Like I've said before ... when I get a bee in my bonnet ... things. get. done. Now, these probably aren't the things my husband is hoping that I get done around the house. He wants a ton of stuff donated to Goodwill that will clear up a bunch of space ... he wants cabinets cleaned out and everything free of clutter. I'm working on that, too--s.l.o.w.l.y.
Right now, I have this obsession (for lack of a better word) with restyling, crafting, and redoing the decor in my house. It all started with a trip to see our dear friends, the Murrills. Whenever I'm at their house, I always marvel at Steph's amazing taste in home decor. She is SO very talented. You can check out some of her work
here.
(You can follow her blog at Murrills Pearls of Wisdom.)
PAUSE ... for a few pics for our North Carolina trip in January:
We always enjoy our time with the Murrills ... they are our second family. The kids get along so well ... and we just feel at home with them. Hopefully, we'll make this trip more than once a year!
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| Auntie Steph and Miss Allie |
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| Like herding cats! |
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| Love these kids! |
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| Breakfast of Champions! |
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| Two ornery girlies ... peas in a pod! |
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| Just relaxing ... |
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| I'm in love with their back yard! It is so peaceful! |
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| Outdoor fun! |
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| I enjoy every minute of time spent with this girl! Love her! |
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| The kiddos ... lined up by height and age ... which worked out perfectly! |
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| That Kiki LOVES Baby Allie ... she could not get enough love. |
Anyway ... as I was saying, Steph has the taste in decor that I long for ... I wish I could hire her to do my home! (
seriously, Steph) When we were up there visiting this past January, we chatted and shopped, and I decided to take some of her thoughts with my own twists ... stop talking about it and dreaming it up ... and just go for it. That's a big struggle for me. If you know me, I am not the best decision maker. I have lots of thoughts and ideas ... wishes and wants ... but I'm slow to follow through, because I'm afraid I won't like what I have done. Or I don't know quite where to start.
So, where did I start? With paint. I have things in my home that I really like, but I wish were just a bit tweaked to fit my taste ... that way I will love them. I began with the shelves and decor above our T.V. I still have a little bit to go here, but I just did the paint and small decor changes to get myself started. I will, eventually, come back to this area.
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| I painted the floating shelves. They were a dark espresso ... now two rustic white and one gray. Then I changed up the decor on the white shelves. |
Next, I painted some shelves that sit above Allie's high chair. They were a glossy black. I "vintaged" them up a bit.
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| These old, glossy black shelves got a face-lift. |
I was laying in bed one night ... perusing through Pinterest (where all ideas for home decor begin), and I saw this mug holder. I wanted to make it, but the one I saw had the word "coffee" on it. Billy does not drink nor like coffee, so I knew that word wouldn't work for me. I thought about it that night ... and again in the morning, and I decided ... I'm going to make it and put the word "drink" on it. That afternoon ... this was finished! I made the whole area into a drink station.
(An idea I yoinked completely from Steph's house. Though, her coffee/tea space is bigger and more of an area than a station like mine.) The tea holder hanging on my cabinet, I got at Goodwill in NC. It was an old, pea green mail holder with thick, fuzzy yarn to hang it. I just changed the yarn out for twine and sanded and painted it with chalkboard paint. I love how it turned out ... $5 project.
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| What started out as a broken palette that had to be repaired ... |
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| ... turned into this completed project. |
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| Love this drink station ... thank you Steph, once again, for the inspiration. |
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| Tea, sugar, cream, stir sticks, straws ... all you need for a warm beverage ... plus, our Bose wifi speaker--a little music with your tea? |
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| How it looked when I bought it. |
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| My finished product! |
While I was shopping in antique stores and thrift stores with Steph, I got two windows, an old mirror, a Norman Rockwell picture called Sunset, and a few other things to use in my decorating. I made this wall in my dining room with some of my finds. The 'H' is made from barn wood that came from a barn on my in-law's property. It was an 1800s barn that my father-in-law tore down. He gave me a bunch of wood ... and made me a table out of some of the wood. It is incredible! It looks like it's straight out of Pottery Barn, but it's even better. I love it! Anyway, aside from the awesome table, I used some of the wood to make the letter. The sconces were free in a vintage vanity I bought for Khloe at a garage sale a few years ago. I love this wall!
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| Please don't look too closely at our bookshelf! I need to reorganize the books and add small shelves on each side to add a less crowded look to it. That is an upcoming project I will blog about later. |
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| I redid a few frames, and fixed up the Norman Rockwell pic frame. I had never decorated above this bookshelf before. I like how it turned out. I made that "h" sign. |
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| I LOVE the top of the table! Planks from a real 1800s barn. |
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| I keep quilts in this table, so we have something on our cold Florida nights ... LOL! |
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| I painted this lamp. I bought it for $6 at Goodwill, painted the bottom, and changed the shade. Perfect! |
While my father-in-law was here this past February, he asked me what projects he could do while he visited ... or if I wanted him to make anything. I just happen to have plans for a cabinet that I got online, and he made a beautiful cabinet for me! He didn't have time to put the doors on it, but he's going to finish that for me the next time he visits. I absolutely love it! Billy wants me to try to sell it, but I don't want to. I guess I could try just to see what I would get. But then I would have to make another one, for sure. My father-in-law is very talented, and I hope to learn a lot from him about building.
