NITTY GRITTY BEFORE PICTURES

Howdy guys! So if anyone has noticed, I have not been blogging too much lately :/ uhhhhh, sorry! Since we are in this moving phase I have not been doing too many projects around the apartment, well because it would be pointless since we are about to move!

UPDATE: We have been signing so much paperwork for our fixer upper of a home! At this point I don't even know what we are signing, we are just signing away hahah! Just kidding, we clearly read everything carefully before we sign! Thank God our realtor, broker, and contractor have been amazing through this whole process! They keep us informed with everything and answer all of my annoying questions that I will think of at like 2 in the morning haha.  For real though, they are such amazing guys, we are beyond grateful for them!
So for those of you who have been asking, we are so close to our closing! Hopefully within the next few weeks we will be closed and construction can begin!

So I wanted to show you guys some before photo's that I was able to get when we were over there last. I know once we sign at closing, things are going to move fast and I wasn't sure if I would be able  to get all the before pics that I wanted to get! So I went picture crazy! I won't share all of them because I took literally a TON but I will share the majority of them!

Our home is one of the only ones in the neighborhood that is set far back off the street! We are removing those two big trees. Sorry tree huggers but it is killing our front yard's grass!

The house is a pale yellow with blue shutters. I do not know who made this color decision. EW. We are brain storming what colors we want to do. We are def doing a black front door and black shutters and then the siding either grey or while. We shall see!

The hubby is excited about yard work! He is going to uproot all those sad looking bushing. I found some blue festuca grass and may night meadow sage that we are thinking of planting along the house! If you don't know what either of those plants look like, take a look:

Aren't they AMAZING?! They are vibrant which I adore but they are also low maintenance and drought tolerant...win, win!

I'm eager to make this little space welcoming! The lantern we are looking to get to replace this outdated one, it a matte black pineapple! I mean, come on! A pineapple to greet you at the door! How could you not love that?!

Ahhh the arched doorway! The beautiful accent to our home that makes my heart flutter every time I see it! The flooring is going to get ripped up and will match the rest of the house which will be laminate. The cabinets we are keeping cause despite their ugly appearance they are in GREAT shape so I am going to give them a little facelift. The counters will be new, new lighting to replace that hideous "hospital" light as I like to call it and new pretty stainless steel appliances!

 I just adore our cathedral ceilings in the living room! We love high ceilings so this makes us so happy! The popcorn ceilings are going to be the first things that will be removed, thank God! Again, new floors throughout! A new ceiling fan. Originally we said we were going to do a wood beaded chandelier BUT then realized having a fan in there would be nice if it gets hot when we have company over during the cooler seasons when we won't be using our AC. We are going to do white paint throughout the whole house (Except the bathrooms. We will probably do them a super soft grey) We have a lot of bright pieces so I want them to be the focal point and the walls be a perfect backdrop for our furniture and accents. 

This is our dining area! I am super excited about this because I just found our dining table and it is every bit of gorgeous! It is this old, worn, rustic, some may say beat up; wooden circular table (with inserts if we need it bigger) I am SOOOO excited to put it in this space! We are still trying to decide on what type of lighting we want here. Wooden or metal? Probably metal since the table is so rustic. 

So there you have it! That was the main living area! Later I will share the bedrooms and bathrooms. Our bedroom is obviously the main bedroom that needs to be done, the other two we can take our time in putting together since there won't be an immediate use for them just yet!

We are so so sooooo excited to get started on making this place our own! Once the floors and ceilings are done we are going to move right in and live there while the rest is being done and then obviously do some ourselves over time! But the big things we want to get done now!

We cannot wait to share this process with you! The moment we get our keys and the crew gets in there, I can guarantee lots and lots of photos of the work being done!

happy decorating

You Will See Changes

Good morning beautiful people! I woke up this morning to go to work and my car had ice on the windshield....ummmmm WHY?! I feel like it went from summer to winter and completely skipped fall. This is not ok, but hey it gives me an excuse to go buy this bomber jacket I have had my eyes on hehe.

So I have not posted photos on my blog in a few days. I'm sorry. I'm a bit bummed that I have not done so BUT I will very soon and they will be beautiful photos BECAUSE my husband got me a new camera for my birthday! I am sooooo excited to get this camera! Since I am new to the blogging world I realized in order to catch peoples attention and keep it I needed to make sure not only my content but my photos are on point. So, thank you Hubby for blessing me with a birthday gift that I will be able to use daily :)

So I have been debating whether or not I want to write this post for a few days now and this morning I finally decided, "alright lets just do it!" So here is a little venting post. Mostly because you will be seeing changes to our home and I do not want people to think I am not living by what I have said Rebely Decor is, and that is; showing y'all that you can make your home beautiful with the hand-me-downs, unloved, thrifted, old items, and DIY's.

