Author: Meg Phillips

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The House you Shouldn’t Flip

Our home buying experience has taught us a lot. Flipping is a great way to work your way up to a home you otherwise couldn’t have afforded. If you make smart purchases and upgrades to your homes and always keep in mind the possibility of selling it for profit, not only are you being cautious for the unexpected possibility of needing to sell your house for any number of reasons, but you’re also giving yourself the freedom to be able to sell and “buy up”. We have learned that it’s good to buy under your budget. It’s hard to go for the outdated fixer upper that’s $50,000 less than what you’re pre-qualified for when you could pay $70,000 more for that immaculate move-in-ready home and stretch what you can afford- and of course everyone’s capacity for “fixing up” is different and depends on your stage in life, your resourcefulness, your time and your access to handymen/handywomen. But we have learned first-hand why buying under your budget can pay off if your goal is to flip your way up to your dream house without stretching your budget too much. Flipping is also a great way to make some extra money if you have the expendable income to invest in homes and the guts to take on the risk of a fixer upper.

And then every once in a while, you get lucky enough to find a home that you wouldn’t flip for anything and that’s kind of how we feel about our house now. A lot of things fell perfectly into place when we bought this house and we know that we can’t possibly take credit for all of this, because there was undoubtedly divine intervention. We are beyond thankful for the opportunity to live in our dream home and have the ability to house friends and family who need a roof over their heads.


This is the house our first daughter is growing up in and the only house she remembers (she was just barely 5 months old when we moved in).


Our second daughter was born in this house (literally born at home) but this is more than just a house for us. This house is huge– 3,500+ square feet not including the 350 square foot unfinished mother-in-law suite we have out back. We knew we always wanted a big house. It was one of our top priorities for our “dream home” for lots of reasons.

I’m a bit of a closet introvert and a homebody, so that combined with the fact that I work from home means I spend a lot of time in this house and I like to feel relaxed and recharged when I come home (or stay home all day). I believe that “our homes should inspire us to go out into the world to do great things & then welcome us back for refreshment.” -anonymous

I also love to host- I think I got this gene from my mama. While I am an introvert, there is something nice about being able to share my home with others, and maybe it’s because if I get overwhelmed by so many people, I can focus on refilling the food bowls or straightening up while my extroverted husband and toddler talk and entertain the people. We compliment each other nicely in that regard.

I also like having the extra space to offer a room to anyone who needs one. This big house has housed many friends and family- the people dropping by for a quick overnight stop before heading elsewhere and the people wanting to settle in and visit awhile. Our guest bedroom currently houses a family friend who’s finishing up college and I love being able to say without hesitation that we are happy for her to stay as long as she wants while she searches for jobs, and works on figuring out where she wants to go next. This house was home to a 10-year-old orphan from Latvia over the 2015 Winter holidays and we loved learning about the Latvian and Russian cultures and watching Markuss light up about the American skateboards and trampoline parks and our family dogs.

There is beauty in living small, but there’s also beauty in living big and the more space we have, the more we can grow our family and offer a piece of our home to others as well. We have big plans for our detached mother-in-law apartment and I’m thankful for every opportunity and blessing that has led us to where we are now. I know we call ourselves the Phillips Flips, but right now we’re just too flipping in love with our home and all the potential we’ve got. So hopefully you will love following along as we continue to flipping love and live in this home of ours.

When you find the house that holds your family with room to grow together, space to thrive independently and that extra something that reminds you that no walls or ceiling can hold back your potential, then you may have just found the house you shouldn’t flip- not because you can’t, but because who would want to? I know that it’s not the home you live in, but the people you share it with that really matter, but when you’re lucky enough to find the right space to share on top of it, each of those moments are infinitely more vibrant and you can live more peacefully with all the people (or animals) that make your house a home.

Photo Credit: Petal & Vine Photography -The good, high quality photos in this post set in our master bedroom were from my sweet friends over at Petal & Vine, but I added in a couple selfie’s and iPhone pictures too.

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Our Dream Home- The Best Flip we will (hopefully) Never Make

We have come along way since June 2015 when we purchased our 3rd home.

Our house stats when we purchased it were:
3,534 sqft
5 bedrooms
4 bathrooms
Purchase price: $160,000
Appraisal value at purchase: $180,000

When we bought this house, we knew it would require a good amount of work. We spent $40,000 in improvements just in the first year, and the majority of that went toward mandatory or practical improvements (not the fun cosmetic stuff), but after a year of work, we can finally rest easy knowing that we made a good investment.

