Here is a little project that my husband and I have been working on for the past month:
It is a flip! We bought a little investment house and have been fixing it up to sell. This has not only been a good design exercise, but a good one for our
marriage too :). My husband's background is in construction management, and mine is obviously design, so we have been working together to come up with the most cost effective, aesthetically pleasing solutions for this home.
This house was not in horrible shape, but in need of a total face lift. Here is a list of what we are doing:1. Gut entire kitchen and tear out a wall
2. Re-do most of bathroom
3. Tear out carpet
4. Add/re-finish hardwood floors
5. Replace some windows (most have been replaced)
6. New roof
7. New tile and water heater in laundry room
8. Add canned lights
9. Update
electrical10. Update all lighting
11. Replace all doors
12. Replace garage door
13. Replace posts outside
14. Fix siding and paint exterior
15. Repair cracked driveway
While this seems like a huge list, it is really not that bad once you get into it.
Here are some before and in progress photos:
We replaced the iron poles with some nice cedar ones along the garage which houses an overhang in the backyard.This is an easy and inexpensive way to add a little warmth and character to the home.
This is the wall in the bathroom. As you will see later, the white 4x4 tile was in good shape, so to save ourselves from replacing all of it, we are adding some decorative glass tile and replacing a few white tiles that were damaged.
We took out the existing sink, vanity, mirror, lighting, commode, shower doors, grab bars, and smelly linoleum floor. We will be replacing all of the above and adding some decorative tiles.
Here is the exterior of the house. As you can see, the windows have been replaced, however, the what should be picture window on the right is kind of interesting. We will be replacing that with a new picture window and adding new trim around all windows and doors. 
Here is the old kitchen halfway ripped out. It was very small and outdated, so we have torn out the wall to the right in order to create a peninsula with a breakfast bar that leads into the living/dining room. We had to put up a header to support the roof, but it makes a huge difference! The kitchen is getting all new cabinets, appliances, counter tops, lighting and hardwood floors, the works!!!
The other side of the kitchen looking into the laundry room. The hardwoods from the living room will be continued into the kitchen.
The bathroom before we tore it out.
The wall is down! This is the view from the living/dining room into the new kitchen!
Here is the opposite view from the kitchen into the living/dining. This beautiful hardwood was under some nasty carpet. We are so glad that we could save it! People often think that refinishing is too expensive, but if you find the right company, you can save yourself money and save the environment by refinishing floors rather than replacing them.There are always surprises when you start ripping into stuff taking things out. If you are going to be doing a big project like this one, be sure to build in a percentage of your budget for these unexpected costs.
A note on budgets. In order to sell this house quickly, we are upgrading slightly above what the price point and neighborhood calls for. For example, this neighborhood does not call for crown molding and stainless steel appliances. While this is an added expense, we hope that the little bit of extra money we spend now will help us sell the home quickly and for close to our asking price.
We hope to be done in the next two weeks, so we will keep you updated on our progress.
These Packin' SMART containers from innobaby help to keep new moms organized when planning out snacks and meals for the little ones.
They are also hepful when someone else is watching the baby/toddler so there is no confusion about what foods your child can have or how much they can eat since you prepared the snack.
The stack and snap system eliminates the hassle of multiple containers rolling around in your bag by keeping everything all together in one place.
Since most of us cannot afford the real Saarinen table but still have hopes for high design this 
Simple, straightforward packaging seems so obvious but there are some that do it better than others. Case in point 
They took the most basic design and made it desirable. For soap! They have some amazing scents and they even offer an organic line (top image)
Or, I will just find another company that makes the scent I like and re-fill the bottle.
