June 2021 marks one year in our first home! I can hardly believe it! Over the course of the year we have made so many improvements to the house, and we have plans to make even more. Decorating and creating beautiful and functional spaces is one of my favorite things to do, so I am excited to share all of our year 1 home updates with you all.
Most of our home improvement updates this year were easy projects that anyone could do with a little time. Hopefully this inspires you to take on some easy home improvement projects too!
If you would like to read what it was like to purchase a house during the Pandemic, read this post: WE BOUGHT A HOUSE DURING THE PANDEMIC!
Easy Updates
One of the quickest projects that we took on was switching out the light fixtures. Changing our generic ceiling lights to more chic and modern fixtures made a huge impact on the house! We were able to light the rooms more evenly with the new fixtures and glass globe covers.
Affordable black ceiling fans were hard to find, especially in a style that we liked, but this fan is one of our favorite selections! Our guests compliment them for both style and functionality too.
After we replaced our light fixtures, the silver door hardware throughout the house felt really out of place. Swapping the dated silver toned hardware for sleek matte black hardware was easier than I would have imagined. Taylor and I were able to update every door in the house in about 2 hours time.
Bathrooms
It’s amazing how much of a transformation our bathrooms have undergone! Replacing the fixtures and hardware with more matte black was simple and makes these small spaces feel a lot more updated. We kept our existing light fixture to save some money, but gave it a coat of black spray paint and replaced the globes with these glass bells.
I will tell you that these shelves were very easy to build, but that the wall shelf was incredibly challenging to hang! Unfortunately the location that we wanted it hung didn’t have studs that aligned with where we would need to mount it so so fought with it for hours until we got it just right. Otherwise they are very sturdy and look so good! Our bathrooms are small and needed the extra storage.
Closets
We spent an entire weekend updating the walk-in closet in our bedroom. I wanted to increase the storage in that space, but wanted the flexibility to adjust to our needs over time. The Closetmaid ShelfTrack system was one of the better priced options on the market to reach my storage goals easily, quickly, and affordably. This turned out so well that we now want to update all of the bedroom closets with this system! Plus, we are using it in our laundry and pantry.
Defining a Guest Suite
When we first moved in we used the open space in the backside of our downstairs floor as our office. I didn’t love how this looked and the shape of the room wasn’t very functional this way so we decided to reposition our office upstairs in our guest bedroom. This choice left us without a guest space though and it was important for us to define a new space for our guests to stay when they come over.
An open doorway leads into the backside of our downstairs and since that space has a bathroom we decided to put up a door to create a guest suite. A traditional door was out of the question, but we found this barn door hardware kit on Amazon for about $50! Install was simple and it looks amazing.
Because of the location of our “guest suite” it was critical that our furniture was multifunctional. A futon is the perfect middle ground to serve as daytime seating and a place to sleep at night. I fell in love with the green velvet futon that we found online! We paired it with a storage ottoman to hold bedding, and a small clothing rack for our guests to hang their coats or drop their shoes when they visit, and to give them a place to unpack when they stay over.
Home office
When we converted our guest room into our office we had a lot more space to spread out. To make better use of the space we decided to wrap L shaped desks around the room, and added length with matching single desks. We are very happy with how it’s coming together!
Overall, we have been loving being homeowners! All of the year 1 home updates that we have done have been very affordable, easy, and fun to do together to make the space more our own.
