Welcome Home!

This is such a simple and in-expensive way to add a little 'homy-ness' to your home!  I did this a while back and I just love it.  

On the door from our garage to our house I just used scrap booking stickers to write 'Welcome Home' on the door.  Painters tape helped me keep it straight, as always!  

It's nice to always be welcomed home.

How to Level Furniture Overlapping a Rug

 We recently purchased a larger area rug for our living room. I love that it fills up more of the space and defines the sitting area, but most of our furniture now sits half-on/half-off the rug. Since the rug is over 1" thick it created a real issue ( think of red wine on an unbalanced end table!)

After failed attempts to re-arrange the furniture, I turned to these felt furniture pads to extend legs that fell outside of the rug.  I had purchased a huge package of them at Costco when we changed to dark floors to avoid scratches.

I love using the felt pads because you can keep stacking them to get the height needed.  In my case, every foot outside the rug needed two pads.

Since our floors and dark and the pads were light, I colored them with black permanent marker so they wouldn't show.

Goodwill Dresser Turned TV Console

What is wrong with me?!? 

That's exactly what I asked my husband the night I picked-up this beast for $40 from Goodwill:

You see I've spent the past 10 months re-designing our living room, which all started because our previous furniture was all from Goodwill and I felt like we were at a point in our lives where we should be past that. So, I sold our entire living room on craigslist to make room for all the great new pieces I was going to buy. Then I come home with this Goodwill gem; uglier, less expensive, more damaged and more out-dated than anything I had ever bought. Look at that drawer! Even I kind of thought I was crazy.

We were in need of a new TV console for the living room. I wanted something substantial with character and that didn't have open shelves.  Everything I liked was over $2,000 and was complete crap in terms of quality, so for $40 I decided to take a chance on the ugly dresser. We set it up in the living room and lived with it a while before I invested my time into painting it.  Even missing the trim on one drawer, it turned out to work great for us! 

We were able to have a local frame shop make a new trim piece for the drawer that was trim-less. It's not a perfect match but no one can tell! We sanded the dresser than painted it white using our Ben Moore trim paint.

My original plan was to replace the hardware to something more modern, but I fell in love with the details in the original hardware.  I sprayed them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint to darken them from the original brassy color.

The best part is the storage! It has 6 large drawers plus 3 hidden drawers in the cabinet. We are able to store all of our photo albums and lay our place mats flat with room to spare!

Overall I'm very happy with our new TV console. Saving $1,960 by being creative doesn't hurt either.

DIY Bottles for Glass Door Shower

Last year we remodeled our main floor bathroom, which we also use as the master. It's a fairly small bathroom so we wanted to install a glass shower door to make the room appear larger, and to make it have more of a 'Spa' feel.  My biggest concern was not what tile to install, but what do with out shampoo bottles since they'd now be visible to the world.  

Here is an example of the products we had in our bath.  No way was I having green and orange packaging in my new spa bath!

I looked all over for solutions but they simply don't exist. I couldn't believe it! I'm thankful I'm crafty because I don't know what non-crafters with glass shower doors do!

My goal was to make consistent white packaging for all of my products.  I was limited by the height of the shelf in my shower, but soon found these Fiji water bottles that fit.  They also came in different sizes that I could use for facewash, etc.  A couple coats of white spray paint and some pumps from Aveda was all it took to transform water bottles into our new shower set!

I ordered ceramic labels from Etsy, custom made for the specific products I use.  I found these bottles at AxMan Surplus for my bath bubbles and salts.


Here is how the bottles look in our new bathroom! I'm so glad to have it free of mis-matched orange and green bottles!

Painted Countertops: 6 Years Later

We're in the process of remodeling our kitchen and in celebration of the dumpster containing the old cabinets and countertops (shown above) being hauled away this morning, I thought I'd give an up-date on our painted faux granite kitchen countertops.  

It's been almost 6 years since we painted our countertop and many people have e-mailed me inquiring about how the paint job has held-up.  Overall I would say it held-up very well aside from minor scratches that have dulled the shine.  

(keep in mind our countertops are black, so these photos have really been lightened to show the scratches which weren't' that bad in read life).

Ideally we should have put a new seal coat on probably every year which would have helped with the minor scratches. 

There were a few spots where the feet of our small appliances made dents in the paint overtime, as shown here:

In hindsight I'm glad we painted our countertops when we did, as it was inexpensive and allowed us to visually up-date the kitchen until we were ready to remodel and purchase stone countertops.  I would not say it's an alternative to granite, but rather a better option than ugly laminate countertops.  

Organizing with Bankers Boxes

We are very lucky to have a walk-in closet in our guest bedroom, which we've re-named the 'party closet' because it stores all of my party gear.  The space is great except every time I would get something out I found myself having to re-organize the entire closet, which is the last thing I wanted to do on top of cleaning up a party. I decided there was a better way to organize it to make everything more accessible.