Someone made a comment to me that I was changing things I claimed to "love" in my home. Well first, to you who said that I know that you were throwing a little shade at me, and boo thang, I can take a little shade ;) and second I do love our home. I love all the pieces within our home HOWEVER what y'all need to know is literally 90% of our home is decorated and furnished with things that were given to us when we first got married. My parents, in-laws, and grandparents gave us stuff that they were getting rid of to help us out while we began our new lives together (thank you guys, you ROCK!) Was it our style? No, not everything we got we would pick out for ourselves, but we made it work and we were so thankful for it all! Now that my business is starting to do well I don't see an issue with taking parts of my earnings and putting them towards getting stuff that my husband and I like. Stuff that we would choose for ourselves. We talked about how half of my earnings will go into our savings that we both contribute to for our future house and the other half will go into my business account that my husband set up for me to use to get more inventory or what ever I'd like.

My husband busts his butt at work and makes the majority of our household income, and I am beyond grateful to have such an awesome provider; yet I know I am not alone when I say this, but I sometimes feel guilty using the money he works hard for to buy stuff for our home when we don't necessarily NEED it, but I just WANT it to make our home beautiful. I know it is OUR money and I bring a portion to the table as well but I don't know, I just feel bad sometimes going out and buying a new rug or a new chair with money that he earned. Ugh that sounds so silly when I say it :/ I know with time I will start to accept and be comfortable with the fact that what we make separately is still OURS as a couple, it may just take a little longer than a year of marriage to completely embrace it. 

So, to the person who made that comment to me, our "new" couch, it was given to us by our amazing friends. Our new rug, I got for extremely cheap from a seller I buy rugs from for customers. My "new" turkish rug, I found at Goodwill for $15. When I get "new" things for our home the majority of it is from thrift stores or Goodwill and I transform it into something "new". My new ghost chair, well that is brand new cause shoot ghost chairs are SEXY! I am finally understanding what our style is and I am now buying and creating things to exemplify that style. 

There is nothing wrong with getting new things, especially if you are looking to have things that are actually chosen by you and not chosen by others then given to you. I still do love our  home. I still do buy most of our stuff that is budget friendly. I am just now getting things that showcase OUR taste and not our parents or grandparents and I am not going to apologize for that!

THAT Post

SO for all of you who follow my blog, THANK YOU! I am so grateful for the outpouring of love and support I have received especially over the past month! I have noticed that as time goes on more and more of you are stumbling across my tiny corner of cyber world!

You might have notice that my blog looks different. Well, it is! I decided to give my page a new look because, well I am finally starting to understand what I want from this blog and my old page was not in line with my vision. How something looks is what draws people in, right? I know it sounds superficial but it is true. When I first saw my husband I was like "DANGGGGG, you are HOT!!!" his looks are what initially drew me in, and then his love for the Lord and killer personality was what kept me around. Well that same concept is applied to the blogging community. I can't tell you how many blogs I passed by because they just didn't look pretty :/ I feel guilty even admitting that but I am a visual learner and how something looks is vital for what I give my attention to. And I know there are many of you out there that are like me in that aspect.

I want to inspire others. I want to help others be daring when it comes decorating their homes and eclectifying (totally not a word) their lifestyle. I want to show people that they are capable of creating beautiful things and not everything needs to be bought at a high price. The original look of Rebely Decor was FUN. I mean come on, gold pineapples! Who doesn't love a chic gold pineapple? But I realized as fun as the image of my blog was, it was taking away from my work. The photos that I was displaying were competing with my loud background and I didn't want that.

I want people to be drawn into my art, I want their eyes to be fixated on my work and that just wasn't happening with my old page.

So I decided to switch things up. It's more black and white, it's a bit more edgy, but I like it. It's ME. I love the look of the hand drawn arrows. I love that they aren't perfect because well, neither is my work or my life. But that is what Rebely Decor is about. Using imperfect things and making them look beautiful. Taking my crazy and random ideas for decor and turning them into something that exemplifies my family's lifestyle.

This post is boring, I know. But I just wanted to let my readers know that this is still MY page. My vision for Rebely Decor has not changed, I am just now perfecting and understanding how to display what I love to do...DESIGN and DIY! 

I hope you guys like the new look...if not please let me know! I care what you think and want to please my readers! 

*I am working on a COOL and FUNKY accent wall in our bedroom which I am thrilled to share with you all this weekend, so be on the look out for that*

happy decorating

Don’t Forget YOU Live There

           

            We live in a world that is so focused on appearance. Make sure your hair is always perfect, be dressed in the latest fashion, get those eyebrows on FLEEK, have a big house and nice car even if that means struggling to make the payments. My struggle with appearance comes in the form of décor! I would look through magazines, see my friend’s homes, or even worse; look at PINTEREST and all of a sudden I am not content with our home. A new couch would be nice, a new area rug would look pretty, and because we got a new couch new pillows and a new throw are a must. And then the latest HGTV magazine comes out and the new must haves for your home are spread throughout the pages and I look at our home and my mind starts racing, AGAIN.

