Demo started yesterday and is in full swing today.  I’m so excited!!

I spent about 3 hours over there yesterday with our contractor and framer planning out changes to the kitchen and 2 bathrooms, and smaller changes in the dining room and living room.

Didn’t you know that all the cool kids were drawing on the floors and walls?  :)

The picture above is a rough sketch of the wood deck that we’re planning to replace that nasty addition (shown near the bottom of this post).

I have some meetings this morning but I can’t wait to check out the progress early this afternoon.  I’m hoping I won’t recognize the place.  :)

Well, now that I am 26 weeks along and fully in the “I can only fit into maternity pants” phase of my pregnancy, I’ve been especially smitten with skinny jeans.  Their tailored silhouette makes me feel less shapeless, and that makes me happy.  :)

The problem is that almost all of the maternity pants that fit me well happen to have flared or bootcut legs – which doesn’t work with my whole goal of trying to balance a growing belly by throwing people off with my skinny ankles.  So I decided to turn my maternity jeans into skinny jeans!

I turned to Pinterest for inspiration (of course) and came up with two great tutorials – this one from Lucky Design, and this one from Holy Craft.  My favorite was the one from Lucky Design, so I used that tutorial as a jumping off point for my own sewing extravaganza.

Here’s how it all went down:

Supplies Needed:

- pair of jeans or pants that you want to skinny-fy

- pair of skinny jeans that you like the way they fit

- 2 colors of chalk (if your pants are dark), fabric pen, marker, whatever floats your boat

- ruler

- pins

- scissors

- sewing machine

- thread in a color that matches your pants

Step 1: Turn both pairs of jeans inside out, then lay the skinny pair on top of the regular pair. Line up the two pairs of pants at the inside seam like in the photo below (this assumes that the outside seam is thinner than the inside seam on your pair of jeans).  Make sure that all of your fabric is flat and that there aren’t any weird wrinkles.

Step 2: Take your chalk and mark a line at the edge of your skinny jeans – the chalk line should be made on your regular jeans. Do this with both legs.

Step 3:  Use a ruler to make sure that the chalk lines are in the same place on both legs. First measure the distance from the chalk line to the outside edge of your pants, then measure the length of the chalk line, then measure the distance from the bottom of the outside seam to where the chalk meets the outside seam.  (That sounds kind of confusing, so let me know in the Comments if you need clarification.)  These measurements should be the same on both legs, and this will ensure that one leg doesn’t turn out totally different from the other leg.

Step 4: Use a new color of chalk to make any necessary adjustments to your chalk line. Your ruler may come in handy as a straight edge.

Step 5: Use your pins to pin the two sides of the pant leg together along the new chalk line. Make sure that you don’t pull the fabric when you’re doing this!

Step 6: Use your sewing machine to sew a straight stitch along the new chalk line. You can reinforce the beginning and end of each new seam by either using the “reverse” button on your machine or by picking up your needle and sewing over the beginning/end of the seam again.

Step 7: Try on your jeans to make sure they’re fitting how you want them to! Make any adjustments now – this is a “do as I say, not as I do” moment because I had a little wonky wrinkle at each knee where the new seam met the old seam but I told myself that it was fine and moved on.  :)

Step 8:  Cut off the extra fabric on the outside of your new seam, leaving some excess. You will need enough excess fabric for a zigzag stitch to fit comfortably without sewing past your seam and onto the pant leg.  I cut it a bit too close on my first pair so I left more excess on the second pair and I was much happier.  I would err on the side of leaving on too much excess (but no more than 1/2 inch) – you won’t notice it when you’re wearing the jeans.

Step 9: Practice your zigzag stitch on a scrap piece of fabric. Most of you can probably skip this step but I had never used a zigzag stitch so I wanted to practice a little bit before I started sewing away on my pants.  I chose a triple zigzag stitch instead of a regular zigzag stitch because I thought it would be better for the thread to pass through the fabric three times per stitch instead of just one (I don’t know if that’s really true, it just seemed to make sense).

I drew a chalk line on my scrap fabric so that I could see exactly where the zigzag stitches would fall in relation to my seam.

