Has it really been that long?

We have lived in our new house for a year now and I can't believe I haven't posted any pictures yet!

Here are just a few things that I have worked on. Some recent, some not so recent.

This used to be Caleb's dresser, now repainted to go in Emi's room.

Before:

After:

These chairs and tables were gray and rusty. I don't have before pics.

I found a new home for them on my front porch!

I looked for some wreaths for my front door and was surprised to discover how expensive they were. So I decided to save some money and make my own. Ha. I think I ended up spending more than if I would have just bought one. Oh well. I like how it turned out, and I like that I can find a free printable (thank you Pinterest) for every season.  

I would like to post more pictures of the house, but I feel like everything is still a work-in-progress. We will be starting some painting projects soon so hopefully things will start to feel more "complete"!

My teenager's projects

Headboard

Before:


After:

Dresser

Before:

After:

My daugther painted the dresser, then picked out the cute fabric to cover the drawers. She covered it with mod podge then painted with a sealant. I think it turned out very cute!

Sand and Sea Shells

Wow this blog sure has been neglected. I really need to get caught up on the projects I've been working on around the house. For now here is a pic of what we brought home with us from Florida at the beach. The bigger shells were purchased at the store (around $5 for a large bag), and the smaller ones were collected by the kids on the beach. And yes that is WHITE sand. It was so amazing, we had to bring some of it home with us!

The elves were hard at work!

I really wish I had taken a before picture of this desk! We were shopping for a new desk for our daughter, but we were disappointed in the quality and price of the desks we saw in stores like Target and Walmart. So I decided to check out Craigslist and saw this desk. It matches her dresser (that also needs to be refinished) so it was perfect! I decided to paint it white, but may add some color if Kali decides the white is too boring. I just used spray paint and then put on two coats of polyurethane. Quick, cheap, and easy!

Total project cost was around $35 (including price of desk), which was a lot better than paying $200 for a cheap cardboard desk from Walmart!

Next on my list is to refinish the matching dresser. I can't wait!

Gone Pillow Crazy!

Here are a few more I made:


I have always had an addiction to throw pillows (just ask my husband who gets annoyed every night when he has to take them all off of the bed), but this is taking the addiction to a whole new level.

Does this make me the laziest person alive?

Today I decided to be adventurous and make a throw pillow. I bought the fabric and ribbon, along with some fabric tape for the ribbon. As I was getting started I thought -- what the heck, I'm going to use fabric tape to do this whole thing! Kali had to sacrifice one of her old pillows for this project, and I think it turned out pretty cute. The whole thing took me maybe 15 minutes. I think I may have found a new addiction! I learned how to make the flowers from a friend who makes super cute head bows. It is super easy. (Yes I use the word super a lot).

I can't wait to make some more! Although, fabric tape isn't cheap so I may have to break out my sewing machine after all...

Thank You Shanty 2 Chic

I got the idea for these photo frames and mirror from here:


I especially loved the idea of using burlap as a backdrop. I had these frames already and they are all different sizes/styles.


I wanted a mirror on the other wall, and I found some super cute ones at Hobby Lobby, but they were quite pricey. I decided to check Ross to see if they had anything cheaper. Lo and behold, just what I was looking for - and it was only $12.99. Sweet. I also looked for a little table but didn't find anything that I fell in love with (that didn't cost a fortune), so I dug up an old table (originally blue with an American flag on top) and spray painted it. One day I will buy myself a fancy table, but this will do for now.

Before:

Boy, I hadn't noticed how scuffed up the french door is. Yikes!

After:

I feel like things are coming together at our house! My next project is to sew some couch pillows. Considering I haven't operated a sewing machine in decades, I'm not sure how it's going to turn out....

Eating my words

In my last post, I mentioned that I'm trying to move on from the "Country" look. I guess old habits really do die hard. After I painted my armoire it was just screaming to be distressed. And I have to say, I went from hating this armoire (before painting), to just tolerating it, (after painting it black), to actually kind of loving it (after distressing). I didn't go too crazy with the sanding, I just did the corners a little and then went over it with some dark stain. I already had the sanding block and some left over stain, so this project didn't cost me a dime and it probably took less than an hour! (Well, the distressing part anyway. The spray painting was the longer, more tedious part of this project.)

Before:

After spray painting:

All finished:

Now my dilemma: The black handles are washed out, so I want to change them. Do I buy new hardware? Spray paint them? And if I paint them, what color? Brass? Silver? hmmmm. What should I do?

Oh yes, and we are going to be moving that thing so the chords don't show. I am still working on the whole arrangement of that room. I need an interior decorator to come over and help me out. Any volunteers?

Great inspiration for an afternoon project

My friend Stephanie let me know about a home decorating blog (thanks Steph!) and I copied this idea straight from one of the projects on here:

Before: A jewelry box that has been sitting in my closet.


Step 1:
All I did was get a sample-size bottle of white paint and slap on two coats. It dried super fast and I did this entire project while Emi was eating lunch.

