I remember it like it was yesterday. It was mid 2019, and my husband (fiance at the time) and I were up to our eyeballs in debt. We had moved the 2 years before, and we were still catching up on debt that accumulated during the move and job transition. In 2018 we just wanted to live it up, or YOLO or what have you. I’m not entirely sure what got into us, but we went on 5 major vacations in one year. All compiled onto one credit card. We had the time of our lives, but it surely bit us in the butt. The thing is, we love traveling. At the time, we had mundane jobs, lived in an area where our social life wasn’t thriving and wanted some excitement. We both had wanderlust and just went for it. We learned the hard way though and had to work really hard for the next year to pay off all the crazy trips we went on. (I have a whole page on my experience getting out of debt) The issue was..we didn’t want to stop traveling. We loved it, we loved every minute of exploring the country and world. It was our favorite thing together. We had only been dating for 5 months when we went on an international trip, and it was clear how well we meshed in a traveling situation. I’m the planner, and my husband Brian is a go-with-the-flow guy who makes friends everywhere we go. Together […]
Turning a New Leaf
It’s been a long time, well a long time in blogger-time, since i’ve posted on this blog. I took a permanent leave from social media in July 2020, and haven’t blogged since before that. I don’t miss Instagram one tiny bit, but I do miss blogging. That is one reason I’ve decided to bring this ole site back from the grave. Another reason, my husband and I are starting a new journey. We are working on our plans to full time RV, and it’s something I want to document and share, if only to help and inspire others. I don’t plan to have Instagram again, but I do plan to share RVing stuff here. Trust me, I already have the RV makeover planned to a T, so that will surely make it here. As people, we grow and evolve. My Eclectic Grace means so much to me; my life is eclectic and crazy and unique. I have a lot to share, and just because i’m not showing up daily on your IG stories doesn’t mean I have to stop sharing content that can live on, and truly help someone. This is my growth and evolution. I will be blogging yet again, so if you want to subscribe to be notified when knew posts are live, please do! I’ll try to be consistent, but let’s be real…I have never been a consistent blogger! Happy to be back! xx
DIY Stair Runner
I took my ugly carpeted steps and turned them into smooth wood steps with a sisal runner of my dreams cascading down…and it was a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Quite literally. If you have carpet and want to rip it up, I say just go for it. The worse that can happen if you have to tack it back down if the floor sucks underneath. Luckily when I started pulling the carpet off my steps (and it didn’t resist at all. yay old carpet) the treads underneath were a beautiful pine that was in great condition. I guess the layers of thick carpet and padding kept them nice all those 30 years they were covered. Step one – remove the nastiest of carpet from the steps… It took me and my fiance about 12 hours total to rip all the carpet off our 13 steps, pull the tack strips up and painstakingly pull out hundreds..possibly thousands of staples. The wood was still in good condition after that, miraculously. Please don’t be fooled thinking that redoing your stairs is a one day project. This took weeks, and we worked really fast! If you did have a ton of holes from nails and staples, you can use wood puty and sand over it. I am notoriously lazy and like to cut corners with home improvement, so I didn’t do this. I also knew the carpet runner would cover most of it, so why do extra steps? Sand + Poly Next […]
I Quit Instagram, And This Is What Happened
A few days ago I woke up to a message on my phone from my friend in Australia, it read, “are you okay? I saw you quit Instagram, what’s happening!” My message back was “I did quit, and I’m doing better than ever.” I was so nervous as I sent my last Instagram story two weeks ago, my final adios. I am not good with goodbyes, and the finale of anything really makes me anxious and sad. I was so fearful that I was flushing two solid years of work down the toilet, and that I would regret this in a few months. I thought I’d need to fill the void with something else..if not instagram and being an influencer, then what will I do? I will tell you what happened in the hours and days after stopping Instagram…I felt FREE. FREEEEEEEEEE. Like a huge brick building was lifted off my shoulders, like I could breath, like my life wasn’t under a microscope, like I didn’t have to keep up with this stupid agenda that I had created in the first place. Truth be told, I don’t miss it one tiny bit. Not at all. I miss nothing about it. I had started My Eclectic Grace 2 years ago to be a blogger, writing is my passion. I love blogging, I love sharing my thoughts and my design expertise. I thought I needed Instagram to succeed. Even though I had worked my way up to 11k followers in less than […]
2 Year House Tour
I can’t believe it’s been two years since we’ve moved into our Raleigh home! On one hand, two years seems like forever ago, and on the other hand, it seems like we’ve been here for a week. When we bought this house, it was as if the house has been wrapped in plastic and was a blast from the past from 1970 [the year it was built]. The wood paneling was freshly polished, the wood trim newly stained, and of course the speckled gold countertops untouched. Because the house was in such good condition (as dated as it was) it was misleading and led me to believe I could cosmetically flip the home in no time! Boy was I WRONG. If you’ve followed along for any amount of time on my Instagram, you’ll know the trials and tribulations we’ve gone through with the house. The never-ending painting of brown trim, uneven walls, and floors throwing everything off..and oddly placed windows (like the window sandwiched between two walls?) Nevertheless, every month the house is getting to a more acceptable state. It’s a house I’m proud to call home, and the progress we’ve made for money spent makes me feel extra proud. House Tour Break Down I’ve written a post on almost all of the makeovers individually, along with the paint colors used in my house..but I’ve never done an evolution post of my home! I’ve redone some of the spaces twice now, and want to show how my style has evolved […]
