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DIY Instant Photo Accent Wall

I had some fun with this quick and easy DIY project today.

I recently received one of these Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 Instant Camera‘s as a gift and I have since been documenting some of my favorite moments of our family.

My camera-shy 2 year-old loves it and actually poses for the pictures because she is so excited to see them print out and watch them develop.

We had this blank white wall in our kitchen. At one point, it housed a small array of framed pictures and art and then around Thanksgiving-time it became our wall for seasonal decorations that changed with the seasons right up to Valentine’s Day. I wasn’t particularly keen on continuing the seasonal decorations by filling my wall with green shamrocks or multi-colored Easter eggs. So I decided to use my new gift to create a collection of family photos to fill the space.

It was easy enough to do. It took about 5 minutes (after I snapped and collected all of the photos). This is the camera I used:

I needed 2 packs of film for this project. Each pack comes with enough for 10 photos and my project used 16.

I had some cute wooden push-pins that I thought about using to hang the photos, but I decided I’d rather keep the simple, straight lines of the photo grid instead. So I adhered the photos to the wall with good old Scotch tape. I lined them up as straight as I could (without using a ruler) and the tape allowed me to continue to adjust if one of the pictures looked crooked.

The final product: A DIY Instant Photo Accent Wall with some sweet family moments!

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Our Backyard Renovation Plans

I’m finally putting pen to paper on our plans for our backyard, and man is it getting real! We have been saving up for this project since we finished buying our Christmas gifts last year (around mid-December) and we have been planning and getting inspiration for our backyard renovation since June 2015 – when we moved into this house. We’re planning to share all the details of the entire process right here for you to follow along, but for starters, we wanted you to see the “before” photos and share a little bit about our future and upcoming plans for this space.

Welcome to our backyard:

As you can see, the backyard is full of decking- literally. With the exception of our side-yard, a few flower beds and our long concrete driveway, our backyard is almost entirely solid wood. There was a “pool” when we moved in. And by pool, I mean that technically we had an above ground pool that was built into our raised deck, but it could be more accurately described as a broken-down plastic hole used for frog and mosquito breeding. So this was one of the very first things to go. We ripped this all out piece by piece which left us with a giant hole on one side of our yard that can be seen below:

It’s a really unappealing look – not to mention very unsafe for little kids. We’ve been living with this hole over here for almost 2 years now and we are finally ready to tackle this backyard renovation project.

First, we are demoing EVERYTHING! Literally every non-living structure in our backyard is getting ripped out, with the exception of this completely unfinished mother-in-law apartment- which we also have big plans for, but that’s another post for another day.

We recently decided to do the demo of our backyard ourselves instead of paying someone to do it for us. It’s proving to be a slow and arduous process that’s taking even longer than normal because we are having to fit the time in somewhere between our day jobs and parenting 2 little ones under the age of 3, but we are looking forward to getting the most bang for our buck! You can read more about the beginning of our DIY backyard deck demo here.

As of last night, this is how far we had come.

Like I said, it’s a slow process, but even a little progress is still progress, and I’m okay with that.

Once we finish the demo, we plan on rebuilding this second story deck in the same dimensions that it is currently.

The things we are doing differently with the rebuild include ensuring that the posts holding it up will be in the right spots. You can see in this picture below that the second story hangs past the posts that are holding it up and there are no additional supports to the part of the deck that’s hanging over. So those posts will be moved to the corners of the deck to support the entire second story properly.

We will be eliminating a few of the posts holding up the deck as well. Right now we have 4 posts going across the main part of our deck. We will be eliminating 2 of the 4 posts so that the only remaining posts will be the ones on the corners of the upper deck and around the edges where the roof needs to be supported. In the photo below, you would only see the post on the far left of the picture (but it would be moved out to the corner of the deck instead of in the middle).

The floor joists supporting the deck will also be built closer together- they are currently 24 inches apart which is not considered “to code” for the 2 X 4’s they are supporting. We’re going to install modern industrial railings around the upper deck and stairs.

I love the simple black iron railings here from Jordan Iverson Signature Homes

I also love the mixed metal and wood in these railings from Atlantis Rail Systems.

As part of our re-build of the second story, we will be gutting this outhouse- yes we have an outhouse and yes, it is plumbed and officially counts as a 1/2 bath for our home.

It also moonlights as a nice nesting ground for the local squirrels, opossums and small rodents.  So we will be removing it and replacing this spot with a very nicely sealed and (hopefully) waterproof custom storage area that will extend all the way under the stairs.

