Blogger Summer Tour of Homes - AKA: Major Eye Candy

Summer is totally throwing off my blogging groove. Anyone else?

I swear there are at least three days in the week where I catch myself thinking it's Saturday, instead of Tuesday, Wednesday or some other day in the middle of the week. Having all my kids home, sunny weather and a BILLION projects to do, makes for little if no time for sitting in front of a computer.

That being said, I forced myself to sit down today to put together this post, because I couldn't let one more day pass by without sharing it.

If you know Gina from The Shabby Creek Cottage, then consider yourself lucky... and if you don't, you've been missing out. Gina's blog is filled to the brim with great tips and tricks for DIY'ers, decorators and craft enthusiasts of all levels. She's always got great ideas for posts, and this Summer was no different. With the help of an armful of other fabulous, talented, stylish bloggers, Gina organized one of the BEST Summer Home Tours that I've seen!

The houses of these amazing bloggers will blow you away. And while I couldn't get my act together enough to join in on the home tour fun, I definitely didn't want YOU to miss out on seeing it. So below, I've listed all the amazing bloggers who took part in this fun series, and wanted to encourage you to go check them each out. Countless hours were spent prepping for the photos they had to take, editing them, and writing up their posts, so if you have some time, head on over and give all or even just a few of them some major comment and Pinterest love!

They totally deserve it.

  

  

  

  

 

Project Basement Makeover - Design Plan + Furniture Reveal & Advice

Peacock blue, coral, gold and floral... OH MY!

We've got  a bunch of our basement furniture all settled in and we're jumping for joy!

Before I show you anything more, I have to stop at "the sketch". If you've been reading along on our blog for a while now, then you know that before we start ANYTHING... we always start with a sketch. Cason drafted this one up, when we finally realized that we had saved enough money to start getting serious about making furniture purchases for this space.

While most of this concept stayed in tact, we still wanted a professional designer to draft up an exact idea of what we could feasibly fit into our space. Our goal was to get the MOST seating possible, without crowding the space or making it look too heavy. Even though we have small children now, we're making plans for preteens, that we know will want to invade our space later on.

:)

Like I mentioned in our last post, we used The Black Goose Design to help us with this. When Brooke and Emily came out the first time, to measure for our kitchen nook makeover, they also popped downstairs to gather a few numbers for our basement space as well. Since they already had the measurements on hand, they did a quick sketch of their own, including our ideas, of what they thought would be great for our basement space.

For those who asked before, designers from The Black Goose Design CAN help anyone in their retail store free of charge. You can bring photos of your space and they can help offer some general design tips and ideas, just for YOU! Then, if it turns out you need more help and live here locally in Utah, they're happy to come out to your home for a small fee. They will measure, give you more furniture position suggestions and even show you how to work with what you already have.

(pricing can vary by where you live and what you need help with)

Once we had all our measurements nailed down, it was time to pick out the fun fabrics, colors and decor I wanted to add. You can read about our design process in the last post, but here's how it all turned out with everything gathered together!!!

Who knew that those faux animal print ottomans Cason wanted so badly, would really work totally awesome in here? They're that perfect mix of eclectic and funky all at once! These ran about $300 each, because we opted for a larger, sturdier cube design, so that children and adults alike could sit on them. Plus, I loved the option to be able to choose form over 100 different fabric... yes, faux animal print being one of them. LOL

And the rug?... ***swoon*** It's perfect!

I was initially going to go with a coral color, but Brooke suggested this deep peacock blue, and I'm so happy with it! It definitely anchors the space and adds lots of movement. I know a bunch of you have expressed the concern with putting rugs on top of carpet; WHY?

Our Favorite Laundry Tips and Tricks

I'm addicted to buying cute, stylish little girls clothing.

There. I said it.

Okay, I've actually mentioned this before in a post, but the reason I'm bringing it up again now, is because with ALL of those adorable new threads, comes a whole different issue...

MORE LAUNDRY TO DO!

I'm not a Mom of boys, but I hear that keeping up on their laundry pile is just as hard, if not harder than a house full of little girls, because of how dirty and messy they tend to get when playing. So whether it's 5 outfit changes a day for a "picky princesses", grimy, stained duds from an active, curious little man or just the weekly sheet and towel washing responsibilities; we ALL dread doing the laundry at some point... am I right?

That being said, I thought I'd share a few tips and tricks that we use to help us alleviate some of our laundry doin' stresses around here.

While there may be that one person in the house that takes care of most of the laundry duties, having everyone pitch in during the week to help make the job for that person easier, can make all the difference.

Designate a laundry hamper to each room: This makes collecting dirty clothes and linens a lot simpler. For a long time our kids were so small that I didn't have hampers in their rooms, and just walked their dirty clothes straight to our laundry room after changing them, but now that they're getting much bigger they dress and undress themselves, resulting in clothes everywhere!

Our solution of having large, inexpensive hampers tucked away into their closets helps to keep dirty clothes clutter off the ground, and creates an easier clothing roundup when it's time to do laundry.

Utilize your little people and teach them while they're young: Around our house Cason does all of the overseeing of laundry getting done, but delegates other jobs within his laundry routine to our kids. From as young as three years old he's taught our girls how to separate colors into darks and lights, change things from the washer to the dryer, lay delicate shirts over our portable clothing racks to dry and put their own clothes away after they're done being folded.

We feel that kids should help with as many tasks around the house as possible. Not because we're trying to be mean or strict, or even because Cason and I don't want to do all the work, but because it teaches our kids responsibility and HOW to do things for themselves so that they're not completely clueless when they grow up and have to do simple day-to-day duties like this on their own.