Lets take a look back...Arizona: My First Home
Arizona was where I grew up, where I thought I would live for the rest of my life...so freshly out of college I bought a home and looking back, I got incredibly lucky with it. I bought the house in 2008 as a foreclosure, which sounds like it should come with a long list of renovation horror stories. But surprisingly, it didn’t need a huge overhaul. It was completely livable from the beginning, and that made it the perfect place for me to get my feet wet with home renovation.
At the time, I was working on a high school teacher’s salary, so there definitely wasn’t an unlimited renovation budget waiting for me. Every project had to be thoughtful. I had to figure out where my money would make the biggest difference and which projects I could realistically tackle without completely draining my bank account.
Although, as you'll soon discover, “thoughtful” may be a generous description of some of my early design choices.
Before I Knew Anything About Color
One of the easiest and least expensive ways to change a house is paint. Unfortunately, in 2008, I had absolutely no idea how to choose paint colors. Apparently, my design philosophy was simply: Why choose one color when you can choose ALL OF THEM?
Every room got its own personality. The den? TDark blue....The kitchen? Bright yellow....The guest bedroom? Dark purple and lavender...The living room? Green.....The master? Oh ya...brown with a orange/brown stripe..
There was no whole-house color palette. No thought about undertones. No consideration of how one room would flow into the next. I walked into the paint section, saw a color I liked, and apparently thought, "Yep. Put that on four walls."
But why stop at the walls? The kitchen cabinets clearly needed to get involved, too.
So, against the backdrop of my bright yellow kitchen, I decided the cabinets needed to be dark.
Not just dark. Dark, dark, DARK. (I will say, I loved the Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation Kit I used! It was easy, especially for a first time cabinet painter...just not the right color for the kitchen - I even used their Counter Top Transformation Kit. This one took a little more finesse that I did not have - so I am thankful there are no photos of that process)
Apparently, subtlety was not part of my 2008 design vocabulary.
But at the time, I was learning that I could completely change the look of a room with some paint and a willingness to just go for it.
Looking back at the pictures now, I have one very clear thought: I should not have had access to adult money.
But I loved getting to make those choices. It was my first house Did I learn something? Eventually...and before I moved the whole house was painted in a lovely shade of tan...
And that's really what this house became—a place where I could figure out my style by first discovering what was definitely NOT my style.
And Then There Were the Floors...
Paint wasn't my only early design lesson. My ex and I also decided to install new flooring. We picked out what we thought was going to be a great color based on the sample.
Then we saw it on a much larger scale.
So. Much. More. Orange. Than. We. Thought.
Orange flooring combined with my deep blue, bright yellow, purple, and green walls? Let's just say 2008 Kat had a vision. I'm not entirely sure what that vision was, but she committed to it.
However, this taught me one of my first expensive renovation lessons: a tiny flooring sample and hundreds of square feet of that same flooring can look VERY different.
Would I choose that flooring again? No. Would I choose those paint colors again? Also no. But those questionable choices were part of learning how to renovate.
Taking the Projects Outside
Thankfully, my ex took on the landscaping and the back patio with fire pit, helping turn the backyard into a space that was much more usable.
We had four dogs at the time, added a dedicated doggy area and a much-needed hidden doggy door, which may not have been the most glamorous renovation project, but it was definitely one of the most practical.
Those projects made the backyard feel like an extension of the house rather than simply the space behind it. It became functional for us, functional for the dogs, and another part of the property that felt like our own.
The House Where I Learned to DIY
That Arizona house became my renovation training ground. I could experiment. I could make mistakes. I could change my mind—even if the budget didn't always allow me to change the actual project.
I also learned that none of the mistakes were the end of the world. Paint can be repainted. Styles change. Mistakes become funny stories. And sometimes you just live with orange flooring until it's someone else's problem.
More importantly, with every project, I started building the confidence to look at something in a house and think, “I can probably figure out how to do that.”
More Than Just My First House
When I look back at that house now, I don't see all the things I would do differently. Mostly, I see the place where I started figuring all of this out.
There wasn't a perfectly designed renovation plan. There wasn't a giant budget. There wasn't Pinterest helping me coordinate a whole-house color palette, and there definitely wasn't social media documenting every project.
There was just a first-time homeowner with a teacher's salary, a paint brush, some questionable color choices, and the confidence to keep trying.
That house gave me room to experiment before I really knew what I was doing. It taught me that creating a home isn't about getting every decision right. Sometimes you have to live through the purple bedroom, yellow kitchen, green living room, blue den, and orange floors to figure out what you actually love.
I certainly didn't know it in 2008, but those projects were the beginning of something much bigger.
Long before Desert Bloom Home, there was a little foreclosure in Arizona where I learned how to turn a house into a home—one DIY project, one questionable paint color, and one very orange flooring mistake at a time.
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