Revamp

Some things around my house need revamped every once in a while and I am sure your house is no exception. I found these awesomely huge square frames at Savers a while ago. The best part is that they happen to be 50% off that day making them like $2.50 each. I bought all that they had and finally got them up. Well, Jeff got them up after I botched the task. I've gone back and forth about painting them. Who knows. I just wanted them up. I kind of like the gold in them. The colors work well for our front room. The prints in them are 12x12 so the frames are a nice size.

Another project that I worked on was our dining room light. I love this light! I found the idea on Pinterest and just made my own. The wire baskets are actually those plant hanger baskets that usually have the cocoa liner in them. Then I found an old brass fixture at Habitat for Humanity ReStore. My dad and Jeff worked on rewiring it and putting it together and I spray painted it and Jeff hung it. I love it. It makes TONS of light.

I also love the color. Just a little something different than I would usually pick. We plan on painting all of the walls gray. You should see all of the paint samples painted around my house right now. I think we finally have that narrowed down to the choice.

Spring break was a couple of weeks ago so I had all three kids a couple of days a week. Gunnar was thrilled to have Cami over and it was actually pretty easy having them all together. Some of you are probably laughing right now but Gunnar can get out of control and disruptive to the routine. He was actually really helpful and fun to be around for 2 weeks. However I was glad that it was over and he went back to school. Summer break should be interesting.

It Needed An Update

We had this horrid track lighting in our dining room since we moved in. It drove me nuts because it was so ugly. I saw an idea of a blog of a Pottery Barn knock off and went with it. I searched high and low for a light fixture that would work and finally found this baby for $7 at the local ReStore. I had Jeff take out the glass and then spray painted it a silver nickel finish. It was ugly brass before. We installed it and put in the bulbs. I love the pattern of light it gives off.

I still need to paint the burnt orange walls in the house and do a bazillion other projects. Such is life, right?

Knife Block

What can you do in about 20 minutes. Redo your knife block of course. Jeff and I were cleaning our house getting it ready for the young men from church to come over and I've been wanting to paint this for some time. Painted it with black spray paint, lightly sanded the edges and followed it up with polyacrylic applied with a foam brush. I love it. It looks so much cleaner and updated. Cheap, quick, easy projects anyone can do.

I was at the paint store a while ago getting white paint chips to paint our kitchen cabinets one day and found this one:

Who would have ever thought that my family name would be on a paint chip. I wasn't even looking for greens and for some reason this one jumped out.

I Love Homemade

Since Jeff and I were married, we had two store bought Christmas stockings. I never really liked them from the beginning but they served their purpose. When Gunnar was born, we bought him a stocking. Obviously six years later we would never found one that matched. It served its purpose until this year and we had Brecken and I never really liked any of ours to begin with. Instead I decided to make ours this year from sweaters. I traced one of the old stockings on the sweater, sewed around it following my outline, cut the stocking out and then sewed a couple of more times for reinforcement. The top of the stocking is the bottom of the sweater. Is that not the coolest thing. I found the tutorial at Remodelaholic. I really like them now. I really like that they are similar in that they are sweaters but different at the same time. I love that I can make another one as children are added to the family. The only stocking missing is Diesel's blue one that I still need to make. I had two of the sweaters and then shopped the thrift stores for the others.

Jeff's is the green/white striped. I love this one. It is sooo soft. Mine is the multistriped. I really like it. Jeff was totally opposed to it and Gunnar is obsessed with red so it became mine. Gunnar's is the plainer of the reds. He instantly became attached to this one. Brecken's is the more textured red one by default and because Gunnar insisted that theirs match. Diesel's will be just light Brecken's but in light blue and probably a little smaller. I plan on making monograms that will hang on them but that is low on my project list right now.
As they get more use, they will probably get better in shape. I hope so. What do you think? Is this a hit or miss?

