Top FIVE posts of 2014

2014 was a busy year for me. It started with a move into our new home which was so nice. We had sold our house last the spring prior and lived with family, in two different locations, in the interim. We were so thankful for our family, but it was nice to have our home ready for us! Then I found out I was pregnant and life slowed way down for me. I had our third son in October and am slowly getting my groove back!

Today I will share my top five posts of 2014. Thank you for reading my blog, and following along with me. If you are new here, I hope you find something that you like, and stay a bit to explore.

#5

Planked wall in our half bath.

This was the second planking project that I did in 2014 and I love it. It is in a little half bath on our first floor. I timed it to happen when the toilet and sink were removed when the floors had to be redone. It made it so much easier to plank the wall without the sink and toilet in the way!

Planked wall in half bath


#4

A storage shelf I built for our bathroom wall.

I built this following plans from Ana White.

DIY shelf for bathroom storage.


#3

The redo of a lazy susan using french typography.

I had a blond wood lazy susan that was plain ugly. I stained it and used one of The Graphic Fairy's graphics on the surface. I used a Black Sharpie to do this!

Stain and French Typography make a Lazy Susan Pretty.


#2

Billy Built in Unit.

Like a lot of people in blog land, I used an IKEA Billy Unit as the base for a built in around the TV and for storage in our family room. I customized it by having the center stick out a few inches and adding a dark stained shelf in the middle. I also added crown and rope molding to the top.

Billy Built In Unit.


#1 post of 2014

Planking a wall in my kitchen.

This is the first wall I planked in my home and it is in my kitchen. Since this post I have added a gallery shelf to the wall and painted the top part and it all looks much better. You can check out the gallery shelf here.

Planking a wall

Thank you for being a part of my blog. I love to do projects and love to share what I have done and I thank you for reading!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Black Door

How was your Christmas? I hope everyone had a great day celebrating with family. We had a perfect day, and had a great Christmas, the first in our new home!

My post today is about painting a door. I actually did this about 2 weeks ago, in the midst of getting ready for Christmas, Christmas decorating and shopping. I missed my old black door when we moved to this house. I don't know what it is, but there is just something so awesome about painting your door a color. I chose black, but any color would look better than boring plain white. So one day I just decided today was the day and started painting. It took me no time at all and only 2 coats of paint.

Looking back at my front door, with the unpainted walls, the boring (non-wainscoted) entry wall, and the white door was too much for me. It was too much BLAH. The quickest thing I could do to fix that was grab my paint brush and paint. I have been wanting to do this since moving in, and it was finally the day.....

I was so excited to paint I almost forgot to snap a picture.

Here is a different shot looking back from the kitchen.

I used a brush because I love using a brush, and am comfortable painting with both my left and my right hand. I used my FREE sample size Benjamin Moore can in Black Iron. It took me 2 days (I gave plenty of dry time) and 2 coats of paint. Ta da. Done.

Here it is after only one coat. I was so excited because it looked so great, the paint is still wet when I took this picture.

Here are a few more pictures. Now maybe I can get to painting the walls and adding wainscot in the hallway and then it will be AWESOME!

Doesn't it look so much warmer? Even my husband loves it, and he doesn't always notice that sort of thing (or at least he doesn't comment on it)!

One last time:

BEFORE

AFTER

Hope you keep enjoying your holiday break! I am getting ready to go back to work next week. I will be crying all day missing my sweet little one. I have to get moving because I have things to get done before then.

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Christmas Decorating in the Foyer

Can you believe that there are only 10 more days until Christmas!?!? Well, 9 days of shopping...... Yikes. I better get a move on. I am not a shopper and with an infant I am finding that I have no time to shop. I will have to leave all the fun presents to Santa. I totally trust that he will bring what my boy's asked for.

Today I am sharing my entry table and how it is decorated for christmas. I did a little decorating in several areas of our home this year. We moved in last February, so this is my first time decorating this home.

Lets start at the front door. I always decorated above the door in our last home, and I did the same here. I just used some faux garland, added ribbons and some little sprigs of this and that. I love how it cozies up that cold window area.