When we moved in to this house, we had insane house bills for the entire first year. Not only were we paying to fix things that needed fixing, but we had added insurance costs because our home had previously been a foreclosure. We also paid a much higher rate for very little insurance coverage due to the fact that we had cloth wiring and extremely old galvanized plumbing. Our electric bill was sky high in the hot months (which in Florida is about 360 days per year) because of old single-pane windows and very little insulation. Additionally the PMI (private mortgage insurance) we had to pay for not being able to put down a 20% down-payment tacked on almost $200 per month.

So we were on a mission to lower those costs in every way possible. We focused on material updates that would increase our home’s value (to help us get rid of our PMI), and also anything to help us lower our insurance costs or save on utilities. The updates we did in the first year included:

  • Replacing all the windows- $5,000
  • Replacing one of the A/C units- $1,000
  • Purchasing and installing all kitchen appliances (there were NONE originally)- $5,000
  • Paid handymen to remove above ground pool built into part of the deck and the deck that surrounded it- $1,200
  • Replacing all galvanized plumbing- $5,000
  • Replacing and updating electrical (removing cloth wires)- $2,500
  • Drywall repair after redoing plumbing and electrical- $3,000
  • Installing a home security system complete with smart-home thermostats and smoke detectors- $100
  • Redoing the hall bathroom (the sub-floor under the tile was moldy from a small leak that was never fixed and when you walked on the tile floor it moved similar to that of a trampoline under your feet)- $2,000
  • Purchasing and installing doors (multiple rooms didn’t have any doors- thus the beauty of buying a foreclosure)- $600
  • Fixing leak in sports room ceiling/reworking lighting/drywall repair- $1,500
  • Replacing lights in kitchen with recessed can lighting- $500
  • DIY wall install in master bedroom to make a walk through closet- $300
  • Built in IKEA closets- $1,900
  • Reworking lighting in upstairs master bedroom and relocating some wall outlets in the nursery- $1,000
  • Drywall repair and painting for upstairs- $1,000
  • Replacing upstairs floors (including 2 bedrooms and stair landing) and stairs with hardwood floors- $5,200
  • Adding foam insulation in walls and attic throughout the house- $800
  • DIY painting interior walls, purchasing and installing light fixtures (where there were none) and other minor DIY fixes- $2,400
    Total first year costs: $40,000

After a year, we were hopeful that our updates combined with the housing market’s natural climb would get us an appraisal  of at least $200k to allow us to cancel our PMI payments. (In order to cancel PMI manually, you have to purchase and order an appraisal on your home and it has to come back at least 20% above your original home loan price).

Our current home stats are:
3,534 sqft
5 bedrooms
4 bathrooms
Purchase price: $160,000
Appraisal value at purchase: $180,000
Appraisal value 1 year later: $275,000

After a year of hard work, staying focused on our budget and gritting our teeth while putting our hard earned money into many practical things that will possibly never be seen (i.e. plumbing and electrical), we are proud to say that our home appraised $115,000 more than we purchased it for and with an overall investment of $200,000 ($160,000 purchase price + $40,000 renovations), that gives us a net equity value of $75,000! Also, after cancelling our PMI and making the necessary updates per our insurance requirements, we were able to get solid home insurance coverage and reduce our monthly payments by almost $400.

We are in our dream house and we don’t have plans to flip this house anytime soon, but it’s comforting to know that we wouldn’t be underwater if we had to sell.  In the meantime, stick around, follow along as we work our way through our home updates and renovations. Now that we’re through the worst of the mandatory fixes, we can finally focus on the fun stuff.

Next up: Backyard makeover!

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Updates on our Backyard Renovation

I’m so excited about the progress we’re making on our Backyard Renovation! So far, we have demolished the entire deck including the second story balcony, stairs and outhouse.  We’ve leveled out the dirt to prepare for the new deck and while everything was torn down, we thought it would be the perfect time to paint our house. So we did that too. And after this poll, we decided to go with the darker color for our house despite the fact that approximately 90+ percent of you guys voted for the lighter color. If you know me well, then you know I am anything but the type to follow the crowd, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

Right now our backyard is a construction zone. It’s full of dirt and it’s nearly impossible to keep the dogs from tracking all the dirt inside. So don’t expect too many posts about the inside of our house, until we get this backyard renovation completed, because I’m basically constantly cleaning and yet nothing ever seems clean. That’s the life of a full-time working mama in the middle of big home renovations right? We do make time for our kiddos and we love our family time. This past Easter weekend was full of it. Here’s a sweet shot of us at church yesterday after the Easter service.

We spent this weekend out and about, because there’s not too many spots around here to hangout with the construction zone in the back and the front yard off limits because we are trying to grow us some grass. Luckily, we are fortunate to have family with an awesome pool to spend all afternoon Sunday swimming. Meanwhile in our backyard… There is a LOT of dirt and leaves.

