Ledge Shelves

Remember my art/craft/second guest room?  No?  Well, here she is….I should say here she WAS, because we have made a few changes in here.

First up, we ditched that old futon.  We dragged that sucker to curb, and said good riddance.

Then, I spruced up my sewing table a bit (If you told me when I was 21 that I would one day type that sentence, I would be making fun of myself big time). Next, I bought some IKEA RIBBA Picture Ledges.  These…Once they were at my doorstep, I was pumped to get them on the wall.  I almost put them up myself, but then I couldn’t find the stud finder and the screw gun wasn’t charged.  So, I got smart and decided to wait for Justin.  Good thing too, because it was a lot easier with two people.  It’s always nice to have someone around to eye out heights and double check if things are level.  Let’s face it, sometimes things get wonky when you don’t take a step back and take a look.  Here they are, all hung up…This room was bare for so long, it was about time we added something to these walls.

Here’s a closer look at the ledges… they are perfect for displaying art.  I create new art from time to time, and do not necessarily want to frame everything or display it all over the house.  This is now the perfect spot for those misfit art pieces. Once everything was anchored in place, I did my thing adding art.

This is what I came up with…When you take a step back now, this is what you see…And, I know, you see that dresser in the right-hand side of this photo.  I’ll explain more on that another day.  For now, I hope you enjoy my new ledge shelves!What do you think?  Better?

 

Crates Crates and More Crates

Remember all of those crates that were scattered throughout my wedding?  Like here…And, here…And, a little more crate action here…Let’s just say, I wasn’t having a shortage of crates.  My dilemma was if I should sell them, or find a use for them.  Guess what?  I couldn’t bear to part with them.  So, they now live here…         And, here…Hanging out in those crazy tall nooks in our living room.

I set up 3 crates on each side of the room, to balance things out.Then, I plopped in some other nickity nack things, mostly antiques, and called it a day. I used some antique milk bottles and antique crocks.  And, our “M” book from anthropologie. So, that’s where all of the crates went, and our pesky nooks are finally filled!

Painting the Guest Bedroom

My blue dresser has a home!  Remember this guy?…

Well, his living arrangements were determined early on.  I knew I wanted him to live in our guest bedroom.  We desperately needed to kick our old entertainment center to the curb and find a better solution.  This little blue dresser was my solution!

So, I dragged the old entertainment center to the road and moved the blue dresser into it’s place.  I stepped back, and took at the room, and I thought booo.  I wasn’t digging all of the blue hues going on in this room.  It was blue overload.

So, I painted.

I went with Colorplace Autumn Haze.  It is a pretty neutral tan color. I figured with all the blue going on in here, it would help tone things down. P.S. I just throw everything in the center of the room when I paint, don’t mind my mess. Once I was finished painting, I brought the dresser back in.  And, what do you know? It looked much better with the neutral wall color!  Woot woot! Of course, Charlie helped keep an eye on my work.   And he also digs the new color. I think it looks bigger in here now, even with more furniture.  Weird how a color will do that. One last thing before you go.  A before and after…

 

Burlap Bag to Doorstop

Remember when my friend Christina gave me this awesome gift basket full of antiques for my bridal shower?

Well, I have been pondering about what I should do with that snazzy feed sack, and I finally figured it out.  Doorstops!  I have been thinking a lot about how we needed doorstops for our back french doors that lead out to our patio.  And, we needed them A.S.A.P., since the weather is about to get cool enough to turn off the AC and leave the doors open! Woo to the hoo!

So, I grabbed my feed sack and did some more pondering about how I can make this work.  I had previously made a pretty nifty doorstop for our bedroom, so I figured I would do something pretty similar this time around.

First, let me show you this feed sack…One thing that I love about it is that it has something printed on both the front and the back.

The front says Hoffman’s Farm Seeds.  I dig it.And the back….Funk’s Hybrid?  I mean, come on, you had me at Funk’s!

My first step was to cut the bag so that it laid flat.  This way, I had one long piece of fabric.  I did this by cutting across one side and along the bottom. Voila!!!

Then, I gave the whole thing a good ironing.  From there, it was time to do some cutting.  I wanted the doorstops to be a bit taller this time around, because there is actually a step up into the house making the doors a bit higher.  Since they needed to be taller, I cut the fabric longer vertically. This worked out well, since the printing on the bag is more vertical.

I also made sure to cut both pieces the same size.  I did this by cutting one piece to the size I wanted, then laying that piece directly onto the center of the uncut piece.  I cut the uncut fabric directly around the edge of the top pre-cut fabric, basically tracing the exact size.   Hope that makes sense!  Probably not, but that’s as good as it gets for my explanation.