Awesome TV Console

Jeff got a huge flat screen tv for his birthday from his mom. It would not fit in our entertainment center that we have had for 10 years. So something had to give and it would be the entertainment center. We have this awesome nook where our tv goes. It is completely protected on one side and then the sliding glass door is on the other set back a little. The dimensions have to be very specific. I had requirements. It had to fit in the space, it had to have some sort of door or something to hide the components, it had to fit the components, had to cost hardly anything, and it had to look good. I searched craigslist over and over again for the perfect thing. I searched dressers, hutches, tv stands, you name it. One night I decided to search cabinets and there it was. The listing was as if angels were singing and lights were coming from the post. You know the post where your heart starts racing and you get so excited. I emailed and it was mine for $20. I wish that I had a before picture but I got really excited and started on it before taking one.

In the listing, the seller stated that it was a cabinet of unknown origins. It was determined that it was either a gutted stereo or tv console. I did a lot of priming and then painted it Heirloom White. When that was finished I was planning on glazing it but I wanted it to look really clean and simple. I opted to sand the edges instead to create the definition and the used polycrylic to protect it. The pulls are original and I spray painted them black.

I just love the detail on this. Tons of character but the coolest part about this is the inside. It opens up! The front swings open and folds back into the top. Jeff added adjustable shelving brackets and the one shelf to hold the components. Everything is a perfect fit. I am so happy with this stand and admire it every time I am in the family room. We were initially thinking of mounting the tv but the space is so protected I don't think that we will need to do that.

From Ugly to Way Better

Remember this lamp:

I've had it this way forever. Ever since Jeff broke my really nice, heavy one. Not sure why I have tolerated it this long. Probably because I was too cheap to replace it and desperate for the light it provided in this room.

I took the Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint to it and found a new lampshade and covered it with new fabric and here it is:

It looks so much better! I learned so much about lamps. I bought a lamp harp to extend the height of the shade. I wanted a drum type shade. I loaded Gunnar up in the car one Saturday, went to the first thrift store in town and found this awesome thing ready to cover for $2.99. I took it home, immediately cut out the fabric and went to cover it, only to find out that it was too short. The shade has a very slight upward curve to it. So I rolled the shade over some paper for a pattern, like I was supposed to, to get the curve. I was to cheap to buy more fabric, so I took the two pieces that I cut apart, sewed them back together and cut out the fabric with the pattern. The mistake is barely noticeable on the back. It totally worked out.
**So my cousin wanted more details so she can do it herself. Take a piece of newspaper (if the shade is small) or something longer for a bigger shade to make the pattern. Find the seam on your lampshade and place it down on the paper. Begin to trace the edges of the lampshade onto the paper as you roll it. Once you get to the seam again, you are done. I took my sewing guage and measured little tick marks about 1/2" away from the lines that I just made to create the extra to glue over the shade. Cut it all out. I read on one tutorial, that she used spray adhesive to keep the main body of the fabric attached to the lampshade. I didn't have any, so I used fabritac (or hot glue would work too) and spread a line down the seam to start. Then I would but some on the very top and bottom of the shade, press the fabric in and do this slowly until it was tight and done. Then I went back around and glued down the edges on the inside to finish it up. Lastly, I folded over the fabric at the seam and glued down to make it looked finished. I hope this makes sense. The harp and finial also came in bronze only so I spray painted that as well. There are several great tutorials online already. Just google how to recover a lampshade.

I have to tell you about the process of picking out the fabric. Gunnar really liked this lighter green fabric. So did I until I found this one. He was SO strongly opposed to this one, he would throw the bolt out of the cart. I had to keep it on the very bottom of the cart. Not sure why he was so passionately against it. It's not that bad. An older lady, also getting fabric cut, looked at what I was getting and said, "Oh, you are going with the ugly one." I had to laugh but I do like it much better than the other one. **So I posted this in a hurry earlier and apparently forgot to explain most of this story. The lady totally said it sarcastically with a laugh because she saw the drama with Gunnar and said she had a grandson just like him.

We Are Determined

We are going to make this. Oh yes we are. Jeff is even on board and excited about it, I think. I ran across similar plans on Knock Off Wood and this is exactly what we have wanted for years. But just as Anna mentioned, the real thing is super expensive. Heck, the cheaper versions are expensive and just that...cheap! I am all about buying the very best quality that you can afford. I get that from my dad. After doing rediculous amounts of research. Anyway, this is it. I read the plans word for word and realized that Jeff and I could totally do this. The dimensions are perfect for the space and everything about it is perfect for what needs to go in there. This year Jeff and I will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary. We never get anything for each other. Why spend precious money on things that we do a great job of buying throughout the year. So, this year, we are going to built this entertainment center for our anniversary. I am excited. Jeff now thinks that he has 8 months before our anniversary to complete this, but I wanted it like yesterday. Hopefully we can get a start on it within the next couple of months.

