We started this project a few weeks ago, thinking it would be done in one weekend. Sadly, that got drawn out 3 more weeks. But finally we’re done (for now)! It’s the most recent step in several little changes in … Continue reading
A couple weeks ago I posted about how we painted our countertops and how thrilled we were with the results. Well I have to come back and give an honest update that this product is perhaps not as heaven-sent as we thought. We thought the performance would be similar to our laminate counters and it has proved to be not quite as durable. We may not have waited long enough before we started using them, but we quickly learned we need to be cautious as we use them. We had a bowl on the counter that we filled with hot food (the bowl itself wasn’t hot) and it left this mark:
Then I tried to clean off another mark with the scrubber side of the sponge and it ended up making it worse leaving this mark:
We have also gotten a few knicks in the paint. That being said, I still DO NOT regret painting them. I mean I only paid $20 for a completely different look to my kitchen. And for $20 I really can’t expect the Taj Mahal. And I would still recommend the product to people with ugly laminate counters that can’t afford to change them out YET with the disclaimer that it shouldn’t be your end goal but rather a means to an end. And that while using them, just be aware that you’ll need to handle with them with care.
I have since touched up those areas that got messed up and now we make sure to never put anything warm/hot directly on them and to not use the scrubber side of the sponge, but only the soft side. As long as we follow those “rules” they work just fine for now! But after singing praises, I didn’t want you all to try out this product misinformed.
Have a great weekend everyone!
So. We painted our countertops. That sounds scary and gross doesn’t it? But really it’s not. Because we used this amazing product!:
Which I first became aware of after reading this post at one of my favorite blogs. It is an epoxy paint, not a regular paint so it becomes this hard shell. It is not meant to be a permanent solution, but is a GREAT solution for the interim. We plan to put in hard surface counters in a year or two, but for $20 at Home Depot, you can’t beat the drastic impact this can make on a room! As you may remember, our house came with pink scratched laminate countertops:
And they amplified my not-so-favorite backsplash we also inherited. So, of course I was super excited to try this. We got the paint mixed at the paint counter (which we originally forgot to do so had to go back…) in the putty color choice. Then I cleared everything off our counters and they are parked for the next couple days in our dining room–you can’t use your counters for three days so it can dry/harden properly.
Then taped everything off, which I would highly recommend.
And got to work! It is pretty strong smelling, like a lot more than regular paint. So open your windows and wear a mask if you decide to do this. And voila! Here are the after pictures!!!
(Excuse all the paint swatches on the walls…still working on making that decision..ha!) But isn’t that a million times better!? Of course, it’s no granite or quartz. But at least I don’t have to look at pink counters for the next 2 years while we save for those. It even covered the scratches in the pink. And it kinda toned down the backsplash–but I still want to get rid of it.
The blog post I mentioned earlier gave a follow up post about how they hold up and she said after 5 months they were still doing well! A couple knicks here and there, but there was plenty of leftover paint for touch ups down the road. I will keep you posted on how it holds up!
So step one of temporary kitchen fix is complete! Step two is to cover that blue backsplash with white beadboard and step three is to finally paint the walls. Which we hope to complete all 3 steps by the end of the month! What projects are you all working on lately??
I used this inspiration picture (I think it was for sale on Joss & Main) to make the garland that now resides on our mantel shown above…
To make my version, follow these steps!
1. Gather your supplies.
Not pictured is the most important supply of all.. hot glue gun and hot glue sticks! You will use a lot of it.
2. Cut 2 pieces of twine the desired length. Tie them together to give it a little more substance.
3. Wrap the twine around the stem of the branch. Make sure your placing the branch toward one end of the twine and not right in the middle.
4. Flip the branch so it is face down. Criss cross the twine and hot glue each side to the branch itself. Pull tight until it is dry enough to hold it in place.
5. Take the longer side of the twine and glue it a little further down the branch so the sprig will lay more horizontal than vertical. You may have to glue it in one more place as well.
6. Flip back over to admire it so far 
Now you are ready to attach the berries!
7. Cut a small sprig of berries off your larger branch.
8. Arrange it how you want and glue the stem to the back. (Excuse my chipped nail polish!)
9. Now attach the bell! Thread a small length of twine through the hole and simply tie a knot around where you wrapped the twine around the branch so the twine blends in. I attached a bell only to every other greenery branch, but you can add as many as you want!
10. Done with the first one!
11. Repeat steps 2-10 until you’ve reached the end of your twine!
To see more of our Christmas decorations, click here!
linking up here:
Although we have a lot more square footage in our new house than we did in our apartment, all of the spaces are pretty small. Because of this, multifunctional furniture really comes in handy! Although I’m sure I’m not the first to do this, it is one of the rare ideas I’ve had that I didn’t first see on Pinterest! Yay for creativity! 
