Happy Holidays

I've been a bad blogger and haven't posted in months.  Thought about posting many times but haven't.  Hoping to pick the blogging back up on a more regular basis.  I've got an exciting change coming and can't wait to share more with you.  For today I'll leave you our 2014 Christmas Card.

House Tour: Master Bathroom Before and After

Since you saw some glimpses of the master bathroom when touring our bedroom, I figured I might as well continue into this room for the next part of the tour.  When we bought this house it had 4 bedrooms, 2 upstairs and 2 on the main floor.  It was nice to have 4 bedrooms but we decided we wanted a master bathroom more.  Plus, it would work out perfectly since the 2 bedrooms on the main floor were right next to each other.  Additionally, the bathroom we had to use at that time was down the hall and through the dining room and kitchen.  No real convenient and you didn't really want to have to walk through half the house in your towel after taking a shower.

Former bedroom.

The window on the left is the window you see
between the vanity and shower in our master bathroom.

After discussing a couple different configurations, we settled on one that created an entrance from our bedroom to the bathroom but that also created a walk-in closet for miscellaneous things that would be accessed through the hall next to our bedroom.  We talked about creating a large walk-in closet that you could get at through the bathroom but we decided we didn't need more closet space for our clothes since we both had decent sized closets already.  

New walk-in closet.

Can't beat all the new storage we have.

When planning the bathroom out, I knew that the one thing I wanted was a large tub with jets.  I love to soak in the tub and knew this would be my chance.  I also wanted to fit in a vanity area where I could sit and do my hair and makeup.  Not everyone would find a vanity useful, but I use it everyday and love having a separate area away from the sink and Rob's stuff.  Over the years I have gotten use to sitting down when getting ready so this works out perfect for me.

Looking into the bathroom from our bedroom.

 

Shower, toilet, and sink side

Sink area with added storage.

We ended up going with only one sink partially due to available space but also because the two of us rarely get ready at the same time.  At our old house we had 2 sinks but we both still always used the same one.  We also added a walk in shower.  I really wanted a tiled shower but due to money and ease of cleaning we ended up with the one piece acrylic shower.  Maybe some day we will upgrade but for now, the shower works well for us.  I did talk Rob into upgrading to granite counters.  I love them and they look so nice.

Love my tub!!

The vanity area that I use daily.

View of tub and vanity.

I don't necessarily love how the mirror and light look together by my vanity area but I'm not sure what to do to fix it.  I'm thinking that some day I need a larger mirror.  Suggestions? Do you have a master bathroom or are you glad you don't have an extra bathroom to clean?  What's your favorite feature or what have you always dreamed about including.  A master bathroom definitely isn't a necessity but is sure is a feature I have grown to love!

T25 Weeks 1 and 2

I am done with my second week of Focus T25 and am really starting to love this program!  You can't beat the fact that the workouts are only 2 minutes.  Seriously, everyone can find 25 minutes somewhere in their day.  Plus the 25 minute workouts are no joke.  Holy moly do I sweat a lot during the workouts.  There is no doubt in my mind that I have gotten a great workout when I am done.

So what are my overall impressions of the program after 2 weeks?  For the most part I really love this program and can see doing another round of the program when I finish the first one.  I get a really great workout in in a short time which is something I really appreciate.  I can tell I am getting stronger and in better shape.

This program is not joke.  The first couple days of doing it I could hardly keep up and had to modify numerous times.  I am still modifying at times but is has gotten easier.  I appreciate that there are modifiers for all the moves because you would need to be in great shape to not need a modifier at some point.  You are doing some move for the whole 25 minutes and never have a break so often doing a modifier gives me the little "break" I need so I can keep going.

Speaking of breaks, I do miss having a break or two during the workout.  I can see where they don't have time to give you a break if they want to get the workout in in only 25 minutes but there aren't many people who can keep up with Shaun T the whole time.  I just do as best as I can and know that every time gets better.

Although this program isn't "dancy" there are still moves that really make me feel uncoordinated.  some of the moves take some practice and the first time you do a workout you will spend a good bit of it watching Shaun T thinking what the heck are you doing?  But, I can tell you it gets better .  I'm not quite as frustrated this second week although there are still some moments that frustrations tries to overwhelm me but I just tell myself to do what I can, it will get better.

I can say that I do miss using weights.  I really like lifting and am excited about getting to the  beta phase in a few weeks where weights will be incorporated in some.  Regardless of what program I do after Focus T25 gets done, I know weights will be involved in some way.  I just enjoy lifting too much to leave them out for too long.

