Homeschool Convention Haul 2024

We're about to kick-off another year of homeschool, and I just unpacked my homeschool convention haul that has been sitting by the desk since April. Let's see if we made some good choices way back then. 

You can check out the video here:

All the links after the jump!

DIY Renovation - What To Do Yourself vs. What To Hire Out

I've had a few questions about what we do ourselves vs. what we hire out, so I thought it might be helpful to go into that more in-depth today and talk about not just what we personally hire out, but also how we make those decisions (and I'll walk you through how to make those decisions for yourself as well). It's always a good to have an idea of what you really can (and want to) do yourself before you begin any kind of remodeling project!  I addressed this briefly in my post about installing the recessed lighting in our kitchen if you want to check that out as well.

When it comes to home renovation, you're not only deciding how much you want to pay, but also what you want to pay. Because doing things yourself involves a different kind of cost than paying a contractor. While DIY does save money, it costs time instead. Nathan once spent a whole Saturday installing flooring in our dining room with help from a friend and they only got about 75% done. So while we saved a lot of money over having it professionally installed, it cost him a couple days of time instead. See what I mean? 

So for every part of your renovation, you need to evaluate your unique needs and decide exactly what you're willing to pay. Find the balance that works for you, your home, and your family. Today I have several tips to help you think through these decisions and I put together a free printable workbook to help you as you work through that thought process! You can get it here:

DIY Renovation Planning Workbook

Installing Can Lights in our DIY Kitchen Reno

Lighting is so important to a functional kitchen. I'll admit I'm no lighting expert, but I did plan all the lighting for our DIY kitchen remodel myself and I know that you can do it, too! So today I'll share the lighting choices we made for our kitchen (and why we made them) which should at least be a good starting point for you to jump into your own kitchen lighting project!

First Steps in our DIY Kitchen Renovation

Guys, we're well over a year into our DIY kitchen renovation. Which sounds crazy. But we're DIYing the entire thing (on top of jobs/kids/homeschooling) so it takes as long as it takes. I've been planning to share as many details as I can, but it turns out finding time to both do the DIY and write about the DIY has been difficult has not been something I really wanted to try to do. So. I didn't. 

But I think it's time. So today I'm going to kick if off by going back to the beginning to share the first steps we took toward get our dining room ready to convert into a kitchen just in case it would help anyone else planning a similar renovation. Obviously the very first step was a lot of planning, which you can read about here. Then the first actual ax-to-the-grindstone step was getting the bones of the room ready and creating a blank slate.