Decorating

2013 Home Goals {WARNING: This is not pretty}

February 6, 2013 By Stacy 31 Comments

This is a post full of “before” shots. Some may even gross you out. But it is my reality. And my to-do list. And just think of how awesome the “after” shots will be :)

Oh man. I have so many projects that need to be done. They are not even “wants”. They seriously NEED to be done. We have mildew growing behind the tiles in our only working bathroom. Who ever tiled it before we moved in did not do a good job grouting and water has gotten behind there. They are bulging and I am afraid to tear it down for fear of what we will find. The sad thing is, since it is our only finished bathroom, we have to finish the basement bathroom first so we have a bathroom we can use while the upstairs tub/shower gets fixed. Uggg. Can you say expensive? And the tub is 70+ years old!!! All the outer shiny layer has long worn off and no matter how much I scrub it, it NEVER looks clean.

Before we can do the downstairs bathroom we have to address a pipe issue in the basement. We have a hole at the top bend of our sewer line. I have a rag stuffed in there for now so the horrible smell is contained. We need to have that and some other plumbing replaced.

Project #1 Have a plumber help us get the pipes replaced and fixed. I love to DIY but I also know when to call in a professional :)

Project #2 Build a wall and doorway to the bathroom, tile, and install new toilet. Then DECORATE the basement bath!

Project#3 tear out tile in shower. Rip out 70+ year old nasty tub, replace with new tub (*wishlist= acrylic claw footed tub), re-tile shower, install new tub

Project #4 Build a clubhouse for the boys. We have promised them one for a long time but the times my hubby has been laid off has always been spring or summer. It WILL happen this year!!!

If we get to this point in the list it will be a miracle. Those are not cheap projects!!! BUT just in case we win the lottery or a long lost Uncle kicks the bucket and leaves us loads of cash……..

Project #5 Tile the laundry room, fur out the walls, add wall treatment and trim, DECORATE

Project #6 Finish the “play room” slash “future master suite” which includes adding insulation, a ceiling, some electrical, furring the walls in places, boxing in duct work, adding two windows, and carpet. This one will be quite the challenge but will add so much livable square footage to our tiny home.

Project#7 Finish the fence in the backyard. My husband got laid off after we got one side done. Now that he has a job again I would love to be able to finish the other side and get them both stained so they match.

There are LOADS more things I would like to get done but it all comes down to money. I will be super lucky to get even a portion of this list done. Maybe if we can get these things done 2014 can be the “year of the attic”.

What are your home goals for 2013? I would love to hear!

Filed Under: Decorating, Projects 31 Comments

Fireplace Mantel Decor

January 31, 2013 By Stacy 15 Comments

My fireplace is one of my favorite things in my front room! Today I want to share with you the meaning behind the choices I made for my fireplace mantel. As you already know, I am a huge believer in decorating with meaning. I think you should surround yourself with items that have deep personal meaning and things that have a happy memory attached to it. Not every single thing in your home, but at least some :)

This is probably my favorite shot of the fireplace. I took a ton but this one stood out to me as “the shot”.

I will start with the clock. My mom collects clocks (among other things) and when we got married, my siblings and I all got to pick one of my mom’s clocks as a wedding present. I picked this antique mantel clock. I love it to pieces. I have to wind it once a week for it to keep time and I often forget. It has confused many visitors :)

When I was a little girl my dad had a brass pheasant in his office. To be honest I never paid much attention to it. I knew it was there and that was about it. When my dad passed away from cancer when I was 15, some of his things were packed away. His pheasant fell and the tail broke off. When I was in the planning stages of my family room I knew I wanted to add more brass to the room to highlight the gorgeous brass door knob on my 1938 front door and the other brass elements in the room. My mind went immediately to the brass pheasant my dad had. I searched on ebay and was able to find several. I lucked out that they are not rare. I found one for a decent price and was THRILLED when it came. I teared up as I opened the carefully wrapped bird. It is such a little thing but it makes me smile when I see it on my mantel.

I have shared my love of the book Mandy before when I shared my secret garden. This was my favorite book as a child. It was what made me yearn for a small cottage of my own to decorate. I was gathering books for the mantel and discovered that under the paper cover it was the perfect shade of yellow for my room. It was meant to be! The other books are some I already had plus thrift store finds that I thought were fitting.

