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$$ How to Add Value to Your Home–Hardwood Floors

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Christy

My favorite house in America--Oak Alley Plantation in Louisiana

I don’t know about you, but every time I turn on the news, I hear that the housing market is still kind of crazy. Seems like millions of people are still “underwater” on their mortgages, owing more than their home is worth, sometimes by the tens of thousands of dollars.

If you were thinking about moving to a bigger house or a different neighborhood for any reason other than sheer necessity, you might have just decided to stay put until things start to look up. I completely understand! Then there are strange people like me and my family. We move every couple of years, whether we want to or not, because that’s the military way. In fact, the higher my husband’s rank, the more frequently we move. We’ll probably only be in Nashville for two years–and yet, we still bought a house, but that was a calculated investment and probably a story for another day!

Our Nashville Home

Yet because I’ve moved so often, lived in such a variety of houses, and looked at HUNDREDS of homes along the way, I think I’ve gained some wisdom through the process. We’ve bought houses; rented houses (as tenants and landlords); and staged, showed, and sold houses (we showed our house in Virginia Beach twenty-six times in a five week period; I nearly died!).

Our historic home in North Carolina

I also grew up with parents who worked in real estate and new home construction, and I spent weekends visiting model homes and checking out the competition. I’m just trying to give you my bona fides here since I’m also about to tell you what you can do to add to your home’s value!

Whether you want to improve your space for your own family’s enjoyment, or make your home more attractive before you put it on the market, most of the same rules apply. Homes in the same neighborhood might be listed at a similar price per square foot, but people will want to buy the one that has all the extra goodies in it! Don’t panic, though. Pick and choose according to your abilities and your budget, and let it be a process. If you’re considering putting your house on the market, then talk any improvements over with your agent. Sometimes the “must do’s” vary widely by location. It’s also wise to do one thing at a time; otherwise, you may find that your stamina (or money) runs out before the projects are finished, leaving you with unfinished projects all over your home.

Today I am starting with one of the greatest ways to add value to your home…

Hardwood Floors

I’m noticing that lots of carpet on the lower level is OUT. The preferred flooring choice is sand and finish hardwood. Stains vary, as always, but wider planks and darker stains are the most popular in my area and are, in my opinion, the most up-to-date look. Pulling up carpet and installing hardwood is a pretty doable DIY project. Laminate works, too, if you’re on a tighter budget, although it’s not recommended in wet areas like kitchens and bathrooms (if you’ve had the water line of your fridge break and leak, you know why). I prefer to see NO carpet at all on the first floor (this includes the master bedroom if the master is down), nor any on the steps.

: Amy’s gorgeous dark hardwoods

: From Old House Online

Warning: before you pull ALL the carpet off your steps, check and see what’s underneath first. A lot of builders use plywood and other cheap materials when they know they’ll be carpeting the stairs. There are lots of blog tutorials out there about redoing this kind of stairway, although it does take a little more work. But, look at all the cool things you can do if you pull the carpet off your steps!

Click to see my friend Robyn's great staircase makeover

: Source

: Number your risers, or spell out a saying like “Welcome”

Traditional flooring, like this Heart of Pine that we had in my former home in North Carolina was gorgeous, but may not fit the style of homes in your area.

There is tons of great information about putting down hardwoods online and the different styles available, so do your research first. In the end, adding hardwood is a great way to add value to your home.

Have you done anything to add value to your home recently?

Posted in DIY, Home Inspiration, Real Spaces | Tagged add value, customize, diy, hardwood floors, home, house, stairs, upgrade | 2 Comments

New “Fearless” Series at 11 Magnolia Lane!

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Christy

We’ve had such a great response from Terry’s healthy eating/meal planning In the Kitchen series (click on icon on the right sidebar for all the recipes), that we’ve decided to introduce a second series here at 11 Magnolia Lane. We’re going to call it, simply, “Fearless,” and it will showcase the absolutely-not-afraid projects of a variety of guest bloggers.

: One of my VERY fearless moments–taking a paintbrush to two dozen cherry cabinets!

Over time, one of the things that readers have mentioned to us repeatedly is that while they want to improve their home through do-it-yourself projects and decorating, they often get stuck because they’re scared. They’re afraid that they’ll hurt their home’s resale value, that they won’t be able to finish what they started, or that it won’t turn out like they envisioned it. I think we’ve all been there! Any DIY’er will tell you that in addition to her amazing, blog-worthy successes, there have been any number of epic fails. I still remember the time I spilled an entire gallon of bright-red paint all over the pristine white ceramic tile and grout in my powder room (this was years ago), or the time that I punched a hole in the drywall while attempting to pry off molding (only months ago). It even happens to the professionals, though.

