1 YEAR HOME ANNIVERSARY

A year ago yesterday marked a whole year of homeownership for the two of us. It has been one of our biggest adventures together and through it all, the fun times and the stressful times, it has been the best year and we are so thankful!

January 15, 2016, we signed the papers, got the keys and officially became homeowners. We rushed over and got a picture in front of our home and then headed straight to Jet's Pizza to pick up a pizza and a coke. It's a tradition we started when we moved into our apartment to get a pizza and eat it that night for dinner on the floor. It's a fun little tradition and we love it!

And now for some before and after!

Starting with our front door

Our entryway, we painted the walls (my dad did) and painted the interior of our front door.

Our dining room, we took the curtains down (the day we got the keys), primed and painted over the wallpaper, and spray painted the gold chandelier a rubbed oil bronze, and Matthew built a 10ft long farmhouse table!

Our kitchen, we upgraded the appliances, stripped wallpaper, and painted!

Our living room, we painted, bought new recliners, new rugs, and ran cords through the wall.

Matthew's study, we painted it and bought him a desk & chair and hung his CPA license on the wall.

All of our guest bedrooms looked the same when we moved in. We haven't painted any of them, but we did fill them with furniture!

My office

Guest bath, painted it (same color as the kitchen!) and added a cabinet. The wallpaper was not coming off easy so I just painted over the wallpaper and that worked perfectly fine!

We have officially celebrated every holiday in our home and decorated for many different seasons!

Spring..

Summer...

July 4th...

Fall...

And finally, Christmas...

We love our house and we have LOVED making it our home over the past year! To see all home posts on social media search #TheCoatsHome. We also had the opportunity to host several dinner parties over the past year, and we enjoyed all of them and look forward to hosting many more. Too see all of our dinner party posts, check here.

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1 YEAR HOME ANNIVERSARY

#THECOATSHOME : PAINTING OUR KITCHEN

If you remember from our home tour, when we first moved in our kitchen had awful wallpaper in the kitchen. Matthew and I were not fans of it at all and both agreed it needed to come down asap. Well one afternoon a couple of months after we moved in we decided to start taking it down. Thankfully, it came down very easily, unlike our dining room. We had all the wallpaper down in about 30 minutes and a couple of days later we had the first coat of gray on it. 

When looking at paint colors for our home, Matthew and I both decided that we wanted to paint every room, with an exception of a few guest rooms and guest bathroom, in Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams. We wanted a light and neutral color so that we could add color with decor pieces and not have to change the paint color every few years to go along with new decor pieces that we found and liked.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, I was too busy to get the second coat of gray on the kitchen, but we went over to our neighbors house for something and we were in their kitchen and they had it painted the prettiest color. I loved it. but didn't think Matthew would like it so I didn't say anything. Well Matthew loved the color and said he thought we should paint our kitchen that color or something very similar, and I was 100% on board with his plan, or so I thought. When it came time to pick out the color for our kitchen I kept having second thoughts on the color. I was afraid it was too bold for a kitchen or that I would get tired of it, since we are literally in there everyday. So we went to Sherwin Williams and got two samples. One sample was Sea Salt and the other was Waterscape. I put both on the wall and let it dry and stared at it for a good hour, and eventually told Matthew that I liked both but he was going to have to make the final decision on which color we painted the kitchen, and he chose Waterscape! The Sea Salt was a beautiful color, but it was just a few shades different from the gray we already had and we wanted something a little more than that. So back to Sherwin Williams we went to buy a gallon of Waterscape, and the rest is history. Enjoy the before and after pictures of our kitchen below :) 

Before

After

Before

After

And a couple of more pictures of our kitchen...

(Ignore the painters tape in the hallway ;) I'm hoping to take care of that soon. It will be Agreeable Gray)

We are so happy to have another room checked off our "house project list"! The only thing left to do in the kitchen is to add new flooring and light fixtures, but we aren't even going to think about those two things until later next year. We love the paint, and it really does make a huge difference. We also plan on using this color in one of the guest bedrooms and guest bathroom.

To see other posts in #TheCoatsHome series click, HERE.

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#THECOATSHOME : PAINTING OUR KITCHEN

#THECOATSHOME : PAINTING OUR FRONT DOOR

When we moved into our home back in January we both agreed we didn't really care for the front door color. It was a dark gray but has faded over the years and there were scratches on it. It wasn't top priority but we knew it was something we wanted to complete sooner rather than later.

We thought about different colors over the past few months but never nailed anything down. I didn't really think Matthew would want to go for a bright or bold color, and I didn't really want anything too crazy either. We both wanted something simple and classy. I threw out the option of painting our door black. I looked at tons of black front doors and loved the simplicity of the color, and most wreaths would go with the color black...gotta think about these kinds of things! ;) Well Matthew wasn't too keen on the color black and knew that I liked some other colors as well so we kept looking at colors. Well when Blair posted the color that they painted their front door I loved it. Pretty, bright and classy! I casually showed Matthew the color one night after dinner, not thinking too much of it, and he loved it, and said that was the color for our front door. I'll admit, I was a little shocked, but excited he liked the color too and that we both agreed on it, so that was our color! We decided to paint our door over Labor Day Weekend.

