I'll start with our first project. The kids' bathroom. They are still all sharing a bathroom, but they now have a separate little room for the toilet and shower. It's great that they can still brush teeth while someone is showering. I wanted a big, bright, colorful piece of art, and after looking unfruitfully for a while, we decided to make our own. The kids each have a color Towel assigned to them so that there is no more washing towels that are on the floor because we don't know who used them. If the red towel is on the floor, we know it's the little one who needs to pick it up and hang it on a hook. 

The hooks are a pinterest idea that was a must. Towel bars are too difficult for little hands and where would we put five of them on this one wall? The hooks work GREAT! I also looked for five-hook towel rack, but ended up using one with six that was unfinished. For $8 and a slap of paint, we got the perfect place to hang their towels. There's even a hook for the kids' overnight guests.

On to the school room. I am SO THANKFUL for this room! I wanted to make the space a little more sophisticated than the average home school room--more of a library/school room. The wall that you can't see is just a line of mismatched Shelves right now, but I want to put built-ins across that wall to give us more hidden storage (cabinets on the bottom) and lots more book case space (shelves on the top.) 

I was very excited to paint one of the walls with chalkboard paint and have a huge space to work math problems, diagram sentences and write our memory verses.

(still using our Jokkmokk table and chairs and loving them!)

I didn't really give much thought to the view while washing dishes when we first looked at this house, but I am very thankful it faces a window! 

We decided to have one eating room in the house in the eat-in kitchen. It's a huge space, works great with our table now, and will work well when we get our big farm house table later (another project!).

Fireplace area

I found the idea to put your tv on a long low shelf on pinterest. After fretting over the impossibility of affording any of those beautiful long, low shelves, I realized that by putting two Ikea Expedit shelves on their sides, we could have the same effect for nothing (since we already owned two!). I like the idea of decorating around the tv. I put all of my Chinese decor in the family room and love the way it's looking. We still have a long way to go--I promise a final reveal at some point!

I LOVE my new sitting area in the master bedroom! We found these chairs and this rug at a local salvage place. Total cost for two chairs and the rug = $200 (Ikea curtains leftover from our dining room in our old house are standing in until we can paint and choose drapes, and an Ikea blanket is draped over the chair.)

Before and after (loosely)

 This is the opposite corner, but you get the idea. It's an awesome play room with all those built-in shelves and desks.

And look at the GREAT job my mom did recovering the FREE chair. The cushion was recovered with the boys' old black out curtain and mom bought a drop cloth ($10 or 15, I can't remember) to cover the peeling fake leather of the rest of the chair. Hooray! It didn't have to look great because it's just a place for kids to sit and read in the play room, but I think it turned out amazing!

These are very necessary and the sign is the only money we spent on the play room.

My pantry. (Can you hear my heart sing?) My mom painted this space for us before we moved in and I am loving it. We sold our larger deep freeze so that we can buy one to fit in this space. It's one of those things that we keep putting off.

There is so much more to share, but this makes a good start.