I think the best advice I can give you is just to give it a try! Start with a smaller project, like painting a room. Worst case scenario, you hate the color and have to repaint it. I do that on a regular basis–paint is CHEAP! If you don’t know how to do something, call in an expert, watch how he or she does it, and then do it yourself the next time. That’s how I learned to rewire lighting fixtures and hang chandeliers. I wasn’t sure how painting my tile backsplash in my kitchen would work out–I couldn’t find a lot of information on whether the paint would stick or how it would hold up over time–but I realized that the backsplash had to go, either way, so I just decided to give it a try. Six months later, it’s holding up beautifully, and I’m so glad that I saved all that time, money, and effort that it would have taken to tear down the brown and put up white, just by pulling out my paintbrush and being fearless.

: Before–brown tile backsplash

: After–pristine white and perfect!

Go ahead, add a built-in! You CAN do it yourself, and what potential buyer will come to your house and say, “Oh, no, I can’t stand having all this extra storage!”?

: Make an Ikea bookcase look like custom, built-in storage shelves? Why not?!

So what if you put a pry bar through your drywall while you’re putting board and batten in your upstairs bathroom? You’ll learn to patch drywall (it’s not hard) and the end result will still be pretty, functional, and a definite improvement on where you started! Oh, and you’ll still have paid about a quarter of what a pro would charge you to do the same thing.

: This result was well worth a little suffering along the way!

We’re looking forward to showcasing the amazing efforts of some of the most fearless DIY’ers that blog-land has to offer, and hopefully they’ll inspire you that “you’ll never know until you try!”

{Do you have a project that you overcame your fear and tackled? Do you know of one that we should feature? Email us at 11Magnolialane@gmail.com and tell us about it and we may feature it!}

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Posted in Before and After, DIY, Fearless Series, Home Inspiration, Real Spaces | Tagged add value, diy, fearless, home, redo, renovate, series, update | 4 Comments

My Master Bedroom & Sitting Room (aka the office!) Redo Reveal

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Christy

This has been a long time coming–I’ve actually had the room painted since January, as this was high on my list of home improvement goals for 2012, but I just didn’t have time to decorate the room because I kept getting derailed by, well, life!

We’re fortunate to have a really large master suite that includes a bedroom with vaulted ceiling, a sitting area, two walk-in closets, and an en suite bathroom. It’s almost 950 square feet, which is more than half the size of our first house, so I fully realize that we’re blessed with great space. I wasn’t convinced that we were using our space wisely, though, especially in the sitting area, which became more of a “treadmill room” and a catch-all for stuff that I was selling on Ebay and Craigslist.

When we bought the house, the whole area was painted a vivid shade of green apple. I loved this shade of green, but I loved it about ten years ago, and it was looking a little dated. Here are a few before pictures:

Check out that green!

I completely understood why the previous owners hadn’t repainted. The room is huge and the cathedral ceiling is about 16′ high, requiring an extension ladder (which I somehow have managed to survive without for all these years). What won out in the end is my feeling that I always neglect the master bedroom and it gets fixed up last when we move to a new house, and this time I wanted to make it nice and enjoy it for as long as we’re here.

I started with the bathroom, which I painted right before Christmas, because I didn’t have anything better to do (yeah, right). You can read all about that {here}. I love how it turned out, and I also love the color I chose for the walls, Benjamin Moore’s Pebble Beach. It looks gray on the paint chip, but it’s a blue gray on the walls. The cabinets in the bathroom are cherry, which I didn’t feel like painting after my kitchen redo {here}, and we also have a TON of cherry furniture in the bedroom that I also didn’t feel like painting, although it may happen one day if I can talk hubby into it. I’ve mentioned all that because, although I don’t really like dark wood anymore, I’m stuck with it in this space, so a pale blue is one of the best colors to set off the beauty of dark wood. You can see how it worked out in this picture of the bathroom:

Once I got all the Christmas stuff put away in January, I borrowed an extension ladder from our neighbor, bought two gallons of paint, and went for it. I covered everything but the closets (they are still on my to-do list and will be painted then). I also pulled down the flush mount ceiling light in the sitting room and replaced it with this chandelier I scored on Craigslist for $20. It was a rusty red when I bought it. I spray painted it white and added a ceiling medallion, a cord cover, and black shades that I found at Goodwill for $.99 apiece–can’t beat that!

