Guest Room

We are happy to announce that we have a guest room! Our color scheme for this room is grey and yellow. We tried our best to use what we already had to furnish the room. The furniture just needed a good paint job! I think at one point it was bedroom furniture I had as a kid, then dad used it later down the road for his apartment in NYC. We put it in the spare room of our apartment when we were first married and now it made it to our first home. To save some beans for us, we decided to give it a nice fresh look.

(guest room before..it was still painted the original color it came in)

We painted this room grey which you can see in the following pictures

For furniture, this is what we started with. I don't really know what to call this color. We had this dresser, a nightstand, and a headboard to tackle.

Not exactly the look we were going for...

With a couple coats of white paint and some new hardware...

SO much better!

Next up, pillows. The two big yellow ones came with the comforter (from target btw). The two in front of those are napkins from target. The white and yellow on on the left is made from target place mats. I sewed them together and stuffed them. The yellow pillow in the front came with the comforter set and the grey one I made out of fabric from Joann's just to add a splash of grey. 

This curtain is my favorite DIY part of the room! I stumbled upon this in target on clearance(!!!) very randomly one day...it was at the end of an isle in a pile of stuff on sale and the pattern caught my eye. To turn it into a curtain I bought curtain clips (you can find them by the rods). All you do is clip the fabric on and you can hang it on a rod. No sewing needed!

We love it!! The nightstand was also painted like the dresser as well as the headboard, which is hard to see.

I still need to find the names of the paint colors we used for the wall and furniture. I'll add that later.

Hannah

Old door into a desk

We have some MAJOR updating to do!! Between our jobs and all our projects it's hard to sit down here and document. I keep telling myself though that we will love to look back on this so I got my butt in gear! To start back up...we have completed an awesome project!! I stumbled upon a really neat old door on one of my many antiquing/thrifting adventures to find this beauty.

Hello beautiful!

From this point on I started trying to figure out how I wanted to use this treasure. We finally decided on a his/her desk for our office/craft room. I explained to James how I wanted it to look and he put his engineercantwaittousemytoolsagain talent to work. He should really be the one to explain how this was transformed...but he's currently in the garage marking some boards for his next project. :)

First things first...we needed some legs!

 

We used a 1x4, cut it to the height we needed. The boards were both glued and nailed together to make sure they would hold

Then we laid them out to stain the legs. We used Rustoleum- dark walnut stain.

We also wanted a little shelving unit in the middle to give that his/hers look. James made that too and we used the same stain.

The frame

Adding the shelf

We were also dog-sitting at the time...such help. Maggie always wants to give me dirty looks

The shelf! We used extra wainscoting for the back because that's all we had! I stained this also before he attached it to the door. This looks like a lot but it really did not take long. We did 2 coats of stain on everything and a clear coat to protect it.

Cute husband securing the legs

and the shelf. We left the hinges and the door knob on the desk to keep it's vintage/antique look

Then we put up some shelves above it. The wall was looking lonely

Making sure it looked straight. Those might be my feet propped up....

Looking better! (The shelves are from Lowes)

Finding the perfect chairs ended up being easier than I thought..

Snagged these from a yard sale like 4 houses down on my way home from work on a Friday morning...exactly what I was looking for!

Then I got to do my favorite part...decorate!

We love how this turned out! James' side (right) will have his computer there when he gets a chance to set up his side

My side (left) has my sewing machine and supplies.

Other details for all you other DIY people:

*Wall color : Honesty (Valspar)

 *Baskets (Walmart)

*3 framed paintings were painted on fabric by my very dear friend Lauren S.! She used muslin fabric, paint, and her talent! I got the frames from target.

*the empty frames are from goodwill..some painted, some kept the way they were.

*the cross and the B I just wrapped in twine.

*the giant close pin was from Joann's on clearance for like a quarter. I modge-podged some scrapbook paper on it a clipped in an old photo booth picture from the zoo

Success for our craft/office room! There is more to be done to this room but like always, it's a work in progress. :)

Hannah

Yarn Letters

 Here is an easy craft for anyone! (and it can cost less than $10 if you wait for the right sale ;) )
Supplies!
1. Paper mache letters (frequently 50% off at hobby lobby)
2. Yarn of any color(s)
3. A few dabs of glue

Start by wrapping the letters horizontally (as shown) then vertically.

