Jonesville Ultimate Gift Guide 2016

We're so excited to spend our first Christmas as a married couple and in our own house! Even though it's still messy, not everything's unpacked, and there won't be an overflow of presents, we are still looking forward to spending time with each other and with our families.

Need a last minute gift, or stocking stuffer? Well, we've got you covered. We've got presents for the girls, the guys, the kids, and every home lover. The day where you can order something online and get it before Christmas is quickly coming up, so make sure to grab some of these great gifts before then! To see some other great gift guides, visit some of my favorites: ChrisLovesJulia, Yellow Brick Home, Young House Love, Emily Henderson, and House of Jade.

Updating Brass Wood Fans to Modern Matte Black

When we painted all the ceilings white, we took down the ceiling fans in every single room. We had 6 fans total, one in every bedroom, one in the living room, and two in the kitchen (I still don't like fans in the kitchen). They were Hunter fans, a great long lasting brand, but extremely dirty and outdated colors. My undying go-to in these situations: matte black spray paint. We spray painted our 70's fridge, our hallway light, and our door hardware, and every one of them turned out great. This quick DIY took two cans of spray paint, so only $12! That beats having to spend $400 for 4 new fans.

This is the only photo of our actual fan light in action in our master bedroom I could find. I guess I didn't want to take pictures of the ugliness? But I found one just like it at Home Depot with the brass base and wood blades, just imagine it with a layer of grime (ew). Even though they would have been perfectly fine and not too bad looking if we had just cleaned them up, the matte black goes with our style better and makes them feel newer than they are. I'm not a fan at all (haha, pun intended) of fans that are also lights. Overhead lighting in the middle of the room is unflattering and often too bright. The ideal situation is can lights on the ceiling and a few lamps.

Sketch Plans for the Utility/Laundry Room

If you follow me on Instagram (@jonesvilleblog), you will have seen our completely torn apart utility room. When we had our big leak, we had to dig up some concrete in that room where the water heater is to get to a pipe. Because our house is not insulated (it’s the worst), the utility room wasn’t insulated either. We knew that we would have to insulate that room and the pipes in there so they don’t crack in the cold winter months. Originally we were just going to stick the washer and dryer in there and worry about redoing the space later on. Next thing I know, Auston had torn out all of the old nasty sheetrock in just a few hours! You might have caught a glimpse of it in our Leak Post. I know a few of you have asked about how I start thinking about how I start planning a space, and this is the very first step: I sketched up my ideas on Windows Paint, to show that you don’t need sketching software to start planning.

If you’re standing in the door, you have a wall with a window opposite you and the washer side would be on your left and the dryer side would be on your right. Originally I had planned to put both the washer and dryer on the same side so that we could have a big counter space on the other side but after carefully measuring a few times, we realized that it was about an inch and a half too small. Just an inch and a half! Bummer. My plan B is to now put them on opposite walls and have a small counter space on both sides.

The washer side will have a bigger counter than the other with a suspended thick wood shelf that spans the entire length of the wall. There we can keep all the stuff we use regularly like detergent and fabric softener and of course a few pretty decorations.  Above that will be a wall of cabinets where we can store extra cleaning supplies and things. I love the shaker cabinets so I’m hoping we can incorporate them in here with a chunky rectangular gold pull. My favorite idea for this space is making a place for pull out laundry sorting baskets! I got the idea from YellowBrick Home and Kim had put canvas sorting baskets on the wall in their cute small laundry room. For us, this will save trips carrying loads inside and outside which we are all about making things more efficient, especially in the cold! On the back of the wall on both sides, I’m hoping to do a fun but muted wallpaper. This is the only space that I can quantify doing wallpaper because it is small and not a major room in the house so if the next owners want to take it off, it won’t be a big hassle.

The One Room Challenge: The Reveals and My Bracket

For those of you who don't know, the One Room Challenge is a home renovation challenge for all bloggers that happens twice a year. Every season, the girl who runs the operation asks 20 bloggers to completely renovate one room, in real time, in 6 weeks. You can also be a Guest Participant by linking your posts on social media. I found out about this because one of my favorite blogs, Chris Loves Julia, was asked to be a participant for the first time. On their Podcast 6 weeks ago, they talked about how they should make a bracket for the Challenge. Obviously, this Challenge is not focused on winning and losing, but rather on making beautiful spaces. But after the first posts came about the spaces the bloggers were going to do and their mood boards, I made a bracket - for fun of course.