We have made some big decisions on the backyard renovation. We decided to do all wood deck (instead of concrete) for the bottom and top story, so that we could keep our live oak. We also decided not to put a roof over the entire deck, just the top balcony (which is off our master bedroom). The top balcony will be covered and screened in. We may add in a roof over the bottom at some point, but for now, our tree gives us plenty of shade and the Tree Lady  says it’s in perfect condition to live on for years to come. You can see the trunk in the picture below.

We have also decided to keep the shell of our backyard shed for now (pictured below).

We have never used this for anything but occasional storage, and had originally planned on tearing it down to make more backyard space for the dogs and kids to play in. However, now that we’re not planning to have a roof put in over the bottom deck, we’re thinking we may take the walls and floors out and keep the supports and the roof to have our own little covered space. Stay tuned to see what we do with it!

I know there is still a lot left to do, but it’s encouraging to see how far we’ve come already when this is where we started.

We can’t wait to share the finished product with you! You can follow us on Instagram (@phillipsflips) to stay in the loop with all of our day to day progress and updates.

 

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How to Choose a Style and Color Scheme for your Home

When it comes to home decorating, most people have a style that they gravitate towards and most people decorate individual rooms with similar color schemes, but should you have a house-wide color scheme and style?

Maybe you should.

While there may be some legitimate reasons to have a room with a different color scheme or style (for example: kids rooms and nurseries or specialty rooms like a theater room or kid’s play room may have some different style/color needs that exclude them from following your house-wide color scheme), for the most part you should stick to a cohesive look. Having significant variations in decor/color/finishes can make your home seem choppy and feel smaller than it really is. Especially with the open-floor plan trending high on most priority lists, a house-wide color scheme and style is even more noticeable and needed.

When you’re looking into buying your decor/textiles/paint colors or considering bigger more permanent renovation projects like changing the floors, cabinets, light fixtures or other major renovations, having a color scheme and style in mind is key to making sure that the decisions you make for your home now will be good decisions for future buyers as well as your future self.

Coming up with an idea board and color scheme for your home is a great place to start.

First, consider your house. Does your house have a style already? Maybe you’ve settled into a 1920’s Victorian. Your mid-century modern pieces probably won’t be welcome there. Victorian houses typically look best with darker wood tones and rich colors like maroon, navy, and maybe some green with off-white accents. The fixtures usually have an antique style with black iron or brassy finishes. They are usually chock full of character and intricate woodworking details. Vintage rugs always pair nice with this style- although I may be a bit biased because I’m convinced that vintage rugs will go with any style.

Some houses may not have a distinct style in which case they are more of a shell to infuse with your own style. The good thing about those houses is you’ve got a clean slate to work with. The bad news (sometimes) is that the more generic houses that are flexible enough to work with any style usually lack the unique character that most people love, but you can always add character pieces in! Other houses may have a subtle style that can be changed by changing colors, finishes or fixtures.

Whether you’re looking to flip or just lovingly inhabit, you’ve got to have a style in mind. Once you’ve determined your style, start pulling together some ideas for an idea board. This is a great time to incorporate Pinterest. You can search on your specific style and/or colors that you’d like to incorporate and get a feel for the vibe you want in your own home. Here’s an idea board example of a modern beachy style perfect for houses near the coast- or landlocked ocean lovers. Someone with this idea board would be looking for most all neutrals (tans, grays, beige, greige – yes! that’s a thing). They would accent with lighter wood tones or vintage or weathered wood pieces, anything white (or white-washed), woven textiles, linen fabrics, and lighter blue tones or anything that pairs well with those. You could accent with a little bit of navy or coral or even bright red if you wanted a more bold look- but not all three.

Consider the more permanent/semi-permanent features of your home. Do your floors and cabinets go with the theme you’ve picked? If not, consider if you plan to change those or if you may need to change some of your ideas around to fit with your current fixtures.

Here’s a mid-century themed board. Mid-century houses are usually accented with medium wood tones, gold or brass fixtures, tapered legs and always the starburst lighting. This is usually a style relegated to houses built in the “mid-century”- think 1940’s to 1970’s occasionally the 1980’s and while this is a pretty distinct style, you can usually infuse this style into a more generic home with mid-century decor and maybe a few added character touch-ups. Commonly used mid-century colors include mustard yellow, dark orange and olive among others. A common trend these days is the mid-century modern style which combines the mid-century board (below) with more modern elements.

Once you’ve got your idea board, pull out some specific things to help define a template for your home theme. What type of wood tones will you have? What temperature will your neutrals be? For example, do you like the warmer tans, beige and cream colored or off-white neutrals like the farmhouse idea board below?

