A Little DIY Duvet Love

Here's something fun - my DIY Anthropologie inspired duvet tutorial is on Mashable along with other adorable Anthro crafts. Check out their 15 Clever DIY Anthropologie Hacks for Your Home!

Painting Oak Cabinets - Part 2: The Fall...maybe?

Remember back when I was so excited to paint the guest bathroom cabinets? It went so smoothly and within a few days I had practically brand new cabinets. On that high I jumped right in and decided to paint our master bathroom cabinets as well. And that's where the circle of insanity started. But first let's take a quick look at where we were a year ago.

Yuck yuck yuck. Brown walls, towel racks falling off the walls, and those oak cabinets. But then we painted! And it was infinitely better! But those cabinets still mocked me.

And they continued to mock me, even throughout the painting process.

It all started out fine, I even got Kacey to sand down everything for me (yay for Tom Sawer-ing out the work!). The cabinet base was primed and painted pretty quickly, but it all went downhill with the drawers and doors.

In the few weeks between painting the guest bathroom and the master bathroom the outside temperature decided to rise about 20 degrees. Full blown Phoenix summer was in full swing at 115 degrees at 6pm. I had been painting the doors in the garage, which now became a human sized oven a la Hansel and Gretel. But instead of being inside a delicious candy house, I was stuck painting as quickly as I could to try to prevent the paint from drying as soon as it touched the wood. Since I could only stand to be outside for 10 minutes at a time, this went on for days. It stretched into weeks. I wanted to break the doors in half from my fury, but that would have left me with no doors and a messy bathroom with nowhere to hide my stuff.

Eventually I put the last coat on the front of the doors and Kacey helped me screw in the hardware. Are the new cabinets amazing and make our bathroom look 1,000,000 times better? Yes. Was it worth it? Uhhhh, not sure yet, ask me in a few months when I've stopped cringing every time I go into the garage. (But yes, it was worth it, absolutely.) For now though, let's forget about those times and instead bask in the glow that is non orangey oak cabinets. I'm sort of giddy when I look at how far this bathroom has come!

Linking up with Inspire Me Please - Linky Party 

Oak Bathroom Cabinet Painting Makeover - Part 1 The Rise

I think I've become obsessed...with painting my ugly oak cabinets. All of the cabinets in our house are builder grade basic oak cabinets and I have this dream of a beautiful light tan kitchen full of bright white cabinetry. Totally redoing the kitchen and buying new cabinets are out of the question, so painting it is. Except I've never actually painted trim or cabinets before and I was terrified of completely messing up and being stuck looking at them every day until we move or I get so frustrated staring at their hideousness that I burn the house down. So instead I decided to save my sanity and start with the tiny guest bathroom  in case I totally messed up. But I didn't, and it looks amazing!

There are tons of step by step tutorials out there on how to paint over cabinets so I'm not going to list everything out, but I followed the tutorial by Live Love DIY and it worked fantastic.

Basic steps for painting oak cabinets:
- Sand down cabinets
- Prime with Kilz
- Paint: Behr

It makes such a difference in the bathroom and I do a little happy dance every time I see them. I've also started working on the master bathroom cabinets to get a little bit more practice before I tackle the kitchen. But later this summer, it's on!

Home Tour - Before Pictures

 I've had a few friends and family back in the midwest ask for photos of my house after we moved in, and I realized that I never really posted any. I'm not sure if they read my blog (if you do, hi!!) but since I'm prepping the photos for Facebook, I figured I'd post them here as well. This way I/you can see the changes as we make them. Things already look a bit different in some of the rooms, but here's what the house looked like before we started attacking it with paint and decorations.

The Kitchen:

I know I just said that these pictures were going to be after our stuff was in it, but our kitchen is always such a disaster that you get the empty pre-move in photos instead. You've got your standard tile floors for down here, nice granite counter tops, and terrible oak cabinets with no hardware. At some point I'd like to either stain or paint the cabinets and add hardware. I can't even tell you how many times I've accidentally bent my nail back to excruciating pain trying to open the cabinets. 

The Living Room:

Here was our living room before we painted it and rearranged the furniture. As you'll see, this is our second attempt at changing that brown paint color that covers the entire house. You'll also see how Sitka still won't let me move her couch. 

The "Library":

This is the random room that connects the living room and the kitchen. We think it was originally supposed to be a dining room but it's carpeted. And I'm certainly not going to tempt the carpet cleaning gods by eating in there every night. Instead we're planning on turning it into our books and booze room. It already looks different than when I took these photos, and I'd like to make it look more complete at some point this year. 