We are going to add an additional shelf in the bottom and we hope to figure out a way that we can slide the doors back into the unit. We need to price the parts out for that. I really think that I am going to paint it an antiqued white. Jeff wasn't thrilled with the idea but once I told him that it would lightened up our smaller family room, he thought it wouldn't be too bad of an idea. We'll see because once it is painted, that is what it will be for a long time. We've had our current cheaper Target entertainment center for 10 years, the day that we were married. I think that we deserve sturdier grown up furniture now that we are approaching 10 years of marriage, especially if we can built it together for a fraction of the cost. Suprisingly, our current entertainment center still looks really good.

Love the Door

A few months ago, I won $30 worth of vinyl lettering from Words and Wisdom Vinyl. I was so excited and knew what I wanted to do. I decided to make a welcome sign for the front door in Hawaiian. I love how it turned out. It means "enter, welcome". I had an entire quote made in vinyl as well but haven't finished that project yet.

My New Room

Gunnar's new room is finally finished, or pretty close to it. We moved him a while back to this room leaving the other one set up as a baby room. He would eventually end up over here anyway, so when he grew out of the crib, he was moved. It is all Disney CARS themed. He loves it and I am quite proud of it. It is a really large room. Enough for two kids comfortably in the future.

To the left of the door is this gigantic chalkboard. I am so proud of this. I found the frame for $5 on craigslist. It was just an open frame. So we bought a 2ftx3ft piece of board to go into it. I painted it with chalkboard paint ahead of time and then plopped it into the frame that I spray painted red.

We had this huge expanse of wall that needed art that would not break the bank. I used a calendar. Bought the cheap frames in a 2-pack for $7 at Michaels. I bought them a pack at a time with a 40% off coupon until I had them all. I cut out white cardstock to frame them out. Super easy and cheap wall art. I like how it feels up the space and creates som drama on the walls. When we change the room, the art work will be easy to change with it.

I saw this idea on the internet and new that I wanted to do it. These are curtain wires from Ikea stretched the length of the wall. The little clips come with them. I bought 3 sets at a little under $5. This is the perfect place for all of the little arts and crafts things Gunnar comes home with or does. He insists on hanging things up there like the movie poster.

I have showed the dresser before. The black drawers are chalkboard paint. I did have what was in the drawers written on the frontbut that is rubbing off. I need to rewrite it. The knobs were the original ones with the dresser but I backed them with washers from the home improvement store. The gray garbage can was a cheap after school clearance sale for like $2. I really needed a shelf and about the same time I decided that I really wanted to find one of the old Little Tikes piggy banks. Shortly after I decided that, I was headed to Albertsons and low and behold there was a yard sale with that very piggy bank. I immediately turned around to stop. I also found this shelf and painted it white. At the same sale I also bought Gunnar 2 games and all of it was sooo cheap. Yeah for yard sales. In my case, I think about what I am looking for and before long, it appears somewhere. Whether that be yard sales, thrift stores, on the side of the street. Gunnar also insisted on putting the drawn picture of our dog Kaika in here. Brent drew that for me about 8 years ago. Gunnar loves that dog.

I tried to get a good picture of the curtains and yes I need to touch up the wall a little. The windows are not that wide, I wanted something simple and something that would not cost a lot. Surprisingly, this was probably the most expensive single thing in the entire room. Even more than the headboard. I decided that I would be the correct yardage lengthwise and then cut the fabric down the center to create panels. Then I just finished up the sides. My super sewing cousins would laugh. I just about went of the fritz like my machine. Somewhere in the middle, my tension went nutty. I picked out one side of these at least 4 times. I finally got my manual out and figured out how to correct the problem. Seriously these were easy. I then put them on rings from Walmart that were a little under $5/pk of 7. I had to get 3 packages. They were all hung on a $1.49 curtain rod from Ikea. We needed something simple and cheap. Those did the job. They are the perfect size when closed and work with the room.