Step 2: Distress. Now, I am not really into the distressed look (it is a little too "Country" for my current taste), but I loved how it looked on the Show & Tell blog so I went ahead and took the sand paper to it.

After:
I haven't found a permanent home for it yet, so until then it will have to sit on my bathroom sink.

Was it worth it?

Okay, so I have been posting my recent projects on our family blog, but since I have been working on many projects lately, I figured I better start posting on here again so I don't bore my family and friends who don't care how excited I get about what I did with a can of spray paint.

So here is the run-down on the table project:

It seriously took FOREVER! The first problem I encountered was the heat. It was above 100 and the paint would dry in clumps before I could even spread it. So I ended up painting the table inside. The second problem was that it took FOREVER to paint the chairs! (The table was a lot easier since I could use a roller.) First there were three coats of primer, then 3 coats of paint, then 3 coats of the epoxy sealant. Seriously, painting nine coats on 6 chairs took hundreds of hours! I am usually not a perfectionist but I wanted the table to look flawless. Now that it's done I am glad that I did it, but at the time I just kept thinking, "what did I get myself into?!?!"

Bit by the design bug again...

Well, after we sold our home and moved to Oklahoma, we have kind of been in "transition" so to speak. Which explains my long absence. We are getting ready to move into a new home and I am dying to redo a few of our pieces! I am starting with our kitchen table. (You can see my previous post for the "before" picture.) I am planning on painting it a charcoal black to go with the stainless steel appliances. Best part: I found the color that I wanted in the "oops" section at the Home Depot for $1.00!

I'm crossing my fingers that all goes well and that I don't ruin our dinning table! I will post "after" pics after I finish!

Cheap staging tips

As we are getting ready to put our house on the market, I thought I would share a couple inexpensive (or free!) ideas on staging that I used in my home:

Tip 1: Build around it!
Who says you have to have an exact idea of how you are going to stage an area of your home? Browse around, see what catches your eye, or, more importantly, what is on sale, and build on that! For example, I knew I wanted to stage our dinning room table, and I found these cute table mats for $1 a piece. I then picked out the dishes,centerpiece, and window curtain from there.

Tip 2: Don't purchase new wall accessories. Add art to the frames you already own!
If you are anything like me, you love to decorate your home with framed pictures of your children and family. Since staging rule #1 when you're selling your home is to "de-personalize" your home, you might feel that you need to take down all of your photos and buy all new wall accessories. To save $, use the frames that you already own and add your own art to it. This can be anything from photos of landscapes, flowers, the ocean, pretty much anything! I used these three frames which contained family photos, and for under $3 per 8 x 10 photo, I printed off some black and white pictures that I had taken of the Tetons.
Don't have fancy landscape photos for your frames? Try using old scrapbook paper! I am not much of a scrapbooker these days and my supply is pretty shabby, but I found some paper that matched my wall color, so even though the paper design isn't my favorite, I didn't have to spend any money so I went with it!

Happy staging!

Kid Bedrooms

This is pretty much what all three kids rooms looked like before:

After: (there are still things I would like to do, but there is a HUGE difference so far!)

Baby girl room:

Big boy room:


Big girl room:

Complete chandelier transformation

I have been shopping around for a cute, girly chandelier for Kali's room, but all of the ones that I like cost anywhere from $100 to $200. So I decided to check out craigslist. I found this chandelier for $35:

BEFORE:

And here is the transformation:

I think craigslist is the most ingenious idea ever. So thank you, thank you, Craig of craigslist, whoever, and wherever you are....

Neutral = BORING

"color is the root of great design" - David Bromstad, host of Color Splash on HGTV.

We have been trying to stay neutral with our paint colors, but I just couldn't help myself this time. I am all about color. I had been debating between two different colors for our bedroom, until I watched an episode of Color Splash and David used both of the exact colors that I was thinking of using. So our bedroom colors were inspired by him. I have to say that the yellow turned out fabulous. In person, it looks more brownish-yellow, which is exactly what I was going for.

Then:
You know your room needs a makeover when you are watching a remodeling show and one of the "worst rooms in America" has the exact same wallpaper that you have! True story.

Now:
I am very happy to say that we removed the last of the last wallpaper. If I ever decide to use wallpaper (I don't know how that would ever happen), I am going to make darn sure I move out of the house before it has to come down. I was surprised to find all sorts of wall accessories stored in our basement so I only bought a couple things for the wall. My favorite is this picture I got at my favorite store - Target.

Lighten Up!

I learned from Sabrina Soto (one of my favorites on HGTV) that new curtains are one of the cheapest ways to completely change the look of a room. It was about time that we got rid of our dark, old fashioned curtains and replaced them with light, simple ones.

Before:

After: Also notice that we simplified the room by removing some clutter to make the room feel more open.

Total project cost: $15 ea. for three windows (They were on clearance at Wal*Mart. Score.)