The Master Bedroom:

This is a bit embarrassing, but this is still exactly what our master bedroom looks like. With limited time and funds we chose to focus on rooms that others would see instead of our own bedroom. And while I'd love to turn this room into a sort of sanctuary that I love to escape to after a busy day, honestly it's probably going to stay like this for a while. I don't even know how I want to decorate it.  But seriously, get a mirror for your dresser, girl! Or at least a bedskirt. Maybe a headboard? Sheesh. 

The Master Bath:

Ah, the first thing we changed in the house! You can see the after photos here. The gray is SO MUCH BETTER than the tan it originally was. I still want to paint the cabinets white, add silver hardware, frame in the mirror, and get a new lighting fixture but that's in the distant future. I've got other fish to fry before that. 

The Craft Room/Future Office:

Another embarrassing room that I just close off so no one can see it. Right now, this room is storage for stuff we don't know what to do with/things we haven't organized yet. Someday this will become my office & craft/sewing room and it will be glorious. This might be the next room on my list. 

The Guest Bathroom:

This is the bathroom between the two guest rooms. It is what it is. Again, more ugly oak that I want to stain or paint some day, but that's not even on the radar at this point. 

The Guest Room:

Also a work in progress (we actually have a bed skirt on the bed now!) but still needs a long way to go until it becomes the comfy, welcoming guest room that I envision. Right now, it's a hodgepodge of storage, a bed, and Kacey's stuff.  

So that is/was how our house looked after we moved all of our stuff in. It's funny looking back at these pictures because the house already looks fairly different. I can't wait to keep making the house more "us" and turn this tract home into something that fits our personalities. Basically I want the library from Beauty and the Beast and the wine cellar from The Parent Trap, is that too much to ask? Probably. But I'm still pretty excited to see how different the house will look once we're done with it!

DIY Rustic Wooden Fence Board Headboard

I fell in love with all those reclaimed wood projects on Pinterest -especially the headboards. However, having moved from the land of barns to the land of cacti I no longer have access to any perfectly weathered gray barn boards to make fun projects. So instead, I decided to make our headboard a little more tailored looking, but still retain the rustic feel that you get from the reclaimed wood. Enter the cedar fence slats. They're light, the perfect thickness, and easily cut down to size by your handy Home Depot or Lowe's worker (or yourself if you can work a saw. We don't have one, hence the help from employees). 

Materials for a queen size bed:

6 cedar fence slats from Home Depot - have them cut to 63" long

2 two by fours for the legs - have them cut to 48" long

1 one by four cut to 32 inches for the center brace (or 1 inch shorter than the total height of the boards)

nails

wood glue 

Minwax Water Based Pre Stain Wood Conditioner

Minwax Water Based Stain in Toffee

Ploycrylic Protective Finish

Rags for wiping stain on and off

Paint/foam brushes

 Start with the boards cut to the size you need. For a queen size bed, the length of my boards was 63 inches. We sanded them all down to remove any splinters. This can either take a few hours if you have an electric hand sander, or a few weeks if your husband won't let you buy one and promises to sand them all himself and then keeps forgetting. Ahem. Three weeks later I took a hammer to some of boards to give them that beaten, weathered look that you just don't get from new cuts of lumber.

Note - the boards I used are cedar fence slats. Cedar smells. I happen to love that smell but if you don't, you might want to think about using a different type of wood. It's been in our house for 6 months now and every time you enter the room you can still detect a faint woodsy cedar scent. Like I said, I love it because it makes me think of forests and the outdoors. But it doesn't go away quickly, so make sure you're ok with that!

I used a water based stain for this project since I have a fear of mineral spirits and don't want to use it to clean up regular wood stain. Minwax has a water based stain that comes as a clear tint and you add the color like you would a regular can of paint. I think it worked great and I had no trouble using it. I used the Pre-Stain Wood conditioner on the wood first to give it an even finish. I didn't use this on the headboard legs since they wouldn't be seen, and you can definitely tell the difference between the boards where I used the pre-stain and where I didn't. The boards had a much cleaner and even coloration when I used the conditioner first. 

I used 2 coats front and back of the "Toffee" color. After everything dried I finished it with a topcoat of Ploycrylic to protect and seal everything. Stain the slats and the 2 boards for the legs. I also stained the center brace because why not? This was my first time staining anything and I just followed the instructions on the cans. It worked beautifully.