Anyway, I knew I wanted a seating solution that could easily be moved around the room when guests were over and pushed out of the way when they weren’t. Honestly the storage idea came after I already made it, but it’s a nice feature too! I love that it brings in the fun fabric as well, which includes the colors I’d like use as my color scheme in this room.
Now for the tutorial!
Materials needed:
Wood Pallet
Cushion foam
4 Locking casters
Luaun board (thin plywood) cut to the size of your pallet half
1.5-2 yds of fabric
screws
wood glue
staple gun
First, find a pallet. You can usually find them for free! Check your local Habitat for Humanity Restore, that is where we got ours. They had a huge pile they were trying to get rid of.
Next, cut it in half. You may have to reposition some of the boards like we did.
Now sand it down. I went crazy with the electric sander on this step Wanted to make sure there were no chances for splinters!
(Yellow spray paint from another project yet-to-be-shared!)
The next step is to screw the two halves together and attach the casters. I had my handy hubby handle this step Just screw diagonally into the vertical support boards.
You’re done with the base! Easy Peasy! On to the cushion top. For the foam, I scored a deal at Home Depot by buying what they call a “camping pad.” They are only seasonal (summer) so I picked mine up before we even moved to this house. You can also do this with foam from Joann’s or someplace like that, but it can be kind of expensive. The foam I used was about 4 inches thick and not as dense as the craft store foam.
Arrange your fabric so the pattern is centered on the foam. Cut your foam to size and lay it on top of the fabric and top the foam with your luaun. (You can also wrap the foam in batting before the fabric, but I didn’t have any.) Get your staple gun handy! Put one staple in each side of the plywood (doing one side, then the opposite side before you do the side next to it) and make sure you pull the fabric really tight! After those are in place work your way around in the same pattern doing a few staples at a time and pulling tight as you go! I used Jenny Komenda’s tutorial to help me with the corners (found here).
Trim the fabric after you staple and before you do the corners to make things easiest. Also, make sure your staples are not going to go all the way through the plywood. I used 2 layers of it to prevent any staples in guests’ backsides
Cushion done and base done! Now to attach them to each other. The only way I could think to do this was wood glue. So far it has held up just fine! I squeezed one line onto each plank (don’t put too much or it will seep out the sides).
Put the cushion on and add some weight! I stacked on a bunch of books and left them on for about 2 days…only because we didn’t get around to putting them back for that long…
I think overnight would probably be sufficient!
Once you take off the books, you are done!! You can use the slots for storage as well. We will keep magazines, maybe some coffee table books, and it has proved to be handy alternative for our laptops instead of being eye sores on our coffee table.
The fabric I used is from fabric.com and is called Summer Ikat in Opal.
And when we don’t have guests over, our kitties sure enjoy it This was my first upholstering project and the fabric placement isn’t perfect, but if I can do it so can you!
Last I shared, we had made a little discovery in our brick wall. Well we uncovered more of it to discover it’s not an old doorway or window, but the back of a built in bookshelf in our neighbors unit. A bookshelf that was put in unstructurally sound (hence the falling bricks) and makes our shared wall not fire-rated.
We don’t know when it was put in or who put it in, but since we’ve discovered it we are going to fix it. Thankfully I think the owner of the other unit is going to chip in as well (we think). And even though we got some great ideas from you guys about how to disguise this thing, now we don’t have to worry about it! Woohoo! It’s going to just get torn out and filled back in. So stay tuned because after hiring this part out, we’ll get this project done faster than expected. I can’t wait to post after pictures!
So our new place has a non-functioning fireplace in the living room. Bummer it doesn’t function (it’s actually covered with tile and a huge electrical outlet, yuck.) We will probably try and remedy that later but for now I’m grateful for having a mantel! So excited to hang stockings from it this Christmas! Until then, I’ve been brainstorming how I want to decorate it and I’m really loving the layered mantel look right now.
I like the idea of leaning some pieces instead of hanging them. It give such a multidimensional look.
An asymmetrical arrangement adds visual interest. Just be careful to not go too crazy and make it look cluttered. Clustering If you are wanting to display several items, consider clustering them into a group that reads as one larger object to help prevent the mantel from looking too cluttered.
I like this one with the mirror behind to create a backdrop of sorts. This is a good solution if you just have drywall above your mantel as opposed to brick or trim.
Play with the scale of the different items as well. Don’t only use small pieces or only large pieces. Try to create a balance with sizing. Side note: I love the initial. Totally got an awesome idea from a blog that is on the ever growing project list for our living room Here are some of my ideas for our mantel (fyi Calder has given me almost free reign on our upstairs…I do run my ideas by him though of course! And he gets to have the basement as a man cave.) :
-But in an “S” of course:
-I plan to make a graphic print of the verse Psalm 19:14, one of my favorites and a verse I try to live by daily (I will share the print after I make it!)