I decided to use this blurry picture of Gunnar because that is so him. Always moving. He moves and moves and never stops. The letter g above is bed I have had for a long time. I got it at Michaels on clearance cheap when they had them. I am talking years ago. I spray painted it a textured metal spray paint in keeping with his room. I needed removable sticky things for the back and Albertsons had them on clearance for $.25/pk. See, I think stuff and it will appear. The bedding my mom got him, the bed skirt was from Walmart. The nightstand I picked up from Savers for $14.99. I really liked the shaped and planned on redoing it but the color worked and the cool worn spots worked. I really like that piece. The red lamp I got for a couple of bucks at Savers and the lamp shade was $.99 at Goodwill. I could not find a lamp shade that worked and worked for my wallet but this eventually popped up. Now the headboard used to be sage green. I picked it up from a wholesale priced decor place for $17.99 and spray painted it white. The store is only open one day per week and offers killer deals on home decor. One Saturday this spring I decided to head over for their rare clearance days. There was the headboard at $25 with a discount on top of that. The ladies were pretty sure it was the owners and she was just getting rid of it. Of course I will take that! I did have to order plates to connect the bed frame and it was made for taller rails. So I had to buy those bed frame boxes to sit on. So the bed is quite high and fun.

Lastly, behind the door is a hook rack for Gunnar's hats and backpacks. I also bought that at a yard sale for $1 and painted it white. It was very girly pink. Oh ya, and the boards around Gunnar's room are nothing fancy. Traditional molding was to fancy and too expensive. This stuff was a little over $2 for an 8' section. It works perfectly in this room. I also lack a picture of what is on the other side of that frame. Gunnar has a small party kitchen and hutch to match. He loves cooking things up in that. He loves his new room. I wish that I could say that it is always this clean. We cleaned it up special just for you.

What Have I Been Up To?

Besides being with my mom for about 8 hours per day. Which I totally love by the way. Just a little background. Jeff has been at POST which is Peace Officer Standard Training for his job. Thankfully it is just in Meridian (about 20 miles away) however he has to stay there the entire week and can only come home on the weekends. Thankfully it is only two weeks long and he is into his second and final week. Anyway, he was home this weekend and we both became so motivated to get projects done. I had so many, oh ya, you guys read about that.

So lets get started. I found a few cute things at Savers the other day and thought spray paint. They were not spendy so why not. The first is this cute little bird.

So I am also not very good at taking before and after shots. By the time I even remembered a camera, this little guy was well on his way to white. He is pretty small but heavy. He was a blue "stone" look before. The other thing that I found was this something. Honestly I have no idea was it it. But I thought that I could spray paint it and eventually find a cloche to go over it. Right now my bird is sitting on it. As you can see I forgot the after picture on this one but will post it later. It was spray painting all black.I f.i.n.a.l.l.y. finished Gunnar's dressing. I am just warning you, that if you are thinking of painting red, just take this as a warning and don't do it. I swear to you that you will curse your way through the entire project and then after really like the results. Much like I did with this dresser. No lie here, it took about 15-20 layers on this thing. I went through 3/4 of the pint of paint. That is a lot of paint on a project like this. I painted and painted and painted to finally end of up with this.The drawers are chalkboard paint. Super easy to roll on. Of course it doesn't have that freshly painted look to it because you have to rub a piece of chalk over the entire thing to prime it.The knobs are probably my favorite. The white knobs were the originals that we on it before. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them. In the end, I decided to keep them as they were. The washers on the backs are the fun part. I was reading a magazine a couple of weeks ago where they primed washers and then spray painted stripes on them. They used metal knobs in front of them with the fun bright washers behind. Gunnar's room is more kid industrial with CARS as the theme so I decided to keep them as they are. I also wanted to find a H.U.G.E. frame for Gunnar's room where I could turn it into a chalkboard for him. I started to notice that thrift stores wanted an arm and a leg for really ugly large pictures and the frames really weren't worth it. Hmmm, where am I going to find one? I decided to search craigslist. You never know. Low and behold there was someone selling huge, empty frames. A lot of them to choose from. I met with her and all that she wanted was $5/frame. Holy Cow, I was stoked! I bought two. One that is going in our bedroom (more on that later) and then this longer one that is perfect for Gunnar's chalkboard. This thing measured 52" long x 28" tall. Go ahead, grab your tape measure just to see how big it is.

