29 Rue House

What we've been up to...

2013-09-23T23:09:00.000-04:00

There hasn't been much blogging lately but there's been lots going on here! I had a few photos on my phone already but othewise I just ran around the house tonight taking some shots.

I hadn't gone to my fav thrift store in over a month but on my first trip back I couldn't leave without this awesome mid-century modern chair. It is in the living room and I do envision reupholstering it someday but not yet.

I also got this handmade rug from Greece at the same time. I LOVE it and it fits perfectly in front of the washer dryer. The color is all off in this picture. The neutral color is more of creamy white and all the colors are really pretty and vivid.

And since we're in the backhall, I'll give you a quick preview of the finished pantry. I still need to finish filling in a couple of shelves and I'd like to get some more glass containers. We've also done a bunch of other little things back here, hopefully I get all those in a post for you soon!

We need to paint and replace all the hardware on the doors and so we're starting with the bathroom door that is in the back hall and the basement door. Of course our doors had commercial grade hinges so we have to buy the prime coated gray ones and paint them flat black.

Which will go perfectly with these matte black knobs I ordered off of Home Depot for the whole house. They actually fit differently than our old ancient pitted brass ones so we have to drill the knob hole to be a bit bigger in all doors.

We've also spent some time cleaning up the garage and basement here and there and have three new sets of shelves just waiting for some more organization.

I've also been super inspired to work in our room (you know, because I'm some super awesome artist that can't do anything until inspiration strikes!). So I moved my bed to the other wall, threw up the mirror onto a poorly placed yet existing nail, painted my nightstands that I have had for nearly two years (including spraying the hardware with ORB) and got a whole new slew of pillows to play around with. I'm thinking we have a real headboard in our future along with some new wall sconces to replace the lamps.

And you might have noticed the blanket it on the end. That is a chenille blanket that I got from the thrift store. I couldn't leave it behind - it was just too gorgeous.

With Halloween coming up, I'm quite determined to pull off some Lizzie and Mr. Darcy costumes for Ruby and Archer, respectively of course. I've started doing a ton of research on sewing and finding patterns for Ruby's dress. It will be something like this.

Oh and did I show you the cupcakes I made for Archer's birthday a few weeks ago?!?! Yes, I might still be quite proud of those! And those two little Ariel cupcake - since we have more of those, Ruby's party is going to be all mermaid-ed out.

Since we've picked a theme for Ruby's birthday, I've managed to get myself quite obsessed with planning it...which isn't until December!!!!! LOL We're going all out mermaid with lots of greens and coral and I just couldn't resist this green wood fish for decor along with the green glass fish bottles. I've also gotten a handful of pretty coral and clear glass bowls and cake stands for food - everything from either the thrift store or the Restore. I'm planning on having a TON OF FUN decorating for this party and going all out theme!

But we are all about home improvement, thrifting and party planning! We're also building spaceships, doing tea parties and doing yard work plus there's swim classses and dance class for Ruby.

Archer's on his second cold/cough in the past few weeks but he still has fun...laying on pillows in the Target cart!

Of course that isn't all we've been doing but it gives you a good idea of what life is like here!

So what have you been up to?

♥Crystal

Built-In Pantry in the Back Hall

2013-09-05T23:44:00.001-04:00

Hey guys!!! I hope everyone is doing great! I've kind of fallen off blogging for a bit but we're still working away on the house projects.

I last showed you the back door that we painted which was the first in a series of things that I wanted to do get our back hall/laundry area up to snuff. (P.s. I'm thinking about using this Derbyshire color to paint something in Archer's room - I love to find more uses for paint that is already paid for!)

Once the door was done (the trim was painted), we moved onto the next project back here! Making a built in pantry inspired by this picture. So a few weeks back we did the first step which was to build a wall which only cost us twenty bucks since we already had most of the materials.

Here's the step where we actually had to purchase a couple of things...two 2x4s and some lag bolts (I think that was what they were called - Aaron's Dad told us what to get here).

Once the "wall" was built, the drywall went up. These were leftover pieces from when we built the fridge pocket.

So the space between the new wall on the left and the old wall on the right (which isn't an old wall at all, we bumped out the original wall to that spot when doing the fridge pocket a year ago) is going to be the built-in pantry.

The last of the quick stuff was to add the metal flashing to the corner of the drywall. Everything up until this point was done in a day.

After the metal flashing went up, the project moved slow as mud. The taping and spackling took forever!!! Like a week since we could only get one coat a day done because of work.

