Welcome to our 2014 home tour as part of the Canadian Blogger Home Tour 2014! I’m excited to be co-organizing this tour with Shannon of AKA Design + Life, and I’m happy to be giving you a tour of my own home today. In case you are new here, here’s a quick background on Our DIY House: We started building our home by ourselves in 2012 (we lived in an 800 square foot garage on our property previously). We moved in July 2013 and have been puttering around since then and working on the finishing details. You can see our basic floor plan here. We love our new home, but it’s definitely been a challenge to finish it on a budget and while we are raising 3 kids and while Hubby has his contracting business. Welcome to our work-in-progress!

Disclaimer #1: My house is never this clean all at once. These photos were all taken at different times. One of the reasons that I can tackle so many projects is because I put housecleaning on the back burner. Often. My motto is: “As long as it’s not filthy…!” I realize that this is a HORRIBLE housekeeping motto.

Disclaimer #2: I love my home, but I love my family more. When we were in our tiny house, we were perfectly happy. (Squished, but happy.) No matter the size or the state of your home, please know that it’s not your house that ultimately matters, but it’s the people inside. Designing and decorating my house are passions of mine, but if it ever burned to the ground (aaaaah!) I hope I’d remember that it’s just a THING.

Our DIY House 2014 Home Tour

Sometimes, I try to describe my decorating style in one or two words. I really can’t. (If you can, please comment at the bottom and tell me what it is!) My house’s style is some combination of vintage industrial, modern french county, and bohemian. I would also describe our home decor as very family and budget friendly. It’s all about happy colours, thrifty finds and unbreakables.

Welcome to Our DIY House in 2014! I’ll link to related detail & tutorial posts underneath the photos.

Exterior:

I chose a simple four square style house plan for it’s heritage look and for the fact that it’s simpler to build.

Four square style home with gray siding, white trim and teal door

You’ll quickly learn that I’m a huge fan of teals and turquoises…

Teal front door with gold hello decal

Our Front Entry:

When you walk in the door, you’re instantly greeted by a craftsman style staircase with dark ebony stained railings and white painted posts. My parents did all of the beautiful finishing trim work on the stair treads and sides.

Ebony stain and white craftsman stair railings

We recently installed a shoe cupboard at our entrance and painted our door a striking black.

Before and After: Making the most of a narrow, small entry

Our Living Room:

Our living room is the first room to the right of our entry that you see. It’s where we hang out the most. We have our TV and fireplace in this room, and I recently put a gallery wall around our TV.

Rustic Glam Country Living Room

The flooring throughout our home is a laminate by Allen + Roth from Lowe’s called “Provence Oak”. We totally love it and it’s great for pets and kids.

Rustic Glam Country Living Room

 

All of the furniture in this room is from our old house, and I’ve tried to give it new life with new DIY throw pillows and a light wall colour.

Rustic Glam Country Living Room

You can see the doors to my craft room / office at the end of the living room, and we have a little corner there with some chalkboard art and a wee craft table for the girls. Our fireplace and mantel were designed by me and my mom, and we built it ourselves.

Rustic Glam Country Living Room

My Office & Craft Room:

I love having an office & craft room on our main floor where I can supervise the kids or close the doors if needed. I love the unique pendant light in this room (here’s a post about all of the light fixtures in our home).

Colorful Craft Room Office by The DIY Mommy

It houses my sewing machines and all of my crafty supplies.

Colorful Craft Room Office by The DIY Mommy

Our Kitchen & Breakfast Nook:

Our vintage industrial kitchen is one of my favourite parts of our home, and we certainly spend a lot of time here! The cupboard are from Ikea and we designed the layout and installed them ourselves.

A black, white & turquoise vintage industrial kitchen filled with budget friendly DIY ideas.

I made the colourful drapes, and the kid’s art wall is a curtain rod and clip rings.

A black, white & turquoise vintage industrial kitchen filled with budget friendly DIY ideas.