We originally wanted to do a composite decking solution for our stairs and deck, but after researching and weighing the pros and cons, we ultimately decided that we would rather save the money by doing a wood deck and painting and sealing it. We also made the decision to commit to the yearly maintenance of re-sealing that’s required to keep a wood deck in good condition. We’re planning to use standard pine for the deck and paint it a medium grey color similar to this deck featured on Atlantis Rail Systems website.

But we plan to use cedar posts for all of the supports that we’re going to seal with a clear sealer so we can see the natural wood accents like in this photo from 2Modern.

We are also planning to re-structure and slightly extend the aluminum roof above our deck area. Right now we have 2 different roof lines: one over the second story and another that begins at the top of the railing for the second story and angles down to the end of our deck. You can see what I mean in the photo below:

We are planning to move the bottom roof to meet up with the upper roof-line and also extend it out to go the full length of the upper roof. We are also going to extend the roof across the side of the house a bit to cover the stairs and help keep them from being hit directly by all the elements- which, in Florida, really just includes sunshine and rain. You can see below how the stairs are uncovered right now.

We’re also going to screen in the upstairs balcony and add a door for access to the stairs and another door on the other side for easy roof access in place of the gate we have right now.

Once all of the building/painting/roofing/screening is finished, we will have our concrete guy install some simple polished concrete that will span the entire bottom level for the area that’s under the roof.

We like a medium grey but with natural variations and something with the natural shine of polished concrete (not high gloss). We like something similar to the floors in this updated farmhouse by Archizer.

Or the concrete in the photo below featured in this article by Homedit.

Finally, once we finish everything above, we will frame everything with some minimalist, low-maintenance landscaping and some grass for our dogs.

Phase 2 of the project will include outdoor kitchen plans, a bar, a mounted TV and furniture- but we’re just wrapping our minds (and our budget) around phase 1 for now.

Still left on our to-do list after we finish the demo:

  1. Finalize our drawings and get the architect to sign-off on the final building plans for our second story balcony and stairs.
  2. Pull the permits for the entire project – we will save money by doing this ourselves rather than having multiple contractors pull permits for their own pieces of the work.
  3. Finish collecting quotes for the rebuild of our second story deck, the pouring of our first floor concrete, the rebuild/restructure of our aluminum roof covering and screened in second story balcony.
  4. Bring in dirt to level out our backyard and fill in the holes
  5. Have our aluminum guy demo the current aluminum roof (We’re attempting to reuse anything we can from our current roof since it’s in good condition- so we’re letting the expert handle this part of the demo)
  6. Build the 2nd story balcony and stairs
  7. Rebuild the new aluminum roof
  8. Paint and seal the wood decking on the balcony and stairs
  9. Pick out, order and install some modern iron railings for the second story and stairs
  10. Screen in the second story balcony
  11. Pour and finish the concrete on the first floor
  12. Re-work the backyard landscaping and lay down some sod

We’ll be checking these off our list one by one and keeping you updated as we make our way through it. We hope you enjoy following us throughout this process. You can subscribe to receive email notifications of our updates on our home page.

Update: For more on the plans and status of our backyard renovation, check this post out.

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Upcoming Mini-Project- a DIY Window Bench and Shiplap Built-ins

“DIY Window Bench and Shiplap Built-ins” – it’s a mouthful I know! You probably think I’m crazy for calling this a “mini-project” but it just pales in comparison to our backyard renovation project that we are contracting out ourselves. The multi-faceted home project that is our backyard renovation comes with lots of DIY demoing, pulling permits and coordinating architects, builders, aluminum specialists, concrete crafters, tree-trimmers, electricians, painters and more (details on all the big plans we’ve got for our 2-story backyard renovation later).

For now, I’m day dreaming about this much smaller DIY project that I have finally wrapped my head around. Ever since I saw this post from Chris Loves Julia detailing these gorgeous shiplap covered built-ins, I’ve been trying to figure out how I could fit something like this into our home.


The most obvious spot for this would naturally be this wall in our family room that our TV sits in front of (not mounted on).

Unfortunately that wall is not a candidate for built-ins or a mounted TV (not yet anyway). We call it our mystery wall because we can’t figure out what all is behind it. No amount of studfinders on this planet could help us identify the studs- or lack thereof. We discovered from looking up old photos in JP’s realtor MLS system that there was once a fireplace behind that wall and during a few failed attempts to mount our TV on it, we learned that there is also some combination of metal, concrete or brick and electric wiring that may or may not be active. And frankly, I’m just not ready to open up that can of worms (or that wall) just yet.