Once everything dries it's time to assemble. Lay the boards out how you want them to go. Mine didn't line up perfectly, but I liked the warping and thought it added character. If you want yours to lay perfectly, check how the boards fit at the store before you buy them. 

Once everything is lined up, flip each of the boards over so the back of the headboard is facing up. Run a line of wood glue along the center brace and place perpendicular to the slats in the center of the board. Stack something heavy on top to weigh it down until the glue dries. See the photo below? The brace is under the middle bag of charcoal. My husband we have a lot of charcoal. Also, random dumbbells. 

Here's where it gets tricky. I wanted to nail the boards to the legs from the front so I could line up the nail heads. To do that, before I flipped the board back over, I lined up the legs and marked with chalk where I wanted the lowest board to land and made sure everything was level. Then I turned the whole thing over and slid the legs underneath, lining up the lowest board with the chalk marks. 

Note - I measured my bed frame and figured out exactly how far apart the holes were to screw in a headboard. If you don't want to screw the board directly to your frame, it's less important where the legs of the headboard go. 

Once I had the boards lined up, I nailed each of them to both the legs and the center brace. Then all that's left to do is screw it into your bed frame or attach it to the wall!

I absolutely love how it turned out, and I think I'm going to do it all over again to make a headboard for our new bed. It'll probably only take me another year or so.

Living Room Redo: Step 2 - Seating

Last week we took the living room from beige and drab to white and bright. This week we're adding some color and seating so that I don't have to sit on the floor whenever we have more than 3 people over. And yes, it's still Christmas in these photos. And yes, this is still exactly how my living room looks because I haven't taken them down yet. (What? I've been in China!) 

We finally broke into the wedding money and bought our first non Ikea or hand me down couch. It's amazing. It's from Pottery Barn and is made from this gorgeous linen/cotton blend fabric. It holds up well from the cotton, but has the texture and look of linen. I may have been standing in the store drooling for a while when I first saw it. We went with a very classic silhouette. Although we both really like the mid century look that's coming back in, we wanted something that won't go out of style in a few years. And it had to have comfy armrests so I can lay down and watch tv on it. Those were really my only requirements. I was also really pleased that we got a good deal on this because holy cats nice furniture is expensive! Yay for sales and discounts!

Aside from Alastor Moosey (who we moved from over the front door to over the library so he can still pop against a background), the rug is probably my favorite thing in this entire room. I've been eyeing kilim rugs for months, but just couldn't justify the cost. I also wanted a giant 7x10 or larger rug and those run into the thousands of dollars. Yeah that's out. So I scaled back and started looking for a smaller baluchi, persian, or kilim rug as a runner underneath the coffee table. I ended up snagging this guy for a great deal from Overstock.com on Black Friday. I love it and it adds a great pop of color to an otherwise very neutral room (I'm afraid of colors when I decorate because I keep changing my mind. Colors are a commitment, and changing gets expensive.)

So that's how our living room looks now! We still have a large blank wall behind the chairs that I need to fill with something, but I'm waiting for the perfect piece of artwork. I also want to add something above the front door once I take down that wreath, but that's TBD as well. I absolutely love how it turned out. For the first time in my adult life, I actually have a room that feels like us. No more half heartedly decorating apartments knowing we'll leave in a year. This was the first time I actually was able to sit down and think about how I wanted this room to reflect me and my husband, and then actually do it. It still needs some tweaks here and there, and at some point we'd like to replace the entertainment center since it got a bit destroyed in all the moving. But that's not urgent. For now, I'm declaring this room finished!

Sitka approves of all this as long as I don't touch her couch. Yeah, we lost the no dog on the furniture battle. So instead we shaved her.  Much less dog hair!

DIY: Potato Stamp Curtains

This DIY is so easy it almost feels like cheating. In fact, the hardest part is using a sewing machine, and you don't even have to do that if you don't want to. It's so simple a 6 year old could do it. Seriously, google "potato stamps" everything that comes up is based on teaching kids crafts. It's very heartening because if some 5 year olds can do this, well so can I! 

Materials Needed:

- Fabric for the curtains - I used 108" bleached muslin from Joann Fabrics and divided it in 2 so each panel is 54" wide

- A potato

- Knife for cutting out the design in the potato

- Paint - I used acrylic paint from the craft store, but I don't plan on washing these. I have no idea how this type of paint will do in a washing machine. Use fabric paint if you want to wash the curtains. 