This has been one of the most fun aspects of the home DIY world I've found yet. Everything is filled with encouragement and inspiration even though there is a wide range of design styles. Yesterday was the last day of the 6 weeks - time for all the reveal posts! So I rounded up my 5 favorites out of the 20 and some reasons why they spoke to me/inspire me. Not necessarily the "best" because that is subjective, but the ones that aligned with my design style the most.


Chris Loves Julia. These guys weren't my favorite simply because they are my design soul mates, but because they created a space that was totally for kids and yet still had a stylish design. They turned their guest room into a room for their two daughters with these built in bunk beds and a reading nook, complete with a pink, green, gold, and black color palette. This inspires me because it shows that you don't have to sacrifice form for function, there is a perfect way to marry them.

Making Modern, Classy, and Low Cost Curtains in 5 Easy Steps

For a relatively small square footage house, we have lots of windows. The kitchen has two and the half door, the living room has a long wall of windows and another one on the other side, long story short, every room has at least 2 windows. We have been living in our house for 3, almost 4 weeks. and it has been completely curtainless. This is the first time we have lived in a neighborhood, and I didn't realize how important it was to have curtains/blinds/anything between you and the neighbors. I finally decided that we needed something to cover our light capturing panes, and I started digging for some pretty, low cost curtains.

I threw blinds out of the pool of options because they just got too expensive and after some looking, blackout curtains did too. Then after searching some blogs I follow, I came across ChrisLovesJulia's post on drop cloth curtains and coupled it with YoungHouseLove's clip ring method, and something just clicked in my mind. I loved the texture and darkness of the canvas drop cloths and the hidden look the clip rings give them. Long story short, a whole window with two curtains and a curtain rod cost $26. This could get expensive if you put two curtains on every single window, but we chose to do two in the bedroom and one every where else (except for the big living room window). So here is what you need and how to get these DIY curtains in your space in just 5 easy steps.

Favorite Finds for Early November

I can't believe it's already November and we've been in our house for a 3 weeks! It seems like every day I have something to do after work and every weekend we're out, so I haven't gotten as much unpacked as I would like, but all in good time I guess. Our kitchen reveal went great and we love living in it. Keeping the shelves styled really isn't so bad, but Emily Henderson did a great video in the kitchen she just remodeled about how to style those open shelves and keep them looking great. 

On to other fun things for this week! Here are a few cute products that I've come across through the week as I look at things for the house. I am really itching to have a neon sign. I would probably put it in the guest room where I put my clothes and things to get ready. This white "Seize the Day" one is way too expensive for me, but I'll keep looking for a cute and less expensive one. The Voluspa candles are always amazing smelling, but this Burbon Vanilla one just sounds magical. I was browsing through Target the other day and saw these beautiful over the knee boots. I've been looking for a good flat boot to wear with dresses (and other things) this winter. You guys probably don't find the Floppy Disk art as cool as I do, but the inner geek in me is trying to find somewhere to put it in my house.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! We're headed on trip to Asheville so my SnapChat (@jonesvilleblog) will be filled with fun things.

"Seize the Day" Neon Sign | Voluspa Candle | Dip Dyed Candle Holder | Cone Ring Holder | Boots | Necklace Stand | Marble Utensil Holder | State Glasses | Brass Candle Holder | Floppy Disk Art

An Unexpected Problem: 17,000 Gallons Worth

Over the weekend, we had a huge unexpected problem hit our house. When I came home on Friday, I sat down to talk to Auston like usual when he says, "Don't freak out, but when I opened the water bill today, we went through 17,000 gallons of water last month." My mind went wild with the amount of money we would have to pay for the bill and for fixing it, how much time it would take us - I mean, he said don't freak out, but obviously that wasn't gonna stop me. Thankfully, he told me right away the bill was only $250, but that's more than our normal $50 and more than we had planned for. As soon as he saw the bill he started to look for where the leak was, turning off every pipe separately and checking the water meter to isolate the problem.