This key is the original key to this house. Can you believe it still locks and unlocks the front door! We have a deadlock on there now and use that key so I framed this so it would not get lost. I ADORE old keys and was so delighted when we bought the house and discovered a small bag full of the original keys :)

The frame it is in was one we bought when we were newly weds. I have a thing for frames. I buy so many and will never have the wall space for them all. Can you say addiction? Well, we were window shopping and I spotted this frame. I LOVED it. We didn’t have very much money since we were still in college. I really wanted the biggest size. They were at a boutique and were very overpriced. We were ready to leave and my husband went back and grabbed the smallest sized frame and bought it for me. I will always love this frame.

I love to garden and I love plants of every kind. That is why there are so many in my family room. I love to bring nature indoors. Plants just make me happy. I especially have a thing for topiary plants. I ordered some rosemary topiaries from Joss and Main. They were alive…. the real deal. I think when I opened them they took a deep breath of this DRY winter Utah air and went into distress. The were stunning and perfect. But I couldn’t keep them alive. I didn’t want to throw them out because even though the leaves had turned dark brown, they were still pretty and the leaves were still stuck on there. So I went to my trusty paint supply and guess what I found???

The hubby and I used this way back when he was in school for architecture because we had to build models complete with landscaping. We would make little trees and spray them with this. My habit of holding on to everything (cough, cough, hording, cough) paid off my friend. I taped the stems/trunk of the plant off and then sprayed them with this. The look great!!! They still look like they are alive :)

The tallest topiary is from a place called Tai Pan Trading. The harlequin pot is from Hobby Lobby, and the white flower pots are from IKEA.

Thank you for letting me share the story behind my fireplace mantel decor. Stay tuned for the tutorial on how I built the fireplace and what secrets it holds…….

Filed Under: Decorating, Furniture, Painting, Projects 15 Comments

Details about the items in my family room

January 28, 2013 By Stacy 11 Comments

I have received so many emails and comments asking where the accessories, lighting, and other things in my family room came from. It is so much easier just to address it in a post so here we go!

I have always adored pharmacy lamps. I started searching online for one and all the ones I liked were from LampsPlus.com. Then when I decided to get rid of the ceiling fan, I knew I needed a floor fan to replace it. I got on and googled “floor fan” and guess what? The one I fell in love with was also from LampsPlus.com. They were kind enough to send them both to me for my family room makeover. The lamp is called the Robert Abbey Natural Brass Pharmacy Desk Lamp. The fan is a 16″ Sutter Floor Fan. They both fit in so well with the feel of the room. My home was built in 1938 and I felt like these were perfect.

IKEA!!! Oh how I love thee IKEA….. We have an IKEA store about 45 minutes from us. It is the Draper IKEA store and every time I tell my kids that we are going there they cheer :) They have gorgeous home decor items from traditional to modern, kids stuff, and yummy food. What more could you want??? Oh yeah, killer prices :) They have that too.

All the white flower pots/planters, the white frames (one I painted brass), my curtains, the baskets under my bench, the pitcher, and the blanket/throw all came from IKEA.

KALASA planter

KARDEMUMMA Flower pots

I discovered Joss and Main through blogging friends. I have been super happy with everything I have ordered from them. The things I ordered for the family room were this round wood frame (there were actually 2 in the pack) and this wreath. I also bought to live rosemary topiary plants that are on my fireplace.

You know when you find exactly what you want and it is on SALE or CLEARANCE??? That happened to me twice and both items came from Pottery Barn. I checked and the light is not currently on sale but they do have lighting sales every once in a while so keep checking back. These Calhoun Pendant Lights were my big splurge for the room. I have never spent that much on a light before and I needed TWO of them! But I couldn’t find anything else that even came close so I bit the bullet and bought them since they were on sale. They were $115 each on sale. The pillow was an outdoor pillow that was on clearance and is no longer available.

I just noticed the shade looks a little distorted in the bigger picture. It is not squatty like it seems.

On one of my very many trips to Target I spotted this fabulous lamp shade. I had originally planned on using an off white shade but when I saw this I knew it was made for my room!

