It happened!! I fell in love with something that I had previously BEGGED the builder to change during the building process. Nope, its not the dark kitchen cabinets…. or the stair railing… It’s the wall paint color!!!! During the building process I was so disappointed when they wouldn’t let me pick the paint color. I almost cried at some points because they were going to spray every wall surface in the home before installing flooring and I just wanted them to do a color of my choice. They had a very small selection of Sherwin Williams paint colors you could choose from and none were what I wanted… So i thought. 😉 They painted the walls Alabaster and we had every intention of painting each room bright white Chantilly Lace by BM, the same color we had in our previous home, after moving in. But as the days went on in the new house…. I FELL IN LOVE! There was just one issue… BEFORE! I realized that I loved the warmth that Alabaster brought to our home. The only thing I didn’t love was the contrast between the warmth of Alabaster and the stark white (extra white) of the trim. Pictured above is the before… Alabaster walls, extra white trim and stained quarter round. I sent Brett to Sherwin Williams to grab a quart of Alabaster in gloss! I started taping off the floor and painting the baseboards the same color as the walls. It was like MAGIC!!! I am so happy I could cry! It erased the weird contrast that sometimes made Alabaster look yellow and now the walls and trim just looked like a beautiful creamy white! I plan to slowly work my way around the house painting the baseboards and quarter round. It is making such a huge impact that I think it will keep me motivated to keep going. This does mean that we will have to paint all of our interior doors since they are also Extra White. I think I may do them a warm griege color – but stay tuned for that 😉 AFTER! The builders chose to install wood stained quarter round in our home and we knew we eventually wanted to paint it white so I will be killing two birds with one stone. It is going to take some time, but it will be WAY more affordable than having our entire interior painted. I am so happy because I truly love the color even more than the stark white walls I thought I wanted!

Finally a new segment of Dupe It Yourself! I started this fun series over a year ago where I would find items that I love, but happened to be out of my budget, and recreate them for less. About a week ago at one of my normal Homegoods runs, I came across a beautiful dusty blue sofa. It was on clearance!!!! I knew I wanted it, the only issue was the legs were just not my style. They were shiny, chrome and modern. I knew the couch was a quality piece and I was determined to make it into my dream couch! BEFORE A few years ago I actually changed the couch legs on our sofas that we purchased when we first got married. We still have that couch in our front living room (seen below)! You can buy legs from home depot or amazon for less than $10 a piece and completely makeover your couch to feel more custom and beautiful! Below is a photo of my inspiration. I love EVERYTHING from Lulu & Georgia! They have a bunch of different wooden based sofas. The sofas below retail for around $3,000! I just KNEW we could make my clearance Homegoods find into a beautiful sofa like this one! We started by removing the chrome couch legs and adding in corner leg braces. Most sofas you purchase will already have these in place and you will simply unscrew the existing legs and replace with your new ones! I will link the 6″ unfinished, tapered legs that we purchased on Amazon below. Make sure that your twist your legs in so that they are really tight and snug! The couch already looked so much better! But I really wanted to full Lulu & Georgia look! We decided to use poplar wood for the next part. We ripped them into 1×2’s on the table saw and then held them up in place. We simply traced the angle of the tapered legs onto the 1×2 so we would know where to cut. We used a miter saw for this small angled cut. Once we had our 4 long pieces of wood, we added a little bit of wood glue to them and slid them into place. Since there is no weight going on these pieces we decided that wood glue would be plenty strong! Let it dry and you are done!! You can stain or finish your wooden sofa base to your liking. I chose to leave mine natural for a coastal feel. After!! Shop Below!

Five up-and-coming trends that I can’t wait to incorporate into our new home. Make sure to follow along on the blog and Instagram as we makeover our home on the lake!! (@thebloomingnest) Wallpaper on the Ceiling! Wallpaper photo source Joanna Gaines Bold Kitchen Cabinets! Kitchen photo source Caitlin Flemming Colorful Curtains! Curtains are from Anthropologie! Patterned Tile! Image source Joanna Gaines! Arches! Photo source Studio Mcgee!

