Kitchen {inspiration}

Been thinking about my kitchen re-do lately. So I thought I would make a design board …

Reading Room 3

Are you tired of seeing the reading room yet? My vintage sheets came yesterday from a seller on Etsy.  Goodness, I ♥ Etsy! I made the curtains this morning and hung them this afternoon.

 ♥ this curtain rod I found at Target … it's extremely difficult to find curtain rods that are not brown these days!

 Now to find a new home for that chandelier (oh, Elise!)

Aren't they fabulous? Perfect for window curtains in my newest room. I adore the butterflies. I sort of liken them to the changes that take place inside me when I read a great book. But I am waxing poetic.

I also put 25 holes in my freshly painted walls …

The view from my chairs ♥

I've always liked these things … whatever you call them. They add dimension and interest.

The rest of the room will be fun fun fun … finding the finds for the shelves and walls and lamps and such.  It's cozy in here!

Transformation!

It's amazing what a little change can do to a room. OK, so this is a big change, but still. What an amazing difference a day and a dollar (or several) makes! We replaced our nasty carpet with new laminate floors. ♥ ♥ ♥ !!!

Here is Grace helping me move things out of the living room ...

Before ...

OK … now I'm showing you something, well, embarrassing … stains that I can't get out!

And the nastiness that is nappy carpet!

And the most fun part … ripping out the carpet!

During …

And this is how I kept the girls entertained & corralled upstairs all.day.long. … our mini-DVD player ...


And …………… after:

Oh my goodness I am sooooo pleased that I couldn't stop taking pictures this morning!  

And please ignore the dust in these pictures … the floors haven't been thoroughly cleaned yet, just had a good Swiffering ;)

Wow … the transformation is lovely!

Another closeup of the floors :)

Oh my goodness … I ♥ them!!  And you know why hubby said this morning?  He said, "It looks so good I want to just go ahead and do the kitchen now." … I couldn't agree more ;)

OK … just for fun …. one more look at the transformation:

BEFORE

AFTER

I'm done now … I'm off to enjoy my floors!

Paint … (how's that for an interesting title?)

My hands are covered in paint yet again. I ♥ paint! Such an easy and inexpensive way to transform something! I've been busy painting the window trim in the living room that is new and has never been painted. That took some time this morning, but I have to get it all ready to hang up our new faux wood blinds tonight :)

I spent Saturday framing. I have become a woman of many talents as of late with all my DIY projects and I've added picture framing to my repertoire of skills. Although I did manage to ruin one of them when I was stapling on the backing, but one frame out of 10 isn't bad, right? I'm still waiting on one print to come from WHCC and then I'll be able to finish the largest frame I have (24x36!). All frames came from the thrift store and the most expensive one was $5. I ♥ thrifting!

So I decided to follow the expert advice and place templates on my walls to picture (ha) where the pictures would go:



Oh, I need to do something with that rocking chair. It needs paint, of course, and new cushions. I just love that rocking chair. Look at all the frames on the floor waiting for their little print friends. They have been filled and are waiting to be hung. See the mini blinds? They're gone! But I digress … 



See the blue tape inside some of the templates? I actually taped up some of the prints (in their plastic sleeves of course!!) to see if I liked where I had chosen to place them. Brandon asked me to take it all down after they had been up a few days. I guess they are kind of ugly, huh?

I do want to share something with you though. See the piece of wood in the 2nd pic? I bet you have been wondering why it is there. Right? Well I used it to make this:

♥ ♥ ♥

I was inspired by this post. I made it yesterday afternoon while Brandon took a nap and I finished it this morning. Yes, I did hand paint it.  It speaks to me. I simply ♥ it!

Oh … one more thing that has nothing to do with paint:






I snatched that up at Target on Saturday. It was on clearance and I really needed a lamp shade. Another thing that I added to the room that just makes me smile.  The room is starting to look more and more like me.  Well, you know what I mean.  I'm enjoying the hard work.

Nixed!

At the last minute last night we nixed the roman shades and bought faux wood blinds at Home Depot :) … we'll be putting them up tonight … can't wait! I'm off to fill in the holes from the mini blinds and paint the trim. Maybe I'll even hang some frames!

p.s. Don't tell Brandon, but I was 99.9% sure the windows were 63" and when we had the guy cut the blinds to size last night I was sweating it all the way home! Whew … I was relieved when I snuck in the tape measure and realized I was right :)

28/362 … Sweet Molasses

We painted today. All day. It was a long day between sanding, priming, early-realease and a conference at school. And more painting after that. But I ♥ ♥ ♥ the tables! I'll post before and afters when I'm done (which will be after the polyurethane cures in 3 days!). In the meantimes, here is my photo of the day:

Sweet Molasses is the name of the color. It's a combination of black, espresso and deep eggplant. Very nice. You never know what color you'll get depending on the light and I like that. I am getting sooooooo excited! The living room renovation is coming along nicely :)