Small Backyard Idea's

Our house is a corner lot which means they cut our backyard into weird sections. We cant have a fence that blocks the neighbors view of the street, and if our neighbors are in their upstairs window they have a perfect view to our backyard.

One of the main problems is that Sebastian needs a garage. He is an avid fisherman and he needs somewhere to store his boat. They made the "garage " is now our den. So we need to come up with a solution so that Seb is happy too. 

Right now there is a fence that ends at the house which leave the side yard open...I don't know why they did that. First thing I want to do is bring the fence to the street ( or as close as possible ) so we gain our yard back. Also they added a second driveway...which I want to get rid of and put grass there.

See how the neighbors house is right on top of us... I want to get a white privacy fence around our whole yard. I just need to be careful on our side lot, it needs to be 4ft so the neighbors can back out of their driveway safely. Good for them...annoying for us!

AND OF COURSE!!! THE PRIVACY PLANTS!

The fence ends there when actually it should be pushed out to the street. I want to get rid of the 

blacktop and bring the fence out to the street to get that whole side yard back.

This is our side yard.

I was thinking a small custom garage could go in the corner so it does not take up more room in our already small yard! AND, he can backup the boat with the trailer because our double driveway is on that side of the house.

Something like this: 

http://www.thebarnyardstore.com/sheds-and-single-bay-garages/traditional-series/754-traditional-cape-single-bay-garage

View from standing on the deck ( that fence will be gone )

52 Reasons Why I Love You

It is my 3 year anniversary today and instead of buying a gift...I wanted to make one. After searching Pinterest for hours...I finally found something cute!

 

52 Reasons Why I Love You.

 

This craft cost me $15 and it took about 2 hours. I LOVE the finished product!!!

What you will need is:

1) Poster Board 2) Scissors 3) Deck of cards 4) Double Sided tape 5) Hole Puncher 6) String 7) Stickers ( Not Nessacary)

 

 

 

 

 

I cut the poster board into rectangles and placed them onto the card. (I used both sides of the card) I placed my sayings on top of the poster board.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its very simple and it looks great! These are some of my finished cards. I chose to add pictures.

 

I stacked my cards and pulled the ribbon through and tied a knot. ( haha he is going to laugh so hard at that card)

 

 

 

 

Finished product!!! I think he is going to love it!!!

Breakfast nook idea

Breakfast nook idea by jaclynmari3 on Polyvore

Bedroom Dilemma

OUR MASTER BEDROOM

The wall that I want to put my bed against has an ugly air conditioner that is going to ruin my vision! The headboard of the bed is going to block the air conditioner so if I want to be cool during the summer I need to move it! I didn't want to change any windows or move the air conditioners until we start doing the outside of the house...next year. So, I am going to try and hide the AC as best as I can.

Here are some of my ideas: 

I want to get rid of the natural wood moldings and doors, I want white doors and crown molding EVERYWHERE....Who doesn't?!?

The wall that I want to put my bed against is not that big, and the window is very small. I plan on hanging a curtain rod to the top of the ceiling to cover the AC and make the window appear larger.

I will be able to hide the AC under the curtains, and just pull them back when I want to use the AC. Putting a large headboard against a small window looks silly, by adding the curtains it makes the window appear larger than the headboard.

I am going with a neutral color scheme throughout the house so I love these curtains, they are fancy enough to dress up the small wall.

I have just enough room for 2 tiny lamp tables. I am obsessed with mirrored furniture....GUILTY!

I designed this on Polyvore.com just to get the idea of what I want, and to remember it when it comes time to tackle the master bedroom. ( colors are way off) 

Cement Stamped to look like wood??!

Cement stamped to look like wood? I think this is the coolest thing!

What's a Stamped Concrete Patio?

  A stamped concrete patio is simply a concrete slab with a textured, embossed surface. The contractor:

- Pours and smooths the slab.
- Presses a pattern into the surface while the concrete is still wet and soft.
- For realism, adds color to the concrete as it's mixed, or sprays it on after the surface has been stamped.

This is cement!! I am in love with this idea. 

Not only is this perfect for my outside patio, it is probably better to clean and needs less maintenance then a wooden deck would. I watched a video on how its done, and its pretty amazing. Not only does it look beautiful but it is cheaper then getting stone pavers or bricks installed. Here is a price comparison:

Cement stamped patio: $10- $15 square foot

Plain concrete: $6-$12 per sq. ft.
Brick: $14-$20 per sq. ft.
Stone, slate, or marble: $17-$28 per sq. ft.
Concrete pavers: $13-$20 per sq. ft.

A video on how its done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hquWOcKwGZQ

When I saw this I immediately thought of my inspiration photo for the deck.

I love everything this and it reminded me of my backyard.

We already have a small wooden deck which is falling apart Pictured below: 

HI SEB ;)

The deck is old and rotted. Our yard is an L shaped yard and I have 2 sliding doors. What I want to do is wrap the deck around so that we can walk out of both sliding doors and be on the deck. I also want to make the deck a little smaller being that the yard isn't to wide. I want as much grass as we can get!