Once Aaron was done spackling the wall, the next step before building the guts of the pantry was to paint the room. My Mom visited us for a long weekend a couple of weeks ago and she helped get it done. So nice to have help especially since this small, awkward space was weird to paint since the washer and dryer had to be moved around. I used SW's Incredible White (which I've also used in the dining room but I haven't showed you yet :).

With the room painted, we moved back to the pantry. We wanted to be able to hang up some hooks on the outside of the pantry so we put some extra 2x4s in the wall so we'd have something to hang stuff into.

Then added plywood to the insides. For this we had to buy a new sheet of Purebond which was about $45 I think. We did have HD rip it for us but Aaron did spend some time getting scribed to the wall and flush on the outside. He's a good man. :)

Of course nothing can go to smoothly without issue. Aaron managed to put this big hole in the wall. Apparently a nail went in, hit something and came out at a weird angle. I guess the good news is that it was a relatively easy fix and mostly covered up by the final trim.

The next step was to build the base which is a plywood shelf and higher quality 1x6 that we bought (we needed something with perfect edges). I think that was about $8. Arthur was Aaron's helper during this project. Notice his orange body on the shelf by Aaron's knee.

Once the bottom was solidly nailed/screwed down, we finalized where we wanted to place the shelves and Aaron started drilling holes for the shelf pegs. The are sort of movable. The aren't going to be screwed into place but if we want to move a shelf, we'll have to drill new peg holes.

Here's a close up of the pegs. The package didn't say how much weight they can hold up but we think they'll be fine, especially since we're using solid 3/4" plywood for the shelves.

Almost there!

Here she is!! We're so in love with it and it will only grow deeper after we get it painted and can start using it! I'm planning on painting the inside and all the trim the same black that I painted our kitchen cabinets.

This is the view from the kitchen doorway. The kids have already had fun climbing and hiding on the bottom shelf and Aaron even suggested making the bottom a cat bed (which it won't be) so it is pretty much a success for the whole family.

We've taken off the work week from working on this other than starting to patch up the paint holes. We still need to caulk the seems and then I'll prime and paint it. Not sure how far we'll get on that this weekend since we're planning a trip to Newport on Saturday. We shall see!!

Here's a quick to do list for this room:

~~Patch up walls~~
~~Paint trim, window and door~~
~~Paint walls~~
Touch up ceiling paint, maybe do something special up there
~~Build~~ and paint pantry
Add hooks for bags, ~~put the laundry shelf back up~~ and get this drying rack.
~~Put up new curtains~~ (I used this fabric to do this but I don't have any pictures yet)
Add some art
Change the flooring (this should happen same time as ktichen but I'm not sure when yet)

Thanks for checking out what we've been up to. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

♥ Crystal

Back Door in Derbyshire

2013-08-18T22:57:00.000-04:00

Sooooo we've started a new project! Since the kitchen to do list has been slowly shrinking, I thought it was time we finally finish off our back hall. But before we dive into to do lists, I thought you might like to see our first project complete!

See how terrible that door looks. A year ago I put some frosted glass on it but otherwise it has been left untouched for, oh say, a few decades. Yes, it needed a major wipe down.

And wiping it down led to rubbing deglosser all over it and then a light sand and removal of hardware. Do you see where I'm going here?

But why stop there? Why not strip a side while we're at it. The exterior side of door was all crackled and peeling and I thought, if I'm going to paint the otherside, I might as well prep this side at the same time.

Of course we had to chip away layers of paint just to unscrew these old hinges that were covered in layers of thick paint.

We replaced the old hinges with some new oil rubbed bronze ones. Actually, after we got the door up the first time, we realized that the hinges that we got didn't work because they weren't as thick as commercial grade ones (which is of course what our door was originally hung with). So after another trip to HD, we had the right hinges but in an ugly color so I had to spray them all with the same oil rubbed bronze that we used on the hardware. I just love this old handle and skeleton key lock on this door. That is never coming off.

With the hinge issue resolved and the hardware sprayed, it was time to get to the exciting part. Paint! You guys know I love West Elm (I've done several posts on some of favorite West Elm pieces before) so when I saw their Fall/Wainter 2013 paint color collection with Sherwin Williams, my heart was won once again. I pretty much love them all but there was the strongest attraction to Derbyshire (top right). Oh and you can get a coupon for Sherwin Williams if you go to West Elm's website.