We are getting SO close to move in day! They haven’t actually given us a specific close date yet but the house should be finished by the end of this week. I can’t believe it!! I wanted to give you a few updates and save some house details here! If you missed it, we signed on this house a little late in the game so we weren’t able to pick out all of the finishes. To me, that just means more creativity in the design process and I am so excited! The house has dark kitchen cabinets, which are beautiful by the way, but aren’t necessarily very “blooming nest.” We will be having them painted along with so many other fun plans I have to make the kitchen unique and more my style. We were able to pick the flooring for the entire house! We went with a 9″ wide plank vinyl flooring in the main areas of the downstairs. I will link it here  (ours are the color Riverside Oak). We chose a beautiful carpet with a plush carpet pad for all the bedrooms and the upstairs areas. I haven’t found a link to it yet but it is made by Shaw Floors. In our bathrooms and laundry room we did a beautiful large white tile with small gray veining. We begged and begged for them to paint the house in Chantilly Lace by Ben Moore for us (my favorite color), but it was a hard NO. So the walls are the builders’ version of Alabaster by Sherwin and the trim throughout the house is extra white by sherwin. The banisters are another project I am so excited to tackle! We don’t love how the builder mixed super modern with super traditional. I am not sure how we will transform them yet but I do know that it will be a HUGE change! There are so many stair railings in our home because of the open concept that I definitely want them to be sleek and understated. My brain is absolutely EXPLODING with ideas for this house. If only we could move in and make it all happen at once! But our budget doesn’t work that way so it will be a slow process! Designing each room keeps me up at night and also brings me so much joy! I can’t wait to show you all of my ideas!!! Kitchen makeover, built in bench seating, fireplace, dining table, sliding door, playroom storage and MORE!!! Thanks for being on this journey with us and for your constant love and support!

I know, its old news now. But I am just getting around to adding all the details of our move down the street to the blog! If you haven’t heard yet, we are closing soon on a house just down the street, that is ON THE LAKE. I am so excited I could cry. We can’t wait for new projects and to make it ours. The biggest perk, besides being on the lake, is that we will be right next door to my parents! There is a small trail through the trees between us. Talk about a HUGE blessing!!! So how did we get here?? We started looking at houses last Summer just for fun. We even put in an offer on a fixer upper, which thankfully fell through. Meanwhile, I would be sitting on my parents’ back porch watching this beautiful home just across the trees being built. We finally decided to walk through it and I almost cried when I walked up the stairs. I had this immediate gut feeling that it was OURS. Fast forward a few months and now we are about to move in!!! We happened to have potential buyers reach out during this time that said they wanted to buy our current home if we were still planning on selling! It was so important to me to have buyers that really wanted and appreciated what hard work and love we had put into it. Let’s talk about the new house!! We signed the contract on it a little late in the game so we weren’t able to choose all of the finishes. It has been a little frustrating to watch them install things we don’t love, but ultimately I am just excited to move in and make it ours either way! We were able to change the flooring to something we LOVE and a couple of other things. The house sits right on Lake Houston, with a fenced in backyard and has bald eagles that fly over everyday. (Have I mentioned how excited I am to become a bird watcher in this house!? ha!) That’s my Dad’s dock!! Writing another post all about our plans for the house and details of things that are going in! You can read that HERE. Make sure to follow along on Instagram for more behind the scenes of the move and projects @thebloomingnest!

Start With a Blank Powerpoint Slide Find the Product You Want Head to your website of choice, find your product, and choose an image that is most like a stock photo with a white or contrasting background if possible. Right-click, and choose ‘Copy Image.’ If this option doesn’t appear, you can screenshot the image. On a Mac, hold ‘shift+command+4’ and drag the box around the image. It will automatically save to your desktop folder. On a PC, use the snippet tool and copy from there. Paste Your Image Right click on your blank slide, and choose paste. If you had to screenshot your image on a Mac, click the ‘Insert’ tab at the top left, and choose ‘Picture’ and then ‘Picture from file.’ You will be able to quickly find the screenshot in your desktop folder. Remove Background Double click your image and a remove background button should appear at the far left under the ‘Picture Format’ tab at the top. Fine Tune Your Image Once you click on the ‘Remove Background’ button, pink areas will appear around your product. First, you will want to make sure to expand the box that appears so that your entire product is inside of it. Then click on background areas in the photo that you want to add or remove by using the + and – buttons. You can either click or draw lines as shown above. When you’re finished, click “keep changes.” (Sometimes there will be images that will not work and in that case I still move the image into place and leave the white background or crop as much around it as I can). Resize Your Image Resize your image and move it into place! Continue Adding Products When adding images, first remove the background and then you may have to send some backward or bring some forward in order to layer them properly. Keep Decorating!! I like to keep adding items! Add in windows where there are windows in your room. Draw shiplap with lines. You can try a bunch of different pillow options to see which you like best! It is so fun once you get the hang of it! Happy Decorating! Tag me in stories and share your designs!

I am OBSESSED with our frame tv!! I can change the art by the click of a button and it means having a tv above your fireplace is beautiful rather than an eye sore. Totally worth the splurge if you ask me! You can find a tutorial on how to add your own art to your Samsung Frame TV in the story highlights on my Instagram @thebloomingnest.

Click any item below to shop! You can find a full tutorial in my story highlights @thebloomingnest on Instagram!

Three things I love having in my kitchen to help keep me organized! Utensil Drawer Dividers I love how these dividers expand to fit perfectly in your utensil drawer! Lazy Susan in Fridge for Condiments Just spin to find what you need! Adjustable Snack Organizer I love how these are adjustable so you can fit whatever snacks you like best! Comes in 3 sizes too! Shop Here!