When we were designing our new front door with Simpson, I knew I wanted to incorporate more glass to let in as much natural light as possible. Natural light brings warmth and openness to a space, making it feel more inviting. However, more glass also meant figuring out how to maintain privacy. Although we don’t live on a busy street, we do experience a considerable amount of foot traffic, and our front door is relatively close to the sidewalk.

Welcome to our backyard, actually part of it. Today, I'm excited to share one of my favorite DIY projects: creating a beautiful trellis wall for our Star Jasmine. This evergreen woody vine is not only one of the easiest plants to care for, but it also adds a touch of ‘elegance’ and charm to any space. If you're looking for a budget-friendly and simple way to transform your outdoor area, this project is perfect for you.

This project started with an idea that I just had to try. When we remodeled our kitchen, we couldn’t change the layout too much due to budget constraints, and we couldn’t move any walls either. Also, it was my first time renovating a kitchen, so I made a few mistakes. One of them was the size of the opening that connects our kitchen to the dining room. I didn’t consider all viewpoints, like the one you see when standing in the dining room (picture below). I wish I had made the opening smaller or planned the fridge wall differently, but those are things we can’t reverse now. So instead of always staring at this view and thinking about what I wish I had done differently, I decided to improve it with what I have and with limited resources.

The first time I ever painted something other than a piece of paper was our kitchen cabinets in our old rental home over 10 years ago. I know! One of your very first projects should be a wall, but I was so tired of seeing those old and dingy white cabinets that I had to do something about it, even if this was my first-ever paint job. When you don't know how to do something, what do you do? You go to YouTube and learn. It's funny to think that something that comes so naturally to me nowadays was so intimidating back then. So, if you feel this way now about grabbing a roller and painting a wall on your own, I get it.

It’s versatile, timeless and quickly became one of my favorite materials to transform spaces and add character in our home. V-groove planks are having a moment lately unlike the most popular wood paneling, tongue and grove. But this type of interlocking wood plank has been used for years and years and you can find it in most homes dated from the 1800 and later.

This is a small-ish bathroom with mostly builder-grade features, including the typical outdated glass door and glued mirror, not-so-great tile floors that, according to Brissette, were so hard to keep clean, and an outdated vanity and light fixtures. Honestly, it wasn't too bad because it was in good shape, but it was mostly outdated, and we knew that with simple and affordable changes, we could make it so much better.

We started working on our home right after we got the keys, but there were and still are spaces that where we can’t make permanent and big changes right away. The kitchen was one of those, we couldn't renovate right away so I decided to do some affordable cosmetic changes to improve the look of our kitchen in the meantime

This project was one of the easiest and made the biggest difference in our upstairs hallway. From cheap looking builder grade hollow core doors to beautiful and expensive looking custom interior doors, all it took was some PVC molding and black paint.