Move Mountains In Your Home
My family room has been undergoing some changes over the past few months...years, really. It's been one of those slow makeovers that has happened (and is still happening) as the money and time are available. It started a couple of years ago when I painted the walls and cabinetry and made new curtains. In January of this year, we installed new hardwood floors. Since then, I've been waiting. … [Read more...]
Over the past few days, I've been trying to get my house cleaned and back together post Lucketts. While cleaning is sometimes a total pain for me and I am a part of the laundry-loathing club, most of the time cleaning is therapeutic in a strange way and gets my creative juices flowing. I put on some good music, pick up the clutter, vacuum the fur balls (created by my wool rugs) and that … [Read more...]
Now that Lucketts has past, I'm turning some attention to my next round of freelance projects, which includes giving my master bathroom a makeover. (Insert girly squeal that occurs when makeovers are on the horizon.) So, this is the direction I'm heading... It's right off of the bedroom, so I want it to flow with what I have going on in there... Here are some … [Read more...]
I've had my eye on a certain style of chair for a while. Oval backed, caned French chairs. If they're affordable, they're rickety or the cane is punched through. If they're perfect, they're too expensive. So, I decided to save up and sell my dining set in order to be able to buy four of these chairs from Restoration Hardware... I loved the bed I bought there, so I felt like it was worth … [Read more...]
I did sell most of my furniture at Lucketts, but a few pieces didn't sell. And that's okay. When I decided to sell the chair, I also decided that if the channel back chair didn't sell the first day, it was coming home with me. I love it... I also ended up bringing home the farm table. I was really shocked this piece didn't sell and I was a bit bummed at first. I had no idea where I … [Read more...]
I have been buying some furniture lately to sell at the Lucketts Spring Market, but I've found a couple of pieces that are keepers. Now, when I keep something, especially a piece of furniture, then something else has to leave. This keeps my inventory up and allows me to "trade up" for my home without becoming a hoarder. Here's the "keeper" vanity I bought last week in its new place... … [Read more...]
As I've been organizing things in my current home, I came across some pictures of the first home my husband and I owned. We had lived in apartments and even my in-law's basement (which wasn't as bad as it sounds), but this was the first home we could really work on. And boy, we didn't mess around. I bought about ten gallons of paint even before we signed the closing papers. My DIY-juices … [Read more...]
I knew I wanted to install a new sink when we were putting in new counters. The sink we had was an enamel-coated cast iron sink that was full of scratches and chips and water was always hanging around the lip. So, when I was looking for a new sink, I considered a farmhouse-style sink, but I already hated having a white sink (think coffee settling into all of the fine scratches and looking … [Read more...]
I love how my bedroom looks, but more than that, I LOVE my bed. I don't know if I've ever had a bed I loved. It's always been adequate. I used to giggle when I slid into freshly washed sheets as a kid, but that's about the strongest feeling I've had about a bed...until now. In January, we bought the new bed frame, which was my dream bed and I caught it on clearance, and a new mattress. … [Read more...]
It's finally done! Well...you know what "done" means in my house. It means I'm done with it for now. Although, aside from changing paint colors and/or accessories, I don't think there's much more I can or need to do to this room. I've always been drawn to white cabinets with dark counters (wood or black) and a wood or white floor. Now I have it! Here's a tour... … [Read more...]
I'm having one of those days where I feel like I could write about five blog posts. I just want to chat and tell you what I've been up to, what plans I have and some things that are are my mind. The past few days, I've been in much more of a "doing mood" than a "taking-pictures-and-talking-about-it" mood. And now I feel like chatting, but I don't have a ton of time to write those five blog … [Read more...]
I put some more time into the kitchen yesterday, but my "honorary moms" who worry about me doing to much, will be happy to know that I took a bit of a break today. I did still get some things done, like editing photos and proofreading articles, but nothing major. Yesterday, we got most of the range hood completed. I will say that it gives one a moment of pause when sunlight is pouring into … [Read more...]