One of the most asked questions was “What is the wall color?” I LOVE this paint color. It is the perfect yellow. It has enough tan in it that it does not come off too bright. In fact it acts as a neutral. But it is still clearly yellow. Perfection. It is called Shortbread and is from the Martha Stewart Collection at Home Depot. I got it mixed in Behr Ultra interior satin.

My rug! I love this rug. My kids love this rug. We have spent more time on the rug than the couch since we unrolled it :) I still need to get a rug pad for it but it is so plush that even without it is is comfortable. The texture is awesome. It has some carpet strands that are matte and some are sort of shiny. It is subtle but makes it look so much more expensive than it really is. And speaking of price…. I bought it with a gift card and I cannot for the life of me find the receipt, but I know it was around $300 with tax. If you have ever shopped for a rug you know it is so hard to find big area rugs that don’t break the bank. I searched for two months online and was so stressed. Then while on one of my many Home Depot runs I decided to go see their rugs. In their “Special Order” section I found this (only available in store so there is no link, sorry)! The brand is Lambart and is a custom shag. The color is linen. The cool thing is they have custom patterns as well. You can have stripes, chevron, etc in any of the colors they have. So fun!

I think I covered it all (whew!) but if there is something you have a question about that I didn’t cover, please just leave a comment and I will get back to you :)

Filed Under: Decorating 11 Comments

Gallery Wall in my Family Room

January 19, 2013 By Stacy 13 Comments

This was the first wall completed in my newly redecorated family room. And I love it. I love it because of the meaning behind a lot of the items. We call it our “favorite things” wall. And the best part is the kids got to help :)

Here is a break down of why I chose the items and what they are.

I have always wanted to try to grow wheat grass. I heard it grew fast and I thought it would be fun for my kids to see it grow. My two youngest helped me plant the seeds. The grass lasts about 3-4 weeks before it outgrows the planter. We just replanted for the third time. Eventually we will plant something different but they still think it is fun to watch and they love to squirt it with a spray bottle.

I have a picture of the temple my husband and I were married in. We have wedding pictures in other areas of our home but I thought it would be another fun reminder to have a picture of the beautiful place where we said “I do.” I bought this print online from a local photographer.

The butterfly was another online find. I had a butterfly net growing up and for about 3 years in a row the only thing I did was collect bugs and butterflies to study. Now that I have four little boys that also love to catch them, I thought it was a fun thing to add.

I built this simple shadow box out of old fence pickets just like I built the cupboard to hide the light switch. I let my kids decide what would go in there. At first they wanted hot wheel cars and Lego figurines. But once I explained that it was more about memories and things that represented things we did, then they came up with these.

A sand dollar from our trip to the Oregon coast to represent our love of the beach.

There is a crystal because my husband and I both collected rocks growing up and now our boys do.

The bundle of sticks is because my boys are obsessed with them. They collect them, make things out of them and I find them all over the place. When we moved to Las Vegas when my oldest was 2 years old he would look out the window and cry. He would say “Where are the sticks momma?” There was just gravel. My sister even sent him a care package with sticks in it. I have never seen a happier boy :)

The jar of buttons I helped come up with. My mom had a small antique box full of buttons when I was growing up. I use to sort them, play with them, and practice sewing with them. When I got married I bought a large jar and started collecting them. My kids LOVE to play with them too. We glue them to school projects, use them to learn to count to 100, and many other things.

I also put a small frame with the word “Service” in it. It is my word of the year/one word goal and I want our family to focus more on it this year. I also framed my favorite quote. It is something I want to teach my children and it serves as a good reminder for me as well.

I also added a door knob that is original to our home. Plus I ADORE door knobs :)

When I was all done with the wall my five year old told me that this was his favorite wall in the whole house and that he was going to stare at it every time he walked in the room.

I think that means it is a success :)

This next photo I meant to add to the reveal post but forgot about it until I went back in to edit the rest of the photos. This is what my kitchen looked like for those days I was trying to do a photo shoot for the family room. I think it is pretty obvious it was neglected and used as the dumping grounds for everthing during the shoot. A bag of potting soil for the plants I put in the family room, paint cans for last minute touch ups, air compressor from the very last project, a tote full of decor items from the old room that need to go to the garage, and so much other STUFF!

