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Home Progress

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Oh man. Who is ready for a massively huge picture post today?! I’ve had a lot of people ask me about the updates we’ve been making around the house + questions about what I recently acquired on my latest Ikea trip. So, I compiled all of those things into one ginormous post for you today.
Sure, I could have broken it down into room by room posts and made it way easier for you to read and sift through. But why do that? Let’s give that finger scroll a work out!

I thought it would be fun to include pictures that I have already shared, so you can see what looks different.

And, as always, I just feel like mentioning again how much we love this stinking house. We keep plugging away on it(just smallish projects for now) and the house just keeps getting better and better. It’s just so completely “us” and fits us perfectly.

Okay, enough gushing! Here goes.

While I was in Kansas City a weekend or so ago, Jim changed out the entry way light for me. Here is what it was before:

In terms of an actual light fixture, not that bad, but it was actually way too big for the space. Jim is right around 5 10 and could just barely clear the light. Someone like my Dad(who is 6 3)? They would totally hit their head on this light. So it had to go.

I picked out this light from Home Depot online:

And, meh? I’m not sure I’m as in love with it as I thought I would be. This picture actually makes me like it a little more than I do in person.
Any suggestions for me? What do you think would be an ideal light in this entry? (I say this as if Jim will actually change it out for something else…..wishful thinking on my part)
Moving on to the guest quarters- heh.

We had already changed out an ancient gold globe light in the hallway for this school house light(seriously, Jim said he was pretty sure it was the original wiring- which is 1941) and hung up some pictures.

But I had purchased two gallons of Benjamin Moore’s White Dove when we painted the living room and had a ton leftover. So we used it to paint the hallway and the guest room(and the kitchen..) too!

Here is a before photo of our guest room, pre White Dove treatment.
And here it is after!

I also grabbed a few Ikea Ribba frames to hang above the bed. I had this lavender printable in our kitchen at our last house, so I printed out four free new herb printables and had Jim hang them up for me(I’m not brave enough to be hanging ANYTHING on our plaster walls)

Here is our entry way from another angle:
And with our recently acquired hand me down antique secretary desk:
And now it looks like this, as I’ve slowly started to style it!

My brother and sister in law gave us this doxology print for Christmas and I seriously could not love it more. It’s painted on wood instead of canvas and it is just absolutely gorgeous. I originally thought I would put it in our dining room, but after walking around the house trying to find a place for it, I ultimately decided that I wanted it to be one of the first things you see when you come into our home.

And then there is the dining room before:
And after- with a few new Ikea additions:


A new orchid plant centerpiece(which the second branch of flowers tragically broke off on the drive home from KC- tears!)

New Ikea curtains- these bad boys were 19.99. Let me say that again, two full length(98 in I believe) curtain panels for NINETEEN NINETY NINE.

And their two biggest Ribba frames. These will hold engineer prints- that I have plans to order two of at some point. If I can ever settle on what two pictures to choose from! Talk about an impossible task!
Here is our living room from when we first moved in(and also during the great white paint debate):
And here it is today!
Also, you can’t see in this photo, but whilst at Ikea we got the coordinating yellow ottoman that goes with our fantastic yellow chair. Definitely glad we thought to grab that!
One other thing that we’ve changed in the living room is we switched around our desk. It used to look like this:
But now it looks like this:

I decided that I want to hang curtains up on those windows and thought that having the hutch of the desk on that side of the wall would be too cluttered. So, we moved the hutch over and are waiting to hang the big clock back up until I actually acquire said curtains and get those hung up.

And lastly, here was our kitchen!
It used to be sky blue and had a giant chandelier that we all hit our head on regularly.
Then we painted it the same white as the living room(and hallway and guest room..)

But here is what it looks like today!

We changed out all three light fixtures and added a glorious center island. I am actually really loving the dark granite counters(hello durable and easy to clean) but I am so, so happy to see a bit of butcher block counter top back in my kitchen again. I didn’t get to love on mine at the last house nearly long enough, so this is a great new Ikea acquisition!

And not only that, but Abigail is SO excited to have the bar stools back upstairs(they had just been living in the basement all sad and lonely like) She has eaten breakfast and lunch at this island every single day since Jim assembled it. And I love having a place for people to gather around while I work in my kitchen. It’s fabulous.

What can I say. I have a major thing for school house lights and Edison bulbs.

At first I was not a fan of the light over the sink. Even though I picked it out, it ended up being much larger than I was expecting. But, over time, it has grown on me a lot. What do you think? Does it look okay over the sink?

You can see the famous Ikea vases inside my randomly styled corner hutch-  and in case you didn’t notice already, I also added a few small succulents and Ikea plants around the house as well.

Whew! So there you have it! An updated Spena home tour + free Ikea promotion.

What do you think of our recent updates? Thoughts on the entry way and kitchen light? Suggestions for what pictures to put in my dining room frames? Sound off in the comments!
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16 Comments

  3. I switched it up this time and read your post FIRST this morning and I'm so glad I did. The temptation was just too hard last time!!!

    I am obsessed with your white paint color and feel that we are bosom friends when it comes to our decorating style and am so jealous of your new home!! I love it just as much as you, lol.

    I see where you're going with the entryway light and I approve, though I'm not sure I have much advice and to what you should do about your new current one. But you have me convinced I need to go to Home Depot and get myself some schoolhouse lights. We have two lights in our hallway and two in our "entryway" and I wonder if it would be okay to switch out all four for those schoolhouse lights??

    I love the guest room with the new paint color and the artwork! Where is the comforter from??

    Ahh the kitchen, loving the new light fixtures, definitely the right way to go…and I love the sink light!

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  6. Love everything! Prior to buying our home in 2012, I had rented for years and I always had white walls that I wasn't permitted to paint. When we moved into our home, we painted every inch of it with color. My husband would kill me if he heard me say this, but your house is making me want to paint some walls white! It really looks great. I love everything you've done so far!

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  8. Love all of your updated fixtures and the fresh coat of white! Makes everything look so crisp and clean. I've always heard great things about IKEA curtains so I'm going to have to keep that in mind the next time I'm buying curtains.

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  11. So lovely, Courtney! I can't wait to see what you decide for the dining room prints! What are you in between? I love your fixture over the sink, too!

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  12. So lovely, Courtney! I can't wait to see what you decide for the dining room prints! What are you in between? I love your fixture over the sink, too!

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  14. You've been in your house mere months and have accomplished more than the 3 years I have spent in mine! Maybe not quite… But seriously! I find it takes forever to do house projects with little ones around. Or perhaps that is my excuse!

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  16. Gorgeous!! Some amazing changes! Don’t you just love what a good ol can of white paint can do! Ahhh so fresh!

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