Do you ever get that feeling...the sudden urge to look at Craig's List? You just know in your gut that there's something there for you. Sometimes I get that urge and come up empty. My awesome-deal-on-a-piece-of-furniture-sensor must be picking up a reception from another region or something. When I got the urge the other day, though, I found a beautiful French sofa with cane sides for a … [Read more...]
Today was the due date for all of my bedroom project tutorials for HGTV.com, so I spent the morning taking the "beauty shots" for those articles. They will be available on HGTV.com in a few weeks and I will link to them when they are live. Here's how the room looks now... Here are some makeovers featured in the room... My $25 yard sale side table before... ...and … [Read more...]
Those who have missed my furniture makeovers lately are going to enjoy this post! There's a lot more furniture painting around with corner with the Lucketts Antique Market fast approaching, but one of my freelance articles was to show a specialty paint technique on a pair of nightstands. Right up my alley! And it just so happened I wanted to paint the nightstands in my master … [Read more...]
Some kind of cliche code phrase just seems to be appropriate for what my husband and I accomplished today. After a lot of sweat equity, geometry, learning what lingers in drain pipes and a dinner break to Olive Garden (in ill-fitting, paint-splattered sweat pants), our butcher block counters, new sink and faucet are installed!!! Forget weekend warriors... we're Thursday warriors. I … [Read more...]
Two more projects are checked off the list. The first one I finished yesterday was a set of pillow shams. My editor asked for something Pottery-Barn-ish. I checked out their site for some ideas and kept coming back to these... source So, I did a little figuring and came up with these... The PB version is $39/sham. My version costs about $10 for both. A … [Read more...]
There is a reason why I love painting and never quite latched onto quilting. Patience. I am a finisher and I like to finish in a day. If a project drags on too long, I get bored with it. Well, my patience is really being tested on these counters. It took a couple of days to get them routed, sanded and ready to be installed, but then I had to put the finish on. The finish I chose, … [Read more...]
Last night, as I crawled into bed, I declared, "I didn't post on my blog all weekend!" There was something liberating about that. I love my blog, but I recognize that I can sometimes be a slave to it and it's nice to step away for a day or two every now and then. I hardly even looked at my computer at all. Last week was a busy and intense work week and I was feeling a little burnt out, so … [Read more...]
I'm still plowing through my list of freelance articles (all 30 of them), so today I worked on a tutorial showing how to reupholster a small armchair. See that yellow French chair under the window? That was my subject. It took a couple of hours to get her all stripped down and ready for a nice new look. I decided to leave the wood frame as it was. It was a pretty, dark wood … [Read more...]
In June of 2011, I painted my kitchen cabinets. I had been itching to since I first walked through the house that became our home. Several things stopped me. Number one was my husband. He just wasn't ready for me to paint over perfectly nice wood cabinets. Number two was that we had two babies 19 months apart. I was willing to refinish floors, paint walls, slipcover furniture and … [Read more...]
I actually had to dig this photo out of my computer's recycle bin. I was embarrassed at the gaps and, while I had faith in grout and caulk, I wasn't eager to share the full frontal shot of my first tile job. So, instead I showed shots where my imperfections weren't so in-your-face. Well, here's what that same wall looks like after it has been grouted. (I still need to caulk around the … [Read more...]
I received a few opinions on the grout choice for my kitchen back splash and it made me take a look at my choice again. I do read your comments and take them to heart. I had bought gray grout, but the more I thought about it, the more I was unsure about the gray. Finally, I read a comment from a reader who suggested I test it out on a small section of tile. Duh. I … [Read more...]
I only have a small idea of what it's like to live through a kitchen renovation, but I know enough to know that it's pretty disruptive to a household. One of my dear friends had to gut her entire kitchen (down to the studs and floor joists!) I remember her balancing across the joists with a platter of sliced watermelon to feed volunteers who came to help with the kitchen project. That woman … [Read more...]
I woke up today, ready to get to work on the tile. I had the tile saw (borrowed from a friend), the tile, the supplies and my dad lined up to help. The morning was cold, but sunny. So, I started to get everything set up and it started to sleet. Okay. No biggie. We have to use the saw outside, but I'll just set up a canopy tent. By the time I gathered the saw horses and brought the … [Read more...]
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