Just keepin’ it real :P

On Monday I will be posting the tutorial for the card catalog I made for my front room. So check back for that! Have a fabulous weekend!!!

Filed Under: Decorating, Projects 13 Comments

Details about all the Pillows in my Family Room :)

January 11, 2013 By Stacy 42 Comments

If you are wondering about if I sell the “Little Houses” pillow, please read this updated post (click on the highlighted text link).

I think it is ironic that the things I put off until last (the pillows) are the first thing I am sharing from my family room reveal. I do not enjoy sewing as much as I do using power tools. In fact, the only way I survive without yelling at the sewing machine is I pretend it is just another power tool. Because really, it is.

I have a problem. I envision a room before I even start and I know exactly how I want the room to look right down to the fabric. Problem is, most of the fabrics I have invented in my head and then I can’t find it in real life. I have been painting fabric for about 8 years now. If I can’t find what I want, I create it myself!

The pillow in the back came from ……… Walmart! I know, I am still shocked too. I have never bought a pillow from there before but I was walking by I saw this one and it was the perfect color and had great texture. The one with words on it, I made. It is kind of my favorite :)

When I was growing up my dad listened to country music. I still love it. There are so many memories of bouncing around in his dusty old truck listening to the old songs like Statler Brothers, Oak Ridge Boys, George Straight, and Randy Travis. I remember one song that stuck with me. Remember I have said many times in the past that I was an odd child. I was, even at a young age, always thinking about my future house. I REALLY wanted to live in a small cottage style home. The song that I loved was called Little Houses by Doug Stone. I painted the words to the chorus on to a pillow because it is how I feel about my little house.

I used my Silhouette machine to cut out the words in vinyl. The vinyl is sticky on the back so it sticks to the fabric while I paint. Picking off all the “insides” of the letter took what seemed like forever. But it was worth it :)

I used fabric ink because I had some on hand from another past project. But paint with fabric paint medium works well too. The ink takes longer to dry so make sure it is really dry before taking the vinyl off or it will smudge.

Moving on the the couch pillows……You would think that a bold yellow striped fabric would be easy to find. But it wasn’t. I used painters tape, paint, and fabric paint medium (you can buy it at crafts stores by all the other craft paint).

I wanted to find a canvas that was a color close to the wall color. That was nearly impossible too. So I bought white canvas fabric and soaked it in very watered down paint (the same paint I painted the walls with). I squeezed the water paint out, laid them flat on a tarp, and after they dried I washed them in the washing machine. Unlike with dyes, you don’t have to wash it all by itself. If the paint is all dry it won’t bleed on to anything else in the wash. I have done this before and talked about it when I did my office pillows. I love how it looks faded on some spots where the paint didn’t absorbs as much. It looks worn, which for me is perfect!

I added a wood button (one on each side) to the canvas pillow. We had a tree fall down in a giant wind storm this past summer and it broke my heart. I vowed to use as much of it as I could so it wouldn’t go to waste.

I cut a tree branch on my miter saw. I drilled two holes and then soaked it in polyurethane. It was very porous so I knew that brushing it on wouldn’t be enough. Then after it soaked for a few minutes I dabbed off any excess polyurethane and let it dry.

The pillow in the middle is made out of yellow ticking fabric. I was able to find it online. I used the same fabric to cover the bench on the opposite side of the room.

The pillows on the crate I adore! The Moroccan patterned pillow came from Pottery Barn. You know when all the stars align and you find exactly what you want AND it is on mega clearance? THAT is what happened with this awesome pillow.

The key pillow I also make using my Silhouette and fabric ink.

I LOVE a big houndstooth. So I new I wanted a pillow with that pattern.

I couldn’t find a graphic yellow houndstooth fabric so I again turned to my Silhouette machine.

It was obviously more work to make all these custom pillows. I would have rather just bought all of them instead of just two of them. But I am picky and I know what I want. Even though I dislike sewing, I am glad I did it because the pillows are exactly what I wanted :)

Linked up at Skip to my Lou

Filed Under: Decorating, Painted Fabric, Painting, Projects 42 Comments

Cheerful Yellow Family Room {The BIG Reveal!!!!}

January 8, 2013 By Stacy 91 Comments

I am so stinkin’ excited to finally share with you my new family room! This post is the reveal. I will be doing more posts with tutorials, details, paint colors, ect. I will also come back here and add the links to those posts as I post them.

