be even when it’s not convenient, or take a few extra seconds to apply a workaround that only lasts for a minute at most. If there is any review that a budget friendly faucet may follow down this path, I am choosing the pricier option! I can’t live like this!

the flooring

Flooring is so much work to replace! Plus if you’re using a cheaper material with hopes to match the main flooring down the road, you might run into an issue where the product is discontinued. I recently found the most dreamy tile at Floor and Decor! Unfortunately, it’s polished marble, which is a double yikes for flooring. However, this would be great for our laundry room! How many kids will willingly be going in there and potentially staining the floor? And with the slip hazard, I will personally take my chances!

the exterior

Our house isn’t on any common path, so we don’t have to worry too much about curb appeal. However, changing up the exterior is not something I want on my renovation list down the road. I’m very open to the inside evolving as we live, but for some reason, I want the exterior to remain the same for as long as possible. When I look at the Victorian houses in our town, I love how they probably changed very little since they were built. I like the idea of someone saying ‘it’s just how I remembered it!’ years down the road.

space planning

I want to make sure we have plenty of time to design the house to prevent cases of poor space planning! You shouldn’t enter the excitement of drywall stage to find that the dining area you built for your family of six only has room for four chairs. Likewise, you shouldn’t have to choose between centering your bed with the ceiling fan or the window with both options looking odd. Yes, I am speaking from experience! I want to mentally walk through those blue prints and make sure we’re not over looking anything!

the boring stuff

When I asked Brandon if there was anything I was missing, he of course brought up something very important, light switch placement. Our current hallway light switch is in a central location, literally in the center of the hallway! If you’re coming from either end of the house at night, you have to feel your way to the middle of the hallway to find the switch! I’ll also add that it’s of course important to make sure you take into account good insulation, nice carpet pads, window/sun placement, yada yada.

It’s crazy to think that in less than a year, we’re (fingers crossed!) starting our build! There is so much to do design wise, and I’m hoping we either start soon or the builder waits until after our wedding to reach out. It’s going to get busy in the next couple of months, and I am here for it!

Thanks for reading!

Davien