By the way, I haven’t washed and dried my new skinny jeans yet so I can’t swear that this zigzag stitch trick is 100% foolproof.  You could also serge the seam or use a fray check on the raw edge instead.

Step 9: Sew a zigzag stitch along the entire length of your new seam.

Step 10: Try on your new skinny jeans!!! I’m just warning you – you will probably want to wear them for the next 6 days straight.  Not that I’m doing that or anything.  :)

I did this with a pair of black maternity jeans as well as a pair of dark gray corduroy maternity jeans – I didn’t have any problems with the corduroy, and the fact that they were maternity pants didn’t seem to make any difference either.

I have plans to do this with at least 3 other pairs of pants (once I fit back into my regular clothes) – I’m so excited!!  And I have to know – are any of you other preggos finding that skinny jeans make you feel a little more at ease with your growing belly?

Now go forth and skinny-fy!!

We sold our last flip in early November (you can check out all of our past flips here) and we’ve been scouring the MLS and touring zillions of properties ever since then.  We even put a house on a creek lot under contract in December, but backed out just before Christmas when it became clear that our plans for adding a second story wouldn’t work – instead we’d have to tear down the house and start from scratch.  Um, no thank you!

But now I think we’ve found “the one.”  The house is teeny tiny (or at least compared to the homes that we’ve flipped in the past) at just 1,420 square feet, 2 bedrooms and 1.5 baths.  And it’s so cute!!!  There are hardwood floors throughout most of the house (score!) and the home is being sold by the original owner who lived there for 57 years and took really great care of the home.

We’ve already had the house inspected and it looks like everything is full-steam ahead – barring any unexpected problems, we should be closing in about a week and a half!

Want a sneak peek of our upcoming project?  Here are some photos I snagged from the MLS listing – it’s your typical little 50’s ranch, which is right up our alley.

This is your view when you walk in the front door – a hallway to the bedrooms and bathrooms straight ahead, and the formal living room and dining room to the left.

Check out the fireplace!  And there are hardwoods under all that carpet.

There is a doorway that leads from the dining room to the kitchen, which runs along the side of the house to the backyard.

New-ish cabinets!!  This is a first for us, for sure.  The cabinetry along the left-hand wall is Kraftmaid and is in great shape.

Here’s the view looking back towards the dining room.

Heading from the kitchen towards the middle of the house is the family room – for reference, it’s directly behind the formal living room.

Do you think it’s brown enough?  :)

Now we’re heading out to the hallway, back towards the front door to scope out the second bedroom.

In the hallway between the two bedrooms is the full bath in all of it’s original 50s glory.

And at the end of the hallway at the back of the house is the master bedroom.

It has a tiny attached half bath.

And now to the addition.  Ah, the addition.  Don’t get too attached to it.

This sucker ain’t staying.  It is a really poorly constructed addition that was added in the late 80s, and the roof is in terrible shape, skylights are leaking, it’s not insulated, all the windows have lost their seals, the heater doesn’t work . . . you get the idea.  So it’s coming off.  Luckily we aren’t paying for this square footage (it wasn’t permitted and isn’t factored into the price per square foot we’re paying for the house) and after we take it off we’ll still have 1,420 square feet.  But, we do have to pay to take it off which is a bit of a bummer.

The backyard is a really decent size, I think, especially after the addition comes off.

And there you have it!  I can’t wait to fill you in on our plans for the house, and to chat with you about it as demolition and construction get under way.  And we shouldn’t have any problems knocking this sucker out before the baby arrives in early May, so I think that’s a great bonus for tackling a project on this smaller scale.

I’m excited!

The baby’s room will be the bedroom that is closest to our room – about 7 steps door to door.  Until Sunday, it looked like this:

Mmm, lovely.

After we cleared out the room (I’m thinking about possibly a garage sale?) it looked like this:

(By the way, I love the crib in person – so pretty! And it came with the toddler rail that you can see in the corner, score!)