Or would you prefer cooler toned neutrals like pure white and shades of gray? Make a list of your top neutral colors as well as the accent colors or brighter colors you plan to have in your home (if you’re planning for any). And then use your idea board as a guide when you’re picking out new decor or paint colors. This bright bohemian board is almost enough to convert my style. I just love the fun and bright eclectic patterns mixed with the crocheted hammocks and Pom Pom decor. And of course bohemian style isn’t complete without house plants.

For our house theme, we’ve got a industrial modern meets mid-century modern vibe going on and I’m gravitating towards black and white and cool grey neutrals. We’ve got a giant camel colored leather sectional from Restoration Hardware that lives in our family room which is really the heart of our house so the camel color is part of our home decor board. In addition to our cool neutrals, we’ve accented with navy and an occasional pop of yellow- because yellow is just the best color ever! We have a mix of finishes from black industrial-style metal finishes to stainless steel finishes in our kitchen and then a handful of the more mid-century gold accents as well. We’ve installed some light hickory hardwood floors with lots of variation from light to medium tones and we plan to install more downstairs eventually. We also want to add in some polished grey concrete floors in our family room and some fun cement tile accents- probably black and white. So I use this idea board as a base for our home decor purchases and any new finishes. That doesn’t mean we don’t ever go outside of the box. For example, my daughter’s bedroom is a fun cotton-candy pink with grey and white accents. And since our sports/theater room houses our old dark brown and tan sofa and chairs, that room has more warm tones to coordinate with the furniture. Also, the sports room has actual football field turf on the floor which isn’t really part of our idea board, but it makes for a fun (and super cheap) floor covering for the (mostly) football-themed room. Remember when I mentioned those exceptions above? There will always be some. But for the most part, our open-spaced living downstairs, follows the rules for our intended style and color scheme.

Here’s our home idea board complete with pictures of our actual home and decor as well as a few “dream” items.


You’d be surprised at how much an idea board like this helps when you’re browsing the throw pillows at Target and trying to decide if they will go well with your decor or not.

How do you keep a cohesive look in your home?

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Our Exterior House Paint Color

After much thought and a few friendly Facebook and Instagram polls, we decided to go DARK on the outside of our house! Here’s the first coat on the front:

There is still work to be done: some touch ups in the paint, painting the sides and back of the house, cutting in the white trim, painting the front door (for now until we pick out a new one), adding some landscaping and trying to get some grass to grow on our front lawn! But all in, I’m super happy with our color choice.

We went with Sherwin Williams Iron Ore- SW 7069

A few days ago we polled our Facebook and Instagram friends on which of these two colors they liked best:

The response was overwhelmingly in favor of the bottom (and lighter) gray which is Sherwin Williams Peppercorn (SW 7674).

Our original plan was to paint the house black (yes, I said BLACK). These were some of my favorite inspirations for going black.

So with those ideas in mind, you can maybe imagine my slight disappointment that literally everyone I know (with the exception of maybe 5 people) voted to go light on the paint. Anyone who knows me personally likely knows that I am anything but the type of person who follows the crowd. On the contrary, I’m a bit of a skeptic and if everyone else is doing it, I’m probably googling it for more information and asking myself if there’s a better alternative.

Surprisingly, my husband and both agreed on the darker color being our preference and even with all the votes against us, we weren’t wavering on our opinions. So we did what I imagine anyone in this situation would do: we painted bigger swatches on the house!

After we painted this and saw it with the white trim up top, we were set on the dark. And a few of our friends changed their vote too!

Although the whole house isn’t finished being painted, we have at least tackled most of the front and I’m super happy with how it’s turning out!

Stay tuned for more of our home renovation adventures!

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Propagating Fiddle Leaf Figs- Part 1

I love fiddle leaf figs! I have heard they made very hardy indoor house plants and I just love the way they look. I love them so much, I wouldn’t be unhappy having one in just about every room of my house.

The problem? They are not cheap! You can get a really small seedling for around $20, but most medium-sized plants range anywhere from $60 – $160. And considering how many of them I want, $20 a piece isn’t really a viable option either. So about a month ago I decided to try to propagate them.

Let me preface by saying that we were lucky enough to have 3 HUGE fiddle leaf figs planted in our backyard before we bought it. So we’ve got some figs to work with. This is a shot of our fiddle leaf figs. They are way too big to transplant and bring inside – no we don’t have 20-foot ceilings.

But with so much plant to work with, I thought I’d try my hand at propagating! I am no horticulturist, but I have heard that some people have luck putting clippings in water to get roots started. So I tried that.

