Maddie Jane's Room

Maddie Jane's room was the easiest in the house thank goodness! Her room came with the wainscoting, paint and chandelier. I just snagged these blackout curtains on sale at Pottery Barn, got a new comforter from Target and re-used the pillows from her nursery. 

She had a twin bed in our old house and I moved that to the playroom and re-purposed our old guest room bed/tables/lamps for her room. She actually does much better in this queen bed than a twin. She tosses and turns so much, she was constantly falling out, even with the railings. She is doing GREAT in this big girl bed, and we have the Amazon camera to check on her during the night. 

Essentials to get Maddie Jane to sleep and stay in her room: noise maker cranked up, octopus nightlight, and a child lock on her door. Yes, we lock her in her room. And she stays in there from 8pm to 7am and we all get glorious, glorious sleep. 

Her rooms has several weird angles and is on the smaller side, so we decided to forgo a dresser and utilize all this awesome closet space. (And it curbs the temptation for middle-of-the-night outfit changes that MJ loooooves to do, ha!) We are using these cheap drawers and cubes for now.. maybe one day we will do a dresser, but this has been great for us at this stage in life.

The only work I did on her room was updating the bathroom. I removed the large glued on mirror and ugly stock lighting from the 90s. Re-purposed a mirror from the powder bathroom downstairs and gave it a coat of white paint. Added fun knobs to the drawers and cabinets. AND tackled my first ever wallpaper project. It wasn't easy AT ALL.. and it's far from perfect.. but I'm happy with how it turned out! 

(I don't have a pic of the before, but here is the nursery bathroom that is pretty much the same.) 

With all the angles, I just did 2.5 of the walls. I'm happy with it! I think doing the other wall would have felt a little claustrophobic.. 

Woo! Another room on the blog! Maybe I'll show my office next :) 

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Bathroom Remodel

Finally getting some more house pics up! When we bought our house in North Carolina, we knew we had some updates to do before we could move in. Nothing structural, all just cosmetic to get the house out of the 90s :) You can see our kitchen remodel back HERE. 

Before I dive into what our master bathroom looks like now, let's take a second to appreciate the before. Typical 90s/early 2000s builder grade style. While I do love to soak in the tub, this thing was just too bulky and taking up sooo much space. And the dark colors didn't help by making the space feel even more claustrophobic. 

So here's a list of what we did: 

Ripped out the old tub and replaced it with a modern standalone 

Removed the dated light fixtures

Removed the dark back splash and updated the paint color to Repose Grey

Painted the vanities a nice white (can't remember the color!) and replaced the hardware

Changed out the floor to a dark tile

Replaced the mirrors with modern, circular wood mirrors

Replaced the decorative insert tile in the shower

**By keeping a lot of the existing components, and doing mostly aesthetic work, this project wasn't a budget breaker! I think AJ was pretty shocked at how low I kept this one :) 

Because this shower was practically brand new and REALLY nice quality, I couldn't bring myself to rip it out even though it wasn't my style. The only change I made was replacing the accent tile with a more neutral pallet. I don't love the cream wall tile or the browns on the floor tile, but I used the wood mirrors, bathtub tray, and laundry basket to bring it all together. 

  

Again these vanities aren't my first choice, but they were in perfect condition.. So we slapped a coat of paint on them and will live with them (and the counter tops) for several more years.

Dark bathroom floors were at the tip top of my list and I was so glad I could make it work in here. We had gorgeous white marble floors in our old house, but oh my gosh they were impossible to keep clean. These don't show a thing, and I love how they tie the bathroom together. 

T-minus 20 weeks until that glass has wine not water :) But seriously, this tub is amazing. Maddie and I both use it all.the.time. And tip - the ones at Loews/HD are absolutely insane. I snagged this one off Wayfair and I could not be happier! 

And that's it! It feels so incredibly spacious; AJ and I are never running over each other getting ready. And the light colors and modern design just make the start to our mornings a little bit better :)

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NC House - Kitchen!

Our new house in North Carolina is coming along slowly, but surely. The one room that is pretty much done.. our kitchen! Didn't have to do much decorating here, just got to pick out allllll the stuff for the contractor to do, which was FUN! Let's take a moment to appreciate the before.. 

The cabinets, the back splash, the awful use of space.. I was so pumped to make this kitchen mine! What you can't see from these pictures is a half wall between the kitchen and living room that we also tore down.. 

