The work load is minimal: pop off the door, fill in the hinge holes with dry wall repair, sand, and touch up with paint. If you've got wooden cabinets, just leave the holes or find a matching wood filler.
April 9, 2011
Inspiration: Open Shelving
We've got 30 cabinet doors in our kitchen (I know because I painted them all with multiple coats in 2009- ugg!). That's a lot! I love the idea of taking a couple of them off to mix things up a bit. Here's what others have done:
April 7, 2011
Thrifty Finds for Spring (and some craftiness!)
Before meeting a friend for coffee last Friday, I ran into our local Goodwill. The parking lot was completely swamped (ie. I stalked someone to their car, waited for them to drive away, and then RACED into their spot before someone else could grab it). Weird. People were wheeling things to their cars by the cartload. Even weirder. Apparently the majority of the store was half off- score! I found a few cute spring decor items that need only minimal sprucing.
That galvanized metal watering can was a dollar! As was the cute tray pictured below:
I spray painted it white. While we're at it, decorate with books: they're free and visually interesting.
And no... those branches in aforementioned picture aren't real. Duh. My husband says they're "crafty looking"- not sure if that's a compliment or not... :)
Basically I hacked some branches off one of our snaggle bushes in the back yard (we don't know what kind of bushes they are, other than they're uuuu-gly) and cut them down to size. I then cut the green leaves out of card stock and the white flower petals out of tissue paper, and hot glued the them all over the branches.
Not to use a pun, but they're growing on me. I wasn't sure if I liked them at first, but now I think I do. Free spring decor- woohoo!
April 6, 2011
Gallery Wall @ the Inspired Room
I've added my gallery wall photos to The Inspired Room's linky party- go check out all of the other photos for more gallery wall ideas!
FYI: A linky party is basically a massive compilation of blog links on a specific subject all in one place. Usually a blogger invites other bloggers to post pictures of a specific thing (like gallery wall photos) on her blog. It's a great way to get a ton of ideas on a specific theme (ie: spring decor linky parties, easy crock pot dinner linky parties, etc.).
Enjoy!
FYI: A linky party is basically a massive compilation of blog links on a specific subject all in one place. Usually a blogger invites other bloggers to post pictures of a specific thing (like gallery wall photos) on her blog. It's a great way to get a ton of ideas on a specific theme (ie: spring decor linky parties, easy crock pot dinner linky parties, etc.).
Enjoy!
April 5, 2011
New Addition: Inspiration Posts
I'd like to introduce a new type of post to my blog: inspirational pictures and ideas.
I'd love to say that all of my project and decorating ideas are pure genius and entirely original, but alas, I cannot. Most of them come from seeing something I like and then copying/mimicking/using that idea as a jumping off point for my own version. I truly believe that when it comes to design, imitation is the highest form of flattery.
While we always seem to have some type of project going on here, I always have about 15 more rattling around in my brain. Mostly, they'll never get done, and that's okay. But it's fun to dream!
I'd love to share some of the photos and ideas that inspire me (and hopefully inspire you, too!).
I'd love to say that all of my project and decorating ideas are pure genius and entirely original, but alas, I cannot. Most of them come from seeing something I like and then copying/mimicking/using that idea as a jumping off point for my own version. I truly believe that when it comes to design, imitation is the highest form of flattery.
While we always seem to have some type of project going on here, I always have about 15 more rattling around in my brain. Mostly, they'll never get done, and that's okay. But it's fun to dream!
I'd love to share some of the photos and ideas that inspire me (and hopefully inspire you, too!).
Here's what I've been musing on as off late: plants!
I know the plant in the second photo is way off to the left hand side, but isn't it cute sitting there in that teal bowl?
I'm not sure what has happened to me this year: I normally kind of hate dislike non-floral house plants. It must be this ridiculously long and drawn out winter we've had (still snow in the front yard, people!). I'm craving everything and anything spring. And plants are such wonderful sign of life.
April 1, 2011
Board and Batten: Finished!
We finished! I absolutely LOVE how the board and batten turned out- it gave our entryway a complete face lift. Of course, it ended taking more time and money than I anticipated (as do all house projects, it seems...) but the end result was worth it.
My favorite part is the hardware, the hooks and the glass knobs. Especially the glass knobs... they are like door jewelery for the closet. I was embarrassingly excited when they arrived in the mail, and they are my favorite part of the entire project. I'm that lame person who gets excited about things like door knobs.
I based this project off of Centsational Girl's guidelines. You can find them here. There are dozens of tutorials online, but hers worked the best for me. (PS. I promise I didn't copy her hooks, I just happened to love these and then realized she used the same ones. What can I say, we've both got great taste :)
If you already have your own tools (a miter saw, nail gun, and air compressor), this is an inexpensive project. Home depot rents all of these for a pretty reasonable price. In total, it probably took 15 hours over the course of a week and a half.
There you have it! Finished board and batten!
March 31, 2011
New Camera!