There is nothing wrong with having nice things, I believe that when you can, you should treat yourself to nice things, but the question is, who are the nice things for? Are they because you want them or because you want them so OTHERS see you have them? I am sitting on our couch as I write this. A couch that my in-laws GAVE us. A couch that we did not have to pay for. A couch that would have cost us hundreds of dollars. Hundreds of dollars that we did not have to spend when we first started out. This couch has been the place that we fall on when we get home from a long work day, where we cuddle when we watch Netflix, where we eat breakfast and watch morning TV, where we are lazy with our dog on rainy days. This couch despite its age, is in AMAZING shape. Yet, there are days that I want DIFFERENT, I want the latest trend in couches. I see my friends couch and I WANT! My dream couch is a white slipcover sectional. It looks beautiful, especially against a grey wall with white molding and dark wood floors (sorry just dreaming here) I can imagine it now, my friends coming over for drinks and admiring our beautiful couch with the fur throw hanging over the back of it saying they love the way I decorated our home, and then I yell, “NO DON’T SIT ON THE WHITE COUCH WITH YOUR GLASS OF RED WINE! YOU WANT TO EAT CHIPS AND SALSA ON THE COUCH? ARE YOU CRAZY?! “ Then when we have little babies running around that means sticky little fingers and food covered mouths and crayons, lots of crayons and creative minds with a big white canvas in arms reach! And what about our little fur baby, Rango? I refuse to have paw prints on a white couch. So I have finally come to the realization that although a white couch would look beautiful, although my friends would think it looked great, we would not be able to do what we normally do on our current couch on a white couch. Yes it’s a slip cover and can be washed, but how often am I really going to want to take it off and wash it and not sit on it for 24 hours?

            My husband recently received a large photo of himself from his football days. It’s a pretty decent size photo! In the photo he is running out of the tunnel at one of his home games from his last season at Liberty. It’s a really awesome photo, and it brought back so many memories for me. We met at Liberty. I cheered my husband on in the stands for 3 years of our relationship while he was on the field doing something he loved. Our relationship grew deeply at Liberty, and I remembered all of those special moments we had there just by looking at that photo, but once those thoughts faded my next thought was, “where the heck am I going to put a picture like this?” It doesn’t “match” our décor. Our guests are going to look at it and think our home looks weird. They won’t appreciate it. They won’t understand it. One, I’m pretty sure my friends could careless, and two even if they did think it was weird/out of place why should I care?! That photo means so much to us. Since my husband was a little boy football has been a huge part of his life. He got a scholarship because of football which ended up in him being able to get not only a Bachelor’s but also a Master’s for free. He touched many lives through his platform playing football. That photo reminded us both of a wonderful time in our life and our relationship that was truly special. So why wouldn’t I hang it in a place that we will see it all the time? It may not match our décor, it may not be what is in “style”, it may not be appealing to our guests, but it is US.

            My husband and I love candy! I always look forward to when we have our movie dates because we make a pit stop to the dollar tree and get our sour gummy worms and gummy bears. We would totally eat them everyday if it wasn’t bad for us hehe. So when I saw this vintage gumball machine at an antique store you better believe that I bought it! I filled it with a bunch of gumballs….and then we ate all the gumballs. It isn’t something you would see grace the cover of Southern Living or HGTV magazine, but it fits perfectly in the Vinson household.

          

  I did all of that babbling to get to this point, DON’T FORGET YOU LIVE THERE. Don’t forget it is YOUR home. When all of your guests leave and it is just you and your family (which it is 95% of the time) you want to be able to relax. You want to be able to eat chips and salsa on the couch and drink a glass of red wine without caring if you spill a little while you sit back and look at your husband’s football photo hanging along with a picture of a bull skull, and reminisce about college days. You want to be able to cuddle up with your dog under a blanket that he most like chewed a hole through but it made no sense to run and spend money on a new one just because friends were coming over for dinner and you didn’t want them to notice the imperfection (because he would chew a hole through the new one too). If you can afford to buy high-end furniture and you enjoy your home looking like the cover of a magazine that is great (seriously, everyone is different), maybe I am just speaking to myself here. But I have come to realize, that when we live in our means/according to our budget and decorate with things we love and hold dear; whether they clash or not, whether they are in style or not; that is when our home looks the best, that is when our home looks magazine worthy! So if you are looking to decorate your home, don’t just buy things because you know they are popular. Don’t pay extra for something just because you want your friend to be impressed. Décor trends fade. Buy décor that you love, buy things that describe who you and your family are! That type of décor will be timeless!

happy decorating