The table was passed down to me from my mom and I painted it with DIY chalk paint, and the stools were also painted with chalk paint.

A black, white & turquoise vintage industrial kitchen filled with budget friendly DIY ideas.

Coffee Nook:

There’s a fun little nook across from our powder room and between our kitchen & formal room that I’ve made into a dedicated coffee area. I love it! It’s my little oasis in a houseful of babies and kids.

A Valentine Themed Coffee Nook with chalkboard paint, gold sharpie mugs and a red Keurig Mini Plus.

Our Formal Front Room:

This room is still a work in progress, but here’s a shot of a side of it that is done. It’s the room you see as you walk in our home to the left of our entry.

French Country Modern Formal Front Room

My vision for this room is to have it be a formal, pretty room that’s mostly for adults. All of the other rooms in our home are very kid-friendly, so I thought it’d be OK if there was one that was more for us adults.

French Country Modern Formal Front Room

The settee is from Henry’s in Edmonton, and the table was upcycled and painted. I have two vintage side chairs that I need to paint and reupholster to go in this room too.

Little C’s Bedroom:

Little C’s room is one of the most… electric in our home. She chose the jaw-dropping purple paint, and we worked on the hot pink and turquoise accessories together.

A bright jewel toned kid's room in purple, hot pink and turquoise - The DIY Mommy

The dresser is upcycled and painted, I glued fabric to the black-out shades, and we modified her bed slightly.

A bright jewel toned kid's room in purple, hot pink and turquoise - The DIY Mommy

Little A’s Bedroom:

I secretly love Little A’s bedroom the best out of all of our bedrooms. It’s just so darn cute, and I love the colours!

A Sunny Woodland Nursery. This sweet nursery is decorated in aqua, yellow, blush pink and chocolate brown and features a ton of inexpensive DIY decor elements.

I made her teepee play tent, recovered the rocking chair, and made the monogram artwork.

A Sunny Woodland Nursery. This sweet nursery is decorated in aqua, yellow, blush pink and chocolate brown and features a ton of inexpensive DIY decor elements.

Baby B’s Bedroom:

I also love Baby B’s boho-inspired nursery. We found out we were pregnant with her the same weekend we moved into Our DIY House, so we were certainly thankful we had built a four bedroom home!

Soft Boho Baby Nursery by The DIY Mommy

The quilt was made by me, and inspired the colours in the room.

Soft Boho Baby Nursery by The DIY Mommy

I moved the rocking chair from Little A’s room to Baby B’s room, and did the same treatment to the black out shades as I did to Little C’s shades.

Our Master Bedroom:

Our master bedroom is also still a work in progress, but I recently did a quick finishing of our bed and side table area.

A serene grey and white master bedroom with DIY pillows.

I find the neutral tones so calming and serene. We are currently working on finishing our walk-in closet and ensuite, and hopefully we’ll have those done soon so we can enjoy our little “retreat” fully! It’s wonderful so far considering we didn’t really have any space for ourselves in our little house.

A serene grey and white master bedroom with DIY pillows.

Other current “in progress” rooms in our home include our front porch, laundry room, powder room, and kid’s bathroom. We also still need to caulk and paint all of our trim and doors (a job I find incredibly boring, but I know it will make the house look even better).

Thanks for coming along for my home tour! I’m sure we’ll be working on it bit-by-bit for a while, but we are enjoying the process of making it truly ours.

Please follow along with the Canadian Bloggers Home Tour, and visit each of these talented bloggers on their home tour days:

Monday

AKA Design

The DIY Mommy

Northern Style Exposure

Echoes of Laughter

Tuesday

Pop of Pretty

Rambling Renovators

Craftberry Bush

Elliven Studio

Wednesday

First Time Fancy

So Much Better With Age

The Creek Line House

The Sweetest Digs

Thursday

Clean and Scentsible

The Happy Housie

Just Beachy

Dans le Townhouse

Friday

The Uncommon Law

This Little Estate