Who has ever stood at the edge of a renovation and tried to peer into the future to see what trends were sticking around for a while and what was on it’s way out? I’m sure in 1971 no one predicted the fall of Avocado green appliances, or 1998’s faux Tuscan vineyard memorablilia, but guess what?? It happens. When it comes to kitchens especially, there are some heavy commitments made, both monetarily and to the style of the space. Its no big deal to repaint a wall, its significantly harder to renovate a kitchen. Its really easy in the heat of the moment to default to classic (aka boring) because its a lot of money and you don’t want to be the house that is remembered for the blue kitchen sink in a bad way. But what if you have your heart set on a blue kitchen sink!? What if it’s everything you’ve ever wanted and you talked yourself out of your one true desire to appease the potential future owner of your home?

Dude. How would you feel about my lovely self showing up at YOUR HOUSE overhauling a space that has you feeling generally bad feelings about?! Cause it??is??happening??. I’m teaming up with Sherwin-Williams for an epic room overhaul for one lucky reader!! Friends, welcome to the first ever Sherwin-Williams Save Me!! room makeover giveaway!

I’ve recently become obsessed with plants. That’s not to say that I haven’t always really liked plants, but a conversation this summer changed the way I saw them. A few months ago I had my friend Shane from Moss and Timber (if you’re local to So. Utah you MUST check it out!!) come by the Merc and check out the window lighting. I knew I was going to invest pretty heavily in some large plants and wanted to make sure that I was getting the right kind for each place. I’ve always heard about how important the right lighting conditions are, but never really cared all that much.

Maybe that is why they always died?

Weird!!

This post is in partnership with American Express Personal Loans.

Project. Financing. Dun dun duuuuun! What happens and what are your options when you’ve got a big project ahead and need some money? As we’re slowly ramping up to get started on Phase 2 of the Merc renovation I’ve been diving pretty heavily into the financing options. If you remember when we bought the Merc we put a huge chunk down and financed the remainder of the purchase price + renovation costs through a local bank. Because of the uniqueness of the Merc property there were a lot of out of the norm things we had to do. So, as we’re in the planning stages of the second phase of renovation (you can see what that is here!) I’m trying to figure out exactly how this is going to shake out. As a way not to add to our mortgage loan, we’re going to take it nice and slowly, and use an American Express Personal Loan for bigger expenses like the roof. I think the first option people go to is refinancing their house and taking equity out, but today we’re talking about something with no origination fees (!!) and a super quick application process!¹

The Merc is definitely the coolest 100 yr old building in town, and it recently became the smartest. Who says you cant teach old dogs new tricks?! You can read all about the simple smart home upgrades that we made here, but there is one that I want to highlight even more. Cause it’s my favorite and hopefully your first real step into smart home upgrades.