Except I did have to do one more pre-paint step. I had to remove all the frosted glass which came off relatively easy. Any parts where the glue got left behind, I just sprayed it with soapy water and rubbed over it with a paper towel until it was clean. I'll have to put new stuff back up soon now that the door is done.

I primed it with white which is the last time I ever do that with a dark color! It took me four full coats and a fifth one in some spots, to get a nice solid green door. From now on I'll get my primer tinted a little.

Once it was all dry, I scrapped off all the paint left on the glass.

The painting of the door started on a Sunday night and continued through the week with a coat before work and then a coat after the kids went to bed. The paint was mixed in Sherwin Williams' Emerald paint line (fitting since it is a beautiful emerald shade) in a satin finish. When you don't want a super glossy or matte surface, satin seems like a great pick, especially if you want it to be wipeable.

As you can see from the walls we still have a lot to do in this room but I did get the door trim painted with a fresh and crisp white before hanging the door.

It was really hard to get a good shot of the full door showing its truest color because there was so much blowout from all the light from through the windows. This picture is pretty true to color though. I just love this green with the dark hardware.

My first color pick has been wrong so many times before (you know what I'm talking about...it always looks different on a wall than a paint chip), but I can honestly say that I'm in love with this color. I find myself admiring it all the time and asking Aaron a few times a day, "Doesn't the door look so nice?!?!!!"

Seriously, if you want a beautiful, deep but lively green, you'll love this. I would even love it on a wall but I need to get a lot braver before I do that. And I need huge rooms with lots of light too.

We have a lot planned for this little room and have already dived right in. I can't wait to see it take shape over the next couple of weeks.

♥ Crystal

This post was made possible by Sherwin Williams!

Kitchen Floor Ideas

2013-08-04T23:08:00.001-04:00

A couple of you guys wondered what I was thinking for the floors so I thought I'd tell you that I've thought of a hundred things but haven't decided on anything yet. I'm open to suggestions!!!

Here's some things I've thought of.

Cork floor tiles, maybe in a herringbone pattern. This would require cutting these twelve inch square tiles into strips. I'm not particularly interested in laying cork plank style.

The tiles would look something like this in real life. I think the one above would add some warmth to the room with the light gray walls.

One Kings Lane blog

An encaustic tile would be so cool although probably over the top (I don't even want to know how much these tiles costs) for our house.

I still love this kitchen with its own encaustic tiles..

This picture got me thinking about different colored brick tiles although that is in the rug here and not the actual floor. I like the black "grout" lines.

Skonahem

The natural stone tile in this picture is definitely pretty but we wonder if a darker floor would be too much for a room that doesn't get a lot of natural light.

Mackpar

And of course we could always continue the wood that is in the rest of the house. I'm not particularly keen on this idea but it is a possibility.

But while looking for inspiration pictures tonight, I may have just convinced myself (and would need to convince Aaron) that maybe we should spend just a little to have a new floor by trying out the peel and stick tiles like some of these until we can save up a more to get a really nice floor.

I'm really liking reddish-brown tiles with black cabinets.

Like in this picture.

These gray ones are pretty and I like how they aren't in a square shape.

The one thing that I think I'm sure about is that the floor have some warmth to it. We have a lot of wood tones in the dining and living rooms and I want to continue the warmth of those tones into the kitchen and back hall.

So what do you think? Got any awesome pictures to show me? New ideas? I'm sure I haven't thought of everything.

♥ Crystal

P.S. If you have a blog, leave your website address in the comments. There's been a few commenters lately and I haven't been able to see your blog if you have one!

Black and Brass Kitchen

2013-08-01T20:55:00.001-04:00

Let's start this post off with a little graphic game of numbers... :)

There are still a bunch of things we need to do to finish off this "phase" of renovating the kitchen which I might go into more detail in another post but for now I just wanted to share the finished cabinets! Just ignore the super ugly floor and fridge, they'll go someday but not quite yet.

I fell in love with these dark gray/black cabinets with brass hardware and knew that I had do the same thing (I even did a post with a bunch of inspiration pics here). I had already tried white cabinets and I didn't like them and they weren't practical for us (dirt showed too easily).

I probably should have taken down the alphabet magnets before taking pictures but I just didn't have it me. :)

I wish I had a great before picture of the kitchen from the day we moved in...oh how much things have changed.

And from the other side it is quite different too. We did toy with the idea of painting our upper cabinets white because we were worried that the black would be too dark. So happy we didn't as we felt like it wasn't our design choice to go white on top and probably would have hated it.