Oh - did you notice the door is black?! That happened this week and I. LOVE. IT. !!!! A LOT!! I will show a before and after soon.

The reindeer on the table are new, bought on sale after Christmas 2 years ago. The blocks were a project several years ago. They have all the numbers to make the countdown starting Dec 1st! My boys love changing them daily to reflect the shrinking number of days until Christmas Day.

The frame initially had a chalk bunny silhouette, but I change it and this is what is says today. I could have gotten fancier with the lettering, but did not have the time!

Hope your days are merry and bright and that you are slowing down to enjoy the magic of the season!

Blessings and thank you for visiting!

Craigslist Chairs Redone

Hello, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and was able to spend it with some family and/or friends!

Today I am going to share a project that has been completed for a while, but again, with baby here it has s..l..o..w..e..d.. me way down! So, I am just getting to putting this post together now.

If you have been to my blog before you may remember these chairs from a Thrifty Finds Friday a while back. If you are new here, WELCOME - I am glad you are here. You can read about the chairs and price here.

The first order of business was to scrub these babies down. It is hard to tell in these photos but, they had mold spots on them. It was not difficult to clean them, it was just a little bit of a cardio workout! I scrubbed so hard my heart rate was elevated the entire time I cleaned these! I just used warm soapy water and a scrub sponge, and some good ole elbow grease.

Then I left them outside to dry thoroughly.

Next I took off all the seat and got to work on them. They were a light wood which does not go with any wood tones in my home, so I sanded them and stained them.

Here is a closeup of a seat before I stained, and after I sanded it.

Then I used the same stain that I used for the kitchen table when I stained it years ago (this is the table my chairs are going around). It is the color Java in General Finishes stain. Below is a picture of what the chairs looked like after one coat of stain. It looks very streaky in this picture, it was not so streaky in real life. It was even less so after 2 coats.

Here they are all balanced on paint cans drying!

I did 2 coats of stain and 3 coats of poly.

I have no pictures of me spray painting the chairs. But I used Heirloom White to spray these chairs. I sprayed them upside down first, then right side up. I used lots of coats of very light sprays, that keeps the paint from dripping. This came in a Matte finish, which I don't like on furniture, so I sprayed a poly on once the white had dried. When all the painting was done, I put the seats back on the chairs. This is how they look around my table. I love them and I think they came out so nice.

Did you notice the white front door in the background? That should be black by then end of the week. If all goes as planned!

The blue/gray wall in the background with the white gallery shelf you can read all about on this gallery wall post.

If you are interested in the wall planking you can read about it on the planking the kitchen wall post. Or read about the bathroom wall planking here.

Next up: I am working on wainscot in the dining room. I am going to do the same style as in our last home. You can read about that here. Oh - and I need to get the Christmas decorations out and put up.....

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Thanks for reading and make sure to visit soon!


I'm sharing here today:

The Girl Creative, Thrifty Decor Chick, Crafty Allie, Green Willow Pond, Miss Mustard Seed

A wall map with a DIY frame

I have another project that I did for the boys' room and completed before baby, but am just getting around to posting it now. To see the last project, which was also for their room (window valances) click here. As much as I love sharing these projects, I love snuggling with a newborn even more!

I wanted to hang a wall map in the boys room and asked my 3rd grader if he wanted a world map or a US map. We have a globe in their room, so he chose a US map to hang on the wall. I ordered one from Swift Maps. It is a plain old fashioned paper map measuring 24 in X 36 in. This is the map I ordered.

Here it is on the wall.

Want to do this yourself (including building the frame)? Keep reading for all the supplies needed and how-to:

Supplies:
Wall Map
Thin plywood (to adhere the map to)
1 X 4 in choice of wood (quality you buy depends if you stain or paint it)
Stain (or paint)
Kreg jig and bit
Wood Glue
Mod Podge (I used matte)
Hammer and Nails
.....and that is it...... Keep reading for instructions.....

I started by cutting my 1X4's. I cut them 1" bigger than the map outline, because I wanted 1/2" around all the edges. That was the plan anyways. Measure Twice, Cut Once. Let me repeat; Measure Twice, Cut Once. I usually adhere to this rule, and when I don't, I mess up!