So with no other real “tv walls” in our home, I just set that little dream aside until I stumbled across this amazing window seat last night from House Updated and the wheels started turning.


The plan is to build something similar to the shiplap covered built-ins with the natural wood shelves from CLJ (Chris Loves Julia) combined with the gorgeous window seat and storage drawers by House Updated.

Can you see it? If not, stick around and I’ll share the final product with you soon!

The furniture that’s currently in our playroom is going to eventually be refinished and sealed so it can be repurposed for outdoor seating once our backyard renovation is complete. So we will be in need of some extra seating in our playroom once the couch and chairs move to the back (covered) deck and im thinking a window seat will be the perfect place to start.

I already found this dreamy daybed cushion from Urban Outfitters – Link here.


And the good news is the dimensions for this cushion make it nearly perfect to fit just under the window in our playroom.

So the wheels are turning and plans are already in the works to build our window seat/built-in shelves around this- hopefully it’s as comfy as it looks.

Now to decide if we should go with a black or grey cushion. Which do you like better? Comment below!


Here’s the window we’re talking about:

And also I need to pick out some baskets/bins to fit in the bottom shelf/cubbies on either side of the bench to house lots and lots of toys for the girls. Once I decide (and order those) I’ll be designing, drawing, making my shopping list, and working on framing things out over the next couple of weeks. (Yes, I said weeks. Let’s be real, that’s the quickest I can get this stuff done with a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old and a full-time dayjob)

I’ll keep you all posted on my progress!

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5 Reasons we are NOT Using a General Contractor

When this process started, I thought that a “general contractor” was just the fancy term for a person who was licensed to build things with permits and stuff. That just goes to show how much we actually knew about construction! We originally planned to have someone do our entire backyard transformation for us, and of course we first went to some general contractors to get quotes. It didn’t take long for me to realize that a “general contractor” is actually someone who charges you to get quotes and juggle all the people that have to come together to build something. The “official” definition of a general contractor is,

“[Someone who] is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of a building project.”

Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not undermining the value of this position and I can only imagine how important it would be to have a general contractor for any major build. However, for a backyard deck demo and rebuild, it seems a bit excessive and after our first quote of $50,000, downright crazy.

Here’s why we chose not to use a general contractor on our backyard transformation.

1. Steep Price Tag – We are just literally not able to spend $50K on a backyard makeover. So we have already started cutting and shaving items off our “dream list” and one of the first things to go was the general contractor.

One thing that we will not be cutting from our “dream list” is how we plan to incorporate one of our backyard live oaks into the deck plans! 1. I can’t bear the thought of taking down the tree with all the little bird nests nestled up there. And 2. Live trees worked into the architectural design of outdoor spaces are seriously one of my top 5 favorite things. How can you not love this?


– And this beauty designed by Dana Pacific Landscape in California. Hats off to you Dana.


2. No Time Crunch – I can see the value in having a project manager overseeing the building, scheduling the workers and making sure that each piece of the puzzle fits in right where it belongs. I know the process would be quicker and more efficient if we had a general contractor running the show, but frankly we aren’t in a time crunch. We don’t have deadlines, we’re not rushing to get our backyard ready, and I would rather take my time and live in a construction zone for a little bit longer if it means saving big bucks on this transformation.

3. I Know a Guy – I get that one of the benefits of having a general contractor is being able to use their connections to get the best prices/quality work, but we already know a guy- we know a handyman who’s offered to help us with some of the big demo pieces for a steal of a price. We know the best concrete guy in the city shout out to No Boring Concrete in Lakeland, FL. We have a couple builder friends, and when all else fails, social media is the best avenue for getting some solid recommendations for local businesses. So even though it might take us a little longer to weed through the quotes/reviews/options, we’re already halfway there and willing to put in the work.

Check out some inspiration from our concrete guy’s previous projects!

Aren’t these concrete countertops dreamy? Check out the built in herb planters – makes me wish we had a wall of windows in our kitchen!


And just try not to drool over this modern wood accent on these concrete counter tops! No Boring Concrete did these for one of Lakeland’s new coffee shops (Concord Coffee).