This is our second sliding door:

That fenced is going to be pushed back to the street and we are getting rid of that second driveway. Then I will have privacy and much more yard.

I will be looking into this when it is time to do our yard...but I am going to tackle the inside first!!

Entry Way Idea's

I want my entry way to make a statement...since its the first wall your eye catches when walking into a home.  The pictures of my entry way are below: 

I want to get rid of that tiny door and continue the wainscoting. Then we are moving all the switches to the inside of the wall because that is the utility closet. I will have the whole way to work with after that.

( pictures are horrible, but Sebastian just bought be a brand new Canon Rebel XSI )

I have a lot of ideas, but I am not sure which one I am going to go with. Lately I have been liking the pops of color and pattern ( which I never thought I would like ). I want my walls to have a neutral flow through out the downstairs, but I want my entry wall to be special, so I am thinking about giving the wall stripes.

I don't know if I want to put a mirror with a piece of furniture and a chair, or a bench with storage. 

I really love this and think is adorable. I just have the fear that this will look messy when it has actual jackets and bags hanging...rather then cute colorful perfectly placed sweaters.

OR:

A mirror with a table.

Decisions..decisions.

The List

I have been making a list of what I want to do first in the house before we even move in.

So far my list is:

1) Paint

I love this neutral color called Shale 861 from Benjamin Moore. I rather add color with patterns, pillows and wall paper rather then painting the walls a crazy color.

2) Sand and stain the floors

3) Have an electrician install more high hat lighting

4) Fix fireplace and re-stone

I've been in love with cultured stone lately

5) Knock the wall between the living room and entry way

6) Furnish our home and then decorate...decorate...and did I mention decorate??!!

I hope we can get to do everything we want to do. We have enough saved, but we don't want to go through the whole savings. Luckily, there was nothing majorly wrong during the inspection process so we get to spend our money on exactly what we want.



Obsessed with Houzz.com/Kitchen

 

I don't know how I found this website, but I am in love with it. Houzz.com. It has given me such inspiration for every room in my house as well as the backyard! I log onto it everyday and add pictures to my "idea book". I figure I will add some of my pictures here since I will be using this as my DECOR BIBLE.

 

 

FLOOR

 

First things first; I want to sand and stain my floors dark wood.

 

I love how a shiny dark wood floor looks against white molding.

 

 

 

 

KITCHEN 

Since my kitchen is brand new; I will not be touching it. Is it bad that I hate the cherry wood cabinets?? They are brand new and I cant stand them!!! I will live with it for now, but this is what I plan on doing to my kitchen:

(Houzz.com)

 

I love the Dark almost black cabinet with the white granite. I think I am going to try and stain my cherry wood cabinets and then just buy new granite counter tops. My counter tops are more of a brown granite( See below). I also want to make my cabinets go to the top of the ceiling as shown above.

 

(My kitchen)

 

I feel like a big island would not work well in my kitchen and I don't want to make the room smaller by adding one. BUT, I do need an island so I think a long thin one will work perfectly in the space: like the one below.

(Houzz.com)

 

I am not sure what type of light fixtures I want hanging over my island or if I even want them. But I do know I want them to be glitzy, I love anything and everything that sparkles.

 

 

 

 

I want to put a computer nook in one the corner of the breakfast area like this one:

 

(Houzz.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 At least my kitchen is livable and I don't have to spend $40,000 redoing it...I am very happy about that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



My name is Jaclyn and I live in Long Island, New York. This is my very first blog. I figure I will use this blog to post my ideas, thoughts, and projects. I am hoping it will keep me organized as I begin to decorate my new house. I also think this would be a great way of documenting our lives and we can look back and see how much our house and lives have changed.

We Bought A House

( sorry for the ugly iPhone pictures, new camera coming soon)

 

 

My boyfriend Sebastian and I have bought a house!! We are in contract and now the waiting game begins. It needs work, but I am happy it does because I wanted a "fixer upper". The house is not falling apart, in fact its actually very livable as is (we got lucky). The way we found this house is a "meant to be" story.

Sebastian and I have been looking for a house since January and we were not impressed with anything we were being shown. It is very expensive to live on Long Island, and the houses that were for sale were all so small and needed ALOT of work. I wanted to buy a house that needed work, but these houses were MONEY PITS.

I decided to look into Oakdale (after looking at about 30 houses) and gave my realtor a bunch of listings. After work I met Seb and our realtor and we looked at 3 houses...which I was not impressed with. On our last house of the day we pull up and saw "our house" across the street from the house we were going to look at. Seb made a joke and said " Bob, this is where I want to live". Our realtor had never seen it before and we were all curious. We called the number on the for sale sign and left a message. We quickly got a call back and were given the code to walk through the house. As soon as we walked in we knew we loved it. The house wasn't even on the market yet, we put an offer in right away!!

It is now a month later and the contract is signed! One step closer to closing and moving into our dream home.