The table saw that it is propped up on is not small by any means. Okay, so I decided to go with red on this too. Why, I don't know why. I am still in the process of spraying coat after coat on this thing. It is slowly looking better. I plan on checking out Michaels to see if they can cut me a mat that I can paint with chalkboard paint for this. It is really so big I am not sure what to put in the center. Okay, so maybe I do know why I picked red. Gunnar's walls are tan right now. I have the paint to paint the bottom half blue with white chair rail on top. So red naturally worked. At Ross last week, I found two wall ledges cheap but they were white. I don't want white. I originally wanted these for my front room but I really wanted three.I just planned on buying a third that looked close. My reason for buying them was that I know that I could easily spray paint. So that is what I did and decided to put them in my bedroom instead.About two summers ago, I found this yard sale with all of these super old things. She was selling them sooo cheap. I was immediately drawn to these frames. They are old and the paint is wearing off of them but they are perfect. I believe they were around $.25/each or two for that price.I love finials! I have several. So I gathered them from the family room and stuck them here. The silver thing is a mystery. It is not a candlestick holder. I think I found that at a thrift store many years ago. Just liked it. But it looks good in that spot. I have since added a family picture below the higher shelf and plan on hanging smaller pictures of Gunnar inside those frames on the wall. I will post a more complete picture when it is done.This weekend we also chose (I had already narrowed down my choices and Jeff helped with the final decision) and bought curtains for the sliding door in our room. Does anyone have or remember the vertical blinds? We have those in our house. Now that we are nearing 4 years in this house, I figured that it is about time that they come down. We chose a brown lightly lined curtain. I really like them and they look good in this room. I plan on collecting the cream version of it for the front living room. I need 6 panels in there. I really like this rod that we picked out. Usually something that I would not be drawn to but it works well in the bedroom. Just look past the odd coloring behind the curtains. I still need to touch the walls up where the other blinds were taken down.Now this was probably one of my most exciting things of all time. We have this store nearby called Graples. It is one of those places that is only open on Thursdays and sells in style home decor at deeply discounted prices. Really quite cheap. They open Saturdays a few times per year and a couple of Saturdays was that day. Normally I wouldn't go but I figured that I would when I saw through the window to their clearance section. Heidi and I took Noelle there and wanted to go to the clearance area to only find out that it was closed until this Saturday. So I went that day and headed straight to clearance. When the doors open at this place, it is an absolute zoo! Drives me rather nuts. A bunch of ladies grabbing things like crazy, whether they probably really need them or not because they don't know if it will be there 5 seconds later. Nuts I tell you. The clearance is actually across the parking lot in a part of the warehouse where larger items are picked up. So that is where I headed. I found several cool things and snagged them but then I noticed two twin headboards. I have been looking for a sturdy twin headbaord for Gunnar. How strange seeing these even there. They don't sell headboards. I've never seen one in the store. I ask how much because they weren't labeled. I was told $25 and then 30% off of that. Home Decor in the clearance section was 40% off and furniture 30%. Holy Smokes! That made it super cheap. There is always something wrong with the stuff in clearance. Heidi found a frame there once that was perfect except for the glass that was broken out of it. No big deal. So I searched this bed and the only thing that I could find that was that the paint was coming off of the top. I can handle that. So I bought it and was stoked. I tell ya, this thing is heavy! It is sturdy beyond belief. I asked the sales person where it had come from. She was pretty sure that it was the owners and she just stuck it in there. They were also selling another one that would have been perfect for a little girl. The detail work on it was really cute. Anyway, My plans are to paint it white. I am thinking spray paint to get an even, smooth coverage. I love it! And did you want to see what my garage looked like? Jeff had me all set up with different areas.We have the kitchen cabinets pulls which are turning out awesome! The kitchen already looks updated and better. I am about half way done. More on that in another post.The frame station, the chalkboard drawers, and the wall ledges.