Anywho, those two pieces were to be the front of my new doorstops.  That means I needed two more pieces that are the exact same size.  I just so happened to have some tan fabric that matched pretty well with the fabric from the feed sack.  So, I cut two more pieces of that fabric the same way.I needed two more pieces, because I was making two doorstops.  Which both have a front and a back, just in case you’re not following where I am going with this.  Now, that I had all of the pieces cut to the same size, it was time to get sewing.

I took the tan fabric, “good” side facing up, and laid it down first.  I, then, placed my feed sack piece, “good” side facing down, on top of the tan fabric, making a fabric sandwich. This way both “good” sides are facing inward.  And when I say “good” side, I mean the side that I want to be seen when I am done sewing, so for the feed sack it would be the side with the printing.  Here is a peek at the inside of my fabric sandwich…Get it?

Then, I just sewed up all sides of each, leaving only a small opening on one side. The opening was about 3 inches wide. I left an opening, so I was able to turn the soon-to-be doorstop inside out. Once, I had turned each doorstop inside out I was left with this…I didn’t sew those openings up just yet.  I first used them to fill the doorstops with rice. I just poured the rice right in, totally expecting to make a mess, but it was pretty easy and mess-free.  However, if you have a funnel, you might want to break it out for this step.It took about 7 lbs. of dry rice to fill each doorstop. I didn’t want them to be so stuffed they looked like they were going to burst, but I did wanted them to be heavy enough to prop each door open.  So, 7 lbs. seemed like a happy medium.Once, they were both full, I sewed up the opening and then took them for a test run.        Check out that door propping action! Wanna get closer? Okay!…Closer still? Fine!…I totally dig them, and they serve their purpose!  Just in time for some nice fall weather. And, when they are not keeping those pesky doors open, they hang out here…Right next to the fireplace.I think I did a bang up job.  Don’t you?

Dresser Love

A while back (were talking months ago) my friend Gwen gave me a small antique dresser.  She told me it needed some love, and thankfully I always have extra love to share with an antique dresser.  Here she is…

I know, she’s a beaut! I got her home and guess what?  …  It sat in my garage for about 3 months.  Justin threatened to bring it to the curb multiple times.  Of course, I retaliated, that I would be moving out if he did. Gotta do, what you gotta do for an antique dresser.  Fast forward a few months, and I decided it was time to get to work.

There were a few things I wasn’t jazzed about.  First the color.  Don’t get me wrong, red can be amazing, but I have no place for a red dresser in my house.

Next up, this broken drawer…

All of the drawers were in great condition, except that lower one.  It had seen better days, and was missing the bottom.  Kind of defeats the purpose of a drawer when you can’t store anything in it.  Lastly, I wasn’t in love with the drawer pulls.

The first thing I did was give the whole piece a good scrub, inside and out.  I used a few old rags with some diluted vinegar.  Did the job perfectly, and I swear the vinegar smell wears off.

Next, I wanted to sand all of the surfaces down with my palm sander.  I have a Ryobi detail sander.Before starting, I removed all of the knobs from the drawers, then removed the drawers from the dresser completely.From there, I just made my way from right to left using the palm sander.  I started with the lowest grit sandpaper I had, which was 80.  With a little pressure on the palm sander, I was able to remove most of the paint in the first shot.  Some areas were harder to work with, like the slats in between the drawers.  But, overall the paint removed pretty easily. The palm sander wouldn’t quite fit in the top slots, where I had removed the top three drawers.  So, I used a low grit sand paper to get in those areas by hand.

Lastly, I had to get the paint off of the drawers.  This was pretty straight forward, just sanding some more flat surfaces.I gave all off the surfaces one more good sanding with 120 grit sand paper.  I made sure to work with the grain of the wood.  This last sanding removed any remaining paint, and evened out any scratches on the wood.  As I previously mentioned, I was not planning on reusing the same hardware that came with the dresser.  So, I needed to fill the holes in the drawers left from the old pulls.  I used DAP painter’s putty.  You just fill the hole with the spackle, then pull a trowel across the area to remove any access putty. Once I had all of the holes filled, I let them dry for a few hours.  I, then, gave the drawers one last sanding with my palm sander to remove any remaining putty around the (now filled) holes.  Here she is holes filled and free of paint…I had planned to give this dresser a painted distressed look, and I wanted to have some darker wood tones showing through.  In order to do so, my next step was to stain the wood to a darker tone.  I used Minwax stain in English Chestnut.  I just used a foam brush to paint the stain on, going with the grain of the wood.  I, then, took an old rag and wiped any access stain off of the surface.  This is one step where you have to move a little quicker, since you do not want the stain to dry.Please don’t judge my poor dresser at this stage, it looks a bit rough.  As you can see, I didn’t completely get the red paint off of the ledge where the top drawers sit.  It was a tight area to work with, but I made sure everything was smoothed out, even if there was still paint remaining.Also, the top of the dresser had been spackled by a previous owner and those spots did not take the stain.  I was not worried though because I knew I would be painting over all of these issues.  Perfection wasn’t what I was going for at this point.   Then, it was time for paint.  This is a make or break, color is a big choice, and I was thinking about going a little more bold than usual.  I decided on a blue, specifically Olympic’s Celestial Blue.  Once I had my paint, I got right too it…Let me tell you, I was really worried about my choice at this point.  I was not digging how bright this blue was turning out. I figured I made it this far, I might as well slap a second coat on and see how I feel about it.