What we did to make this kitchen one of our dreams:

-Additional recessed lighting

-Took out light and added industrial hood + gas stove top

-Added several feet to the island

-Changed the counter tops to white marble

-Painted the cabinets white & added new hardware

-Redid the back splash to a subway tile that sometimes looks white, sometimes blue, and sometimes green, ha! 

-Changed out the light over the breakfast area

-Added in an extra ice maker into the island (my fav part! ice-o-holic)

-Stained the hardwood floors

-Enclosed the space between the cabinets and ceiling

-Changed out the sink and fridge

-Added corbels to the island

-Enclosed the cabinets around the fridge

-Painted the walls (like every other wall in the house) Agreeable Grey. 

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We're moving... again.

Back last December when we finally purchased our very first home, we thought we would be in it for at LEAST five years. We completely re-did the backyard, put in hardwoods, installed a playground for MJ, plantation shutters, the works! And well life happened... 

AJ was contacted on LinkedIn about a job in Charlotte, NC and we both literally laughed out loud. There was NO way we were going to move to North Carolina when we had finally made it back to our beloved Atlanta. So AJ threw out an astronomical number and said he would move for that and they said.. okay, done. We were blown away and then this ridiculous idea became more of a real possibility. 

He interviewed with them, but everyday leading up to that, it still wasn't real to us. But then he fell in love the company, the technologies, the team, and the insane opportunity that this would afford him professionally and us financially as a family. 

I had originally thought I would just stay in Atlanta and AJ would commute back and forth to Charlotte each week. (It's only a 3.5 hr drive.) But then reality set in and raising an almost three year old, a dog, working full time, and running a household seemed like a very daunting life. So we spent the last two weekends in the Charlotte area looking around at different neighborhoods, and I'm finally on board! 

We have a big FOR SALE sign in our yard in Atlanta and we are closing on this gorgeous house at the end of the month. It's in a smaller town outside of Charlotte, called Huntersville. (Where AJ's office is located.)  This area is so incredibly affordable - we are getting DOUBLE the square footage for the exact same price as our ATL house. We have some renovations to do, and I am excited to put my touch on it. 

My company is also incredibly generous enough to allow me to work remotely part time. I feel so incredibly blessed that AJ's job is going to let me scale back on working and spend more time with my girl. We are going to enroll MJ in a small half day preschool and she will get to pal around with me in the afternoons! 

If you would have told me this two months ago, I wouldn't have believed you for a second. Never say never, huh? Life is crazy and I am so lucky to have some amazing friends and family rooting me on from the sidelines to keep rolling with what life throws. 

Here's to the Pryors moving to the Queen City!

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New Home Tour

Hey Y'all!! Well we are about one week shy of living in our new house for THREE months! No clue where the time has gone, but we have been so busy getting settled. We purchased a flipped home (meaning the previous owners purchased it, flipped it, and immediately sold it.. so no one had lived in it post flip). The finishes were brand new and pretty much exactly what I would have done myself, so we didn't have to do any major things inside. Of course we have some long terms plans that we want to do later down the road.. but some pretty costly things outside had to be taken care of first (looking at you 150 ft tall pine trees...) SO without further ado... 

Molly Polly tried to photo bomb as many pictures as possible. She is right up under me when I'm home.. love that girl. 

This is our front entry way that we don't use very often.. just UPS and guests, ha! (On the hunt for the perfect rug to go here..)

Our more formal living room.. and I use the word formal very lightly. We use it daily.. 

Addition of the plantation shutters is the biggest thing we have done inside thus far.

Formal living is connected to the open kitchen. Open concept was at the tip top of our wish list for a new house. We loooove entertaining. 

Formal living is also connected to the dining. We don't use this much unless we have company over (we eat at the bar).. Would like a big run to go in here as well.. 

Our house is a split level built in the 70s.. so a couple stairs takes you up or down in either direction. 

Maddie Jane's bathroom.. 

Master bedroom.. much smaller than we had before. So thankful our furniture fit! 

Love the double doors.. that lead into our teeny tiny master bath.

Maddie Jane's big girl room! 

Then back down the stairs... 

Guest bedroom.. 

Guest bathroom.. 

Maddie Jane's playroom. SO nice having this downstairs out of sigh. 

And our super cozy, informal living room. We spend the majority of our weekends down here. 

There is a concrete slab out this door going into (the now fenced!!) backyard. We are unsure if we want to expand on this.. or build a deck off the kitchen. Either way, not happening this year, ha! 

And then this is back upstairs going out into the garage. 

Thanks for stopping by! We are pretty stinkin proud of this house and are SOOO happy to be back home in Georgia, and now even closer to our family and friends. 

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