Category:

stroup mansion

plant room renovation!

by Kaylah Stroup

We never intended to buy a seven-bedroom home. It’s just Jeff and I plus the animals with zero – I repeat, zero – plans of human children. When an opportunity as perfect as this one presents itself, though, you don’t question what you’ll do with the extra bedrooms. You just go for it and figure it all out along the way.

In the past three months, we’ve made and changed plans a ton of times regarding what each room might be. One thing has never changed though, the front bedroom upstairs, the one with the great light, would be my plant room.

Like a lot of the upstairs rooms, it started with carpet squares and a drop ceiling. Woof. I almost left the drop ceiling, thinking I’d just tackle it at a later date but I am so happy to have it finished. The following two photos are before I started renovating…

Underneath the drop ceiling was wallpaper! Super pretty stuff but it was badly damaged so I opted to cover it with beadboard. It was something I’d never seen done before in person but thought it could look rad in this room.

Above – My dad assessing the situation. 2x4s had to be hung so the beadboard would have something nice to hold on to since we’d be hanging it with brad nails. We had a ~wonderful time~ finding the studs.

Below – After hanging crown moulding, caulking, and painting! Then it was time to finish sanding down the floor.

Mid-sanding. LOL.

And now! The room isn’t quite finished. I’d still like to purchase some old furniture for it, specifically a vanity. It needs about 100 more plants, of course. More seating would be awesome too because I basically never want to leave the room. These things take time though. I want to find the perfect pieces and not just rush into buying stuff just to fill the room.

I’m so proud of this space. I did everything I physically could by myself. I, of course, needed help hanging the ceiling but everything else was allll me! I’ve come a long way just in these last three months. I feel like I’ve learned so much already. My confidence has skyrocketed too. I mean, did you see those floors? I DID THAT!

Slowly but surely, this house is becoming cozier and cozier! I’m so excited to see what we have done in another few months.

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stroup mansion – one month update!

by Kaylah Stroup

this post contains affiliate links.

It’s been a little over a month since we bought and moved into our dream home.* On one hand, I feel like we’ve been working nonstop on it. On the other hand, I feel like we haven’t done squat! I figured I was overdue for a house update video & blog post, so that’s what I’ve got for ya today! I’ll start with the photos and end with the video!

*Is there a word more fitting than ‘dream’ home here? Because this house is beyond our wildest dreams. When I pictured us buying a home, I never imagined we’d be able to find something like this.

First up, my office! This was the room I wanted to get finished up first. Obviously, the kitchen is super important but I need a place to work. It’s slow-moving but gosh, what a difference already! I honestly don’t think I realized how much had gotten done until I saw the photos below side by side.

Before-ish. This is after we installed new ceiling drywall, and primed but still before paint.

After! Ceiling painted. New light fixture. Painted wallpaper! Paint and more paint!

Wallpaper texture coming through! LOVE IT!

There are still a few large tasks to finish in my future office, but what a difference already!

sources
ceiling color – texas rose by Benjamin Moore
shelves + wall color – swiss coffee by Behr
medallion
chandelier

Next up, the other room with big changes, our upstairs landing area! I rushed to get a bit of work done in this room because I had some photos I needed to shoot here but didn’t want to take them on carpet squares. My goal was just to straighten up the space a little bit. I definitely did just that. Just a quick coat of paint and carpet square removal turned this room into one of my absolute favorite areas of the house. It gets such wonderful light! I can’t wait to finish up the floors, figure out what furniture goes here ‘permanently’, and fill it with plants!

Before paint + carpet square removal.

After!

Currently. Not it’s final form, obviously but a space I’m loving nonetheless.

sources
rug
hand shaped chair
eye pillow

As well as a million other tiny projects, I also built a swing! It was my very first time using the circular saw. (I’m still very proud and excited!) I used one of the original boards from the kitchen that we ripped out that first weekend. I would really like to make another one for in the kitchen when it’s finally finished.