Much better! Thank god for second coats.  Just check out the difference in these drawers.The top drawer is one coat and the bottom drawer has two coats, in case you can’t tell.

Here she is, in all her blue glory…Woo to the hoo people, I am stoked about how it turned out!

Now, this is where the distressing comes in to play.  I debated how I wanted to go about distressing this dresser, and I ended up deciding not to do anything at all.  I love it just as it is, and I figure if I want to distress it in the future, I can do so at anytime.

Since there would be no distressing, I just had to get some new hardware and this puppy is done!  So, I let the paint dry for a few days, and while I waited I came across a sale on these knobs at Pier One…$0.98 each!  Which is amazing considering I needed 8 of them!  The metal matches the antiqued gold key slots on the drawers and I love the hand painted leaves.  Before I drilled my new holes for the pulls, I measured and marked where I wanted them to go.  I measured twice, just to be sure. Then, I grabbed Justin’s Dewalt drill, and I found the drill bit that was just slightly larger than the screws that came with the knobs.  I placed a piece of painters tape over my marks (I saw somewhere that this will reduce the chances of splintering your wood or damaging your paint).  Then, I just drilled right into the tape.  Once I had all of my news holes, I plopped the new hardware in place and voila…If you are wondering, I did not forget about the broken drawer!  I brought the whole bottom drawer to Home Depot, and one of the guys in the lumber section cut me a piece of wood that fit the slot in the drawer perfectly (yes, they do that for FREE).  Once I got the wood home, I just nailed it in place, so it wouldn’t move around.  The wood piece only cost about $4, and this dresser now is in full working condition!

And just for fun, a slideshow of the process…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

There you have it, our new/old dresser.  Can’t wait to show you where it ended up, but that’s a different post for a different day.

Portrait of Home

I have not been painting a lot lately, and the other day I had an itch to make something.  I remember seeing a post on my fav blog, Young House Love, a couple fun little portraits done of their homes.  I liked this idea, and thought I would take a stab at a quick portrait of our home.  Nothing too detailed, just a quirky little painting.  I also thought, why not show you my process of making the portrait while I was at it?

I started with a generic 8×10 canvas from Michaels.

Then, I sketched out our house from a photo that I had on my computer…

Next, I just added the main background colors.

From there, I just slowly added some details…

I also was sure to paint all of the edges, since I don’t think this painting will be frame worthy.

What do you think?

It’s def not perfect, but it’s just the quirky little painting I was going for.

And for fun, here is a slideshow of the process…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Living Plants, they’re really alive!

I know, you’re shocked.  I have managed to keep some plants alive! Even with this black thumb thing I have going on.

Now, let me tell you about these easy/almost no maintenance plants. When summer came around (yes summer, this post has waiting to be written for too long) I thought it would be nice to bring some color to our back yard.  I thought about getting some flowers and putting them in the gardens in the back, but Justin was currently working on those gardens.  So, I thought my best bet would be to get some pots and fill them with flowers instead.

Once I was set on potted plants, I picked up two large pots at Lowes.  Also, I picked up some potting soil. Once I got home, I just plopped the soil right into the pots. Like so…

While at Lowes, I also grabbed some flowers…

Aren’t they pretty?  From there, I figured out an arrangement for the flowers that I liked.  It wasn’t too complicated, considering both pots got the same exact flowers.

I then popped them all out of the containers they came in, and planted them right into my new bigger pots, adding more soil as I went.

I love them, we needed some color out back and I think this is a start.

While I was doing my planting flowers thing, Justin was hard at work making new gardens and re-mulching.  He’s such an overachiever.