I cut a pretty big clipping because I thought that if I could get it to sprout roots it might be better to start with a larger plant. However I have also had luck  with just a single leaf sprouting large amount of roots over the course of a few months. Unfortunately, I didn’t follow-up with care and maintenance on that little leaf and he didn’t make it in his pot once he was relocated. This time I took 2 of these clippings and put them in vases and filled them with enough water that the stems were submerged about 3-4 inches up the stem. I’m hoping that maybe a larger clipping will be a bit hardier than the small single leaf clipping I tried before. I kept them on my kitchen table which is about 4 feet away from a large south-facing window. So they have a good amount of filtered indirect sunlight throughout the day.

Here’s a photo of the 2 clippings in their vases:


Since planting them just a little over a month ago, I have changed out their water a few times to keep it fresh and I have added 2 tablespoons of this plant food that I just happened to have sitting around:


This stuff came with my AeroGarden that I got for Christmas last year. (The best thing for growing indoor herbs and veggies)


After exactly 1 month of being in water, I already had root buds!

This was the smaller clipping after 1 month:

And the larger clipping after 1 month:

I’ll keep you posted with the progress as they continue to grow. Here’s to hoping they will one day look as good as this one!

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Our First House (Flip)

In honor of our recent closing day anniversary, I thought it would be fitting to share the before and after photos from our first ever house which later became our first house flip! Technically speaking, I guess we bought and flipped our second house, then bought our 3rd house and flipped our first house. It was a crazy 3 years! More on our Phillips Flips (home flipping stories) here.

On March 21, 2013 we bought our very first house. It was dreamy… and I mean “dreamy” in the sense that you had to dream about what it would look like one day and not what it looked like right when we bought it.

Here’s what it looked like when we bought it:

And the inside:

Check out those floors! The floors on the right of the picture above are linoleum tiles. There was 2 full layers of ceramic tile where you see the tile up there at the top and the carpet to the left was dark green. And about 8 feet inside the front door was a nice little 3-way junction where all 3 of the mixed floors met up for no real reason.

All the bedrooms had that same dark green carpet.

The kitchen was pretty small and awkwardly closed off to the rest of the house. So the first thing we did was grab a sledge-hammer and bust through some walls:

We removed the wall shown above which opened the kitchen to the entryway and a little more to the dining room over to the left.

We removed the upper cabinets that were hanging above the island which opened the headroom up a bit and made the kitchen completely open to the family/TV room.

We ripped up all of the floors to make way for light-colored hardwoods.

And then we got to work! We painted the kitchen cabinets white!

It was much more open with the overhead cabinets out of the way.

We painted the front door this fun minty color and I DIY Frosted the front windows with a little hand cut monogram in the center.

I replaced the fan in the dining room with this Maskros Pendant Lamp from IKEA and we painted the fun accent stripe wall on the side wall over there. That was SO “in” back in 2013!

We gave all the other walls a fresh coat of paint (either white or light gray).

And replaced the dark green carpet with a neutral “greige” color that we found on crazy sale at one of our local carpet/flooring warehouse places. We found just enough carpet to put in our sunken den area and all 3 of our bedrooms. It was meant to be!

I didn’t get a ton of great shots of it, but originally we had vaulted ceilings that were covered in dark wood paneling. We painted over that with white paint and it looked kind of like vaulted shiplap covered ceilings!

With the wall knocked out, the upper cabinets gone and the white paint, the kitchen looked much more open and bright!

And finally, we got around to painting the outside of the house and redoing the roof with light metal panels.

On our first ever house flip, we spent about $10K in renovations:
Flooring: $4,000 (purchased whole sale and installed by a friend of a friend)
New roof: $5,000 (we pulled our own permits and had a friend do the work for us)
Paint: $1,000 (we used a lot of leftover paint that we had sitting around in storage and we may have used plain old white primer on some interior walls- you got to save wherever you can!)

We ended up selling this house for $16K more than we paid for it which was a $6K profit on the sale alone. We also rented it out for several months during some of the transition time while we were in between houses and we made a total of $11,700 in rental income. So all-in-all we made $16,700 on our first flip.

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Backyard Renovation Updates: Demolition Progress, Next Steps & Bad News about our Trees

Last week we learned that aluminum costs way more than we thought. We got a price quote for the entire rebuild of our second story deck which includes demo of the current deck and stairs, custom built, water sealed storage under the stairs, a full rebuild of the stairs and second story deck as well as having all of the upright posts wrapped in cedar. The aluminum roof quote which includes demo of the current aluminum roof and installation of new aluminum roof as well as screening in the second story deck was nearly 2 times the cost of the deck quote and about 4 times more than we were expecting. Before we got the quote for the aluminum, we were thinking that we were very close to having the money saved up to cover the whole project. Now, we are certain that we don’t have enough cash at the moment, but we are plugging on. We’re going to take each item one step at a time and if this means that we have dirt as the ground covering for our bottom floor for a few months, while we save up, then so be it. Maybe we will let Piper experience the fun of mud-pies once it starts getting rainy around here.