Here is a before picture of the closet.  Although it looks really messy and unorganized it really wasn't.  I had actually set everything neatly on shelves.  The issue was that everything was a different size making it hard to neatly line-up and stack.

In order to make everything a consistent size, I used bankers boxes to store all of the random goods. At first it seemed like a waste of space since larger awkward items left a lot of dead space in the box, but everything ended up fitting into the closet better when in boxes, and looked much more organized.

I created labels for the boxes by running card stock through the printer.  Not only does it make it easy to find what I'm looking for, but it no longer looks like a bunch of files stacked in the closet.  Storing our party items this way has also been great for lending out party items since everything is wrapped-up inside and already boxed.

Due to the gained space I was able to move all of my tablecloths from hangers to a spare shelf:

Before                                   After

Up-dated Craft Storage with Casters

In preparation for changing our 'blonde' floors to 'espresso',  I've been trying to go around the house and change any of our espresso furniture that might blend in by either setting on a light colored rug or swapping out for something lighter.  I really like the espresso shelf I have in my craft room and the storage it provides.  Rather than swapping it out or painting it, I decided to add silver coasters to the bottom to lift it off of the 'soon-to-be-dark' floors.

Here are some before pictures of the shelf sitting directly on the floor:

 

I bought 6 of these casters at Home Depot for $5.48 a piece, so the total cost to up-date was about $35.

 

Hubbs screwed them into the bottom of the shelf for me, and here it is now! It was an easy up-date and added a bit of industrial detail to the shelf.  Best of all, we're ready for the dark floors I've been wanting!

 

DIY Reminder Tag

My husband often forgets his lunch, not because I'm a bad cook but by accident.  Sometimes he leaves it in the fridge but I usually find it sitting on top of the cabinet in the entryway.  I've actually learned to look for it so I can put it back in the fridge.

We were joking about how often he forgets it and that he needs something in his face to remind him. Being crafty, I went into my gift wrap stash and grabbed an inexpensive chalkboard tag I had purchased from Michaels and was saving for gifting a bottle of wine. Using chalk I wrote 'LUNCH' across the tag and the reminder tag was done!

We keep it on a 3M hook inside of the cabinet in the entryway and put it on the door knob after dinner if there are leftovers.  Since the chalk is easy to wash off, we can use this to remind ourselves about anything before leaving the house.

Gift Wrap Stash 101

Fancy grift wrap stations, closets, even rooms are all over Pinterest and organizing sites.  All I have to say to that is good for them, as I think they're more for show than for function.  Besides my wrapping paper rolls which are neatly organized in the closet as seen here, all of my giftwrapping goods fit into one box like this:

That box sits nicely on the shelf, easily accessible but clutter-free like this:

Although it's great to keep a few items on hand to wrap a last minute gift, I don't see the need to devote a ton of storage space in my house to gift wrap.  I find that I usually purchase packaging to match the theme of my gift or the recipient's interests, so I don't often dig into my stash. Therefore, I'm very intentional with what I buy to keep on hand, so storing it doesn't get out of hand! Here are my tips on what to have:

Basic White and Kraft Paper Gift bags-These are great beacuse they can work for any occasion rather than storing wrap for every life event.  Since I do have an entire room of craft supplies, it's easy to decorate them for any occasion, use colored tissue paper, or tie something fun onto the handles.

Colored Favor Bags- These small bags are inexpensive and don't take up much space.  They are easy to embellish and work great for kids gifts, treats, or simple 'just because' gifts that don't need to be wrapped fancy.

Dollar Store Gift Bags-Dollar stores have some of the most fun gift bags, and the best part is that they don't cost more than the gift!  I also keep bags given to me to re-use, but only if they are still in pristine condition.  I know I won't give them if they're beat-up, so why hang onto them?!? If you go through a major life even such as a wedding or new baby, keep the basic bags and give some of the event specific bags to a friend or co-worker.  Why hang onto 30+ wedding bags?

Bubble Mailer Envelopes-These tend to get used more than actual wrap since I like to mail gifts and treats to friends I don't see often!  They are a pain to run out and get when you need them, so I keep them with my gift wrap stash.

Re-useable Gift Bags-At the same price as traditional gift bags, these re-useable gift bags hold-up well and don't get wrinkled and damaged.  The recipient can re-gift them or use them for everyday errands.  They can also tote heavy gifts, like a couple bottles of wine!

Fun Bows and Embellishments- Dollar stores also have a lot of fun bows that help make gifts look attractive and exciting!  I like to have a few on hand to make things special, but since they take up a bit of space I only stock-up on the ones that are really fun.

Decorative Filler-This is available at the dollar store as well.  I like to use it in place of tissue paper in bags and packages.  Not only is it more fun, but it holds up well for storing, wrapping, and re-using and doesn't get wrinkled and grubby like tissue paper.

Small Boxes and Embellishments-I keep all small boxes, bags, and embellishments in a clear ziplock bag so they don't sink to the bottom of my gift wrap box. If you can't find them you won't use them!