Little tricks...bathroom organization.

I've been on a "Pinterquest" (exhaustive journey through stores, websites, craigslist, online garage sale sites, etc.) to find a cart or dresser suitable for a kitchen coffee station. While on this arduous quest for the perfect furnishings...a friend saw my inquiry for the perfect cart offered me the Ikea Raskog cart for $30. That's like $20 off the price of buying it brand new AND I don't have to drag my husband and/or kids to IKEA with me. Because, you know, no one in this house really likes Ikea except me. I had a feeling it wasn't going to work for the kitchen because of the color, edges on the shelves and it's a little smaller than I hoped for. THANKFULLY, I quickly noticed that my friend's Ikea cart coordinates perfectly with our kids' bathroom. The bathroom that has no storage aside from the medicine cabinet. Which...you can't really put towels in there.

A year ago, we ripped out the entire bathroom and put in new flooring, new paint, new toilet and new sink, new decor, etc. We decided to go with a pedestal sink because our children (who love to play in water) had played so hard at ye old bathroom sink, that our vanity had suffered significant water damage. Now, you can try to tell kids all you want that sinks are not for recreational use. However, they will always find a way to wash their hands a little longer. To get another drink. To brush teeth another time. All of these things usually end result in swimming toothbrushes, floating boats and extended periods of washing dolls' hair. Sigh. It's just a stage of life. They won't do it forever. I ain't scarrrred - except when they water damage our furnishings.

The pedestal sink looks great; it's pretty kid proof, but obviously offers zero storage. My intention was to put up some shelves (as seen on Pinterest, of course), but that never happened. When I saw this Raskog cart in the perfect color - I knew my bathroom plans were coming full circle.

Look. At. That. It matches the mirror, rug, wall-art and looks like it was made to squeeze right in that space between the wall and sink! I love it. I have it set up with three mason jars to hold toothbrushes and toothpaste (previously they would land in the sink or - gasp - the floor); hair products; hair accessories; and other bathroom-y things. The bottom two shelves have towels and washcloths (which were previously sending our hall closet into overflow status). I LOVE having this cart.

The only problem? Now I've thought of at least one, maybe two more places in the house where I need one.

Also? I found the perfect cart for our coffee station, but it's back ordered. Hopefully I can post on that in early February after it shows up. SO excited!!!

Kitchen Remodel

A couple posts ago, I told you all about our kitchen overhaul. With plenty of help from friends and family, we had the whole thing ripped out and put back together in about three weeks! We try to do everything as frugally as possible while still doing quality updates, at the best prices (or barters) possible. :) I wanted to show you some before and afters in case you are looking for ideas for your own kitchen.

Initially, we just wanted to replace our laminate flooring. We installed hand-scraped hardwood flooring throughout the rest of the first floor (minus the bathroom) about two years ago, and the transition between our family room and kitchen just hasn't been right since.

Of course, flooring leads to cabinets, cabinets lead to counters, counters lead to walls, and so on. Before you know it, we were committing to a total re-do.

This is the finished product. Here's what we did...

• Flooring - We replaced our old well-worn laminate flooring with 16x16 porcelain tile from Home Depot laid in a diamond pattern. A friend of ours laid it for us. He does awesome work and is currently helping us renovate the upstairs bathroom. I think this really opens up the room, don't you?
• Cabinets - Our builder-grade oak cabinets weren't broken or unusable, so we just updated them with paint and hardware. We used Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations to get the paint work finished. It's a simple three to four step process (four if you use the decorative glaze, which we didn't). I opted for the classic white painted look. It was a lot of agony to decide what color, believe me! I think it was the right decision. You'll also notice that we removed our island. (I know! Who would take out extra storage space?) The fact of it is, we really just had it filled with junk that was easily re-homed elsewhere (like the pantry and in other re-organized cabinets). We were constantly stepping on each others toes to avoid the thing. Our kitchen really isn't big enough to be further cramped with the island, breakfast bar that we never used - not once - plus four kids.
• Counters - This may be my favorite part. We replaced our original counters with concrete counter tops. After looking at a few sample colors, we went with black (charcoal, maybe) counters infused with brilliant flecks of stainless steel. WE LOVE THEM. :) They really pull the whole kitchen together. I mean, my word....look how good they make my coffee and eggs look?
  
