EASY DIY RUSTIC WREATH

I have been seeing all these beautiful rustic details all over the Instagram and Pinterest. My typical Christmas theme is usually gold with a mix of either black or pink. I am not sure if it is all the evergreen trees in my yard in our new house but I wanted to do something different..yet keep it simple. I have had some old neutral wreaths sitting in the basement, which didn't really go with anything in the house, but I got them on a Christmas clearance sale and they are neutral enough so I held on to them. After seeing natural green all over Insta, I decided to give them a little make over. Now, if you have ever seen my DIYs..I have one rule..it better be easy! If it requires more than 3 things, it's just not worth the hassle for me..

So here we go, for this wreath makeover, all you need is:
1. An old wreath/embroidery hoop, or a wire wreath frame which you can buy from any craft store
2. Two/three Garlands of any kind (I used two on one wreath and one on the other, which I got from the Dollar store for $3 each!)
3. A floral wire

I started with the brown and gold wreath seen above and wrapped 2 garlands around it. I secured them with the floral wire and voila! You can also add some additional greenery to give it a full look. See below for step by step illustration.

Start with intertwining the garland around the wreath until it wraps all the way around

Once fully wrapped, secure any lose ends with the floral wire to give the wreath a more circular shape

Tighten any lose branches/ leaves with the floral wire

This is what it looks like with just one garland wrapped around the wreath

For more fullness, I wrapped two garlands around the same way

Next, add more real or faux greenery and secure with the floral wire

 And done! It really is that easy! It took me lieterally $3.00 to update wreath and $6.00 for the other. Most Christmas wreaths average from $40-$150!! And the best part is, if you change you mind next then just take off the garlands and use them as decor around the house!

TRAVEL DIARIES - PRAGUE AIR BNB

 

This was the first time I have ever booked through Air BNB, mainly because it has been quite a while since I have traveled to Europe. Last few trips were in the Caribbean so I never had to book any hotels. I was a bit nervous thinking that I would be staying in someone's place, but once I started searching for rooms I was impressed! To me location and decor a huge; I want to be close to the main attractions, which means usually as close to the city center as possible..and being a decor enthusiast I need a place that looks good! I am serious, we have stayed in some not so good looking hotels and it would honestly depress me. I am visual person and I need to wake up in a beautiful space. So, when I saw this beautiful Loft in the heart of the city, even though it had 3 bedrooms and we really needed just one, I still booked it! It was so stunning, and so beautifully designed that I want to one day replicate some of the architectural details in my own home. Of course, the whole place was furnished with Ikea, and that is okay, I am huge fan of Ikea because of its simple and multipurpose pieces. We arrived at 10pm so the lighting was not exactly optimal, so the first thing I did the next morning was capture every angle of our loft. The glass stairs with metal framing, the wood accents, the whole place was heaven for this decor blogger, and hubby was happy with the industrial look and minimal furnishings. Enjoy!

Home Diaries: How to add color to your Living Room

I love changing my decor regularly, but I usually play it safe and only change it up in my bedroom and bathroom. I do change my duvets regularly..and I am always switching up my bathroom accessories, but I only change my living room decor once or twice a year..and that is usually around the holidays. I guess it is just easy to switch up the decor seasonally with some soft throws and warm colored accents and you are done..but summer time decor can be a little challenging. How do you decorate without throws and candles?? I say add colour..and a lot of it! I generally keep this area fairly neutral and it works with a toddler in the house, but this is such an easy way to add some pop of colour that you don't even have to think about commitment issues. I usually have these velvet cushions in our guest room where they pop against everything white..but one evening I decided to change things up. I wanted to add some life to a dark gloomy living space (because let's face it..our summer has been nothing but dark and gloomy this year) and all I did was grab all the cushions from the guestroom and everything else colorful in the house and.. VOILA! It took me less than 15 minutes to spruce up the space! I have added links to the all the accessories I used. The best part is that because it is all accessories, you can pack everything up just as quickly when you are done with the look..or in my case when my little monster wanted to take over the living room.

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RENO DIARIES: MASTER BEDROOM AND BATHROOM REVEAL

I was hoping to have this post up last week, but something always came up. I have finally got a good routine working with the baby, she is finally starting to sleep better, waking up once or twice a night..which is a BIG improvement from waking up every hour!! I was losing my mind just a few weeks ago and never thought I'd sleep again. I was getting on avg of 2 hours of sleep each night. Looking back it turns out it was probably because she was teething and I was dealing with the 8 month sleep regression.  Combine that with gloomy miserable weather, and the whole circus that followed with Donald Trump's inauguration..I basically went into a mild depression! But..the days are getting longer, we are almost half way through February which means spring is around the corner, and the baby is getting better at sleeping! She cut her first two teeth (yes a bit late), learned to stand on her own and started feeding herself all in one week!! Hallelujah!
Soo this means I can finally find a moment to sit down and share our Master floor with you guys! The third floor was basically divided into two rooms separated by closets..and for some reason one room had a sink in it! I am guessing it was being rented at one point and was a kitchenette of some sort up  there. We decided to removed the closets that were separating the two rooms and created a large bedroom with master bath on one end. So without further adieu, I share with you guys the before and after of our Master Floor. It still needs to be furnished as the rest of the house, but I will share the room makeovers as I get around to finishing each room.

RENO DIARIES - MAIN FLOOR REVEAL

Today I am sharing the full main floor reveal with you guys. Looking at the before pictures, I can't believe that I walked into this house and said "I kinda like it" lol..like seriously..was it my pregnancy hormones or I had so much faith in us that I thought I could pull this off?! Well..either way we did it! It turned out exactly how I imagined it. We took out two major walls and converted the main floor into an open concept space for our growing family. The original kitchen was only 8'x9' I believe, complete with the green ugly wall tiles and asbestos floor tiles!..I shared the kitchen details last week, check it out here. I am so glad we were able to move the kitchen and make it so much bigger than it was before. We also converted the (old) kitchen window into a full entrance from the backyard while keeping the side entrance for the basement. We also kept the original doors and the hardware, which are just stunning! I will be sharing some more detail pics in a later post.

Above is the view of our main floor from where the old kitchen would have been..I am still in awe of what we have accomplished..I love this feeling of open space as it allows me to keep an eye on the baby.. plus now she has so much room to crawl around in! I am also glad that we kept the original pocket doors as seen in this post, since it does allow me to close off the living room if needed..because there are days when you do need a bit of privacy so I am glad I have that option.

I've also attached some pictures of the foyer in this post, which only needed a bit of cosmetic makeover, no structural changes were needed there. I do love that you can see right through the house from the front entrance. The stairs were in good shape, little squeaky here and there but very sturdy. They were a bit worn out though, and we tried staining them..but it turns out that the first floor had Oak steps but the second had Pine. The pine did not take the stain very well and it basically looked like we painted them black! So we had to just choose a different paint colour and just paint the stairs all together. Other than repainting and re-staining the stairs, we kept the foyer more or less the same. We did add some extra storage under the stairs, can never have too much storage right!

So this is it guys, this is the main floor..I will be sharing our master floor soon..you may have seen some of it on Instagram but I can't wait to share the entire floor!! Click below to see more.