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| This is the cabinet just after it was built. Pre everything ... pure untreated and unpainted wood. |
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| The top is my favorite. 5 planks with a gorgeous grain! |
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| I'm still in love with the top! |
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| This is post-staining ... I loved the stain color, but where I filled in the nail holes ... the stain didn't take the same color. So, you could see each little nail hole area. Not a fan of that at all. I need a kregjig! |
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| I just loved the look of the stain! I almost kept it as is in this picture. But I had an idea stuck in my head ... and it needed to come to fruition. |
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| Post painting ... pre-antiquing. |
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| Post painting ... pre-antiquing. |
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| All finished ... except for the doors. I am looking forward to seeing it completely done. Billy doesn't want me to add doors, but I think I want them. I guess I still have time to think about it. |
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| Antiqued and distressed ... I used sandpaper and a brown creme wax. |
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| I love the distressed look! |
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| There will be a hutch here soon, but for now, I put the cabinet here under a plate hanger that I already had. |
I'm always up for a palette craft. I like to find broken palettes that will be thrown away, and patch them up or just use them for parts. I made that coffee mug holder out of a broken palette. That same day, I got one with large planks.
I made this sign for our house out of two of the planks. A few of my friends said they would pay me to make them one ... I think I'll just surprise them sometime in the near future.
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| I, absolutely, love how this turned out. I guess I need to make more ... I already have two orders. Lol! |
Then yesterday, I decided to use the last plank to make this sign by my front door. I love how it turned out! My vision come to life.
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| Just a left-over plank from a palette that I used to make something else. |
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| my new sign! |
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| I've been looking for something to hang here for a while ... I have a Christmas 'H' that I love to hang here, but that only works for about 5 weeks out of the year! |
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| Different corner of the dining room. I love this little table ... it was my Dad's when he was growing up. |
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| I wanted to put this sign that I made right next to the front door, but it ended up being a bit wider than I had wanted it to be. I still found a place for it! |
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| I got that window mirror at Goodwill in NC. I just distressed it a bit and added those drawer pulls ... and idea Steph and I saw in an antique store in NC. I think it turned out so cute! |
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| Original window mirror ... pre revamp. |
I added the decor to this area this past week. The wall art was already there. I just moved this table under it, and I scrounged things from around the house to put on it. I had to move this table, because it was previously under the wall plates in the dining room where the cabinet is currently located. I'm probably going to refinish this table. (Don't tell Billy! Lol!)
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| I made that sign after a different trip to Steph's ... a few years ago. Poor Steph! She has a huge chalkboard with all kinds of important and romantic and special dates on it. It is lovely! I made this smaller chalkboard that would only fit a few dates, so I used the most special to us. |
I have been doing some work in the kitchen, as well. One night, Billy went to bed early, and I was just bothered by the decor above my cabinets. So, I started moving things around ... and I went into my garage, and I grabbed some scrap wood, stain, and paint. I made a sign to put up there that I had seen that day on Pinterest, and I was wanting to make. In the end, I changed the top decor of my cabinets for free! I, also, worked on revamping the top of my fridge. I had been using the same decor since we moved home from living in S.Korea ... in 2008. It was time for a change!
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| Just a few tweaks here and there ... I'm still not a super fan of those ferns, but I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate green without ferns. Coming up with nothing so far. |
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| I love cake plates. There are so many beautiful cake plates out there ... so I displayed some of them that I own. |
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| It was just a scrap of wood. |
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| That turned into this sign to go on top of my cabinets. |
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| In this picture, you can see what has sat on top of my fridge for the past seven years! |
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| I made that farmer's market crate for less than $5. |
For a while, I have needed a dresser in Alice's room. While she was a teeny baby, there wasn't a real need. I have her closet, and in the closet, there is a changing table I had been using for clothing storage. However, as she has grown, it just wasn't enough. Her clothes ended up laying all over the guest bed in her room which made the room look a mess all of the time! I very much disliked that. While Mom and Dad H were here in February, I looked every day for a dresser on Craigslist. I found one, and I drove 45 minutes out to New Port Richey for ... nothing. It was a bust. But as long as I was out there (sans kids, no less), I thought I might as well look up antique stores in the area. I found the oldest and largest in Florida (at least, they claim to be), and I will say that it did not disappoint. I could've spent thousands of dollars on furniture in there. There were so many pieces I fell in love with! I ended up focusing and buying the actual piece I was hunting down ... a chest of drawers for Allie. I took it home, and I refinished it. It fits nicely into the corner of the room, and I really don't think it added too much bulk. It seems like it has always been there, and I am so happy to have a home for her clothes now!
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| I love how the drawers are wavy. |
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| Before pictures. |
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| Before pictures. |
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| This is mid-way through painting ... I had the undercoat on ... a very pretty vintage blue. |
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| Mid-way pictures. |
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| Mid-way pictures. |
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| Mid-way pictures. |
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| All finished ... from the front. |
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| All finished ... from the top. |
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| All finished ... from the side. |
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| Perfectly fits into her room. |
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| Love it! |
One of the last projects I have finished came because I have been looking at a few items to replace this mirror where I've been hanging my car keys since 2005! I bought this before I got married. It was black. It wasn't bad, by any means, but I just felt like it didn't fit. I keep finding items to hang there to replace it, but I never pull the trigger to buy them ... I guess I feel like what I have isn't that bad. So, I painted it ... now, I like it! I'm still working on this area, but painting it was a good start ... and it took me an hour to from start to finish!
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| Fixed instead of replaced. |
I'm far from done here, but that's the joy of it all ... I am having a lot of fun decorating, re-finishing, refurbishing, crafting, and creating the decor here in our home. I won't be stopping any time soon ... and according to Billy, I have to figure out how to turn this into a business ... we'll see.
Happy Easter to everyone!