  
  
• Doors - Here's another quandary. Our pantry doors and the surrounding frame were originally painted the color of pooh. That's really the best descriptor I have. We had been hoping to change them for the last five and a half years, but never got around to it. I searched the depths of Pinterest to see what we should do. I really didn't want two white doors in the middle of a long kitchen wall; they would just be asking for dirty little handprints every day, I know it. I decided to go with black, and a metallic glaze. Here's a word to the wise. If you ever care to glaze something, read up on glazing first. My nephew (who is an AMAZING painter and helped us SO much with this kitchen) and I glazed them with a metallic finish; after they dried, I added more black back in because they looked a little splotchy. I think they are just right now.
  
  In addition to the color, the dated brass doorknobs had to go. I couldn't find any respectable stainless looking dummy doorknobs, so I painted them with Rustoleum spray paint. Wahoo. They are a little on the sparkly side (because of the color I picked), but I think they work well and it wasn't a bad process. (Thank you for the idea, Pinterest!)

• There's also that over-sized letter I hung on the wall next to the doors (my Anthropologie DIY). I wrote about that a few posts back. I gets lots of compliments; you should totes make one!

• On the other side, in an effort to balance the room out with complementary colors all around, I added black curtains tied off with a little rope for detail (Target - 2 panels for $24.99). Rope was on a spool from the fabric store. Aside from the black curtains, the door still needed some balancing. I made this black and natural burlap wreath with a black bow to tie it all together. 

On a sad note, the motor died on the Kitchen Aid mixer we got for a wedding gift almost 10 years ago. :( THANKFULLY, I was given a brand new sparkly beautiful one for Christmas. How about that? It even matches the kitchen. :) We got a MUCH NEEDED new knife set, too. 

So, I think that's it (for now!). We'll eventually replace the large flourescent light that hangs where our island once was with recessed lighting. But, for now, we have a bathroom to fix-up and we're just happy to have a working kitchen! :) 

DIY Anthropologie Letters

As I mentioned in my last post, we're in the midst of a kitchen re-do; while plenty of things still wait to be done (cabinetry hardware, countertop installation, doors and trim painted, junk sorted), I could not seem to rest until that one blank space on our wall, which formerly housed a DIY chalkboard (that I accidentally trashed with paint markers) was filled. Blank walls make me nervous. Know what I mean?

I hit up TJ Maxx and, after having three children there for two hours, we came up with nada for the wall. I searched Etsy for some incredible handcrafted masterpiece aaaaaaand, nothing. Nothing in my cheapskate price range anyway. FINALLY, I remembered the oversized wall-letters I pinned some time ago. I started wondering if I could pull this project off or if it would result in an oversized mess in our kitchen... My curiosity won and we headed to the craft store, with only two littles in-tow this time.

I know you all have seen these. I know some of your are probably wondering if this super-easy craft is blog-worthy. However, I must tell you, I am a reformed non-crafter. All this crafting business is still new to me. I don't even own a glue gun yet. GASP! I'm amazed at how inexpensive and simple this was and, of course, that it actually worked without me gluing my fingers together, spilling a gallon of paint on the new floor, or catching something on fire. I'm just being honest.

Here it is.

See these? $98 for one letter? We won't be needing them.

Two of the littles and I went to Jo Ann Fabrics and picked up one of these. With a coupon, I think it was about $5. It's made of paper mache and surprisingly well-constructed.

I had some paint on hand, Martha Stewart's black metallic and then I picked up another straight metallic from Martha's collection, also from Jo Ann's.

I used a foam brush that I already had on-hand, though I'm sure you could use a regular paint brush as well. Foam brushes are nearly a dime a dozen and deposit nicely in the nearest trash receptacle when you're finished with them. I'm all about minimal craft clean-up, folks.

I painted on a nice coat of black, then did some touch ups. After that coat dried completely (or most of the way, anyway), I moved on to a coat of metallic. You can add as little or as much as you want, depending on the look you desire. I wanted this letter to look more black than metallic. So, I think that's how it ended up.

I attached velcro to the back (also picked up at JoAnn's). Look for it by the 3M hooks.

Then, I sat back and took a sigh of relief for a craft well-done, with a DIY peppermint mocha. Yum, yum, yum.

First world problems, indeed.

I don't know if it's possible to lose touch with reality while simultaneously grasping reality with all your might; no less, I think that's what just happened here. Three weeks ago, about mid-week, my hubs says something to the effect of, "Oh, hey, the kitchen floor is getting ripped up on Monday." 

Oh, really? 

We've been talking about replacing our shabby torn-up linoleum for five years now, but with many littles underfoot, the time was never right for such an undertaking. The only way we ever got hardwood flooring through out our first level was because the crew (of folks we know) came and laid it while we were on vacation. Because we've been talking about it for SO LONG, I've pinned about a dozen different kitchen ideas and thought I had it all figured out, until he said GO (to Home Depot and sort it all out, for realz). Like really real. Like go get the stuff and bring it home because we're doing this real.