Add a few dabs of glue here and there just to be on the safe side. The tighter you can wrap it, the better it looks in the end

And well-lah. I added some embellishments to mine just for fun

 We are using them on our table by the door. I randomly spotted the "&" in a small antique store a couple days after I made these- what a treasure! It went perfectly!

And that's a wrap!

More to come!

Updates!!!

Sorry it's been so long! We both have had crazy schedules lately...when I say crazy I mean like James working 100 hours on night shift in one week. Don't worry, he is back on days now, but for a little while he got to pull some all nighters like me! It was nice for us to be on the same "shift", but he worked so many hours it didn't really matter. Anyway, we've been working hard on getting everything put away and put together lately. I have pictures of the living room and dining room to share. Hopefully by the end of the week we can post the laundry room and final touches of the kitchen so stay tuned!!!

 Before:

Whoever decided to put a big hole for a TV here is nuts. This mantle is too pretty for that! I told ya I had big plans for this so look below!

After!!!

I looked for awhile for the perfect shutters to cover this hole but could never find the right size or price I needed. I was looking around in one of our frequent visits to Lowe's when it hit me. We can make shutters!!! For super cheap on top of that! James made these for me and I painted them a color called willow!! 

This is not quite done but you get the idea....I have one more plan for the old window

I love our table!

I also love this centerpiece I put together! The jars that don't have flowers in them have buttons and the one if the front has the seashells I collected when I lived in California and Florida when I was little :)

My favorite antique

More to come!!!

The cabinets are finished!!!

 The kitchen cabinets are done! They look SOOOO great! H-U-G-E thanks to my dad for all his hard work! I knew he wouldn't get too bored once he retired. :)

Just a reminder of before...

The first half were done earlier in the week so dad and James put those up

Working hard! 

James and I were in St.Louis this weekend so dad took the rest up to our house while we were gone! He sent these to my phone! I couldn't wait to see them! He did an awesome job!!

SO much better!!!!!

As for more updates....

Just some finishing touches :)

Of course I had to add some sore of creation of my own so I painted the (now) green birdhouse and decorated the tray by decoupaging the craft paper and lace to it. I also painted the tray and distressed it, it's just hard to see in the picture.

As for my frequent visitor, Lucy, she is extremely thankful we have furniture for her to rest on now when she comes over. :)

Let the decorating begin!

I have been itching to decorate since I have held the key to the house.
Actually, before then because I had this project ready to display months ago...maybe before we even had a house picked out :)

This is in our apartment when I actually made them. I couldn't wait to hang them! 

I originally found this idea in my favorite magazine (It's a Better Homes and Gardens special interest magazine with DIY everything). This is extremely easy to do on your own if you are feeling a little inspired. It is a great way to add a little color to a blank wall, and an extremely cheap project!

To do this fun project, you will need a collection of picture frames that are all different in size, shape, detail, ect. All of these frames are from Goodwill or Salvation Army. I got each anywhere from 50 cents to $2 (see what I mean by cheap??). They all had random weird pictures in them (like naked baby angels or livestock). Keep in mind while you are looking for frames that you are going to paint them and get rid of the scary pictures in them. Pay attention to the detail of the frame. For example the one on the bottom left had a scary naked baby angel picture in it, and it was a weird brown. However, the frame was beautiful! It was covered in flowers! I knew it would look great painted a different color! 

Once you have your collection, chose your paper. Scrapbook paper is one of my FAVORITE things to decorate with and use in crafts.I chose paper  from one of those books of scrapbook paper. They are all different but compliment each other. You can find the books or individual sheets at any craft store. Here are some close ups of the paper I used

Once you decide on the paper you like, it will be easier to chose a color to paint them. I used an antique white but don't be afraid to go with a bold red or cute green! I have seen frames done in almost every color. I already had this paint but it was like $1 from Hobby Lobby so don't spend a lot on paint. 

After the frames are dry it is time to put the paper in! The hardest part of this project was arranging them. I laid them on the floor and played around with them until I found the exact arrangement that I liked. I added the circle mirror kind of last minute. I was searching for another circle to kind of balance out all the squares when I found that beauty marked half off at Hobby Lobby. It worked perfectly in the collage and added an extra circle!

You can put your pictures above a table like this, above a couch if it's against the wall, in an entry way, in your bedroom, and the possibilities go on!

LOVE.