I can't wait to see the results I get when this program is over.  I know they are going to be great!  I still have some work to do with my eating habits, but I am getting better.  It is a process but I am committed to making the change.  How are your workouts going?  Do you want help finding a program that fits in with your time and interests.  I would love to help find the program that is right for you!  Let me know if you are interested in joining me in my T25 journey.

House Tour: Master Bedroom Before and After

Welcome back to the house tour.  I was going to show you the living room next but realized I somehow managed to have not taken any "after" pictures of the room when I took all the others.  Hopefully I will take some this weekend since we are having family over and everything will be neat and clean for Mother's Day.

Master bedroom before.

So, in the meantime we'll move to the master bedroom.  This room started out like your average bedroom.  It had brown berber carpet, although it looks lighter in the pictures.  The walls were kind of a burnt orange color and the draper were a brown and white check.  Overall, not a bad look just kind of dark.  

When we pulled up the carpet we found a partially
painted floor.  They must have had a rug in the middle for a
while with the blue painted plywood at one point.

I knew I wanted to include board and batten somewhere in our house and our bedroom made the most sense to me.  Rob really didn't like the idea of gluing/nailing anything to the wall but I convinced him that it would look good and that if/when we ever took it down we would just pay someone to fix the wall. I love the results and really think it adds some nice detail to the room.  

Love the board and batten with the turquoise wall coloring.

I also love that having the board and batten on the lower part of the wall allows us to paint the upper part a brighter color and not have it look too overwhelming.  The white and turquoise really brightens the room up a lot.  I absolutely love how bright the room looks now in comparison to when we first moved in.  I also bought a new bedding set which goes great with the turquoise and also ties in well with the green bedspread we already had.  The new lighter carpeting is much softer and should hide any dirt well also.  

We both have small walk in closets.

Basically we just did cosmetic fixes to the bedroom but it is an awesome transformation just the same.  I have thought about painting our furniture but don't know what color I would paint it.  Any thoughts?  Or should I just leave it?  

I love how much room we have in our bedroom.

One thing you can't tell from the before pictures is that we added a new door opening in our bedroom.  This door leads to the master bathroom that we created out of a fourth bedroom!  Love it!!  Stay tuned for this transformation next.  What's your favorite part of your master bedroom?

New doorway into the master bathroom.

House Tour: Dining Room Before and After

Our dining room is next to our kitchen and this is the first time I haven't had an eat in kitchen.  This took a bit to get use to for me, but now I really like the room although I would still love to have room for a table in our kitchen too.  At least we have a counter that we can eat at.  

Dining room before.

Anyways, on to the tour of the dining room before and after remodeling.  When we first bought the house, the dining room was a decent size but had a small nook off it that was really wasted space.  The nook was about 4'x8' and had been used as a toy room or place to put a piano in years past.  I knew immediately upon seeing it that I wanted to get rid of the wall separating these two areas.  Of course that's easier said then done.  

Wall separating nook and dining room.
Taken from the dining room looking toward the master bedroom.

Nook next to dining room before we
removed the wall.

My brother in law took care of adding the needed support and we were able to make the nook disappear and really open up the dining room.  What a difference it made!  In addition, when removing the wall, we were also able to remove a chimney since we put in a new HVAC system and no longer needed the chimney to vent the system.  This allowed us to open the space up even more.  What a lot of work and oh the mess it created!  I don't miss living in the mess one bit, it was so hard to keep anything clean during the renovation.

Chimney before being removed.

Wall separating the dining room and nook area
during the removal process.

View from the dining room through the wall that was removed.

Are you ready for the amazing results?!!!  I can't believe the changes, but I love them!!  So bright and open.  This has to be one of my favorite rooms now.  I love the natural light it receives since we really don't get a lot of that in this house.  We still have a lot of extra space, even with the table and buffet.

Dining room looking toward the kitchen.

Looking towards where the wall and nook area use to be.
So much more space!

Close-up of the buffet my husband and I built,
placed in what use to be the nook area.

Do you have a separate dining area away from the kitchen?  Do you use the room often?  Rob and I eat in our dining room several times a week for dinner and the space works great for us.

House Tour: Kitchen Before and After

We moved into our house about two and a half years ago.  It's an old farmhouse built back in 1890.  Over the years, it has been added on to at least 3 times and has been updated some.  However much of the house hadn't seen any major updates in at least 10-15 years.  The house was livable, but I was constantly thinking about all the changes I would like to make.  We lived in the house a couple months and then decided we might as well start tearing things apart.  Well like almost all remodels (at least the ones I've been a part of), we ended up doing way more than initially planned.  It the end we remodeled/updated all but two rooms.  

Dark cupboards with outdated hardware.