I started panicking. Anyone who has so much as replaced a doorknob knows that one home improvement project leads to another. We started with flooring; however, flooring goes under the cabinets. So, we might as well paint the cabinets, right? As long as we're messing with those, how about new countertops. Ok! We might as well paint the walls while the cabinets are out; oh, and, don't you know that lighting is looking dated, too. Back to Home Depot, for the 27th time this week.

I thought my plans would come together once we had tile picked out. Then, out of desperation, I asked Facebook what color our cabinets should be - white or espresso - because I truly couldn't decide. While my innate desire to have this ornate Tuscan kitchen really wanted the espresso cabinets, my fear of having a too-dark seedy watering hole-eqsqe room attached to my family room made me think otherwise. I probably made 47 phone calls to my sister-in-law about this, who now answers my calls with "Yes?" and an eye roll, I'm certain. I bought the espresso paint.

Then I started freaking out. I found myself Googling and Pinning cabinet colors in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep over this ridiculous non life-altering decision. I was also tossing and turning because our laundry was down with the floor job and I wasn't sure what the kids were wearing to school the next day or what restaurants we'd be hitting up for our wholesome eat-out-for-every-meal-because-the-kitchen-is-closed lifestyle. Then I realized... I am being ridiculous.

There are so many heartaches in this world - poverty, crime, abuse, addiction. So many BIG issues. And, the color of the cabinets and my kids freshly laundered clothes aren't among those issues. They are in no way worth losing sleep over. In fact, my obsession with these non-issues was taking my heart away from the really important things in life. As I was getting cranky and unlovable feeling a bit frustrated because our house was seemingly upside down for a week, I started realizing that I needed an attitude adjustment and to stop and realized how blessed we are. Truly blessed to be take that next breath; to be able to feed our kids; to do our laundry in the convenience of our home; to have clean water and warm beds to sleep in and a safe place to call home. AND, most importantly, whenever we focus too much on ourselves; our dwelling places; our junk; our toys...we lose sight of what's really important, and that's Jesus.

And then, I returned the espresso paint. I saw the right color sitting in the mis-tint pile for half-off and took it as a sign.

God is good, people. And, sometimes he provides answers where we least expect them - in the midst of a big mess or in the mis-tint aisle at Lowe's.

I want to be crafty, I really do.

We mean it. 

I guess writing and photography are "crafty," but, you know, I want to be a DIY girl! I want to use sandpaper and spray paint to turn crap from the thrift store into something magnifique! I want to mod podge to the moon and hack Ikea furniture into a new dimension. Sadly, it's just not happening for me yet. Today is no exception.

One of my out-of-town friends is coming for a playdate tomorrow with her three precious boys. Of course, I run around the house looking for all those things that make us look like rednecks things that need a little sprucing up to be presentable. One of those things was our no soliciting sign. In an effort to keep people away from our freaking doorbell at nap time, I took a piece of the kids' construction paper, a sharpie, and some packing tape and made a big ugly NO SOLICITING sign. Nothing says, "WE DON'T WANT ANY," like some chicken scratch on dark green paper covered with packing tape, right?! Right.

Anywho. One of my new neighbors and I were having a discussion about solicitors one day and I told her that a simple sign has really deterred them for us. Well, my sweet new neighbor decided to come check out our sign before making her own (face --> palm). She said she was sure I'd have something cutesy because I seem like the crafty type. Oh, I wish, dear neighbor.

Because I don't want one more person to look at our tacky sign, I decided it was time to get something more permanent in line. I thought about buying one from Etsy, but why?! Let's do something Pinteresting instead, right!? Let's be frugal. Let's use our right brains. Let's show the girls that we can be industrious. Right... My oldest daughter and I strolled through the craft store this evening as ideas for this sign reeled through my head. My first thought was to paint it on wood...but then how would I get a hole in the wood to hang it? Did this store even have nails or screws to hang the thing? How am I going to put a nail in the door? What kind of paint do I get? Now I have to buy brushes? What kind of brushes? How long is this going to take to dry? This is going to cost a million bajillion dollars. My crafts really have to take 20 minutes or less; if not, I get frustrated, throw them out and order something online...usually what I should have done in the first place.

See what I mean, people?

Anyway. As my budding artist daughter and I walked through the store, I finally found something do-able. I found a porcelain sign (the right size) and SCORE, it already had holes and some ropey looking stuff through the holes. All I'd have to do is write on it! Back to the paint aisle...

