Homes, Loans, and YHL

This post is really just a hodge podge of things on my mind this week. 

1.)  Appraisal on our place is TODAY!  I spent a good chunck of after-work time last night and before-work time today sprucing the place up.  First impressions count and I wanted it to smell nice, be clean and tidy, and generally yell 'OoLaLa .. I am soooo nice' :)

2.)  Loan application/processing to do's keep piling up.  Goal is to work on all this stuff tonight

3.)  YHL Book Signing!!!  You all may know about these fantastic people (I haven't met them before .. yet .. but they just seem like the awesomest people) - they have the blog Young House Love, and now a book I am dying to get my hands on!  I signed up for the book signing at Flor in Georgetown (which was yesterday) but under the stress of getting the house ready for the appraisal today, work work, and all other week day to dos I couldn't make it.  So, I bought the Living Social deal for this Saturday!  Cannot wait.  Really, this whole DIY home blogging inspiration came from them.

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John & Sherry from YHL - can't wait to meet them! {via}

A little history...

Hubs and I bought our current place 3 years ago ... it was in desperate need of some updating.  Some people would be turned off by the previous owner's choice of paint, outdated kitchen and appliances, etc, but not us! Memory Lane..

Original Dining Room

Original Dining Room

Living Room

Master Bedroom



2nd Bedroom

 We have been tackling DIY things such us painting, wood floors, kitchen update, and bathroom update over the past 3 years.  All DIY - one, because we love projects and two, we didn't want to put a ton of money into the place by hiring contractors since, in a condo, you don't get the full value out of updates. 

Current Dining Room

Current Living Room

Master Bedroom

2nd Bedroom

Two years into living in our current place, we got married.  Cue love song :) 

I spent that year before planning our fabulous wedding (all DIY and on-a-budget too).  I spent tons of hours on the wedding blog Style Me Pretty (great by the way) for inspiration.  After the wedding I was dying for another creative outlet and googled 'popular home DIY blogs'.  YHL popped up and I literally spent the next 2 weeks reading (slash scimming) every post they had posted to date.  That led to other blogs, my blog, etc and I have been hooked ever since on tackling more DIY projects and documenting them.  So, I guess you can say, YHL was the catalyst for my DIY Home obsession!