Originally, we weren't going to touch the kitchen.  We have plans to add a garage, mudroom, and laundry in around 5 years and at that time we planned on doing a complete overhaul of the kitchen as well. So, we didn't want to spend any money on the kitchen if we didn't have to.  But, after living with the kitchen for about 6 months I couldn't stand it any longer.  Plus half the house was already torn apart so whats one more room.  Right?!

Dark green wallpaper with a southwestern looking border.

The kitchen really doesn't get much natural light and it had dark wallpaper and cabinets.  It just wan't a room I enjoyed spending time in and definitely wasn't my style.  So after searching the web and looking at numerous pins from Pinterest, I came up with a plan that I thought would be relatively quick and cheap. What was I thinking?  Is it even possible for a remodel to go quickly, cheaply, and smoothly?  What I thought would take 1-2 weeks and only a couple hundred dollars ended up taking closer to two months and way more money.

The floor had seen better days.

I ended up putting wallpaper on top of other wallpaper to save money and time.  I know it's not the right method but I'm pretty sure all the plaster would have come off if I had tried to take the other two or three layers of wallpaper off.  It works for now.  We also ended up getting new counter tops since my original plan of doing a fake granite treatment wasn't going to work.  Why not add a dishwasher too while we were at it? Sure, I lost a couple cupboards in the process but it's definitely worth it.

We added a dishwasher to the peninsula.

I convinced my husband to put up some beadboard on the wall to help update the look of the kitchen as well as help reduce the amount of wallpaper we would need.  This was our first time having to put up beadboard and it wasn't really something that went easily, but we learned a lot  I don't think Rob and I will ever do it again ourselves though.  It wasn't that hard, there were just so many things we had to cut the beadboard to fit around and we needed to be really precise.  After painting the walls and cupboards white I couldn't stand the off white floor either so we put down the peel and stick vinyl tiles.  I love how they look and they are so easy to take care of and hide dirt well.

So much brighter and more inviting!

Regardless of the process and money it took, I love the results!  Sure, it's not my dream kitchen but it is way brighter and more enjoyable to spend time in.  It is much more my personality and is something I can easily live with till the time we do a compete overhaul.  Plus, I am getting a better idea of how I like having white cabinets so I know if that is the route I want to go when we actually buy new ones.

I really like how the counters and floor turned out.

What do you love most about your kitchen?  I love getting new ideas and planning out what I would want in my dream kitchen someday.  Have you ever had a remodel go awry or ended up doing way more than originally planned?  Next up on our house tour will be the dining room, one of the best updates happened here!

Recent Happenings

Sorry about not posting at all this past week.  I was busy getting the house clean and finishing several projects around home as well.  Yesterday the family that we bought the house from came over to see all the remodeling we had done over the last two years so I wanted everything to be as nice as it could be.  Stay tuned, I plan on doing a house tour in the near future.

Our house.  Join me later this week for a peek inside!

In other news, today is the day I am starting Focus T25!  Super excited to see the results this program will bring me.  I tried a couple of the workouts last week and think they are going to be great.  Nonstop action for the whole 25 minutes.  Great workouts!

Instead of following the T25 nutrition plan, I decided to stick with the 21 Day Fix eating plan since I really like it and think it is easy to follow.  Focus T25 provides a good nutrition plan but the one from the 21 Day Fix just seems more user friendly to me.  As I have been doing, I've posted my meal plan for the week below.

If the clean eating chicken salad turns out, I will try to post the recipe and pictures later.  Do you have any great clean eating recipes you can share with me?  I am always looking for new recipes to try and would love to add in some more variety to my meal plan.

How is your exercise and clean eating going?  Do you need any help or accountability?  I would love to help with eating plans or exercise accountability.  Let me know if you want to join me on the journey to becoming healthier and happier.

Happy Easter!

He is not here; He has RISEN just as He said. 
      Matthew 28:6

Find your own printable copy of this chalkboard art at http://akadesign.ca/he-is-risen-easter-printable/

What's Next !?!?

You  may be wondering what my Beachbody plans are now that I've completed the 21 Day Fix.  Well, after thinking about different options and reading different reviews, I've decided to try out Focus T25.  I have heard so many great things about this program and the results people have been getting.

Shaun T is the trainer and I have never done one of his programs but so many people love him, so I am excited to see how well he can motivate and encourage me during the program.  If you haven't heard of Focus T25, it is a 10 week program broken into 2 parts: Alpha and Beta, which each last 5 weeks.  It is high intensity for 25 minutes but there are modifications available if or when you need them.  Also, this program is only five days so you do have 2 days to rest.  If you follow the nutrition and exercise plan, you WILL get results!!