Ah, color choices. I can't take it. After zoning-out in the midst of about 857 Martha Stewart paint colors, I saw a happy compromise - paint markers. Wahoo! I know how to write, there are multiple colors, $5.99 - let's go! I still didn't know how I was going to hang the dang thing, but at least 90% of the problem was solved (or so I thought).

We get to the checkout and I see 3M command hooks. Wahoo! Problem solved. Even I can stick a plastic hook to the door.

So, the story continues at home...after all this ridiculousness - spacing, lettering, erasing, more spacing, more lettering, more erasing, I finally get the sign finished. I stick the 3M hook on the door and, of course, it's too low. I go to take the hook off and it flys across the room, in two pieces, and I am thankful that there are more of those adhesive strips so I can try again. I'm holding the baby all the while and hanging this thing up one-handed, btw. Finally, the sign is hung and I post a photo online.

See my error? Grrr!

Thirty seconds later.

My pal Allison comments; there's a spelling error. Dag nabit. I looked at the thing a million times, knew it didn't look right, but couldn't figure it out. This is what happens when you have kids, I tell you!! The basics start to get trippy. I have an English degree for crying out loud. I should certainly be able to find a spelling error!

Post deleted.

I flip the thing over, scratch off the price tag, write it all out again, stick on the flowers AND DONE. Next time ordering something from Etsy may be the best use of my time and I'll be teaching the girls about opportunity cost. Maybe I'll stick to blogging and making messes in the kitchen, my safe places.


And, at least I got some blog fodder out of it. Otherwise, you'd have to hear about the other things I did today, like getting Rotel tomatoes and chiles in my eye or wearing cabbage on my head for kicks.

Trendy, no?

Sometimes, all it takes is a fresh coat of paint...

I always knew that if I had a little girl one day, her room would have to be pink. I was always an avid pink-lover and figured my girls would have to have everything pink, too. Well, here's the thing... we don't have "a" little girl; we have three. In the last handful of years, we've painted three bedrooms pink. I NEVER thought I'd say this, but a few days ago (after my mom suggested we paint the girl's room light pink), I told her I'd throw up if we bought one more gallon of pink paint. True story. Anyway. Here's the point. Pink room number two has been making me nauseous for some time now. It's not that the color is all that bad, it just felt like a big disorganized mess (because it was) and the louder than a dog-whistle color was just adding to the chaos. So, instead of just organizing the room like a normal person, making the beds and moving on, I figured we needed to scrap the whole thing and start over.

Step 1. I looked, and looked, and looked for matching twin beds for my two older girls who currently share the room. After coming up with a whole lot of nothing for quite some time, I posted an ISO ad and a sweet lady contacted me back the same day. She was offering a couple solid wood beds (about 75yrs old) for $135. HOLLA! If you've been furniture shopping lately, you know that the new beds sold in stores are considerably more than $135. Besides, we love old stuff. I was sold before even seeing them. So, last Saturday we picked them up got them all situated in the girls' room and then I started flying through Pinterest at about 150mph looking for a new paint color (because the red undertones in the wood were WAY clashing with the crazy pink paint and something had to be done quickly. After visiting a few paint departments and grabbing about 100 shades of dusty purple and Tiffany Blue colors, I took a chance. We painted our girls room quite the opposite of pink; it's Tiffany Blue.

Let me tell you. This lovely muted shade makes the room calmer, cozier, cleaner looking and the girls are very pleased! I'm so much a fan of this paint and I'm totally inspired to do more with the room - aside from just closing the door and walking away. As it turns out, we don't need to do a total overhaul. We can keep their comforters, curtains, and wall art (in fact, much of it goes better with this color). We've done a major toy/junk clean out and next is sorting drawers and picking up more decor when the deals arise. I'll be pairing the blue walls with purples, pinks, and yellows as seen in their comforters - with ideas from this room - making it truly a space designed with their interests in mind.

So, if your room is in chaos OR if your life is in chaos, why don't you take a closer look. Sometimes changing the smallest things (like our attitude) makes all the difference.

Finally, a photo wall...sort of.

We've been married for the better part of a decade now. In the months preceding our knot-tying, I was eating, sleeping, and breathing all things Better Homes and Garden and HGTV. One of the things I remember seeing early on and thinking, "I'm so doing that the second we get settled in our house." was a photo wall. Well. It's funny how things happen. We bought our first house and gutted the entire thing. Putting up new drywall, rebuilding bathrooms, and refinishing floors was top priority - a photo wall was not. Once we were all settled in our newly rehabbed home, we were tired. And we had a baby...and another on the way. The photo wall never happened and, I supposed I didn't really care at that point. We moved to our next home 10 days before baby #2 was born. I know. I was dilated to five at my check-up the day after move-in weekend.