My cut was 1" too short, so I did not have the extra 1/2" I wanted, but did not have enough wood to scrap that piece, and did not have enough time or patience to drive 20 minutes to Home Depot for more wood. So if you look closely, you will notice that there is not an even 1/2" reveal of map around all edges.....

Oh, you didn't notice? Even better!!

Okay, moving on. I used my miter saw to cut the edges at 45 degrees. Once I had all 4 pieces cut, I got out my itty bitty little cheapo Kreg jig. I had never used this before and was excited to try it.

I read all the directions (highly unusual for me....), which tell you how close to the edge to place it, based on your wood dimensions. I don't have any Kreg accessories so I just used my regular clamps. The kit came with the special drill bit and I used that in my drill.

Here it is set up.

And here it is done. I am in LOVE with this little blue jig!

When I was done I dry fitted my frame and laid it by the map, just to make sure again before screwing my frame together.

Okay, so other than my poor measurement, it fits. I then used screws in the pocket holes to attach the 1 x 4's together. That was easy! Did I mention that I LOVE MY KREG JIG..... (yes, I am yelling that, that's how much I love it!)

Once it was a frame I sanded and stained it. I used a gel stain that I have used on other projects. It is American General in the color JAVA. I did not bother to stain the back. After staining, I waxed it with a clear wax.

Meanwhile.......I used Mod Podge to adhere the map to the thin plywood. Originally I was planning on going over the front surface with Mod Podge too, but changed my mind. If you look very closely, you can just see the Mod Podge jar on the right of the photo below....

Once the map was dry, I nailed the board the map was glued to, to the back of the frame. Make certain to have it aligned correctly from the front.

I used 2 eye hooks spaced about 5 inches apart on the back to hang it. I used picture wire between the two eye hooks and a nail in the wall. Here it is on the wall. Now my 3rd grader should get all his state tests correct!

I hope you liked this project. Please comment with any questions. Thank you for visiting and come back!!

Sharing at: Thrifty Decor Chick

Window valances for 4 windows in boys' room.....finally

It has been a little while since my last post, and I have a very good -- and very cute --- reason! Our family has grown by one precious little boy. We have been blessed with another son. So, I have had other things on my mind than blog posts. But I'm feeling good - he is a good little sleeper and I have help so today is a good time to lie on the couch and do this post!

So, about today's post...... I did get several projects done before our littlest blessing arrived, and I will blog about those over the next few weeks, while I get my mojo and energy back for more projects. They are all in my mind, but not in the planning stages other than in my swirling brain! Today's post is about one of those projects that I completed about a month ago.

When we moved in our current house I simply got blackout roller shades for the boys room windows. I used them in our last house and they are just so much better for keeping out the sun (and heat) than blinds. But they are ugly. Unfortunately they are nothing special to look at. Their windows are very big, very tall and face east. They get a lot of sun and heat in the morning hours. The windows are stacked at top, with the middle window being taller than the two flanking it, so I could not put a big valance across all three. Here is an exterior picture of the windows to give you an idea. (Our home was still under construction in this photo).

I liked the valance in the room at our last house, but I only had one of them and this house has 4 windows in their room!

I decided to copy the valance from our old house and hang it with tension rods in each window (inside mount). I bought more fabric similar to the original, and bought more star material, although I could not find the exact one. I bought blackout material for the back of each valance.

I reused the original valance for the window that is separate and above a desk. It is so similar in color that you can't tell it's not exactly the same as the others. I did keep the pom pom fringe on it but have not found enough of it to put on my 3 new valances. When I find it I will add it to them.

The amount of light coming in the windows make it difficult for this non-photographer to take decent pictures....sorry....

It is sad that I feel good about getting the boys room done just a little bit more.... I mean we have only been in the house since February. Geez...... ***total sarcasm, in case you can't tell..... The good news is I don't think they care!

I feel like I have been creeping with projects. But sometimes that happens and life and family need you more than making your house pretty needs you!

Thank you for reading today.

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