While we did have a bit of sticker shock from the aluminum roofing quote, we decided to keep the momentum going and continue to move forward with the renovation. Right now we’re simultaneously working on finalizing the drafts and getting architect’s approval on our rebuild while we are DIY demoing the bottom deck.

Anyone need some old wood? We are not quite halfway through the bottom story demo and this is our output. Thinking that perhaps one dumpster won’t be enough to hold everything! 

Speaking of our DIY deck demo, here’s what we’ve done on that so far:


It’s definitely coming along. We still need to demo the main area under roof and then we have to tackle the shed back there.

Here’s another shot of the deck we have left to demo:

(Featuring our newest addition to the indoor house plants! I found this guy at Lowes this weekend and brought him home as our first medium-sized floor plant/tree. Hoping he enjoys our family room as much as we do.)

In other news, The Tree Lady came out this weekend to talk to us about our oak trees. She had amazing insight and I learned a ton in just the 15 minutes she was here. I highly recommend her if you’re looking to trim/remove/save your trees and are located in Winter Haven, FL or surrounding areas! The main reason we brought her out was to talk to her about trimming up the tree in the picture above (not our newest little guy – that big live oak to the left). One of the large branches that’s currently stretching out above our current roof needs to be removed completely in order to make way for our new roof plans. We plan to push the current roof up to the same level as the second story roof so that from the second story you can look down into the main patio area. So we needed to make sure that we could remove the branch without killing the whole tree – because my dream was to leave the tree there and work our patio space/concrete floors/aluminum roof around it. The good news is we can cut the branch with a 60-ish% chance of survival for the tree.

The bad news is, the only  ground cover we can put back down this close to the tree is more deck. The concrete we want would be ruined within a few years because the roots of the live oak would try to surface and push up through the concrete. So after serious thought and discussions about potentially changing our whole deck plans to accommodate this tree, we decided with heavy hearts that we will remove the whole tree instead.

Fun fact: when you look at a tree’s canopy (the large green part at the top), the root system of that tree will be 2.5 times bigger than the canopy.

So that means that this tree right here is already growing big surface-level roots dangerously close to our house’s foundation and while it may not be an issue right now, we can surely expect it to be an issue in 10 or so years. So even though 10 years sounds like a lifetime away, we determined it would be in the long-term best interest of the house/deck/future homeowners, to remove the tree.

As we plug along on our demo, the first official contracted step of the backyard renovation is taking off today! Our aluminum roofing guy is coming out to demo the roof. After he takes the roof down, he will determine how much (if any) of the aluminum panels can be reused and we are hoping that once the demo is finished, we will learn that the majority of pieces can be reused for our new roof which would save us a considerable amount on the roofing quote. More on that next week.

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8 Low Maintenance House Plants – From Someone with a Black Thumb

I recently got a question about what type of house plants I have in my home. So I thought I would go into detail about what I’ve had that’s lasted. I’m no horticulturist, so this post will not be delving into the ideal living situations or advice on achieving maximum growth, but rather sharing the plants I have had that are able to survive with very little work.

These are the most low maintenance plants you can get, so if you have a black thumb (like me) but still want to green-up your home, these are the plants for you!
Note: Succulents are not on this list, because I have had my share of succulents and killed them all.

1. Sansevieria (AKA Mother-in-law’s tongue or Snake Plant)

We have 2 of these in our home. The one pictured here has been sitting in this same spot for over a year (and it’s still alive!). I picked up this plant about the size that it is now from my local garden store and literally just transferred it into this empty pot. I didn’t add dirt or fertilizer. This pot doesn’t drain (since it resides indoors) and I usually think to water it once every week or two. It doesn’t sit in front of a window and I haven’t taken it outside at all, but you can see in the picture that it’s in a room with some indirect sunlight that comes from the window in the opposite corner. It hasn’t grown much, but it’s survived and I haven’t had to pull off any brown leaves. It also doesn’t wilt at all. So I’m happy to say this one wins the award for the number 1, easiest plant to care for.

