Introducing...Husband Hour!

Ok, the name is kind of cheesy, but the reasoning is good.  Part of surviving a small budget to live on is having someone who is in your corner.  If my husband didn't support the things I am trying to do to save money as well as my desire to not just find a new job but to find a job I can turn into a career, things would be much more stressful around the household.  Luckily, not only do I have this, but I have a husband who is rather handy!  He and I have been dreaming of ways to improve our little home ever since I moved in.  We have slowly begun making these changes even on our  budget!  Every once in awhile, the hubs will guest blog in order to give you all some ideas on how we improved our home, changed our decor, or even fixed our cars, living on a budget.  When you're married to a man who can build a car from scratch, it definitely helps to keep within the budget!  So without further ado...my amazing, adorable husband, Chris!

Hello to all. As Allyson said, we are doing projects around the house, which is not only economical, but fun! Our first project was the painting of the walls in our living room. We have a smaller home but it is still very open and feels larger than it is. With that, we wanted to choose a color that added to this feeling rather than take away from it. Surprisingly, we actually used a dark color. We picked the maroon color (real name: Bangkok Rust) in our couch pillows. After painting the first wall, we decided the other wall needed it as well. So, the end result was amazing. It actually makes the rooms look bigger. We came to the conclusion the dark color in contrast with the white ceiling showcases the 14 foot ceiling. The end result was we spent less than $50 on everything...paint, brushes, drop cloth, tape, etc. Compare this to the cost of hiring a professional painter to come in and do this job and we saved hundreds of dollars. Not to mention Allyson and I got to work together on a project, which gives us valuable time together. Our other minor projects, with the help of a good friend,  have included installation of new sinks and counter tops in our bathrooms, installation of new dishwasher (this involved firing up power tools!) and a new wall/door going into our master bath. All of these projects started with research and smart shopping, which resulted in tremendous savings. Stay tuned for future projects and savings, especially in the area of manly projects...insert grunting here!

Check out our new walls as well as our new guest bathroom sink and counter tops (the two bathrooms cost us less than $200 for a new door, two counter tops, a new sink and new hardware.  We suggest shopping at wholesale places for all of these pieces, we definitely saved hundreds of dollars doing it this way).

Our first wall.  Loved it so much, we went for a second!

A small section of the 2nd wall/entrance way into our kitchen/dining space.

Our  new counter top, sink and hardware in the guest bathroom. Still a bit of tile work to do around the top, but it looks fantastic already!

 Our new dishwasher on installation day.  We had a great friend install it (this spot used to be 2 cabinets and 2 drawers which he also demolished for us).  We saved SO much money having a friend install.  All that's left is the trim around the outside which we will also do ourselves.