- Sewing machine or iron-able hemming tape to hem the curtains 

Step 1: Figure out the design you want. That 5 year old can probably make a straighter line that I can, so instead of free handing anything I went into Illustrator, created a triangle, and printed it out. 

Step 2: Cut one of the ends off the potato. I cut about 1/3 off so I could have a solid base to hold while stamping. 

Step 3: Cut your design into the potato. 

Step 4: If you want straight lines, measure and draw them onto the fabric lightly with pencil.

Step 5: Dip the potato in the paint and stamp it onto the fabric, following the lines. I wanted different shades so I used the stamp 3-4 times before dipping it back into the paint. If you want a more uniform look, re-dip the stamp after every use. Let dry

Step 6: Hem the curtains. I folded over the edges 1/4" and then 1/2" and pinned down. Then I sewed a straight line down each of the sides to finish them. To make the rod pocked, fold the top of the panels over 2" and sew it down.  I hung the curtains, marked where they hit the floor, then took them down and hemmed the bottom.

And that's it! If you don't want to sew anything, apply iron on tape to the long sides, fold over, and iron so they are secure. You can do the same for the rod pocket at the top and the hem at the bottom. If you're still not sure about this, get your kid, cousin, or neighborhood child to help you because according to google, this is a kid's only project. Whatever google, potatoes are cheap and easy to make stamps from and so much more than kid's crafts (or delicious fries).

Living Room Redo: Step 1 - Paint

Welcome back to step 1 of redoing our living room - painting! Perviously the room was dark, beigey, and begging to be updated. You can see the before photos here. In those photos you can see the swatches of paint that I had thrown on the wall while trying to decide what the perfect shade of creamy taupe was. Notice how the photo above is white? Yeah. 

I must have looked at over 20 swatches trying to figure out exactly what I wanted. I lovingly taped them to the walls, I tried different types of lighting, I looked at them during the day and at night trying to see which little swatch was going to become the color for my new living room. I finally decided on Behr's Powdered Snow which was the perfect shade of warm, creamy, almost white with a hint of tan. 

When we actually painted the walls it turned out white. It was even whiter than the trim and doors, which the swatch I had  orginaly painted on the wall looked much darker. I was freaking out a bit while we were painting it, but you know what? I absolutely love it! It gives such a fresh, clean look to the space and it's so much brighter than before. It's almost like we knocked out another window or something.

I made the curtains and added them to the windows (stay tuned next week for an easy DIY!). I also added some artwork above the tv (which I now realize are crooked in the photo - whoops). These were a super simple, cheap way to add some interest. Total cost - $6.20. Seriously! I bought the frames from a dollar store. I was going to spray paint them with my beloved gold pray paint, but I decided that I actually liked them better black. Then I found deer silhouettes on google, printed them off, and framed them. Done. (Also, the garland isn't normally hanging on the windows, I just happened to take these photos in December and I was way to lazy to take them down. And yes, they might still be up. Maybe.)

We rehung the gallery wall, spacing everything much closer together than before, to make it look more cohesive and give us room to expand as we find new pieces of artwork. We also added the K&S from our wedding to above our bedroom door (which you shall not see because it is a mess). We also rearranged the furniture which you will see next time!

And yes, I did take these pictures in December, thanks for noticing my Christmas decorations

We left one wall tan for an accent. It's not really a bad color, it's just a bit much when it covers your whole house. This way it coordinates with the library and kitchen, both which you can see from the living room. Once we paint the library, I'll update the accent wall to the new color, but we don't have any immediate plans to do that yet. 

Side note, the "library" isn't actually a library. I think it was supposed to be the formal dining room, but it's carpeted. We also don't have a giant table to put in it or host enough get togethers that merit a formal dining room. Right now it holds our overflowing book and wine collection so we affectionately call it the library. It's quite possibly my favorite room in the house for that alone. Once I start redoing that room it's going to be magnificent. But that probably won't happen for another year or so. In the meantime it has as residents our old ugly couch and an awesome rug that I scored on Black Friday. Now I'm way off track. 

Painting! Back to painting. We used 3 cans of Behr Premium Plus Flat Enamel in Powdered Snow W-D-700. The paint itself was ok. It was better than the contractor grade stuff that we used in the bathroom, but it still took 2-3 coats to properly cover the walls. I don't know if it was because we didn't prime anything, or the color went from so dark to so light, or if it was our crappy painting skills. Maybe it was all three, but it took forever and lots of coats. Either way, it was worth it because I am so happy with how it turned out! Stay tuned for next week when I actually learn to arrange furniture like an adult. 

