Christmas to do list

There are a few gifts I want to give my house over the next few days...

Finish trim underneath cabinets in kitchen
Paint bathroom wall that I had to patch
Patch big hole in the wall in the kitchen (where a cable jack used to be...don't worry I didn't put it there)
Paint over where I patch the big hole in the wall
Caulk and paint trim in the bathroom
Replace light in the bathroom
Put handles on bathroom cabinets
Touch up scuffs on bathroom cabinets
Clean bathroom tile
Hang up shelves in bathroom
Switch out old nasty shower curtain rod in master bathroom with new satin nickel one and new hooks
Finish rearranging/re-artifying the living room frames yet again (this time it is Christmas themed)
Bag up all clothes I don't wear and that don't fit (and attempt to pry away some of Brandon's clothes that relentlessly hang in the closet just like mine and would like a person to wear them) and take them away to Goodwill. Alecia and I are taking a trip to IKEA soon and I am getting 3 or 4 of these:

I plan on using them to create built-ins inside of our closets to hold all of our extra clothing that doesn't fit anywhere else. I will probably just put them together and throw clothes in them at first, but I have seen some very pretty pictures of some customized versions. The best part is that they are made of solid pine, not particle board and they are only $30.00! 

Bedroom Blues

For about a year now I have been stuck in on my master bedroom. There were a few items that had me perplexed: my chocolate brown headboard (made from a door), the beige striped curtains, and confusion about what color I want the comforter to be. I will not show a before shot because, well, I couldn't bring myself to take one!

So, with my hubs gone to the Arkansas Razorbacks game all day, I decided to change everything....as he would jovially say, "Sometimes I go to sleep, and when I wake an entire room has been painted or changed." Yep....I'm like a Christmas Elf. And my house is the workshop...and...I guess Brandon is Santa...anyhoo... 

Here it is! Uh-oh...just noticed that the art above the bed is unevenly spaced. I will get right on that, but I don't feel like taking another picture. BTW I made that art from an Anno Inez curtain panel and three Tyglosa frames ($25 total for the project).

 

Sorry the curtains are all wrinkled, I just pulled them out of the closet and threw them up there to see if they would work....and they did!

Shh....don't tell, but the grey comforter is actually a full sized one from the extra bedroom. I just stretched it very tightly. I love how the grey works with the curtains. Also the headboard is not new, I just slipcovered the one we have. I love the fact that it is made from an antique door (an earlier DIY project), but it is just not working with my current decor and modern elements. I do not want to permanently cover it in case I change my style yet again, which is very likely :)

 

I had to try extremely hard not to be in this picture...all you can see is my holding up my phone...and believe me...that's all you need to see.

This lamp has made an appearance in every room in the house. There's just no place that doesn't look nice!

The only thing I didn't change was the wall color. I love the blue-green wall (I think it is Alpine Spruce by Valspar)! The bad news is right now this is now the only clean room in my house. I have been pulling stuff out of closets all day "organizing." But hey, I can now tell you where the lint roller and the glue gun are, along with many other fun items that have been as lost as the as the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 for many years! The good news is I don't have the bedroom blues any longer! The best part of this bedroom makeover is the fact that I spent $0. Everything I used was from another room in my house! Woo hoo. Shop the house people, shop the house! It is so much fun to discover a new way to use the things you already own to reinvent a room!

Look what I can do!

I have been contemplating the advantages of the Silhouette SD since I saw if a few months ago featured on Thriftydecorchick.com. The only thing that has really held me back is the fact that the software was not available for Mac users (Boooo)....until now! So today I downloaded the software free to see if I could figure it out. And I created a couple of things, including this piece (which I consider artwork)

I printed it out and showed it to my hubs and he actually looked impressed (which is a surprise since he knows how to use photoshop and create all kinds of amazing graphics). So, if you're interested in purchasing the Silhouette SD, I would recommend you go ahead and download the software. It is very user friendly and fun to use!

P.S. Thriftydecorchick is giving away a free Silhouette HD and is also offerring a sweet deal for purchasing one if you are interested.

 I created these two to put in my kitchen.

This one is in a frame in the living room for the holidays.

This one is also displayed in the living room.