-Either a large gold framed mirror if we can find a decent one at a garage sale or thrift store, or the large clock we already have refinished in some way. Maybe gold. I’m obsessed with gold right now. This is the clock I’m talking about:
I might try out our wedding canvas on the mantel too. Not sure it will get a permanent place there though. You can see it in this photo over one the right…along with my cutie Finny kitty!
Lastly, as soon as my friend Emily (who also made this pitcher) makes more of these babies I’m snatching at least one colored one up! Aren’t they adorable!?
Can you tell I’m excited to get started on our long list of projects?! It’s going to be a fun and long process to make our house our own. Be sure to stick around to follow along with our home improvement adventures.
What are your thoughts on the layered mantel look?
Also, I will be posting all design-related posts on my business facebook page from now on, so be sure to “like” it here to stay updated!
Hey all! First off, I apologize for being a bad blogger and neglecting my blog for the past week. I have been busy finishing up the project for my first client for my business! SO get pumped for the official launch of that in a couple of days
For now, I wanna give you an update on a furniture makeover I have worked on with my friend Caitlin in Colorado Springs. (Speaking of Colorado Springs, I was there this weekend and the fires SEEM much better, but please continue your prayers for rain and those affected. Over 300 homes were lost and the fire is only 15% contained last I heard [whatever that means...to me a fire isn't contained unless it's out...but I'm no expert ]).
ANYWAY.. you can see the inspiration for this project at this post. This isn’t actually a card catalog, it’s more of a dresser, but it has lots of drawers like a card catalog! It will go in her kids’ bedroom and she has a daughter and infant son.
Here are some in progress pictures! We didn’t fully finish it but I’m hoping to get some pics of the finished product when it’s done!
We modge podged this fabric onto the drawers.. a semi-tedious process. But super cute idea! This could be adapted to so many different styles by using any fabric that fits your decor.
The structure of the piece was painted dark grey to coordinate with the fabric.
The top is actually paint sticks! Yay for free! Painted in different shades of blue for a lot of visual interest and texture.
Getting an idea of the finished piece! Still needs another coat of gray (side note: I am so inconsistent in the spelling of the word grey/gray… anyone else struggle with this?! haha) paint, drawer hardware, clear coats on everything, and finish trim on the top. I can’t wait to see how this piece turns out! It is so unique!
So I’m itching to do some more DIY home improvements and I think I know just the thing for my next project…whenever that may be! I’m going to transform this piece:
I got it about 2 years ago at our campus’s end of the year garage sale for only $5!! I then painted it blue, but now its time for a makeover. (And it needs to be de-cluttered…clearly it’s one of our only display areas.) And here is my inspiration!
I’m loving the trend of patterned paper or bright colors in the back of the shelves for a little pop of somethin! For my piece, I plan to replace the backing, paint everything white, and then back the shelves with some kind of patterned wallpaper. This back was actually stenciled by removing the backing and apply this stencil. I haven’t decided what yet. And I don’t know when I’ll be able to undertake this project, but it will be happening and I am excited about it! I will post pictures of the after when it is complete Check out these other hutch and bookshelf makeovers I found.
What do you think?! Do you like this idea? It adds so much interest! If your piece already has a nice wood finish, you could also leave that and only paint the inside. I hope you feel inspired!
Wood palette’s have been popping up a lot lately in DIY projects. I love their rustic characteristics. Check out these fun inspiration pictures! All images were found on Pinterest.
I love the idea of using it as a gallery space. One big frame for lots of smaller ones! The addition of the small trinkets gives it even more depth of character.
This shows how you can cut them to make shelves. I just now noticed those are picture frames in there, not books! That is definitely a creative way to display your framed pictures…although I have to say I would prefer to be able to see the whole thing. I like the idea for cookbooks in the kitchen or children’s books in a bedroom though!
This person just used the palette as is for a headboard. Love that idea. You could also paint it if you wanted. PS that antler necklace holder is pretty awesome as well. Maybe that’s what I’ll tell my husband we can use the antlers for when he finally gets his buck hunting!
Now this is an idea I can really get into! I like how the heels can hang on the outside while the flats can fit easily into the slots. I can’t tell right away how they made this but I bet with some thought and careful studying of the images you could figure it out!
Here is an idea for those of you who like gardening! It is perfect for a condo or apartment space that only has a small outdoor balcony. Just make sure you get enough sun for the types of plants you use. You could also implement it into a bigger garden as well as a point of interest!
This one is similar to the first one but they kept the slats evenly spaced to create a more sectioned off display area. It goes great in this rustic kitchen and the beautiful stoneware.
Who knew one object could be so versatile?! Do you have a favorite from these images? Or do you have any other ideas of how to use wood palettes creatively? Does anyone else keep wanting to spell it “pallete” like I do?! Haha. Have a great weekend everyone!