2. Aloe Vera Plant

We have a small aloe plant in our kitchen that has survived 3 moves and is now happily living in our landlocked, windowless kitchen with no direct or indirect sunlight. I have moved it to a window sill for a couple days at a time, maybe 3 times in the 1 1/2 years that we have lived in our current home. This is an easy one to keep alive and there are so many good uses for aloe too. The only thing I learned (the hard way) is that too much water will make the leaves brown on this one. Ironically, the only plant I think to water regularly is the one that does better with the least amount of water. This one sits right behind the faucet on our kitchen sink, so it’s the easiest to keep watered, but I learned to keep watering to a minimum with my aloe.
Pineapple planter from CB2.

3. Pothos Plant

Can I just say that these vine-y plants are my absolute favorite right now? They are cheap to buy and because of the ever-growing vine, they add a lot of green to the room with relatively no work. We’ve had this one sitting on our piano for over a year now. It has done well with being watered once every couple weeks. It’s taken a couple longer stints with no water and I noticed some browning around the leaves and vines and I just watered it a couple days in a row after that and it greened back up. Overall this is a pretty easy indoor plant to take care of.

Disclaimer: As I was googling the official names of these plants for reference, I read that this one is actually poisonous to cats/dogs/small children if its eaten. We have all 3 of those living in our home. The article I read did say that a small amount ingested is not fatal, but just tends to make pets/babies sick, but I think it’s worth mentioning. The good thing about this plant is that it looks best sitting up high on a self with the ivy trailing across or down and you can also hang it to avoid any possible mishaps with your pets or babies.

4. Philodendron

These are very similar to the pothos plants. I think this is technically called a “golden philodendron”. They also have them in a darker green color which makes it even harder to tell them apart. These tend to be a little bigger than pothos plants though. I bought this golden philodendron at the same time that I bought the previous pothos plant. They were almost exactly the same size when I bought them and this one has grown much faster and much bigger. I water this one even less than most of the other plants I mentioned above because this one sits in the back corner of our family room so it gets forgotten often when I am watering the other plants in the entryway. This one hangs in front of a window, but because the window faces out to our covered back porch and shaded backyard, this one probably doesn’t get much more sun than the ones in my entryway. This one has definitely grown and stayed alive with very little work. I have had to trim some brown leaves every now and then probably just because I don’t water it as much as I should, but overall this one is very black-thumb friendly.

5. Peace Lily Plant

This is a picture of my peace lily (above). When I bought it, it had a few of these pretty white flowers (pictured below)

This plant is a natural air purifier! I’ve heard that the more light your peace lily has, the more it will bloom with the white flowers. Since I’ve been keeping mine inside with minimal indirect sunlight through the window in our entryway, it hasn’t bloomed at all, but it is still alive and growing. Every now and then a leaf will turn brown. So I just pluck it off and water it some more. This plant has proved to need a little more watering than the others I have shared thus far. The good news is that this one lets you know when it needs water by wilting. So whenever I notice it looking wilted, I water it and it perks right back up. It’s been very hardy in that sense. Even though this one does take a little extra watering, I’m including it on the list because it’s a hard one to kill. As long as you don’t lock it in a room where you’ll never see it and if you keep a reasonably good eye on when it starts looking wilted, this one will pull through.

6. Air Plant

I’m including these on the list because they are generally easy enough to keep alive, although as a disclaimer to cat owners, I’m convinced that cats have the magic touch to kill these puppies. Perhaps its the fact that they slightly resemble spiders, but our cat has killed 2 out of 3 of them. When I first got this plant, I bought 3 identical ones and not only has my cat managed to knock over 2 out of 3 of them causing the concrete planter to literally disappear (I’ve pulled every piece of furniture out of the entryway to paint the walls and the mini concrete planter still didn’t turn up), but she ripped one apart and the other I saved, but it died outside of its little personal planter. So i’m not quite sure what the trick is to these, but I’d say you’re probably better off if you don’t have a crazy cat in your house. The lone air plant has done well. I’ve had this one for about 9 months. When I think to water the plants in the entryway, I just pull this guy out of the concrete planter and submerge it in the water for about 10 seconds, then I take it out and let it air-dry. Barring any CATastrophes (pun intended) these make good indoor house plants.
I bought these plants with the concrete planters from Frae and Co’s Etsy shop.

7.  Plastic Succulents

I know I said I wasn’t including succulents in this post, but these are plastic succulents. And no, that isn’t a species of succulent, it’s just the material they are made out of – as in, non-living, “fake” houseplants. They aren’t air-purifying, but they are hypoallergenic (as long as you keep them dusted). I wasn’t planning to include any fake plants in this post, but then I stopped by Target yesterday to pick up a few things and I found these babies in the discount section – you know, that little area right off to the side with tons of $1, $3, and $5 items that tricks you into spending $30 on small trinkets/decor/kids toys because everything is such a steal? It gets me every time. But $3 a piece for these?!? I was very close to buying 10 of them right there! I’m proud to announce that I only bought 3 of them and I haven’t gone back to buy more… yet. I seriously love succulents, but I just don’t understand all these people saying that they are easy to take care of. I have had probably 15 different types of succulents in my home just in the last year and a half and not one of them remains. So for now, I’m giving up hope on succulents and enjoying these maintenance-free $3 beauties.