Much better!!  And now the curtains are gone, so you can mentally erase those.  :)

Here’s the general layout that I have planned (ignore the colors in the floor plan):

And to shed some light on what you’re looking at . .  .

• the door to the hallway is on the bottom right, the door to the jack ‘n jill bathroom is on the right-hand wall, the window is on the wall across from the hallway door, and the closet is on the left-hand wall
• the crib will be directly across from the door and under the window (we will have cordless blinds so don’t fret)
• the dresser / changing table is on the right-hand wall
• the glider and ottoman are in the bottom left-hand corner
• a low bookcase is on the left-hand wall

But now onto the fun stuff!!  I’m in love with chevrons and somehow they are nowhere to be found in my entire house – but no more.  Check out this fabric, which will be floor to ceiling curtains on either side of the window / crib:

LOVE!  I’ve received a fabric sample and the pink is a lovely coral-y pink that will look fab.

I’m thinking of having a plain or very simple fitted crib sheet with a crib skirt similar to this one with the pompom fringe in solid colors – either pink with orange pompoms or vice versa.

I’m going to use my childhood dresser (that you saw in a photo at the beginning of this post) as the changing table, and I’ve been wanting to paint it a fun tangerine shade like this:

My dresser also has raised detailing but I’m not sure whether I’ll highlight it.  And I’m debating between snazzy pink knobs from Anthropologie, ring pulls or an array of mismatched knobs.

I would love to do a setup similar to this for the wall above the changing table:

And remember that animal print fabric I showed you last week?

It’s going to make several appearances around the room – maybe some pillows, as a background in artwork, and in these fun little baskets that I couldn’t resist buying last night:

Aren’t they so cute??  I’m thinking they’ll be good for organizing the top of the changing table.

As for a rug, I was originally wanting to go for a crazy pattern, or lots of color, but lately I’ve been thinking that a simple white or off-white shag rug might be just the ticket:

And now onto the glider.  I was adamantly opposed to the traditional looking glider and wanting something more modern and chic-looking . . . but in the end I fell in love with the comfort and practicality of this glider / recliner combo (in a slightly different, non-textured fabric!).  What pushed me over the edge into buying this one was the fact that the back was actually tall enough for me to lean my head against the back cushion – I’m apparently too tall for all the cute gliders and my head just dangled in the air instead of leaning against the cushion and that simply would not do.  And this baby reclines!!  Sold.  This glider may not win any awards for looks but I cannot wait to test it out with our little girl!

I’m a pouf-lover and I knew I wanted poufs somewhere in the room.  I originally thought of hanging them above the crib (exactly like the photo below) but I think that might look too busy/crazy with the curtains we’ll have going on, so now I’m thinking of hanging them in the corner above the glider.  I love the way these are clustered together and the varying shades of pink – I hope to be able to replicate the look pretty closely!

When I was a kid I had a ridiculous amount of stuff that I wanted to display – and while I know that an infant won’t really collect things and need oodles of display space I like the idea of having a bookcase for books (duh), stuffed animals, and whatever other random things might start to pile up.  This Ikea Expedit bookcase will go on its side next to the glider and will have a great surface for a lamp or book for those late nights that I know are in my future.

Ooh, and I recently saw these and thought it might be fun to paint a pair of them some fun color and attach them to the bottom of the bookcase – both for looks and functionality.

And last but not least, I saw this photo on Pinterest this morning and just about died.  The nursery itself is gorgeous but what really caught my eye was the animal artwork above the crib (which turns out to be Marimekko fabric!).  I had originally planned on making some artwork out of the animal fabric, but now I’m dying to paint an oversized graphic of the animals from the fabric on this giant scrap piece of plywood that I’ve had lying around, and then lean it (secured to the wall, of course) above the bookcase.  Wouldn’t that be awesome??  Here’s to hoping I can pull it off.

So that’s the plan for our baby girl’s nursery!!  I’ve gone through about a zillion design plans before getting to this one so who knows how many more times it will change before it’s finished – but that’s part of the fun, right?  :)

P.S.  I’m currently planning on keeping the walls tan, but I might wind up painting them a pale pink once I get everything else into place and get an idea of how it’s going to look – we’ll just have to see how it goes!