Living Room Mood Board

Color inspired: red, yellow, and brown

My best friend Alecia is getting married to my best friend Chris very soon. They recently bought a beautiful house which she moved into and has begun decorating. She has always loved bright blues, pinks, and greens but is now going for a less "juvenile" color scheme as she says, and transferring the bright colors to her classroom (I do that too). She has chosen some really beautiful colors and is now pondering how to renovate and accessorize. I was so inspired by her color scheme that I sat down and created a moodboard for her kitchen to help her visualize what some of those changes may look like before buying or nailing anything up! I used olioboard.com, a free moodboard creation website, that allows you to pull items from tons of stores. In the kitchen she has chosen a mushroom brown for the walls with a gold accent wall. She also wants to use red as an accent/accessory color. I think she has great taste, and it's important to have great taste in the kitchen!

Be our guest, be our guest!

When we first moved into our house as a young married couple we knew that there was one room that absolutely could not stay as-is: the guest room. You see, it was ready for an entirely different kind of guest than we were expecting. One that would like pink, teddy bears, and early morning feeding times. A baby girl.


Wow. Not only does mystery baby girl like pink sponge paint, she also likes wallpaper borders. I like those about as much as I like poopie diapers. And anyway, my future little girl will not be into that, no way, no how. It had to go to make room for slightly more mature guests, like the kids from our youth group, to stay in. Wait.....never mind! :)

This bed is simply a full mattress set on a frame with a foam topper (free from my mom) for added comfort. I made the head board from some particle board, foam, and fabric for exactly $60. This headboard was my first adventure with a staple gun. Ahhhh...memories. The comforter set is from, you guessed it, Dirt Cheap for $20. The sunburst was a Christmas gift. The pillows cost a total of $15 and set the color scheme for the room: maroon and green against a back drop of neutrals. Wierd, but it works.


I wanted to create a hotel-ish feel, but also bring in a little eclectic-ness. Before designing the space however, I had to get rid of that carpet. We got our house as a forclosure and the previous owners had left a little too much of their pet in our car "pet". To be frank, it smelled like cat pee and it was gross. So we put down click and lock laminate (79 cents per square foot) for a total of around $100 once you factor in the underlayment and padding. It was hard work, but worth it! And it smells a lot better. Also, I got this rug from Dirt Cheap for $7, originally from Target.



Dressing the windows is a roman shade from Dirt Cheap that I got for $5, white curtains from Ikea for $10 a pair, and a curtain rod from Ross that was around $7. In the corner is a vase with some branches that costs a total of $25 from Ikea. Also, the cylinder pendant from Dirt Cheap was $1.90! The light kit was $5.



In the free corner I created a little reading nook (although I've never read there). However, there are some great books! The lovely maroon wing back chair was from our friend Mary Kay. It was free! Yay! I love how it juxtaposes the modern lamp right beside it that I got from JC Penney for $60 (because it was the last one they had, which I wiggled out of the display and walked halfway across to the drapery department to pay for). The little black table was from Ikea for $19.99 (I bought it when Brandon and I were still dating for his apartment in Atlanta, which was really one of my first out of the house design adventures. I think it played a major role in us getting married.) The little green basket is from DC (I'm just going to abbreviate it from now on) for like, $1. The pillows were a total of $15 from Ross and Pier 1.

The green Dandylion painting is from Pier 1 for $20. I think I tried to hang it up in every other room in our house and it finally came to "rest" in here. The two pictures in the black frames ($10 from Hobby Lobby) were actually taken by myself. If you look closely you will see a very interesting row of trashcans. And the bicycle pic is from Walmart for $7. Haven't you always wanted a black and white bicycle photo on your wall? Well, check your local Walmart. The vase with the flowers was $8 and the candle holder was $7 from Tuesday Morning. Whew..... I really look like I shop a lot. Well, I do. Let's see the total and how I did.


The grand total: $404!

From the ground up, I don't think that is too bad! Of course, many of these things I already had and did not buy specifically for this room, so if we were to total only the "remodeling" costs they would be: $181! This would include the Roman shade, pendant shade, bedspread, headboard, rug, and don't forget, flooring!

I hope you like my modern, eclectic guest room. But please call before you drop in for a visit.

P.S. Does anyone else out there miraculously/freakishly remember the price of everything they have bought for their home?

Dirt Cheap, but not cheap and dirty

Hello friends....I do consider you a friend if you are reading this! I would like to share the latest incarnation of two rooms in my home: the living room and bathroom. My last several posts have been about these two rooms. Today I went to Dirt Cheap and spent a lot of money ($33 whole dollars). If you don't know what Dirt Cheap is, it is a store that carries overstocked, damaged or returned items from Target, Walgreens, Walmart, Kohls, and many other stores. And their prices are, well, dirt cheap. Hence the name of the store. 13 of my dollars were spent on apparel (a dress for $3 and some sandals for $10). So, I spent 20 whole other dollars on home decor. Yay!