Shaun T

I have ordered my Focus T25 and hope to start next week.  I plan on following the workout program guidelines.  But, I think I am going to continue following the eating plan from the 21 Day Fix since it is easy to follow and I don't need to count calories, just containers.  But we'll see what the nutrition guide for T25 looks like when it arrives.

Do you want to get in shape for summer or need a new workout to keep you motivated?  If you are interested in trying Focus T25 or any other Beachbody program, let me know!  I would love to help you in your fitness and nutrition.  Contact me and I will help in anyway I can.  I would love to have others join me and together we can complete Focus T25.  Plus, don't forget, the Focus T25 challenge pack is on sale through the end of April and includes a month worth of Shakeology, for only $180.

21 Day Fix Results!!

My first round of the 21 Day Fix is complete and overall I am satisfied with my results.  I lost 4 pounds and 2.5 inches!!  Not bad for 21 days.  I don't think the pictures necessarily portray the difference that I can see which makes me kind of sad.  But, I love the fact that my husband stated he noticed a change.  He thought it looked like I had lost some weight and that my butt was firmer or more lifted looking.

Honestly, I was hoping for bigger numbers but I know I have plenty of room for improvement as far as clean eating goes.  I stuck to the eating plan about 75% of the time but feel that if I had been even more committed, my results may have been better.  I also don't think going on a road trip and eating too many sweets just a couple days before I took my final measurements did me a favor.  Oh well, that is just how life works. Every day is a new day!

Even if I was hoping for slightly better results, I am happy to have the weight and inches off my body.  I am not going to gain them back and plan to continue on my transformation with Focus T25 in the near future. Numbers aren't everything and I am slowly starting to ingrain that in my mind.  I can totally tell that I am more muscular and gaining definition in my body.  Love that!!  Plus, it seems like my clothes are fitting better.  I am looking forward to showing off my more toned body in shorts soon.

Have you completed the 21 Day Fix or another program and have results you would love to share?  Let me know how you did and any tips you have for being successful while completing a program.

21 Day Fix Week 3 Review

I have officially completed the 21 Day Fix program!   I am happy to be able to say that I completed this program and feel that I have really learned a lot about clean eating and portion control.  I am definitely in better shape and feel more toned than just 3 weeks ago.

Week 3 didn't go quite as smoothly as I would have liked, but that is just how life works sometimes.  I made a meal plan but I don't know if I even stuck to what was planned for dinner once.  Unfortunately that is typical for my husband and I.  He gets busy and plans need to change. Plus I am picky and sometimes what I had planned for dinner just doesn't sound good that day.  But, I did my best to stay stick to the appropriate containers and feel that for the most part it went well.  I am going to continue making meal plans and want to get better at sticking to the meal plan.  It is important to me that I stay as close to correct container and portion amounts as possible.  But, I know plans will change and I want to be able to make healthy choices on the go as well.

Week 3 Meal Plan

After Friday and Saturday of this past week, I know I still have some improvements to be made.  I was on the road for 20 hours with my husband as we drove to Wisconsin and then back home.  I packed some healthy snacks but definitely didn't stick to the meal plan well at all.  It's hard to be on the road all day and not get tired or feel like you want some junk food to snack on.  So I did give in some, but tried to keep things in moderation.  Still need to work on my sweet tooth and I still have a hard time saying no to treats but I am determined to improve on this in the future.

As far as working out went, week 3 had double workouts scheduled for Monday through Saturday.  I skipped my workout on Friday since I was on the road from 5 am till 9 pm and just counted this as a rest day instead of doing the yoga fix on Sunday.  I did doubles every other day though and felt that is went pretty well.  The 21 Day Fix program guide recommends splitting the workouts up which is what I did all but Tuesday.  Tuesday I had to work so when I got home after my 13 hours at work I still had 2 workouts to do.  I did the two workouts but it wasn't easy.  Splitting the workouts up the rest of the time went well.  I had enough energy to complete them and really liked knowing that I was getting a great workout in for the day.  What an improvement from the first week!

I continue to drink Shakeology everyday and really look forward to that every morning.  It is refreshing, good-tasting, and a great way to start my day.  Shakeology is something I plan on continuing with even now that I am done with the 21 Day Fix.  I want to continue being a product of the product!

Overall, I am really excited with how the program worked out for me.  It set me on the right pathway to clean eating and a lifestyle change that I am committed to.  The workouts were great and I think they would be challenging regardless of whether you are a beginner or have been working out for a while.  If you have any questions about the program, contact me.  I love to answer any questions or get you started on you own 21 Day Fix!

Check back tomorrow for my final results!!