A few years ago, right before my marriage ended, we decided to spend the money and fully renovating our basement. Seismic stapling from the foundation to the wood, new drywall on the walls and ceiling, adding a full bathroom and quasi-bedroom, everything. I shared the details of that big renovation, including the final cost in this post.
But it’s taken me all the way until now to get the basement decorated in a beautiful way and functioning well. We now have two guestroom spaces, a TV room/workout area that we use multiple times a week, the land of Barbie houses, Christmas and future baby storage, tools and overflow paper towels, etc., plus, of course the laundry room and full bathroom. And just this week, we added an extra fun function to the TV room: a beverage fridge and wine storage!
The basement is about 1,100 SF and I played around with a lot of layouts before settling on this one years ago. I covered up the furnace with walls and a door, I made the basement feel like a hangout space rather than just utilities. And it turns out that space, plus the existing columns we wrapped in drywall, have carved out a very nice little nook for Lucy's Barbie world.
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Oh, how I love a simple room makeover--I swear all this room needed was Roman shades and curtains, and a rug!
My friends just replaced their carpet with hardwoods to match their hallway, and now all their rooms have so much more potential. This room went from forgotten brown office to fun playroom right off the main parts of their home!
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This was basically the last space in this house to get renovated! I've touched every room, the yard, the exterior, even the roof... all that was left was this garage and maybe some closets, ha! It wasn't a priority, just an eyesore that made me feel a little yucky, until we decided to get married in our backyard. I knew all our family and friends would see it if they walked through, plus I wanted a nice clean space for the catering folks. So we got motivated and decided to redo it!
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Leading up to the wedding, when anyone asked me what I was most excited for, I said the flowers! I knew they would be fabulous because I had done a consultation call with a floral design designer from Flower Moxie, and she completely understood my vision and helped me figure out which flowers I needed and how many. I was a little nervous about the DIY process, but I knew I would have my future mother-in-law helping, plus all the guides that Flower Moxie gave us.
Non-iPhone photos by Marissa Casillas Photography.
It is surreal and so happy to be sharing about my third pregnancy at 38, six and eight years later after my first two and after divorce and losses of other kinds. I’ve always wanted three kids, but a couple years ago I was pretty sure it was never going to happen, and I accepted how lucky I am to have two wonderful kids already. But then I met Micah, and we both wanted the same things… Get married, have another baby, accept all the changes that come with such a big lifestyle shift at this point in life.
But all that to say, I knew going into it that pregnancy is not a walk in the park, but also, things change as you get older. This pregnancy has a few differences from the last two, and I seriously enjoyed reading back to those posts when I was seven weeks in and feeling awful… So here’s this post for documenting this incredible and very weird time.
The kids are so sweet and excited
I just got married again, a much smaller wedding but my first wedding when I was 23. I thought I would keep things simple and choose a store-bought dress, but… It didn’t work out. Of course not!
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Let me tell you the story, and how my mom and I did it in three days.
Non-iPhone photos by Marissa Casillas Photography.
Because this house was such a fixer-upper and needed so many big projects to essentials like bathrooms and the roof, it took me a while to get to the yard. I’m also not a gardener, or at least I haven’t been so far in my life, so aside from grass versus pavers, I wasn’t sure what to do in our backyard for a long time.
But over the past couple years, I’ve made some very impactful changes that have made this backyard a wonderful place, so much so that we just got married here!
I am getting married in less than a month and getting into all the fun stuff! I hosted my bachelorette brunch/bridal shower (not really a shower since I threw it for myself, and said no gifts :P) with a floral-inspired lunch and then the most absolutely lovely activity for everyone… DIY floral arranging with kits that came with everything we need!
There is a new company called Petal Icon, a division of Flower Moxie (they do DIY wedding flowers, which I’ll be sharing all about soon!) that offers complete DIY fresh flower kits with everything you need for office parties, girls’ nights, bridal showers, and more. So fun, so easy, and so beautiful!
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