The Fabulous Home… A Venture in Renovation

This month, I’ll be tackling a new project that involves making over my bedroom. Now, this will be the second overhaul since I bought my ranch house turned Italian villa 10 years ago. However, I’d like for this to be the last go round. It’s incredibly exhausting to prepare for and execute an entire redesign which is why the experts like Emily Henderson and David Bromstad  do so well with their audiences.

Nevertheless, if you can manage to finish the project then the end results will leave you feeling fabulous each time you come home and get lost inside your boudoir. In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be taking you on a tour of my handmade ranch house turned Italian Villa. It has been a labor of love that has seen its shares of ups and downs and yes, even a few tears shed during the process.

A little inspiration for my upcoming bedroom reno. Yeah, I love mermaids. 😀

When I started my home renovation project ten years ago, I remember thinking: “How in the world am I going to turn this super fixer upper into an Italian villa?” At the time, my boys were just babies and I was still reeling from a the breakup with their father. Yet, it was these two things that jump started the DIY fire in me. And since moving to Italy wasn’t an option, I knew I was going to have to suck up and shut up (the whining stuff, anyway).

I clearly recall the first project on my list and that was to remove one of the three doors on the front of the house. Yes, the house had a LOT of doors. I hired a contractor to come in and take care of that issue for me. We turned one door into a window and painted the side door white. Small things make a huge difference. However, there was still many more projects to go before we’d ever get the chance to even think about taking a break. On top of all that, I was experiencing buyer’s remorse.

And then, I experienced a turning point in my budding renovation adventure. Around that same time, Home Depot was starting to promote the DIY revolution by highlighting normal folks who were doing what I wanted to do. And they were rocking the renovations, turning their homes into mini palaces.

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I recall one woman in particular, a single mom like me, who had also taken 11 years to renovate her small cottage. She and her two young daughters painted, stripped floors, swapped plumbing and even rewired the entire house. Photos of this mom standing in her yard and smiling while she was holding a paintbrush were spread throughout the store. Home Depot’s promo worked because it created a love for home renovation in my family that has continued almost a decade later.

So that’s the brief story of how I’ve transitioned my ranch house into my dream home. I still have a way to go, but I hope that by sharing the progress of our adventure as it heads toward the last stages, that I can inspire you as well.

Here are a few articles you can read to help you decide how to begin thinking about a color scheme.

1. An in-depth article on HGTV that explains color trends. I’m not one who puts much stock in trends when it comes to my decorating, but this article is chock full of tips to help steer you in the right direction. http://www.hgtv.com/design/decorating/color/color-trends-whats-new-whats-next
2. Yet another HGTV article that describes how to use color as a mood lifter. http://www.hgtv.com/remodel/interior-remodel/the-psychology-of-color
3. I thought this article about the psychology of brown was very interesting since I’ve chosen a shade called temperate taupe as the hue I’ll be using to makeover my boudoir. http://www.hgtv.com/remodel/interior-remodel/behind-the-color-brown