{Here we go...again!}

In the famous words of Salt 'n Pepa, "Here we go, here we go...here we go again!  Girls what's my weakness?"  Next lyric would be "Men," but let's face it, when you're married to guy like Justin (and the man part is taken care of), my weakness is "HOME IMPROVEMENT". 

We just built this house, and we have officially lived in it for about three months and we haven't touched a thing!  Let me just add too, that doing NOTHING was really difficult for us...and I am itching to get at it again!  (Okay,  now that I think about it, we did change the dining room light.)

So, here we are and we're at it again.  It's HAMMER time! (Okay, I promise, no more cheesy 80's music references.) We are going to rebuild our builder basic mantle.

The most nerve wracking thing is that we are worried about messing up this NEW house!  It's something that we need to get over, we know it...but it's hard.  I mean it is a great house and most people would probably just keep it  the way it is, but honestly, that's not how we roll.  We need more charm.

So, here is what the mantle looked like when we were building the house and up until now!  We thought it was okay...we just wanted something a little more substantial.

Here's "The Kid" cheesin' it up for everyone!

And here are the plans...(excuse my rough sketch, but that's how we visualize things before we build).

My inspiration came from The Lettered Cottage post about her own fireplace makeover "Our $82 Fireplace Makeover - Revisited".  Gorg, right?  Well, ours didn't cost a little as $82, we actually spent about $175 for our wood, because we didn't use luan, we used solid pine select lumber.

Check her out...she is AMAZING!

{Here we go!}

Okay, so here we go!  We're officially entering the blogosphere! 

Before we begin, let me introduce ourselves.  I'm Erin and my groom of 8 years is, Justin.  We are the proud parents of "The Kid!"  He's awesome, but let me tell you, "The Kid" keeps us VERY busy.  We are both teachers and we love what we do, but we are also creative people (at least that's what some people tell us). So, that is where this blog comes in...we're hoping to share some of the creative things we do in order to save money while decorating our house to make it our home!  Because we're also CHEAP savvy with our money!

We just built a house and we will be moving this weekend! We have taken load after load of "stuff," that I hope to purge as we go through box after box of "stuff."  Justin and I have moved most of the stuff ourselves, with very little help...yes, I helped move a queen mattress and box spring up the stairs, and the living room sofa, the kitchen table, the dining room table, and several dressers.  We hired movers for the other big items, because I just couldn't do it (2 big bookcases, 2 small bookcases, a TV stand, sofa, loveseat, and three dressers.)  We're excited as can be for this new chapter in our lives!

We will be posting pics of our builder beige house as we begin to tackle one room at a time make it our home! 

Thanks for stopping by {A Charming Nest}!

Erin d