I still love the brackets that we chose for the shelves.

After leaving the doors off the end upper cabinets for the past 2 years (it was decorative at first and then we took down the other side's upper cabinets so then these ones had to become functional), we're sooooooo happy to have them on!!!

I really love the mix of metals in the room. This is probably where it shows the most but we do have a brushed nickel faucet and silver screws in the black brackets on the other side along with a chrome base to the sink light fixture.

But my favorite metal is BY FAR these Martha Stewart brass awning pulls. We used them on our built in desks upstairs and even though I didn't want a house full of them, I knew I had to have them in here. So you can imagine that I just about died when I realized our Home Depot had stopped carrying them in store.

But thankfully they're still selling them online!! The best part is that at only two dollars a piece (we needed 26) they didn't break the bank either. P.S. These are coming with us if/when we move.

So for about a week now, we're enjoying our new cabinets. I finally feel like we're getting a little experience under our belts and making good choices in paint types/quality so I'm very happy with the finish (plus I was very careful when painting them). Plus, it is so nice to have our kitchen back. We've been living without drawers and doors for months and now we can finally clean all the crap off the counters hide it all behind closed doors and drawers.

♥ Crystal

Small Changes, Big Impact - Lutron Occupancy Sensor Switch

2013-07-30T23:08:00.000-04:00

I about died after getting our last electric bill!! Seriously it was insanely high (like more than double our winter bill) and although it was mostly because we had a major heatwave and had the AC on a ton, I'm happy to try and find any way to save a bit of energy and therefore money!

We're definitely making more effort to keep the AC off and to turn off lights when we aren't in a room (the kitchen is the worst for some reason) but it never occurred to us to find a light switch that could save us money! All the offices at my work have those sensor light switches where they turn off once there hasn't been any motion for a bit but I never thought about having one in the house. Duh!

We decided that we'd start by adding one to our garage. First, because we leave the light on in there and since we don't see it, we don't usually realize it until the next day or so. The other reason is because the light switch is very awkwardly placed behind the door. So instead of being able to reach in and turn the light on as we enter (we're out here late at night working on projects a lot so it is pitch dark), we have to come completely into the room, let the door close so we can get around it (see how you can see the door hinge in the picture below), then blindly reach for the switch.

Having a sensor light switch will be great for saving electricity (and thereby money) and will eliminate having to go out into the garage with arms full of recycling cans and bottles to put away while navigating through the projects going on out there.

Did I mention the fact that the light switch and plate are ancient and need to be replaced?

So we went with the Lutron Occupancy Sensor Switch which senses when we come out to the garage and then turns off after we've left it. It should save us money and add some much needed convenience. Perfect right?

And although the kids aren't old enough to go out to the garage by themselves, I know it will be nice down the road when they need to go in and out. I won't have to worry about them getting hurt in the dark when they start taking out the recycling for us!

Here's some statistics that are pretty interesting. I think it is funny that children get most of the blame for leaving lights on...I still have to wait a couple of years before I can do that! We definitely fall into the 49% of homes where the kitchen light gets left on the most. Aaron is notorious for this but he does spend more time in there than I do. And like 44% of other people think, an automatic on/off light would be very cool in the bathroom - almost futuristic. :) I actually asked myself today while I was washing my hands in the bathroom at work if I would like an automatic sink faucet and soap dispenser. Jury is still out on that.

So to install our new light switch, I hired Aaron to do some basic electrical work (bigger stuff we definitely do hire out!). After we turned off the power, we took out the old switch.

Then we pulled out the new Lutron Occupancy Sensor Switch and instructions to see if anything different needed to be done from the installation of regular light switches (which we've also done before). Turns out it works just the same and works fine with all types of light bulbs.

It even works when your wires look like this!

Since we aren't professionals, I'm not going to give detailed how to instructions on hooking it up but you can find everything in the instructions that it comes with which is what Aaron did to get everything connected and capped off like below.

Then we just screwed it right into the wall.

I picked up this plate to go over it at Home Depot.

After you've screwed the auto switch into the wall, you screw the back of the faceplate to the auto switch, then pop on the front cover and you're done!

Unless you want to change the default programming settings that is :). It is set to a high sensitivity level for sensing movement and to turn off after five minutes. I decided to change the sensitivity level to low for now so you just hold the two buttons (one is hidden under the faceplate so you just have to take that off quickly) until the light flashes once (two times if you want to leave it at high sensitivity).

