At Home With Elizabeth Morrow

Today we are happy to welcome Elizabeth Morrow to the blog to share her home with us!

"Our home is a little, two-story, 920 square foot craftsman home in the heart of Tacoma, Washington. Before we bought our current home, we were renting a tiny 450 square foot house which became way too cramped after living there for a year. We desperately wanted a larger space and somewhere we would have the freedom to make it our own through renovations, DIY projects, etc. We wanted (needed) something super affordable and a bit of a fixer-upper. When we saw this house we were actually looking at the next door house, and the exterior of this house was so awful we just assumed the interior was disgusting, and didn't even bother looking at it. When we finally ended up looking at it we found that the interior had been fixed up; it was just the outside that needed an overhaul. We bought it at the end of 2012 and resided the house ourselves with my dad, uncles, brothers, and cousins that winter.

"The kitchen was the first room I decided to make my own, shortly after moving in, and it's still my favorite. We couldn't afford much furniture or anything, so the rest of the house stayed sparse for a while, but I slapped a coat of chartreuse and black chalkboard paint on the kitchen walls, and it made the whole space feel so "me." It was the first time I felt like a homeowner, after living in apartments with white and beige walls for years. It's still one of my favorite rooms in the house. One thing I've learned about myself, that I wasn't aware of before, is that apparently I love black walls. It started with painting the exterior black, then the kitchen chalkboard black, then our bathroom wall, then the bedroom, and then I just recently painted the living room wall black chalkboard. Whoever we sell this house to is going to think I had some weird obsession with black walls, which... okay, maybe I do.

"Most of our house is full of DIY or thrifted furniture and decor, but my most treasured items in our home are the things my grampa carved. All his life, he hand made wood things in his shop, from napkin holders to chairs, to salad spoons and forks, to flowerpots. They're all hand carved with Southeast Alaskan Native imagery, and it makes me feel like I have a bit of my Alaskan heritage here with me in Washington. He no longer has access to a shop, so I've inherited his carving tools and have been working on picking up where he left off! One of my favorite woodworking projects so far is my coffee table.

"We moved in November of 2012, so we've lived here almost two years. It's changed quite a lot, especially on the exterior, because we completely re-sided the house as soon as we moved in (the existing siding was so bad our insurance company wouldn't even give us a homeowners policy until we put new siding on!). The old house is still on google streetview, and it's crazy to look at what it looked like just a couple years ago. A few weeks ago we built a fence to enclose our side yard, and we've been slowly working on expanding our vegetable garden and creating a patio entertaining space, so it's a constant process, but I absolutely love it. Growing up, my parents bought homes that needed renovation, so I constantly saw the potential in older or more run-down homes and the joy they got out of giving them new life; it's been a lifelong dream of mine to be able to renovate my own home. I've been having the time of my life doing all sorts of projects, and I secretly love making multiple trips to Home Depot."

Thank you so much for sharing your home with us, Elizabeth! You can find more of Elizabeth over on her blog Delightfully Tacky and more of her before and after home projects here. xo.

Credits // Author and Photography: Elizabeth Morrow