The first thing to arrive was this fabric sample:

I fell in love with it online but I needed to see it in person before making a final decision – and I think the final decision is a giant YES.

I’ve waffled and agonized over color schemes, the vibe I want the nursery to have . . . I could go on and on over all the internal debates I’ve been having but perhaps I’ll save that for another post.  But in a nutshell, I think this fun, whimsical and colorful animal print is going to be an awesome jumping off point for our little girl’s nursery!

And now onto the other exciting delivery – just a few moments ago I heard the FedEx truck pull up and Jason and I instantly had the same thought – the crib!!  The FedEx guy single-handedly trotted this giant box up to our door:

YAY!!!!

Here’s the crib that we got (who knows when we’ll actually get around to assembling the crib, so this stock photo will have to do for now):

Isn’t she a beauty?!?  I love the mix of finishes and the clean, simple lines.  Swoon.  And it was delivered in less than a week – double swoon.

I’m in the beginning stages of actually putting all of my ideas for the nursery into a design board, so I’ll keep you posted on that.  In the meantime, what do you guys think so far?  And did you have a tough time designing your child’s nursery?  So many decisions!!  :)

It seems like everywhere I look people have made fun and funky backgrounds for their blogs, art prints, stationary, and all sorts of other cool things – so I decided to figure out how they do it.  And I did!

Here’s a foldover thank you note that I made . . .

and this one is an address label (without our address, of course!).

And now I’m going to share my new-found wisdom with you fine people.  :)

I’m going to walk through every.tiny.step, which will be boring for some of you but hopefully helpful for others!  As a result, welcome to the longest post ever.  It looks daunting because the post is so long but it’s really easy, I promise!

1.  Open a blank document in PowerPoint. ‘Nuff said.

( FYI – click on any of the images for the option to see them in a larger size through the “Actions” menu. )

2.  Set your document dimensions to something huge, like 20×20 inches. To do this, go to File -> Page Setup and then change both the width and height to 20, and then click OK.

You will get an error message, but just ignore it and click OK (we’re not printing this document so we don’t care if it’s too big to print).

3.  Get rid of the extra gunk on the page. I like to just have my blank document, without all the extra sidebars and whatnot, so I always drag and hide the panes on the right and bottom . . .

and then change the slide layout to a blank page without pre-set areas for text and photos.

Just click the tab for slide layout a second time to hide the slide layout options and give you a bigger view of your document.

4.  Start making your first stripe. Here’s where it starts to get fun.  Go to Shapes -> Rectangles and select a rectangle.  The shape will appear somewhere on your document.

Use your cursor to drag the shape to the bottom left-hand corner of your document . . .

then hover over the right-hand side of the shape until your cursor looks like this:

Then click and hold on the right-hand side of the shape and drag the right-hand side of the shape to the right side of the document, making a long rectangle. Repeat with the left side of the rectangle.

Then repeat this step by clicking and holding the top side of the shape and dragging it down until the shape is the thickness that you want – this long rectangle will be your stripe.

Alternate Method: You could also make your stripes out of “Lines” instead of “Rectangles” to achieve similar results.  Just play with the “Weights and Arrows” of the line to achieve the desired thickness for the stripe.

5.  Choose the color of your first stripe. Double click on the rectangle and this screen will pop up:

With this step you will choose the color of the “fill” of your stripe.  Click on the arrow next to “Color” on the right-hand side – at this point you can choose a standard color or, if you want a ton more options, scroll down to the option that says “More Colors.”

A little color wheel will pop up and you can drag your cursor around until you find the color that you want.  Just click “OK” and your rectangle should change to that color.

If you want to keep track of the colors that you’re selecting you can check out the ROYGBIV sliders which will give you more information like this:

While the small screen is still up, click on “Line” on the left-hand side and go through the same process as above to make the line around your shape the same color as your rectangle.  Your chosen shade should still be visible on the drop-down screen as a “Recent Color.”