We knew that taking our front door off would let in a lot of heat, obviously, so we started around 8 that morning in an attempt to try and beat the heat. Thankfully it was very sunny that morning so I painted in the open sun to dry the door quickly, and it worked! We decided to paint both sides of our door, and we are SO happy with it. We love being able to see the color on the inside as well. That pop of color in our entryway is so fun. After painting both sides, in total, we probably had our front door off for about 2 hours, not too bad!

Last year on Labor Day Weekend we gave our dining room table a makeover and this year we painted our front door...my inner Joanna Gaines is liking this tradition ;)

Before I stared painting I wiped down the entire door, both sides, with a damp rag. After it dried I sanded both sides lightly. I used a sanding sponge similar to these. I then wiped off both sides with a damp rag again, and then let it dry completely before I started painting.

I was very nervous for some reason when it came time to paint our door, I guess because I knew if I messed it up and it didn't turn out well then it would be the first thing everyone saw until we got a new front door...so just a little pressure! I looked up a ton of tutorials and YouTube videos, but really it wasn't hard at all. Once I got to painting it just kinda flowed and worked out great.

 I will say, one thing I learned, is to use a small roller on the detailed areas. I started out using a brush, but decided the small roller worked better. I used a small roller from Lowe's like this one. I used a regular sized roller on the rest of the door, and I think that helped with making sure it was all even and smooth looking! I did two coats on each side and I think that was plenty. 

I painted all sides of the door, except the top, since no one will see that area anyways! I used the small roller for the sides as well. Worked like a charm!

I know you can tape off your hardware (door handles) and such but since I despise taping anything we just took off our door handles until the paint was completely dry. It didn't take long and I didn't have to be extra careful in those area.

Our front door color is Benjamin Moore Wythe Blue, and we could not be happier with it!

To see other posts in #TheCoatsHome series click HERE.

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#THECOATSHOME : PAINTING OUR FRONT DOOR

#THECOATSHOME : GUEST BEDROOM IDEAS

I started this little series for our home a few months ago, and I am excited to add updates and ideas to it over time. 

As soon as we bought our house my mind was racing with decorating ideas and I was using Pinterest more than ever before. We are very lucky and have three guest bedrooms. We love the extra space and absolutely love being able to open up our home and host people. With those three guest bedrooms we have decided to give each room a theme. I love decorating and finding new creative ideas, so this was right up my alley.

We decided on three different themes and now we are slowly working on them! This isn't a project we want finished next week, we would love that, but it's just not necessary. This will be something we do over the years and when we find good deals on things. I want to find the perfect (& cutest) pieces, so this doesn't need to be rushed. So what are the themes?

- Guest bedroom # 1: My office.

This room will be more of a "girly" room as Matthew likes to call it lol. I guess that's fitting because my Pinterest board for this room is called "Girl Cave" ;) 

In this room we already have my desk, computer and new computer chair, as well as a twin bed. You can see a little glimpse of the room as it is right now, here.

All pictures can be found here.

- Guest bedroom #2: Coastal Theme.
I have somehow talked Matthew into decorating our second guest bedroom with all things coastal. At first he was 100% against it, but I kept talking about it and showed him some ideas that I have found and now he is on board. Woo hoo! It's been fun looking at different ideas together and finding a few projects we both could do for this room. This guest bedroom is connected to our guest bathroom, so we'll add a few coastal touches in there as well. Also, over the years we'll pick up shells and sand from our trips to bring back for this room. I already have some sand from our honeymoon in Mexico that will go in there. I'm so excited!

All pictures can be found here. 

- Guest bedroom #3: Tri-Star Theme.
We had this room planned out before we even moved into our house. Born and raised in Tennessee, I have a lot of pride for our state, and I may or may not be in love with everything tri-star. Matthew is a big fan of it, too, and was actually the one to come up with this theme. There are so many cute ideas and pieces on Etsy, Pinterest, and of course, local shops in and around Nashville. We plan on adding a wood pallet wall in there one day and it will match perfectly with our new furniture we bought for that room. We also plan on adding small pieces from Murfreesboro, Cookeville, Johnson City, and Chattanooga...since we lived in Murfreesboro and Cookeville, and Matthew's brothers are in Johnson City and Chattanooga.

I am really excited to watch these rooms evolve over the years, and all the different pieces we'll find for each room. If you have any ideas for these rooms, send them my way! To see any posts about our home on social media search the hashtag, #TheCoatsHome

More posts from this series:
#TheCoatsHome: Living Room Ideas
#TheCoatsHome : New Furniture

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#THECOATSHOME : GUEST BEDROOM IDEAS