4. I Know What I Want – The more I talk to contractors/architects/pool guys/handymen/painters etc. about my vision for our home, the more I realize that what I like and what I want is not the “norm” around here. I don’t know if it’s the modern, mid-century vibe that throws people or if they just don’t understand implementing something with clean straight lines and a minimalist approach, but I just can’t rely on a GC to be able to get quotes and carry out my vision on this whole project. I know what I want, but no one else seems to! And let’s be real, some things are bound to get lost in translation right? It will feel good to know that I can control who does what and I can take each person step by step to see my vision and make sure expectations are clear (plus possibly save money by doing some things ourselves!)

Speaking of DIY, we’re thinking about DIY-ing our own privacy fence once we get things cleared out. Check out this chalkboard privacy fence some friends of ours found at The Bearded Pig in Jacksonville, FL! I love the clean, modern style plus the bonus of a lifetime of family chalk drawings. It could also double as a handy scoreboard for outdoor games, seasonal murals, birthday decorations, practicing ABC’s… the possibilities are endless!


5. We Learn More – We are admittedly not experienced in construction work, building things, cutting things or any other number of home projects. I’ve learned a few things from watching my dad over the years and JP knows even less than I do. So we’re really learning as we go. Not having a GC will require us to be involved in every aspect of our backyard transformation, and we are bound to learn a few things. We will be more hands-on and by default able to take some notes and get some good tips for more DIY projects in the future – which will all be thoroughly documented right here of course!

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A DIY Backyard Demo to Kick off our Backyard Makeover

Today we started demo on our backyard deck. It was a total sporadic, impulsive decision that is completely characteristic of my husband. He went to the gym to get in a quick workout while the girls were napping and came back with a circular saw that he had borrowed and picked up from my parents’ house. He proceeded to walk right outside and start sawing our deck and pulling up boards. (In case you missed the memo, we have big plans for our backyard space- but we’ll share more about that later)

Here’s a little more on the story behind this impulsive (yet wonderfully frugal and DIY-ish) decision to demo our own deck:

When we moved into this giant and beautiful fixer-upper that we call our home, 90% of our large backyard was full of decking that had probably once looked amazing. However when we moved in, the wood boards were rickety and on their last leg. They were borderline unsafe to walk on and certainly not “family friendly” for a family with a soon-to-be toddler. Imbedded in our deck was a run-down above-ground pool that was serving as a breeding ground for frogs and mosquitos and any number of other green slimey organisms. We decided that needed to go as soon as possible. We hired a handyman to rip out the pool piece by piece and the rim of deck immediately surrounding the pool which left us with a couple steep drop-offs on the side of our deck and a large hole full of dirt on one side of our yard. We have been living like this for a little over a year and half. So we have had plenty of time to dream up what our backyard will one day be.

After tackling the non-cosmetic “required” fixes in our home and several months of planning and saving (and a forth-coming tax return), we are finally ready to redo our backyard. So first things first, we need to demo what we’ve got before we can build new stuff. Our first quote to demo our backyard woodpile was $14,000. -yes, JUST the demo! If your mouth dropped when you read that, then you share my sentiments exactly. When we were shopping around for quotes, we didn’t know what to expect or what standard prices for this kind of stuff would be, but we definitely never dreamed the demo alone would cost $14,000. This demo includes TONS of decking, a second story balcony, outdoor stairs, an outhouse [yes, someone built and outhouse in our backyard] and a large wooden building that was at one time used as a dog pen and/or fish cleaning station, but it is all JUST just wood.

So we set out for some cheaper options…

We reached out to some handymen to get demo quotes and we found a guy who quoted us just $3,000 for the demo if we could provide a dumpster. All-in we were looking at $3,500 to completely remove everything made of wood (barring the live oaks) and that was something we could stomach.

We began to move forward on quotes for the build of the 2nd store deck, the polished concrete that’s going to make up the ground floor, modern steel railing for the stairs and top deck and dirt/sod companies to fill in the rest of the yard. All the while we have been saving.

Fast-forward to this afternoon. My husband shows up with a saw and says, “babe just think what we could do with $3,500!”

Okay! You got me. Have at that deck with your saw that you’ve never used before. Just don’t lose any fingers okay?

Here’s JP making the first cut. He’s standing in the hole that used to be home to the above ground pool and surrounding deck that I mentioned earlier. Now you can visualize the “unsafe” edges I was talking about right?


Look at him go. There’s nothing sexier than a man with initiative and determination am I right? He spent about 20 minutes outside and this was the result:


Pretty good right?

There’s still a lot of work to be done, but we’ve never been so determined. Now that we have seen just how easy it is to pull this stuff up and add to that the promise of saving at least $3,000, this decision seems like a no brainer.

Feeling good about the plans ahead. More on our Backyard plans and the inspiration behind it coming soon!