Move over three-second-battery-I-won't-photograph-green-anymore Cannon Powershot- my new digital SLR Nikon is taking over! (Thanks to a very thoughtful and generous husband, in celebration of my birth:)
Now I just have to figure out how to use it.
PS. We're 100% finished with the board and batten- it looks amazing! I've been waiting for optimal morning lighting to capture photos with my new buddy, so hopefully there will be some much improved photos tomorrow.
March 26, 2011
Board and Batten: Making Progress
I'm finally making some progress on the board and batten for our entryway. All the boards, trim, and doors have been painted (some need a final coat), and we're off to Home Depot to rent a compound miter saw and a finishing nail gun for the afternoon.
Call me crazy, but my birthday's coming up, and if my husband decided to buy a me miter saw I would be completely thrilled. There's been so many projects I've found that I'd love to do, but my excitement dries up when I see "miter saw" listed among the tools needed. Drat. We don't have one. So I'm tickled that one will be gracing our home with it's presence this afternoon in order to complete our board and batten.
Here's the before picture. It's so horrible that I'm almost embarrassed to post it. Not that the entryway was that bad, it's more that my camera is pretty much on it's last legs and has decided that it's not going to photograph green anymore. So half of my pictures turn out looking rather brownish.
Hopefully there will be a "finished" after picture within a few days!
March 11, 2011
Measure Twice, Cut Once
I have a confession to make. I sometimes lay awake at night thinking about board and batten in our entry way. It gets worse. This morning, it was the first thing I thought about when I woke up. (Is this a sickness, people?) I don't know why: my Strengths Finder says that I'm an Activator, and that once my mind is set on something I like to forage ahead with it, getting irritated with others who stand in my path. Yikes.
This has been a project on my mind for months, I just hadn't done anything about it. So today I did. I mocked it up with painters tape, read online tutorials, and took countless measurements. Then I measured again. And just for good measure (pun!), measured again.
Off to Home Depot I went, feeling a little fearful: I've never shopped in the lumber department, let alone gotten boards cut to my specs. 90 minutes later (yes, this took a while) I left feeling proud of myself that I'd conquered my fear, gone to Home Depot without my husband, and manged to get everything I needed cut to length. By myself.
At home, I excitedly pulled out the board and batten pieces to show my him how it will look. Except some of boards are too short. All of the vertical ones, in fact. Every single one.
Moral of the story: Measure not twice, not three times, but four times, apparently, before cutting. Or at least if you're me.
This has been a project on my mind for months, I just hadn't done anything about it. So today I did. I mocked it up with painters tape, read online tutorials, and took countless measurements. Then I measured again. And just for good measure (pun!), measured again.
Off to Home Depot I went, feeling a little fearful: I've never shopped in the lumber department, let alone gotten boards cut to my specs. 90 minutes later (yes, this took a while) I left feeling proud of myself that I'd conquered my fear, gone to Home Depot without my husband, and manged to get everything I needed cut to length. By myself.
At home, I excitedly pulled out the board and batten pieces to show my him how it will look. Except some of boards are too short. All of the vertical ones, in fact. Every single one.
Moral of the story: Measure not twice, not three times, but four times, apparently, before cutting. Or at least if you're me.
March 7, 2011
Decorating with Fur
We decorate with fur all over the house, especially on our chocolate brown couch in the basement. Here's my main sidekick when it comes to this type of accessorizing:
There is literally fur everywhere- Leo's shedding like crazy (the breeder calls it "blowing his coat" which sounds much more accurate than merely shedding.) It's coming out in clumps. My husband got like 19 brushfulls of hair off of him last night. I'm not exaggerating, it may be more. The weirdest thing is, you can hardly tell- he's got that much hair! Apparently Leo's spring shedding doesn't mesh well with Minnesota spring. There may be blooms in Arkansas, but we're still getting snow. Keep that fur on you, buddy! (And off my couch...)
There is literally fur everywhere- Leo's shedding like crazy (the breeder calls it "blowing his coat" which sounds much more accurate than merely shedding.) It's coming out in clumps. My husband got like 19 brushfulls of hair off of him last night. I'm not exaggerating, it may be more. The weirdest thing is, you can hardly tell- he's got that much hair! Apparently Leo's spring shedding doesn't mesh well with Minnesota spring. There may be blooms in Arkansas, but we're still getting snow. Keep that fur on you, buddy! (And off my couch...)
March 2, 2011
Bathroom Ideas
It's been a few weeks, and no progress yet on the bathroom. We're still waiting for a contractor to come out to look over some things. In the mean time, here's what we're wanting to do with the new space:
I LOVE furniture style vanities, but have had an incredibly hard time finding one the right size (we have some unusual size restrictions). So the plan is to buy the dresser pictured above, cut a hole for the sink in the top, and install a sink. Trust me, I'm not weird in doing this. If Sarah Richardson can, so can I. Actually, I got the idea from her- genius. That's all for now!
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