On top of this, I had an order come in through Etsy for a baby boy album. I really need to get on that. And then within the last couple of days, one of my all time favorite clients wants to get 2 baby albums and 2 wedding albums for various people this year. She is so fun to work with and all of her friends now expect these as gifts. So I really appreciate her business. I just need to make the time to get Brent and Noelle's album finished and off of my desk so that I can get moving on these others.

Sound Sleeper

We have a big boy bed in our midst. I finally got the other room cleaned out. It used to be my craft room until that was moved into our large office area. And Gunnar and I finally set up his bed. Grandma bought this for him a while ago so he was pretty excited to see it set up. He is in a regular sized twin because we have been storing two sets my parents gave us for some time. No need to transition to a toddler bed. I have since cleaned up the floor and bought a navy blue bed skirt which makes it look really good. We still have so much to finish in that room. It is coming along as we...well have no time. Since I have been reading all of these home decor blogs, I have been going nuts with project ideas. They seriously are so easy with great impact. I will show some as soon as I get them done.

So back to the reason I originally posted. This bedding did the trick. It worked like a charm in getting Gunnar to sleep in there. We put Gunnar to bed in his new bed (somewhere around Feb 14th-can't remember the date) and waited for him to come out. He didn't!! I was shocked. Next night, same thing. He didn't come out. I think that there has been a night or two that he will turn on his light and do who knows what for about 5 minutes and then turn the light off and fall asleep. He usually goes to bed about 8:30pm so we don't get him as tired as possible to make it work. He now asked to go to sleep in his new bed. That is how he refers to it still. I wonder how long he will being saying that.

Waking up is a different story. The first morning it was 7:30am. Aaaagh! I don't want to wake up that early. It has pretty much been the same ever since. There was one morning it was like 1am. I think it was because he fell out of bed. He came to us just crying so bad. He slept with us the rest of the morning. Poor thing but it didn't scare him from going back. He usually comes to my side of the bed and says, "mom, awake!". But I wish that you could hear it because he does not say awake normally. The letter a has more of the ahhh sound. This morning he did wake up at 7am and Jeff asked him if he knew how to sleep in. He doesn't. But in reality he will be quite helpful when we need to get out the door to my parent's house so Heidi can get to work.

Right now I am on the quest for a wooden headboard that I can paint. I took a white wooden dresser that I found on craigslist and painted the drawers with chalkboard paint. I still need to paint the rest of it red. Pictures will come when it is done. I want to write on the drawers with chalk what is inside. I am also still looking for a nice big cheap picture frame that I can replace the inside with foam board painted with chalkboard paint for his room. This is just the tip of the iceburg. Didn't I tell you that I had projects in mind. I can't wait for the longer nights and reruns. Then I can work longer and don't really care what is playing on tv.

So into Home Decor Blogs

Lately I have been so into the home decor blogs. Most are just normal people like you and I that are just so darn good at home decor. The best part is that they are so incredibly thrifty. Most items are found at thrift stores or yard sales and totally made over. Most times with very little effort and very little money involved. I love it. I have been founding so many great ideas for my own home. Many that I had not thought of before that I easily can do. Some of the others sites are fun crafty ones. So here are some of my favorites:
Joys of Home
It's A Girl Thing
Ikea Hacker
Crafting Chicks
Be Different Act Normal
Thrifty Decor Chick- one of my very favorites
The Maisy Report- with a great give away right now

All I Want for Christmas...

Is an advent calendar! These calendars are so cute and functional. They are fantastic for kids in the house. I had so much fun making them. The little mini cupcake holes creates the perfect spot for a little daily treat or a message or strips of a song lyrics. The possibilities are endless. I went ahead and sent these to Sugar Snap Blossoms and hope to make a few more for Etsy. We will see how they do. My mom already wants me to make her one, so I will consider that as a good thing.

My new Modern Frames

Lately I have been messing around with a bunch of different things. One of the things are these frames. They are pretty fun to make and can make a statement in any room.

This brown one is my absolute favorite. I actually made these to sell on Etsy but I may have to do another one for me. The picture is of Gunnar for staging purposes.

I like the polka dots on this one alot. Pretty girly in a modern way. I have found that I really like them more simple looking and not all dolled up with embellishments.