After moving a few pieces of furniture around, I would up with half of the sitting room for my home office area and the other half for my treadmill and my husband’s armoire. The Barcelona chair in front of the window is the real deal–we have pictures of me when I was five years old sitting on this thing and there is also green shag carpet in the photos! It’s not my usual style, but it works in this room as a nice balance to the other furniture.

The white table and chairs were my mom and dad’s. I repainted them white about five years ago and recovered the chairs and enjoy them so much more now.

The little bookshelf below was a thrift store find. The tutorial on the chalkboard picture frame is {here}. The wire basket on the bottom shelf (from Target) holds my file folders, although I have fewer of them now that I have Pinterest! I love the polka dotted frame with the picture of me and my sweet goddaughter (Amy’s baby girl). When I see her picture, it reminds me to pray for her.

The infinity shelves were a freebie from a neighbor, but they sagged a bit when I hung them, so I bought corbels and hung them beneath. It was still less than buying or making shelves. The picture of me with my mom and son always takes the place of honor in every house. It’s been almost ten years since I lost my precious mother, and I love to look at her face and remember what an amazing gift she had for making others feel good about themselves.

I spent about $200 total on this room redo–mostly paint, curtain rods, and this black and white beauty. If you’re like my husband, you’re wondering WHY I needed a mannequin for my office? I’m not sure either, but I had to have her! She was $55 at Hobby Lobby.

Oh, of course, she can hold three necklaces to earn her keep! The cute white one is from Terry; she brought them to me and Amy when we had our fun girls’ weekend {here}.

I blog at the table, and find it very inspiring!

I was going to add black curtains with a white fretwork pattern, but even the ones at Target were $30 a panel. I had three pairs of gauzy white panels from Ikea (“Lill”) that I bought for $5 a pair and even though the color didn’t “pop” as much, I couldn’t justify the extra expense of the black panels. They do let in tons of light, though, and I love the way they puddle on the floor.

Since getting rid of the treadmill wasn’t an option because I actually use it I decided to do what I could to decorate the corner it takes up. I hung all my race medals from a hook and framed two Bible verses that are all about running (1 Cor. 9:24 and Hebrews 12:1-2). Hopefully they’ll give me inspiration as I knock out the miles!

**You can see the post and get your own free set of these printables HERE**

Moving into the bedroom, I have yet to add something above the bed; I am thinking about bringing down a tin-framed mirror from Pottery Barn that’s currently in the guest room, or something sparkly. Oh, and despite the fact that I have changed out several light fixtures for chandeliers in this room, please note that I left the ceiling fan above the bed in deference to my husband’s request!

The two sconces are from Ikea and I was so happy to hang them up and put away the lamps we had on our nightstands. They sell conduit at Lowe’s and Home Depot that can be painted to match your wall color, and then the cord just disappears.

Before conduit…

After conduit…

Here’s the view into the bathroom:

I’m so pleased with this room–it’s peaceful, calm, and soothing, just like a master “retreat” should be. And I’m even more pleased with the price, because for little more than the cost of paint (and my mannequin!), I managed to redo the room, proving that you don’t have to spend a fortune to update your space.

Happy Palm Sunday, and thanks for stopping by!

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Posted in Before and After, DIY, Home Inspiration, Master Bedroom, Office, Real Spaces | Tagged Bathroom, black and white, home, master bedroom, Office, redo, retreat, suite | 22 Comments

Home Goals for 2012

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Terry

This is a great blog challenge–one where you can sit down and outline what you plan to tackle in your home this next year. We are joining in at The Nesting Place “Home Goals” challenge today and sharing what is topping our home “To-Do” lists as the new year begins.

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I have three large projects planned for our home this new year.

The biggest project we have planned this 2012 is turning a part of our “L” shaped basement into an office/education room for me and my boys. This project requires some hired help, I wish I felt handy enough to do it all on my own but sometimes you just have to ask and/or pay the professionals. Here are a few shots of our before basement. Work begins this month so I hope to have lots of updates over the next few months on 11MagnoliaLane.