Before I explain this new garden bed, I figured I should show you what this part of the yard used to look like.  The photo below is last year, right after we had irrigation installed and our yard re-sodded.

Even after the irrigation was installed, we still have some water hanging out in this corner from time to time.  Justin figured we should just add a garden bed, that way we don’t have to deal with this muddy corner.

As you can see, the grass was still coming back to life at this point, also Justin had just aerated the yard.

He planted 6 podocarpus plants…

And two small bottle brush trees…

While he was at it, he decided to re-mulch all of the garden beds in the back to match the new brown mulch we had used in the front.  Here is what our gardens were looking like post winter…

Not looking so hot (once again, please don’t judge our poor grass, it was having a rough time coming back after winter).

Here are things after Justin mulched…

See how the grass is coming back now?  Woot woot!

And here is where my new planters live…

Oh ya, while I was at it I planted these little succulents.  They hang out in the patio.These guys are so easy to take care of, they require very little water and lots of light.  I think even I can manage to keep them alive, fingers crossed.

And just because Justin likes to make me look bad, he also planted a new garden in the front on the side of the house…

 

I’ll leave you with what our front is looking like nowadays…

Thanks for checking out this super late post!

Homemade Cleaning Products

So, a while back, when I was going about my dusting business, I was cleaning and ran out of my wood duster (Pledge).  Well, this was an issue, because I was not about to go out just to get wood duster, and I was not going to skip dusting my house.  So, I figured hey I’ll ask Google what to do, which is pretty much my answer for everything.  And what do you know, I found all sorts of recipes for homemade dusting spray.  I mixed up a batch of an option, that I had all of the ingredients for, and got back to my dusting business.  Guess what?  I liked the new dusting spray better than Pledge.

I know you’re on the edge of your seat right now, this is pretty intense stuff.  I decided that once my other store bought cleaning products ran out, I would find recipes for homemade cleaners for those as well.

If you don’t know where I am going with this, I’ll help you out… I’m going to tell you all about my new cleaning supplies and give you their recipes.

Before you get jazzed about making your own cleaners, you’ll need some spray bottles.  I got a couple different types.

I found both of these options at Target.  The few above were $1.50 each in the gardening section and the 3 below were $3 each in the cleaning supplies area.  Now that we have the spray bottles covered, we can start getting crazy with some recipes.

---

Let’s start with good ol’ glass cleaner, which is my substitute for my old go to, Windex.

Glass Cleaner

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup water (I used distilled, since our tap water is pretty hard)
2. 1/4 cup white vinegar
3. 2-3 drops dish soap
4. Spray bottleDirections:

• Pour all ingredients into spray bottle.
• Shake.

Congratulations, you have made glass cleaner!  I use this spray for all of my windows and mirrors, works just as well as Windex.  I made 3 batches, one for each bathroom and one for the kitchen/rest of the house.  Since one of my spray bottles was a bit larger, I just doubled the recipe.

---

Multi-Purpose Spray

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup water (I used distilled)
2. 1 cup white vinegar
3. 10 drops essential oils
4. Spray bottle

Directions:

• Pour all ingredients into spray bottle.
• Shake.

You’re simply amazing, because you just created an all natural multi-purpose spray! For the essential oils, I used eucalyptus, because I had some on hand. Most recipes I found used lemon oil.  Any essential oil will work, so use whatcha got.  I use this spray for almost anything: kitchen counters, fridge shelves, my desk (which is not wood), the sink or spills on the floor.  Pretty much anything, hence the name multi-purpose.

---

 Dusting Spray

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup water (distilled for me)
2. 1 cup white vinegar
3. 1 tbsp olive oil
4. Spray bottle

Directions:

• Pour all ingredients in spray bottle.
• Shake.

Huzzah!  Another one down.  The olive oil kinda catches you off guard with this one, but it makes sense. It gives it the oily consistency that attracts the dust.  I use this on all of my wood surfaces.

---

 Bathroom Cleaner

Ingredients:

1. 1 1/2 cup water (distilled, if you prefer)
2. 1 cup white vinegar
3. 1/4 cup lemon juice
4. 1 tbsp dish soap
5. 2 tsp baking soda
6. Spray bottle

Directions:

• Add baking soda to spray bottle FIRST.
• Next, add vinegar to spray bottle slowly.  Let things fizzle out if needed.
• Once bubbles have subsided, add water.
• Add lemon juice and dish soap last.

This seems to be the trickiest concoction of the bunch.  You might want to use a larger spray bottle. I found that since my bottle was smaller, it overflowed when I added the vinegar.  You’ll want to mix this one over a sink, just in case.  I made 2 batches, one for each of my bathrooms.  I use it for my bathroom counters and my tub.