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The Phillips Flips- 3 houses in 2 years

Yes. We DID buy 3 houses in 2 years. We started small, tried our hand at renovating, got familiar with the real estate market and ended up in our 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 3,500+ sqft (fixer upper) dream home. It needs work, but we see lots of potential.

Here’s how we did it!

We closed on our first home (the Pinellas House) in March 2013.

The Pinellas House- BEFORE

Pinellas Stats:
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 2
House size: 1,600 sqft
Lot Size: 1/4 acre

We shopped for about 6 months before we landed on this beauty. To be clear- we were looking for a fixer-upper. This was still our first home though and we weren’t ready to delve into major plumbing/electrical/construction. So we set out to find a nice house with good bones that was preferably outdated and therefore on the market for a “steal” of a price. One thing we could have done better with our first home was pay more attention to the location. We weren’t in a terrible neighborhood, but we were located right in front of a 3-way-stop intersection which we learned quickly meant having headlights shine through our front windows at all hours of the night. We were also within 1/3 of a mile of several commercial businesses- which isn’t really the greatest for up-sale later. Also, Walmart is great to have nearby, but if you live TOO close to one, there is a good possibility of having shopping carts left in your front yard- not great for curb-appeal. All in, we spent about $10K in renovations and 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 the time that we owned 2 houses at once and we made a total of $11,700 in rental income. So all-in-all we made $16,700 on our first flip.

The Pinellas House- AFTER

It didn’t take long to learn that although we were in a good school district and not far from other really nice neighborhoods, the exact location of the Pinellas house wasn’t really a great location. We knew this wouldn’t be our forever home. We knew we wanted to be closer to the historic district and in a bigger house- big enough to house ALL of the kids we wanted (about 5 kids give or take). So we kept our eyes peeled. Even as we fixed up the Pinellas house, we were constantly checking out other for-sale signs and browsing the online listings.

Then we found Kensington.

Kensington Stats:
Bedrooms: 2
Bathrooms: 1
House size: 1,300 sqft
Lot Size: 1/3 acre

Kensington was a smaller house on a bigger lot, in the perfect location- a dreamy oak-tree lined, brick-paved street less than a mile away from some of the best (and most expensive) historic houses in the city. We got Kensington for a crazy deal and acted fast. It actually didn’t need much work. We spent about $80 renting a sander to sand down and re-finish the original hardwood floors ourselves and didn’t change anything else in the whole house (not even paint colors). We sold this puppy 9 months later for $19K more than we bought it for- making ourselves a profit of $18,920.

Our original plan was to either add on to Kensington or demo it and build from scratch our dream-house. When we lived here, we spent most of our evenings on Pinterest, pinning all of our ideas and drawing floor plans that we hoped to bring to life one day.

Then we stumbled across the Sagamore House.

Sagamore Stats:
Bedrooms: 5
Bathrooms: 4.5
House size: 3,500 sqft
Lot Size: 1/2 acre

When I say we stumbled across this house, I do mean that literally. We were out walking our dogs one night and just one street over from us, we saw this house with signs all over the window. JP (who had gotten his real estate license) looked up the code to the lock-box and we went in right then and there to check it out. It was enormous inside. It was a bank owned foreclosure and it was listed just $10K more than what we had sold our first house for, but it was more than double the size and in a better location. The house needed LOTS of work, including but not limited to: new windows, new A/C unit, updated electrical, completely redone plumbing, paint, fixtures, doors, a demo of the existing run-down moldy above-ground pool, removal of a giant rotten wood deck in the back- and the list went on. So of course, we decided we had to have it. We put a bid in the running $10K above list price and won our dream-home auction style. One year after we purchased this house, we got a new appraisal done. In one year we had spent about $30,000 in renovations and our home appraised for $115K more than what we bought it for. And that folks, is why we love flipping! Buy the fixer-uppers, fix the fixer-uppers and one day you’ll be able to fix-up the dream house you could never have afforded otherwise. Read on to hear more about all the fun projects we’re doing on Sagamore these days.

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Hello world!

Hello- from my first ever blog post on Phillips Flips. I’m excited to join the blogging world! This blog will document our family’s DIY projects, home renovations, improvements, house flips and give our readers an insight into how we afforded our dream home before the age of 25 by buying fixer-uppers and DIY-ing our way through buying and selling 3 houses in less than 3 years! It’s been a journey, but a fun one and we are SO happy to be working on the improvements and updates to our dream (hopefully) forever-home! Happy reading!