Our second project is adding a bench seat to our kitchen dinning area. The bench seat will offer some additional storage as well as two custom book shelves to store my favorite cookbooks. I love the design our contractor and I came up with. I think it will work well with the half wall that separates the kitchen and family room. I am also super-excited to have cushions and pillows made to add some style and color to the kitchen area.

Our last project is to paint our staircase railing black as well as remove the carpet and add ebony wood steps with a white kickboards. We recently had a flood and had to replace all the hard wood floors on our entire main level. We originally had 1.5-inch cherry planks and we decided to upgrade 4-inch ebony beech. We are thrilled with the results but the cherry railings and tan carpeted steps are an eyesore when you enter into our home compared to the new floors. So that is our final “must do” project for 2012.

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With a brand new house my list of projects is a mile long! To be honest, sometimes I stare at these new rooms and think where am I going to start? This post gave me a good jumping off point, and here are the top priorities on my “to-do” list.

Starting with my kitchen…I have a great new kitchen but it needs some personalizing and some “warming up”. It also needs more storage as I have the world’s smallest pantry (in my opinion…). So here is what I am working on in the breakfast area… new curtains, covering shades for the chandelier, adding open shelving above the desk and I am trying to hunt down a cabinet off Craigslist to help store some of my kitchen overflow. Oh, and we are also having a bench built (just like Terry) for under the window area for more seating.

This is what we hope will be our new kitchen table, I just sanded it down today. I adore my round one (shown above) but it just doesn’t hold the 5 of us comfortably.

This was the table my family used when I was growing up. I actually sanded off some of my younger brother’s childhood “doodling” on it today (from about 20 years ago) which made me glad we were re-purposing it. It is butcher block, so its crazy heavy. Maybe once I make it pretty again my husband will forgive me for carting it along with us through like 20 moves?

After the kitchen, my laundry room is high on my list. I have laundry room envy whenever I see Christy’s gorgeous laundry space! {Notice we have the same chandelier? We do that sometimes, unintentionally, our taste is very similar}. I have a nice space to start with, but need to make it more practical with organization, shelving and some color.

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I’m kind of heaving a sigh of relief because my biggest project, the kitchen, is DONE DONE DONE (not that I’m gloating or anything). But, there’s plenty more to do. My husband keeps wondering what I actually liked about this house when we bought it, since I’m changing everything! I keep telling him that I saw the potential and I just need to bring it out. Not sure if he believes me.

At the top of my list for 2012 is the master bedroom, sitting area, and bathroom. I think we often neglect our master bedroom when we move–first we paint and fix up the kids’ rooms so they’ll feel at home right away, then I deal with the kitchen and the living areas, and then finally (maybe) I get to the master bedroom. But, really, it should be a room that we love to be in. I’m almost embarrassed to show you the paint color on the walls now, but you’ll understand why it has to go:

The picture doesn’t really capture the brightness of the green. My dining room was painted almost this exact color, but that was ten years ago. My, how our tastes change! I’ve already painted the master bathroom (Pebble Beach by Benjamin Moore, it’s gray with a tiny touch of blue), and the sitting area got the first coat tonight. The actual bedroom will be last because I have to find a friend or neighbor with an extension ladder so I can get to the vaulted ceiling. Good times! Here’s a sneak peak at the bathroom so you can see the color:

The best part of the bathroom is the rocking chandelier I bought off Craigslist and hung over the bathtub, but you’ll just have to wait for the reveal to see that!

Another task is to put built-in shelves in the bathroom, and possibly in the sitting area. My chief contractor, aka my husband, will be starting that this weekend. Also, my entire house needs crown molding, and I will finally get to use that nail gun I got for my birthday! Last, but not least, I want to hang sheer curtains on the screened porch. I scored some gauzy (almost tulle) curtains at Ikea in December that were 2 for $4.99, so once spring is sprung, they’ll get to go out back to dress up the porch. Maybe in each corner?

I’ll think of more along the way, I’m sure. After all, give me a can of spray paint and I’m happy! Meanwhile, we’re all looking forward to sharing with you as we reach our 2012 home goals!

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Don’t forget to enter to win the yummy Toyko Milk handcream and beautiful Ruby Red Ring we are giving away this week! Enter by leaving a comment on the post HERE.

*ALSO*

For those local Warrenton, Virginians…Janet from The Empty Nest is giving an Annie Sloan chalk paint demonstration on Saturday January 21st, check out the details HERE.