Hi Everyone! My name is Melissa and I’m the creator of the home decorating blog The Inspired Room! I’m so glad you are here. If you are coming after reading the November Better Homes & Gardens magazine feature on my kitchen, thanks so much for visiting! It is very exciting and surreal to see my home on the pages of a magazine I’ve loved and enjoyed my whole life.
I am really passionate about encouraging others to find simple ways to love the home they have (in fact, I just finished writing a real live book called Love The Home You Have, which is now available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble! I’m so thankful for the opportunity to share my house stories and I hope the ideas in the book will inspire you in your home, too!).
I poured a lot of love into my kitchen remodeling project and many other small projects throughout my house since we moved in five years ago. Now that you’ve seen my kitchen in the pages of Better Homes & Gardens magazine, I thought I would invite you to take a peek at a few other projects that have helped me fall in love with the home I have.
One of the things I really missed from living in older houses all my life were chunky paneled walls. I love them! So in the small hallway right outside of our kitchen we packed a lot of architectural punch by adding some horizontal planking to the wall during our kitchen remodel. You can find the details on the type of planks we used here. We love the character it brought to the formerly drywalled space, but also the ability of the wood to withstand the abuse of a high traffic area in our home!
I love to travel, so over the years I’ve collected heavy duty map wrapping paper sheets that represented places I’ve been. One day I decided it would be really fun to put them to creative use and display them on the wall opposite of the planked wall in the small hall. You can see my tips and instructions for how easy the DIY Map Wall is in this post. The wall is now a really fun conversation starter and reminds me of great travel memories every time I pass through the hall.
New houses can feel kind of sterile and lifeless when you first move in, but of course an easy way to update any house with style is to repaint the walls! Our house started out with an unappealing and poor quality pink flesh toned shade of paint on every wall. It was so unappealing to me that I almost didn’t want to buy the house! It’s amazing how much color affects our mood, but since it was only paint we decided to go for it and buy the house.
FIVE YEARS LATER we are almost done repainting ALL THE WALLS (crazy, right? who knew “only paint” would take so long to update?). You can find all of our paint colors here. To bring even more easy DIY personality to our home, we decided to bring a splash of pattern with a striped wall under our staircase. You can find our tips and secrets to a crisp line here!
Even if full remodel isn’t possible or even necessary, a few simple updates and steps forward over time can make a big impact on how you feel about a room. One of the first projects we tackled in our house was a really simple DIY backsplash in our kids’ bathroom. While our standard builder style vanity with laminate top was still in great condition, it lacked the personality and charm I love in a home. So without a major overhaul, we simple tore out the laminate backsplash and added a faux tin tile border! It was really easy to do in just one afternoon. It gave the room a fun personality with very little fuss, mess, or expense. You can see the details of the next weekend refresh of this bathroom makeover here!
Another pretty simple improvement we made was to our family room fireplace. It started out with a black glossy sparkly tile surround that we didn’t love and a big “TV hole” above the mantel. Since our mantel is so tall, we got cramps in our neck trying to watch a TV in that location.
A couple of years ago when we moved our television to another room, we decided to cover up the giant hole with some paneling (to complement the planked walls in our kitchen) and tile right over the old tile with some charming split faced stone. It was such an easy makeover, but it made a big impact on our family room and how we felt about the entire space. We love how the fireplace makes the house feel so cozy, especially in the fall and winter (my fall home tour is on the blog!). You can find the before and after and all of the sources and details in the fireplace makeover post on the The Inspired Room!
Thanks again for reading! You are invited over anytime to talk about easy ways to update the home you have, see the rest of the house and follow along with all my new and upcoming home projects at The Inspired Room!