Let's begin with this find: I have no idea what it actually is.


This is my hallway light. It's pretty 90's. What would they look like together?


Like this! Pretty interesting huh? I think my husband will hate it (he hasn't seen it yet) or he may not even notice it until he reads the blog. Let's see what happens.


You'll remember my earlier searching for a rug post. Well, of course, I picked out one that is nothing like the ones I mentioned. But it was on sale! Actually, they were :) This beauty is another Lowes find. It is approximately 8' X 11' and is very accurately named the Pressed Leaves Rug. It retails for....drumroll please.....$385! I am too cheap for that! However, I noticed this week upon my usual browsing that they had the 5 X 8 version for a whopping $59 dollars. Originally I thought this rug would look great in the master bedroom. I bought two of them, brought them home and laid them out on the living room floor just to see what they would look like together (creating my own 8 x 10 ish rug).
Now, you either think I'm a crazy loser/lunatic or a genius, but this is what happened when I put them together: the patterns matched up....sort of. What I'm left with in the middle is sort of an ink blot effect. But for someone as crazy eclectic as me, I thought it looked pretty cool! But how do I keep them from separating?

The answer was easy. I simply flipped them over and consulted with the old redneck standby: my trusty duct tape! However, I quickly realized that we had purchased the cheap Walmart version of duct tape, which is gray and shiny, but does not have the rug melding stickiness needed. So I will have to get some gen-u-ine duct tape and redo this project. Until then the rugs are just smushed together awaiting their "permanent" union until a Walmart run takes place.




I also did a little shopping elsewhere today: my mom's house. I snagged the lamp base on the branch table and the cool damask lamp shades that I bought at Walmart when I still lived with Mom, like, 3 years ago. Dirt cheap finds pictured are....the pictures on the shelf. All of those frames were originally from Target for who knows how much. Together they all cost me....another drumroll please....$8. Whoop- deee- doo! And look, you can't even tell my rugs are smushed! As promised, with the new rug, here is the latest incarnation of our living room:



I also covered a couple of the couch pillows with some cream pillow covers I bought at Ikea last year and nixed all other pillows except the orange herringbone (Ross Dress for Less) and sunburst (Pier 1). You may even notice, I found my "C" and stuck in the frame (uh-oh it's a little crooked, but I will fix it). Now the wall is proudly monogrammed representing Brandon and Candi Rodgers. Hooray. In case you forgot what it looked like before, here's a few before shots for you:



Don't worry. The lovely rug is finding a new home somewhere else in the house.


Definitely not bad befores, but I'm more pleased with the afters.

And now, one last reveal: the bathroom. For this room, only one dirt cheap find was imposed: a new shower curtain that was $4.

Before:

After:

And there you go! That's not even all I got! You'll have to wait until later to see the rest.

Sticky Situation

Since my husband and I moved into our house over a year ago, we have planned on replacing all flooring....ourselves. I love DIY projects. In fact I have a range of emotions throughout the process.

Planning: excitement
Preparation: anxiousness/excitement
When I first start: excitement
During: frustration/contemplation/excitement
Finished: amazed that I did it/soreness/excitement

Okay....maybe my emotions are not as varied as I thought. I am pretty much excited the whole time. That being said I would like to share my latest and greatest DIY adventure: The Bathroom Floor!

Here is the before shot. Isn't that flooring lovely? No....I didn't think so either. This is, quite obviously, a very taste specific sheet vinyl that happens to specifically not be my taste. While contemplating flooring options I thought to myself "I would love to put tile in here." However, this being a DIY adventure, I had to face the fact that I didn't really know how to work a tile saw nor did I want to get too grouty and messy. The next best thing: peel and stick vinyl tile! It took me a few....er....months to decide which type and size to go with. I brought home about 15 different samples from Lowes and changed my mind a couple of times, but ultimately selected an 18 x18 Novalis tile in "Verde". Though the grout lines are, of course, fake, they actually look pretty good.