Living Room Redo: Before

Back in June when we bought our house I had all these grand ideas of redecorating to make the place feel a little more us. We finished stage 1 of the bathroom pretty quickly and I turned my sights on the living room, which was a vast brown, dark, piece of ugly. This took more than a quick weekend to fix, and it's still not quite complete. But it looks so vastly different now that I wanted to share some before photos so you can appreciate what a coat of paint can do.

See exhibit A - ugly builder's brown walls. As I've mentioned before, our ENTIRE HOUSE was painted this color, with the exception of the tiny laundry room and the insides of the closets which are white. We only have 2 tiny windows in the living room and a sliding glass door, neither which let in a lot of light. We had to turn on the lights during the day just to try to brighten the room. (Don't let these photos fool you, I had to digitally blow out the lighting to even get a decent picture.)

Anyway, this room was dark and had lots of ugly going on. Yucky walls, beige hand me down furniture, a gallery wall that was spaced too far apart, no window treatments, and sheets over the couches to protect them from the dog. I wasn't in love with the seating arrangement either, but that's really the only place we can put the tv.

So this is how we lived for 5-6 months. The room itself isn't bad, it just desperately needed a make over and any attempt at cohesive decorating instead of just throwing all the stuff we've collected since college on the walls. (However you can see Alastor Moosey above the door, which is possibly my favorite purchase that I've ever made.)

Stay tuned for the after/in progress photos!

Gold and Glitter Sprayed Pine Cones

Well hello there! It's been awhile hasn't it? Sorry to have neglected the blog for so long, but real life has been a little crazy and how did it become Christmas already? Isn't it still October? In any case, I have a super easy DIY project to share to add some shine to rustic holiday decor. 

You need 3 things - mini pine cones, spray adhesive, and glitter. 

Spray the pine cones with the adhesive

Dump the glitter on the pine cones and shake off the excess 

Put in a pretty bowl and mix with some gold spray painted pine cones for more color

Pretty simple, right? There going to continue to be radio silence for the rest of 2013 but I'll be back with lots to catch up on in January. Merry Christmas and have a great rest of the year! 

Bathroom Redo Stage 1 - Stressful to Serene

Oh hey, remember that house we moved into and I was so excited about redoing? And then I never really ever said anything about it again? Well we have been (sloooowly) changing things to personalize our home. And one room is finally complete and I'm so excited to share it! Go figure that the first room we decorated was the bathroom. But I LOVE the difference! That ugly brownish tan completely covers the entire house. The gross tan sheen was irrationally stressing me out and I desperately wanted something calming and serene for the bathroom. Luckily Kacey was on board with the gray color. But let's take a closer look at the before pictures, shall we? 

She's a really beauty, isn't she? Nice shiny tan walls, half of a towel rack since the bar fell off (gotta love builder grade hardware), and ugly cabinets. Ok, so the cabinets are still ugly brown, but I have plans to eventually paint them white and add knobs.

The thing is, this bathroom has pretty good bones. Nice tile floors, white countertops and tub, and silver fixtures. But everything else needed to change. We started with Benjamin Moore paint in Stonington Gray in a flat sheen. (No more shiny walls here!!) Then I ripped out the remaining towel rack fixtures and the toilet paper holder. We added hooks from Target instead of a towel rack since you can fit more and it looks pretty. We also added a prettier toilet paper holder from Homegoods because why not? And the old one fell off anyway. Figures.

Did I ever mention that this house doesn't have a linen closet? Ok it does, but it's tiny. Like a hobbit couldn't even fit towels in it. Remind me to show you it sometime. Anyway, we added a shelf above the toilet to hold extra towels since there's nowhere else to put them. We finished with some decorations and called it a day!

So you might be wondering about the "Stage 1" part of the title. Or not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. We have more plans for this room, but lack of time (and money) caused us to break it into 2 parts. The second half is pushed off until late 2014/early 2015 but I'd like to paint the cabinets white, add silver hardware, possibly frame in the mirror, get a new light fixture, and get some fancy shutters for window coverings. Yeah, about that money thing.

But in the meantime, can I just say how much I love our bathroom? It makes me so happy that I want to hug kittens and dance on rainbows with unicorns through the power of fairy dust. Or, you know, take a nice long bubble bath while reading a good book.