While the small screen is still up, click on “Shadow” on the left-hand side and decide whether or not you want your stripe to have a shadow.  Click and unclick the box to see how it looks – I’ve opted to skip the shadow.

Now click “OK” at the bottom of the pop-up screen and the screen should disappear and all of your changes should be applied.

6.  Duplicate your stripes. Right-click your stripe and select “Copy.” Then right click on the document and select “Paste.”

Your new stripe will appear almost on top of your original stripe.

Drag the stripe with your cursor so that it is above the original stripe, stretching from one side of the document to the other.  This is when you will determine the spacing of your stripes.

Repeat Step 6 over and over again until you have filled the document with stripes, keeping the spacing between the stripes the same.

It will be easier to make the stripes an equal distance from one another if you have enabled the “Snap to Grid” feature by going to View -> Guides -> Snap to Grid:

If you want all of your stripes to be the same color then skip to Step 8 – if not, continue on to Step 7.

7.  Change the color of your stripes. Here is your chance to get crazy with your stripes!  Want rainbow stripes like this?

Just repeat Step 5 on alternating stripes – PowerPoint will remember which colors you’ve used under “Recent Colors.”  (My stripes look skinnier here because they are – this is a screenshot of another project I was working on.)

Or maybe you want some of your stripes to fade like this?

To get this look double-click on alternating stripes and select the following options on the pop-up screen – Fill -> Gradient -> Style -> Linear.  That will create the fade effect.  Now get rid of the line around your stripe by selecting Line -> Color -> No Line.

Or maybe you want the background behind your stripes to be a different color?

Just right-click on the white space between your stripes and select “Format Background.”  Then just choose a color like you did in Step 5.

Alternate Method: If you know from the beginning that you want a colored background just do this step before you start creating your stripes.

This is your chance to go crazy and really customize your stripes.  Have fun with it!

Step 8. Save your document as a JPEG. Go to File -> Save As, then select JPEG as the format.

The slide will be saved in a folder in whatever destination you chose.

Step 9.  Rotate and stretch your JPEG. You now have a JPEG with straight lines across it but what we really want are diagonal lines, right?  Repeat Steps 1-3 and insert your JPEG.

Click on your JPEG after it has been inserted into the document and a green dot should appear above your JPEG.  This is what you will use to rotate the JPEG.

Click your cursor on the green dot and hold it down as you rotate the image.

Release your cursor once you have the stripes at an angle that you like.  You can adjust it as much as you need to.

Now that you have diagonal stripes, stretch them lengthwise and diagonally so that they cover the document and there is no white space showing.  You can stretch the JPEG by clicking and pulling on the little gray dots at the top, bottom, corners and middle of your JPEG.

Keep your stripes intact by taking care to keep the ratio of the stripes to white space the same.

Step 10.  Repeat Step 8 to save your document as a JPEG. Now you have your diagonal stripes!!

Step 11.  Go crazy and create cool things with your diagonal striped background. Now you have an awesome striped image that you can use to gussy up your blog background, stationary, address labels, art prints . . . the only limit is your imagination!

And now, since you’ve hung in there through the longest post in the history of the universe, you will be rewarded for your perseverance and loyalty with some free printables!!  Can I get a heck yeah?

To download the backgrounds/printables, just click on the image above and a new window will open in 4Shared.  Click on each link and then select “Download Now” under the image.  That’s it!

Please Note: All It’s Great To Be Home free backgrounds/printables are available for your PERSONAL use only, and are not to be used for commercial gain. Thanks for playing nicely!

Whew!!  I hope that was helpful – let me know if you guys liked this or if you think you can make something cool out of the printables – if so I’ll be sure to do more of these posts in the future!

Anyhoo, happy New Year, peeps!  Is yours off to a great start so far?!?

I have high hopes that I will finally get off my rear and start completing some of the projects that I’ve had lying around for, oh, months.  Like these dining chairs that I picked up last summer for a steal at a local consignment shop ($175 for 7!!).  Not too shabby, right?