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decorate with me – curiosity cabinet

by Kaylah Stroup

When we bought our new home, the owner offered to leave us any pieces of furniture that we wanted. He was getting divorced and most likely moving to a much smaller home. (That’s just me assuming because this place is massive!) It kind of felt awkward going through the house and pointing out things we wanted to keep. One thing I wasn’t shy about asking for was this glass cabinet.

I’d been eyeing up a similar one (perhaps even the same one?) from Ikea for years! I just thought it would make the most perfect display cabinet for oddities. In my old apartment, I simply didn’t have the room. So when I spotted it in the bathroom of this house, I had to make sure it stayed with the house.

We ended up bringing it downstairs and as luck would have it, my living room has the perfect wall for it.

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metal detecting our 150 year old yard!

by Kaylah Stroup

this post contains affiliate links.

a few of our found treasures from the yard

One of the first things I thought after falling in love with our 150-year-old house at the first showing was ‘holy cow, there’s gotta be lots of treasure in this yard!’ We had the opportunity to meet the previous owner and while showing us some random bits and bobs he’d saved from around the house, metal detecting came up in the conversation. He said that at one point he’d let a friend do a little detecting but nothing was really found. I think Jeff and I both kind of took that as a challenge because a house this old? There has to be something cool buried in the yard!

It’s been just over three weeks since we moved in and while we’ve done a little bit of metal detecting here and there, over the weekend was the first time we really spent some time searching for treasure.

Our equipment – metal detector ▴ pinpointer

I highly recommend both! The metal detector is a great brand and this is a solid model. Easy enough for beginners to start with but good enough for enthusiasts as well! Personally, I think a pinpointer is a must. It and the metal detector go hand in hand. You’re going to have a much better time looking for treasures if you have the pinpointer’s help!

I’m already so excited to get back out there and spend another couple of hours hunting for treasures in our yard. xoxo

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we bought a house!

by Kaylah Stroup

If you aren’t following me on Instagram or Youtube, you may have missed the big news – Jeff and I bought a house. Not just any house, we bought a 150-year-old mansion!

I did a bunch of googling on the definition of a mansion but there seem to be a lot of different ideas of what qualifies a place as one. Fact is, this house is massive. The biggest one I’ve ever lived in, for sure. It also has what we assume are maid’s quarters and a back staircase from there to the kitchen so mansion it is!

Seven bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, three and a third acres. It’s truly a slice of heaven. We’d been talking about leaving the city and buying a home for well over a year and seriously looking for around six months. It was starting to feel like we were never going to find anything… then we found this gem. It was worth the wait.

She’s a little rough around the edges but exactly what we were looking for. Any worse shape and we’d probably be in over our heads. Any better shape and we wouldn’t have been able to spend that much. This place has great bones and is ready for us to add our touches throughout. I am SO excited to finally have the freedom to do whatever I want to a house.

Wonderful built ins in our bedroom.

My future office.

The living room.

Moving into a house that needs a bit of work in basically every room is super exhausting. It feels like I haven’t sat still for more than ten minutes since we got the keys. I am certainly not complaining though. I felt like we were wasting so much of our lives holed up in our apartment. We had zero outdoor space and had definitely outgrown the apartment itself. It feels amazing to have some privacy and land roam! I’m tired but literally couldn’t be happier.

I’m trying my best to document everything that’s going on here. I’m taking lots of before photos and filming snippets of the work. I definitely plan on sharing the journey with y’all! (So, by all means, if you have any house content video requests – lemme know!)

I’m so excited to see how it’s all looking in another couple of weeks. There will be projects for years to come but I am READY! Hope you’re excited to follow along! xoxo

I’m writing this post from our front porch, snuggled up under a fuzzy blanket. There’s a cool fall breeze rustling the tree in front of me. I can hear a rooster off in the distance. I was more than excited to get out of the city but I think I severly underestimated just how much I missed having outdoor space. This is going to be so wonderful for my mental health. ♥

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