When we moved into our newly built house in December 2013, we owned exactly one sad looking sofa, a pair of tiny bookshelves, a crib, a dresser for our daughter’s nursery, and that was it.

We lived in a 1 bedroom, 700 square foot apartment in our first year of marriage before moving in with my parents for a year and a half when Olivia came along as Robert finished college on the GI Bill and I worked as a high school English teacher. To say the least, we are very budget conscious people.

We had very little furniture and hardly any extra money to buy anything to decorate our 2500 square foot house, but we had very big dreams.

We bought our everything-builder-grade house because it made the most sense for our budget and we decided, from there, to customize it for our modern farmhouse style. It was a total blank canvas. I’m pretty amazed at what we achieved in just three years thanks to a lot of imagination and good ol’ determination.

Here we go!