Thankfully, we didn't need to gut this house. There was some re-doing to be done, but nothing as serious as the first place we bought. Now that we've finally settled in (some four years and almost three babies later), I have a photo wall (sort of). In a perfect HGTV world, I would have taken the entire wall and made a huge collage of frames with exquisite B&W photographs. The reality is...my attention span is a little too small for that these days, so I improvised. I saw this pin on Pinterest and it inspired me do something similar...something less committal...in our family room.

I sped on over to Ikea, picked up the necessary frames and shelves and went to work. Okay, I'm lying, my mom went to work. Handy Nana is my personal shelf-hanger. I did get the photos and other decor together though - settling it into its final arrangement for now. I like this set-up because I don't have to commit to it. I can switch the frames, the photos, the other decor without having to patch a billion bajillion nail holes in the wall. I also love it because I found that little heart up there for .50 at Target after Valentine's day. It matches the frames and the rest of the room perfectly, fits just right, and did I mention it was only .50? It is nailed in as is the small mirror, but they are teeny tiny nail holes. I bought the large poster frame featured in the original pin as well, but it was too much to all go over our love seat. So, it's now on display in the other room. If you want your own photo wall, go check out this pin for additional arrangement ideas. God bless the people who pre-figure these things out and post them for the rest of us. :)

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This post is linked up to Mommin' it Up's Pin for the Wednesday blog carnival. 

Head on over to check out the other awesome pins posted by Mommin' it Up followers.

Budgetized Living Room Re-do!

I'm pretty sure my home decor spending has surged a little since I started Pinteresting. It's not that I'm blowing a bunch of money just for the sake of having new things, but I've noticed that our home was lacking in personality in a few areas and quickly become pinspired to make some changes. The first makeover was our family room, but that's another post. The second makeover was our front room. This room has been a formal living room, an office, and now a cozy living space which really equates to a lot of things. Sometimes it's a reading room, a room for quiet talks with our children, a blog-writing room, a nap-on-the-couch room, a room for the Christmas tree, a room to admire snow or falling leaves from the large picture window, or a room just to sit...and daydream.

I got the re-do pinsperation from this post. I still like the seagrass baskets used in the original pin better than what I picked, but, we're looking at about $6 a box or $15 a box. Plus, I'm allergic to seagrass. ...I know. I didn't want to spend a fortune on this re-do, so I scouted out some cheap(er) lamps that were still big enough to fill the space. I found these cutesies at TJ Maxx for $25 ea. I thought that was a steal (ok, not a thrift store or garage sale steal, but a retail steal) because comparable lamps are more than that for the base alone (then another $20 or so for the shade). I think the shade is a nice contrast with the wall without drawing too much attention away from the print.

When I was thrifting for some maternity threads last week, I picked up a few old books (to add to those I already had in this cubby). The books were .29 each, I believe, and make a nice filler for that space. I think the color of these books coordinates with the over-all warmness of the room, as well.

In addition to the books, I picked up this mosaic hurricane candle holder at the thrift store for $1.99. There's no candle in it, but it ties things together and balances out the overall display. I *did* have matching mini-hurricanes that I pitched in a fury of de-cluttering a month or so ago. It always works that way, doesn't it? 

The shelf itself is the $69 Expedit shelving unit from Ikea, in black-brown and turned on it's side. Here's a note, if you buy these shelving systems make sure you get the bins that go in them AT IKEA. They fit best. I got similar bins from another retailer for another shelving unit we have and they are too small (read: they work, but they don't look right). 

I also picked up a pair of grommet-style 84" drapes at Target for under $9, two panels included, on clearance. They are black/tan/gray stripe and match the room perfectly. I'm super pleased! If you've ever bought full-length curtains, you know that they are about $25 a panel from a discount store and can be much...much...more from specialty stores.

The print I hung above the shelving unit is a printed photograph displayed in a Ribba poster frame from Ikea, with matte. Overall, I'm super pleased with how this room turned out. Just a little change in decor and a fresh coat of paint has warmed up this room to be the perfectly cozy multi-use room that it is.

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This post is linked up to Mommin' it Up's Pin for the Wednesday blog carnival. 

Head on over to check out the other awesome pins posted by Mommin' it Up followers.