But for now, here she is in all her yellow glory :)

Lets do a 360 around the room.

I kept all the same furniture except the entertainment center got moved downstairs. And I added a side table. As far as furniture goes, I only painted one piece and the others stayed the same. I even kept the same layout. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…. right?

Oh man! I wish I could invite you all over to see how bright and happy this space is. The pictures never do a room justice.

During the winter I sometimes splurge and pick up some fresh flowers at the grocery store. I LOVE having cut flowers around my house which I why I plant so many in my yard.

I have searched for YEARS for a small card catalog that I could use as a side table. They are either too expensive or too big or both. So I built this one! (Tutorial coming soon)

The bench that I built use to be upholstered in red. I don’t know a lot about sewing. If I DID know a lot about sewing I would not have picked striped fabric to make this bench cover! Holy moly it was hard for me to line up stripes and keep them straight when I upholstered (AND tufted) it.

Eeeeek! I have a fireplace now :) I am so in love with it and so are are my kids. They have always wanted one. I grew up with a real wood burning fireplace and have miss it so much. I built this baby and added an eletric insert. And I CAN NOT WAIT to show you what secrets it holds………

You know I am all about decorating with meaning. I look forward to sharing with you in an upcoming post why I chose these things for my mantle.

This gallery wall was the first wall done. I would just sit and stare at it. It has LOADS of meaning too.

HERE ARE THE POSTS WHERE I BREAK IT ALL DOWN AND TALK ABOUT EACH PROJECT IN THE ROOM:

Tutorial for the Barnwood Cupboard

Tutorial for painting lead paint: Tin Ceiling Tile Picture Frame

Painted Pillows

Gallery Wall

Card Catalog Side Table TUTORIAL

Products, Paint Color, and other details

Thanks for taking this little virtual tour of my new space. I can’t wait to get started on breaking it all down. I have so much to share! I will leave you with a before shot of what it used to look like.

Linked up to Home Stories A to Z

Filed Under: Decorating, Furniture, Painting, Projects 91 Comments

{Second Annual} Home Depot Week!

December 5, 2012 By Stacy 2 Comments

Last year I had “Home Depot Week” on my blog and I had so much fun with it that I decided to do it again :) Last year I debuted my first ever {spoof} music video. I also talked about toilets (yep, yep I did!) and what Home Depot and Kermit the Frog have in common.

Today lets chat about Holiday decor.

The Home Depot has a style guide out for the holidays. It is stunning as usual and chuck full of awesome ideas. See what I mean…..

I LOVE that they used decorative aluminum sheeting around the candles! So clever!

And these wreathes turned chandeliers are beautiful!!!

There are a ton more ideas in the Holiday Style Guide :)

Come back tomorrow because I am sharing my last Celebration of Service event of the year with you. This time, it was in my home town!

And if you missed it yesterday, the Home Depot is participating in a HUGE giveaway on my blog. So go enter!

The Home Depot partnered with bloggers such as me for their Celebration
of Service Blog Network. As part of this program, I received compensation
for my time (ie. travel, accommodation). They did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about
any product mentioned in these posts. The Home Depot believes that consumers
and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their
own words. The Home Depot’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC
guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.

Filed Under: Decorating, Winter/Christmas 2 Comments

How To Build A Simple Cupboard

November 16, 2012 By Stacy 13 Comments

I am excited to have another project for my new family room crossed off my list! And I am going to show you how I built it today :)

I am just sharing the basic cupboard today. You will have to wait for the room reveal to see it all styled, what goes inside, and how it looks with everything else.

The idea for this cupboard all started with a light switch…..