( As for the changes we made during my blog break, we bought a dining table from West Elm – looks like it’s now been discontinued, added the bench from the latest flip, removed the iron bars over the windows and replaced all the windows, and switched out our tired chandelier for the one we talked about here.  All good changes in my book! )

The new-to-me chairs need some serious love, but I think they have the potential to look like the high-end chairs used in this Bonesteel Trout Hall design once they’re all gussied up:

As you can see, we have a ways to go.  The fabric is just nasty and stained, the wood is an icky color, and the seats need to have some serious padding added.

If I’m being honest I’ve been dreading this project, even though I’m really excited about how I think they’ll look once they’re all finished.  The thought of breaking down the chairs, sanding the legs, staining the legs, adding new padding, and recovering the chairs with new fabric sounds a little daunting!  Luckily my awesome hubby decided to help me out and tackled dismantling the chairs on New Year’s Day – yay!!

( We also changed out the light fixture in the entryway, which you can see in the background, for this one. )

Here’s the plan for the chairs.  I’m going to stain the legs a dark walnut color and then recover them in this awesome fabric (that I may or may not have had sitting in my office since August… ).

Wish me luck!  Hopefully I’ll have this project finished by the time the baby arrives on May 9th, ha!  :)

So what’s on your to-do list?

So maybe our cookies didn’t turn out quite as cute as the recipe photo, but I didn’t hear anyone complaining.  :)

Squishing the candy cane kisses into the cookies was my favorite job of the evening.

My dad’s pecan puffs were the hands-down favorite of the evening – there were barely any left over for people to take home!  That’s pretty much always the case.

I went a little topping crazy.  Luckily, the extras came in handy when my sister hosted the gingerbread house extravaganza today!

I know a lot of you were curious as to whether the s’mores bars are as good as they look – and yes, I can attest that they are.  :)  Oh, and 5 cookies was waaaaay too ambitious for the evening.  We never got to these guys, and next time I’ll probably just go for one or two cookies.  We may have had a sweatshop vibe going at one point.  :)

Here is the gingerbread house that Jason and I made.  It was so much fun and we loved the way it turned out!  (And sorry for the sub-par iPhone pics!)

Here’s the little village of houses that the whole fam made.  (My sister and her husband made the one on the front left – it’s supposed to be the W Hotel in downtown Dallas where Khloe Kardashian and her husband are now renting.  :)  It even has a rooftop pool!)

My brother’s house was the winner, hands down.  It’s supposedly set in Santa Fe and boasts many eco-friendly features (according to him).

And that’s how we’ve been getting in the Christmas spirit!  I hope you’ve been having just as much fun, and that your holiday is very merry.  See you next week!

And now that I’m finding my way back into blogland after falling into the pregnancy abyss, I’ve decided to officially take a “now and then” approach to blogging – so if I have something I can’t wait to share with you then I will, but if life is crazy then I’ll let awhile go before I post again . . . and not feel guilty about it (key point!).  But I won’t go weeks and weeks at a time without posting like before, I pinkie swear.  Does that sound okay?  Hope so.

And now onto important things – like Christmas cookies.

Jason and I are hosting my family at our house tonight for our very first Cookie Fest – it’s going to be an extravaganza (if all goes according to plan, at least).  Here’s what’s on the lineup:

Source: lovintheoven.com via Liz @ It’s Great to be Home on Pinterest

Source: jen.rames.org via Liz @ It’s Great to be Home on Pinterest

Source: steamykitchen.com via Liz @ It’s Great to be Home on Pinterest

Source: recipegirl.com via Liz @ It’s Great to be Home on Pinterest

I know, I’m drooling too.

And since I’m feeling ambitious we’ll also tackle my dad’s pecan puffs.  Yes, I fully anticipate being in a sugar coma for at least 5 days (waking briefly for Christmas, of course).

And if our finished product looks or tastes anything like the recipe photos then I will consider the evening a resounding success.

I’ll let you know how it goes!  Anybody else planning a holiday cookie party?

That’s right, we’re having a baby!  She’s due in early May and we are ridiculously excited.  :)

It feels a little crazy to put that little tidbit of info out there after keeping it under wraps for so long!  Happy holidays, peeps.  :)