8. Fiddle Leaf Fig

To be fair, I don’t technically have one of these inside my home yet, although I have heard good things about these making nice houseplants. I absolutely love the look of these and seriously want one in just about every room. Buying a mature one gets pretty pricey – I’ve seen prices ranging from $50 – $150 for one about the size pictured above. Fortunately for me, our backyard has 3 giant ones growing in it right now. Now I know it’s a bit different, but the trees we have in our backyard have not been touched/trimmed/watered/dusted since we moved in and although they have had the natural elements to help them along, they seem to be easy enough to keep alive judging on how much they’ve grown outside in just 1 1/2 years. To give you an idea here’s a before and after picture of them:

Before: This picture was taken in July 2015.

After: This picture was taken in January 2017

It’s a little hard to tell, but you can see that they have grown immensely if you check out the height in reference to the deck railing on the left. I’m currently attempting to propagate a couple clippings from these – pictured below:

I clipped off a decent sized chunk of leaves and it’s currently sitting in this pot of water. I’m hoping to encourage some root growth from this and then planning on transferring it to a pot with soil. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes, but if these grow even half as well as they have outside, then I’ll be happy I included them on the list. Also, I’m looking forward to possibly multiplying my fiddle leaf figs without dropping $50+ on ones from a garden store. I’m saving this post from Balcony Garden Web as a reference for caring for my fiddle leaf figs once they get potted.

What other indoor house plants have you had success with? I’d love suggestions on ones that I can add to my low maintenance indoor collection!

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A Bold Entryway Makeover

When we first moved into this house, every single wall was painted in this flat beige color.

I am definitely a fan of neutrals (although I usually prefer cooler tones like crisp white and light grey) but this bland entryway was a little too neutral for me. After tackling all the must-have projects on our fixer-upper (i.e. furnishing it with appliances, new AC, new windows, updated electrical and plumbing) we were finally able to work on the fun stuff – PAINTING and DECORATING!

I’m naturally drawn to light colors. I like when rooms feel bright and open, but with this small semi-sequestered entryway room that led into the rest of our bright and open house, I really wanted to go for a bold entrance. I toyed with a bright color. I also considered neutral walls and painting our antique piano yellow (or another fun eye-popping color like that), but I was worried I might regret painting the original wood on our piano, so I decided to go bold with dark walls instead.

I settled on a dark Navy with an eggshell finish. We used Sherwin Williams “Pitch Cobalt” which is kind of a grey-ish Navy. I almost always opt for a Satin finish with paints, with an occasional semi-gloss or high-gloss if I’m going white because it brightens the room up more and is easier to keep clean. But since I was going so dark in here, I thought it would be nice to keep the shine down and let the color speak for itself – so eggshell it is!

I added some greenery to our piano (plus a couple floor plants) because you can never have too many house plants! More on our house plants here.
(Note: in the previous picture, you can see more greenery than usual on the piano. I’m in the process of attempting to propagate some clippings from our fiddle leaf fig trees and I forgot to move them off the piano before snapping the “after” shot. They don’t normally sit there though. I’ll share more on how that goes later!)


Chair: All Modern

We framed the window with these sweet white curtains from All Modern and they are the perfect contrast to the dark navy walls.

We used gold/brass accents on everything and kept some of our costs down by getting our curtain rods from Target. They weren’t exactly the style I wanted, but they were about $100 less than the ones I loved from West Elm, so I was happy enough with these. We picked the “brushed nickel” finish which doesn’t match the gold exactly, but it’s close enough that you can’t tell without closely studying it – and we don’t know anyone who is 10 feet tall, so I feel confident that no one will be putting their face up to our curtain rods anytime soon.

We replaced a silver, outdated wall sconce with this one from All Modern. In the “honey gold” finish.

I painted this thrift store entry table with some light grey paint that was leftover from our master bedroom renovation.

That white umbrella holder we snagged on sale from All Modern.

As well as this round mirror.

And my favorite spot in the room is the corner that houses these framed photos of our girls. It’s the first thing you see when you walk in the door, and there’s just nothing better than being welcomed by squishy little sleeping babies am I right?

Photos by Petal & Vine Photography.
Gold frames from Hobby Lobby.

We still have a few more things on our dream board for this room including: recovering the old chair in the corner, buying a new entryway rug and getting a new front door, but we’ll take that one day at a time.