This light switch was in an awkward spot as far as decorating goes because there really wasn’t anything I could put on the wall right there. I tried putting a wreath once even though I am not a big wreath person (GASP! Did I just admit that?!?). But it fell off a lot and I wasn’t in love with the look. So I decided to cover it up :)

These are actually old fence pickets we got for free when someone took down their old fence. I cut them to size using my miter saw. Here are the sizes and how many of each:

There is a piece of plywood measuring 18×16 that will be for the back. The 18 inch boards will be for the door. The 16, and 16 3/4 inch boards will build the basic box of the cupboard. I decided to do butt joints with this cupboard instead of mitering the edges. So the reason I don’t have two 16 and then two 18 inch boards (since the cupboard will be 16×18 when done) is because two of the boards will be sitting inside of the other two to form the box. You need to measure the thickness of two boards together and minus that from the length, hence 16 3/4 instead of 18 inches.

Here is an example of a box that was mitered:

And here is an example of a butt joint which is the type of joint I did this time:

After I cut the boards I sanded the crap out of them. I wanted them as smooth possible. This will be a cupboard that will get opened and closed a lot so I didn’t want there to be any chance of getting a sliver.

Because I was going to be putting it over the light switch I needed to cut out a hole in the plywood back. (If you are not going to put yours over a light switch then you can obviously skip this step) I put a little toothpaste on the switch then held the board up to where I wanted it on the wall. I pushed it into the toothpaste to mark where the switch was. Then I traced the light switch plate. I wanted a little bit of wiggle room so I used the switch plate as a straight edge and made it a little bigger.

Then you need to drill a hole big enough for the jigsaw blade to fit through and then use the jigsaw to cut out the rectangle.

Here is the box all put together. The thinner 18 inch board will be nailed to the box because the hinges will attached to it later.

Now on to the door :)

To attach the 18 inch boards together I used a kreg jig and drilled at an angle. That way I was able to screw one board into the other. (sorry for the crappy cell phone pic taken at night)

I didn’t like the look of it and even though it was on the inside of the cupboard I wanted to add some trim.

To hang it I just screwed it directly into the wall.

When I cut the wood the ends were not grey like the rest of the boards so I stained the ends ( and the back) using Minwax’s Weathered Oak.

(source)

I love the look of the butt joint for this cupboard because of the barn wood. It seems very primitive and rustic. If I had built it our of new wood I would have done a mitered joint.

I can’t wait to get building the biggest project of all for my family room. It is going to be EPIC!!!

Filed Under: Decorating, Power Tools, Projects, Tutorials 13 Comments

Kitchen Command Center

November 12, 2012 By Stacy 52 Comments

I have always struggled with homework and school papers cluttering up my kitchen. The kids come home from school and unload their backpacks on the counter (sometimes in the office). Important papers and assignments were getting lost. The problem was, there really wasn’t a good place to put it. I tried a basket once. I tried a drawer. But if it was out of sight, it was out of mind.

I have hesitated to create a command center in my kitchen because I love the way it looked without one! My kitchen is tiny and I really don’t like a lot of things on my counter. I have big windows and not a lot of wall space for one either.

I decided to add a wall.

It has always bothered me that you could see the back of our fridge and the chimney that juts out from the wall. So I fixed both my problems with one project :)

(I couldn’t find a more recent picture of the side/back of my fridge. I forgot to take a before picture before I dove into the project!)

We had a picture ( I will get to that later), the chore charts, and the homework folder rack.

The homework folder rack is from IKEA. I have been looking for an off white metal one for so long. I was happy to find this one for such a great price. I added the numbers. They are vinyl that I cut out using my Silhouette. But you could also use an X-acto knife (razor blade knife).

If your kids are like mine, anytime I ask them to do something or tell them about something the first thing out of their mouth is “why”. And it is a valid question. I think we are more likely to do something if we know the meaning or reason behind it. So before I hung everything on the wall we had a special family meeting. I told them I had come up with a good plan to help keep their papers organized and how to remind them about doing their chores.

We talked about why it is important to be organized and why they needed to do their chores. Then I showed them a picture I made. I took a photo of our house and typed a scripture over it. I told them it would serve as a reminder of this special meeting we had.

The “wall” is just a piece of half inch plywood. I nailed it into the side of the cabinet that is above the fridge and then caulked along where the board met the (green) existing wall.

I added one inch trim to the edge of the plywood so the “wall” would seem thicker and so it would have a nice rounded, smooth edge.

Then I added baseboard to the bottom and molding that matched what I had added to the cabinet on the top. Now it looks like it has always been there :)