---

 Shower Cleaner

Ingredients:

1. Approximately 1/4 cup dish soap
2. Approximately 1/4 cup white vinegar
3. Refillable dish scrubber

Directions:

• Fill wand half with vinegar and half with the dish soap.
• Shake her up.

This one is ridiculously convenient.  I just wet my shower walls down and then scrub away.  It works just as well, if not better, than my old cleaner (aka Scrubbing Bubbles).

---

Now that you have a plethora of homemade cleaning products, you’re going to want to label them.  You don’t want to be spraying that bathroom cleaner on your wood surfaces, not that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.  For my labeling pleasure, I used washy tape and a sharpie marker.  Easy peasy.

What do you know?  Those are some fancy labeled bottles!

The clear spray bottles live in my kitchen…

And for the bathroom, my more colorful trio…   

I think the best part about all of this is how much cheaper these options are.  They last much longer and if you haven’t noticed, they mostly consist of water (free) and vinegar (cheap).

Oh yea, they also can’t harm my Charlie Bean, if he decides to take a taste of the kitchen counter or toilet bowl, whatever floats his doggy boat.

Try these!  You won’t be disappointed.

Hit the Lights

 

Wanna see a couple outdoor lights that have seen better days?

Ok! Coming right up…

These guys are the outdoor lights that were on our house when we purchased it.  They are so worn from the sun and weather.

They are not horrible and may look a lot better with a nice coat of paint, but we also weren’t digging the style of them.  So we decided it was time to retire them and move on to something we are more jazzed about.

We took a stroll through both Home Depot and Lowes and settled on a couple of these guys…

They are the Allen + Roth Castine Rubbed Bronze Outdoor Wall Light from Lowes.  They were more our style, being rubbed bronze and the bubbled glass stole my heart.  Fo real!  They were pretty much middle ground for pricing considering there size, they are almost 21 inches tall.

Justin did his electrical thing, while I held them up to the house(that’s my helping when it comes to electrical) and we now have this…

Much better!

 

What do you think?

The above photo is the day we moved into our house on top, beginning of our first year in the middle and beginning of our second year(currently) on bottom.  Making progress.

Wall Sprucing

Since we changed out the carpet in our front rooms, I have been itching to make some other changes.

First, we received this bench as a wedding present, and it just so happens to live in the office now…

It was on my registry at Target, it is the Threshold Storage Bench with Slatted Doors.  I think it goes well in this room, plus now you can take a seat if you wanna put your shoes on(even though we put our shoes on at the side door, we’ll just have to pretend that’s what we use it for).  I added a ceramic fish I already had to the shelf and also a couple fish pillows on top. What can I say? I like fish!

Next change was the current wall decor.  I wasn’t digging that we had black frames in these rooms with a wood desk, wood table and now a wood bench.  So, I replace the existing black frames with some new wood ones.

I kept Justin’s signed hockey picture and our concert ticket collages, but I did swap the walls they were hanging on.

Sorry about this dark photo, hard to get a good picture from this angle.   Since the concert collages were no longer hanging over the desk, we had a bare wall to fill.  Thankfully I recently received some bed bath and beyond gift cards and I found this guy on their website…

It was on sale for $49 and I had a 20% off coupon making this bad boy only $39 and free shipping to boot.

And above you can also catch a glimpse of our new wall clock that was another wedding gift.

In case you’re wondering it’s the Threshold Casual Wood Wall Clock from Target, which was also on my registry.

I’m pretty stoker about how much homier these rooms are becoming.

Straight across from this room is our “second living room”, which was previously a dining room.  This room was also in need of some wall sprucing, so I decided to direct my attention that way as well.  I just so happened to come across a great deal on some frames at Michaels and picked up, oh you know, 6 of them!  Don’t judge me, it was a great deal, they are all matted 11×14 frames for $10 each.  I added some watercolor beachy prints to them and Justin helped me hang them…

I am pretty pumped about these, this may be my fav wall I have spruced to date.  Oh, and that little sail boat up top is a bridal shower gift from my friend Lindsey.  I totally dig it, and I may be feeling a sail boat collection coming in the near future.

I got one last frame from Michael’s that was also on clearance that matched these…

It was also $10.

This guy is now hung to the right of the window in this room.

I am now happy when I walk in the house past these rooms, as oppose to the blah-ness we once had.

Shall I share some before and afters?

On the day we moved in….

and now…

And once again on move in day…

and now…

You dig it?

Just need some curtains and I might call these rooms done.