Let's talk prep. After watching several online tutorials and reading up I learned that I needed to degrease the floor, so I bought an eco-friendly degreaser (also from Lowes) that is low odor and safe to use. Some articles I read also suggested that I use an embossing leveler before I begin tiling over existing vinyl so that the old pattern doesn't telegraph through. Hmmmm....that sounded a little messy, so I decided to take my chances.

Here is a during shot. These tiles were super sticky! I cannot see them going anywhere, especially now that they are locked in place by the surrounding tiles. You can see my trusty utility knife. I did have to replace the blade once, but the tiles were very easy to cut! When it came to the tight spots around the toilet I ended up using a trick I read about on younghouselove.com: use paper templates to trace the cuts. I actually just used the paper backing that came off of some of the tiles. Super easy! Another great tip I learned from younghouselove.com was to use that handy prybar to pry up the quarter round just enough to slip the tiles beneath it. After I'm done I can just tap the molding back down. It is easier and less expensive than replacing it!


Here you see where the bathroom floor meets the hall. I intend covering up the old parquet flooring with click and lock laminate which we have already installed in the bedrooms and looks great!Here is the finished floor. I did not take up the toilet to put the tile down. I cut the tile to fit around it. There are a few small gaps between the toilet and the floor that I will cover with caulk. I will also do this around the tub.

There you have it. For about $25 and 6 hours (thanks to all the toilet cuts :) I have a new bathroom floor. Yay!!!!! Stick around to see the entire bathroom before and after and room reveal!

I've Been Framed!

Please raise your hand if you have a T.V. mounted above your fireplace.Wow, you can really tell I'm a teacher from that last statement. I must miss being in the classroom too much :). Well, as I'm thinking up inspirations for the fireplace it occurred to me that my T.V. looks a little too....T.V. ish. I couldn't help but wonder if anyone out there thought that maybe theirs did too. How many ways are there to hide a T.V.? Too many, and most of them look too hard or expensive for me to pull off. However, I did find a clever disguise: TV frames!

This beauty is from Pottery Barn. This means that I'm not even going to look at how much it costs. I'm just going to gaze at it and figure out how to do it myself for cheap. Go ahead and scroll back up and just gaze at it. You know you want to.

I like the way that this one matches the console below it. It has a simple, modern shape, but is probably too modern for my space.

I rather enjoy looking at this white frame, especially since it looks like a work of art. The owner is playing a DVD of various paintings which change every few minutes, sort of like a digital picture frame. I love that idea! I can change my art as often as I like with the push of a button!

Ahhh....TV frames. Sophisticated, practical, stylish......easy? We shall see.

Fired Up!

On my continued search for Living Room inspiration I am looking for ideas to refurbish my existing fireplace. It has always been my plan to build some type of surround to add architectural detail as well as minimize the brick; however, I've begun to play with the idea of painting the brick as well as add some sort of paneling above the fireplace to really push the envelope.

This is a photo consultation from The Lettered Cottage website. It has everything I want, except brick.

This is from BHG fireplace before and afters. I love the idea of adding seating on both sides of the fireplace. I currently have two Ikea Cabinets there, but if I ever decided to create a built in, I could easily relocate them. (I also love the rug in this room--- so natural and simple!)
This one is perhaps the most similar to my current fireplace. I love the detailed molding. It actually looks like something I could do myself. I also love the black painted brick.
So many inspirations, so many projects....so much time. I hope I can get this one checked off my list soon!

Cutting a Rug

In my last post, I mentioned that I may replace the area rug in the living room with something less....busy. I love the multicolored squares, don't get me wrong. But since buying it I have noticed that it constantly draws eyes to the floor and I would like people to look up and around the room. I have also learned that it is very difficult to accessorize, because everything competes with the rug. So, I think I would love the rug....just in another room.

That being said, I would like to pick out a new rug for the living room; a neutral one.

The rules:

I will not spend over 150 bucks (before tax)

It must be at least 10 ft long (width can vary)

It must be neutral/natural

I would like for it to be soft

It must be puppy friendly (meaning I can clean it if....well...you know)
Egeby from Ikea- 149.00

Tarnby from Ikea: 149.00

Mohawk Home Apple Butter and Ivory Rug from Lowes: 148.00

The beef I have with the Ikea rugs is that I don't think they would be easy to clean when...well...you know....happens. I have to admit my favorite is the first one from Lowes....and it is a whole dollar less than the others. But, it doesn't have as much texture. (Sigh....)

What do you think? Have you seen any awesome rugs out there? Share your wisdom!