On my way to becoming a Home Owner

So the buying a home process is exhausting. I don't see how people buy 4 or 5 houses in their lifetime, but kudos to those who have! The process started about 4 months ago on an adorable condo in Huntsville, that my boyfriend and his investor flipped. Turns out, after 4 months of trying to get this deal to go through, the HOA property was majorly in debt and just had some major dependencies  so all in all, it was a BLESSING IN DISGUISE that it fell thru.

I was bummed at first, but then realized that God has had me on this path that he has been paving, and he has put everything in place the way HE wants it to go, so I moved on and starting on the search again. I had to be out of my apartment October 9th, and in the weeks before, Derek had shown me a cute little house that he had completely flipped from an AWFUL train wreck. Not sure who the homeowner was, but I don't think he cared much about his house. Anyways, I trusted and had faith in my beau that he would have this house looking extraordinary so I waited until it got down to the wire to go back and see it and ALAS, it was so cute!!

Here is a before and after picture of the exterior view of the house that HOPEFULLY, at the end of November, will be able to call "my home". Derek and I have big plans for this little house and hopefully soon (hint hint) we will call it "OUR" first little home together until we are able to build our "dream home".

More pictures to come, but this is just a starter house to be able to save up some money to one day build a home we can stay in and raise our chitlins' in. Hope you like!

UPDATES!

So with a little help from my adorable handyman, we got half of the cabinets (his drill died on us) installed with hardware.

 

They didn't turn out exactly how I pictured them to look. They look a little "too" dirty for me, but Derek ensured me that he liked the look.

Not too bad for my first run at this.. I can (hopefully) only get better!

Arts and Crafts, Oh My!

So, I have finally developed a knack for Do It Yourself crafts, due to the most awesome website, www.pinterest.com. I was recently blessed with the most adorable little house, so it got my brain tinkering on different ideas on how to fix it up and make it fit my personality, since I had so much space now to work with,coming from a one bedroom apartment.

My first DIY project was taking the plain, cream colored cabinets in my kitchen, and transforming them into a antique-y worn look. It was quite simple to do. I read and read about how to do this process, but the way I did it, seemed much easier. Here is the before picture of the  kitchen (it's a bit blurry) and a few before, during, and after pictures of the cabinets drying.

Here are the before pictures of the cabinets. Just an off white/Cream colored paint. I skipped several steps it said to do on all the researching sites I looked at, but my cabinets were not finished or coated, so it eliminated the steps I needed to do. 

Sanding wasn't necessary because my cabinets were not finished, but to get a few scratches and chipped paint, I thought it would look better with the look I was going for.

Wax on, Wax off.. Easy enough!

 I used Aged Oak, gel stain. Websites said to use a "glaze", but I liked the gel better because it was much thicker.

 I let the stain sit for about 2-3 minutes before wiping it off. You can go over as many times as you want until you get the desired look you want.

Here is one of the finished cabinets in the drying stage. I let them dry for 24 hours. I will post more when I finish! Hope you like! I think they turned out really well for my first attempt at this.