The House Turned Home

In 2019 we took a huge risk to invest in our SOCAL home and boy am I glad we did!

Right now the housing market is finally starting to cool off, with prices coming down. While prices peaked, it is still hard for most Americans to afford a home - mortgage rates remain high, increasing costs across the board. Had we not jumped in head first, we wouldn’t be able to afford our own home, let alone our neighborhood that we love.

Since 2019, our lives have changed significantly. My mother in law moved in with us and we welcomed our baby boy in September. Instead of moving into a larger home, we decided to update and invest in our current home.

We started with the back yard since we spend so much of our time outside. It’s hard not to when you live in Southern California with gorgeous weather most of the year. We put in a pool and spa, raised patio, turf and tiki bar. We furnished two outdoor living spaces and gained a lot of sweat equity by doing our own landscaping. I have full blog post forthcoming documenting our experience.

I’m really proud of some of the other small project updates we have done. Our lounge and dining room are now accentuated by a beautiful mantel and new chandelier. We are lucky to have friends with so much talent - the mantel was handmade by our friend Jesse Stewart, who loves to create art with wood. The chandelier can be found in our shop here.

As you’ve seen on the blog, we turned our guest room into our son’s nursery. To see the full update check out the blog post, Rockabye.

We also updated our kitchen backsplash with some easy fixes to really make it pop. White staining the grout and replacing the range top microwave with a modern and sleek hood, really gave the kitchen a new look. We plan to update the appliances and reface the cabinets and hardware to freshen up the whole space. The eat-in kitchen will also get a facelift. A built in pantry, microwave, coffee station and waste collection area will be added, as well as a comfortable and fashionable bench seat and table, creating form and function of the eat-in kitchen. We plan to use the Hulala Home Loveseat and Vonluce Tulip Kitchen Table to comfortably furnish the space, using easy to clean faux leather material. I’m really excited to start this project!

We have real dreams for this house turned home. In the future we want to work on a few more small projects, but the goal is for a second floor addition. Stay tuned for all of the progress, how-to’s and inspiration for your home projects.