Kelly at View Along the Way

While I'm enjoying a little R&R at the beach, Kelly is here to entertain you with her wittiness and beautiful home. Kelly and I are fortunate enough to not live too far apart, so we get to be IRL bloggy friends! I'll let Kelly take it away! ________________________________________________________________

Hey guys! I'm pretty pumped to be crashing Lisa's blog today. She's super inspiring and oh-so-talented!

I'm Kelly and I blog at View Along the Way about our adventures and misadventures as my husband and I fix up our nasty old foreclosure.
We're going on year four of this massive undertaking, so I thought I'd share the top five projects we've completed that I enjoy the MOST day in and day out. Ready?

1. Our DIY Hardwood Floors

Sometimes when I'm just hanging out minding my own business, my floors will be like, "KELLY! Look over here!" and I have to actually stop what I'm doing and go caress them lovingly, while singing "You are so beautiful.... to MEEEE!" What can I say? When you know, you know. And it's a good thing I love 'em because it took us about six months to install, since we did it all by our little lonesome. You can see how we did it here. Oh and by the way, that's my little plate wall display which you can see more about here.

2. The upholstered platform bed we built. Speaking of massive undertakings... I found a beautiful upholstered bed by Jonathan Adler that cost over $2,000 - WAY out of my budget - but we decided to try to build one ourselves and that's how we ended up with this guy!
 
It was a big job, but so SO worth it. Every night I collapse into bed (exhausted - did you notice in that pic that I have a baby and a toddler?) and enjoy the fact that we slumber on furniture my husband and I built together. And our marriage survived to tell the tale! I posted the full diy platform upholstered bed tutorial here.

3. My blackout back-tab curtain panels I know it's going to sound like I'm obsessed with sleep (I am. I totally am.) but anything that allows me to catch an extra wink or two is a win in my book! That's why I enjoy our blackout-lined curtain panels SO much.
I am NOT a seamstress. Not by a LOOONG long long longshot. So I'm tellin' ya, if I can make these? You can whip them up in about five seconds. I posted instructions here that are geared for newbies like me. Because even if I wanted to use the proper sewing terms and sound professional about it, I couldn't.

4. The Nursery Our baby girl is only five months old, but I'm pretty sure she wakes up every morning and notes all the hard work I put into her nursery. (Right? That totally happens, don't you think?) This is what that room looked like when we bought the house:
And here it is today:
 

I put a little pinwheel wall above her changing table to entertain her while I change her dipes. She digs it.
The best part is that we did this whole room - furniture included - for under $500. You can see the whole rundown here, including the EASIEST do-it-yourself crib skirt, the pinwheel wall tutorial, the details on the art above the crib, the front-facing bookshelves we built, our DIY closet organization system, and even my best tips on how to score great furniture on craigslist (which is where we found most of the furniture in her room).
5. These two little crazies

Okay, total cop-out answer. But they are my most-enjoyed project. They each took about nine months to complete and it looks like we'll be enjoying them for a while. We have TONS more projects to do on our house, and I hope you'll follow along as we knock 'em out! You can subscribe to the blog here, or follow me on facebook or twitter. Thanks again for letting me stop by today, Lisa!