I also wanted to change the time-out timer to just a minute (this is how long it is after movement before it switches back off). Hey, if we're saving electricity here, why not save four more minutes' worth by changing the default time-out from five to one? To change the time-out timer to just one minute, you just hold down the button/switch until the light flashes once (two flashes for five minutes and three flashes for fifteen minutes).

And now we have this! After we got the new sensor switch, I also noticed that the dimmer in our living room is also a Lutron and we love that too so I'll definitely keep using the Lutron switches when we're looking for something more efficient and classy.

While updating the switch, I thought it was also time to get a new rug. I have no idea how old this rug is but let me tell you it is old and we should have thrown it away as soon as we signed the papers on the house nearly four years ago.

Something more fun and colorful is definitely perfect for the garage.

I picked up this mat from Target $10. It reminds me of those DIY versions where people use scrap wood and leftover paint. I've always thought those where cool.

All the open slats should let saw dust and dirt fall through rather than get collected on top (like the old rug did) and it puts a smile on my face when I walk across it.

Both Aaron and I are also finding ourselves more willing to take the recycling out at night now just so we can see the sensor in action. Now I just need to get a project going out in the garage again so I can enjoy it then too!

I love how two simple and inexpensive changes really brightened our dull and dirty work space. They almost make me want to make the garage my next project. Almost. :)

♥ Crystal

This Lutron Occupancy Sensor Switch was given to us but the review and opinions are all mine.

The Good News & Stripping Kitchen Cabinets

2013-07-28T22:20:00.002-04:00

So the good news is that we finished our kitchen cabinets!!!! Things have been busy around here. We're filling all our time outside of sleeping and working with summer activities like swim classes, blueberry picking, playground visiting, regular trips to our beach and more, along with little house projects and a two week visit with my teenage niece!

I took a ton of pictures of the finished kitchen cabinets today but before I show you those, I thought I'd share some of the remaining steps that we took to get the perfect finished kitchen cabinets. I mean this project was so much work, I feel that I would be doing myself (and Aaron) an injustice if I don't document it. :)

Admittedly, the focus became more about getting our kitchen put back together than taking tons of pictures and writing tutorials but that is the way it goes and it felt right to slow it down on the blog so I could speed it up with the projects!

So here it goes and then I'll be back later this week with all the finished cabinets! You've already seen all the steps we took to get the other side (the original cabinets that had never been painted) of the kitchen ready for painting (here) but we also did a lot of stripping to get the other side of the kitchen's cabinets ready - starting with emptying everything out. Eventually we were able to put stuff back in the cabinets but the drawers stayed empty and were in tubs on the counter (a very annoying way to live for two months).

Before applying the stripper, I taped everything off and put plastic on the countertops.

I tried Citristrip first because it isn't as caustic or smelly as the stronger stuff (which we tried later).

I used an old paintbrush that we had to paint it on - usually much thicker than you see in the picture below.

I took all the doors and drawers out to the garage and put the Citristrip on them. It took much longer to do all the doors and drawers than the cabinet bases inside the house.

For the inside, I just took a fairly sturdy (some are more pliable) putty knife and just scraped it off. It has been a while but I'm pretty sure my pointer finger and wrist were killing me by the end of it.

Finishing the drawers and doors was a very long and tedious process, especially since they had a lot of grooves and curves where the paint had to be scraped off. We used the putty knife where we could but in other places we had to find some random items lying around (e.g. a part that belongs to our chop saw) that could get in the curves.

Since we were having a harder time getting the paint off the doors, we decided to try the Klean-Strip (the super caustic stuff) that came with a sprayer. It worked okay. Definitely not the miracle product that I was expecting though. I'd probably just stick to the Citristrip from now on (even though it takes longer to set - like 2 hours).

After stripping the cabinets, we wiped them down with mineral spirits with a scrubbing pad (per the directions of the stripper I believe). The mineral spirits are suppose to clean away the remaining stripper which would presumably eat through any new paint you put over it.

Then we taped plastic over the rest of the kitchen before breaking out our palm sander to give the cabinets a nice, smooth finish.

We couldn't have done it (or many other things) without our shop vac!

So happy that process is over! Here you can see what I embarrassingly thought was a good color choice nearly two years ago. It was our first coat which we very quickly covered up with a creamy white. OH how far we've come since then. Now I would never even consider painting on wood without priming first.

We went through the same steps of rubbing them down with mineral spirits and sanding to finish the doors and drawers. We were actually sooooo tried of even looking at them that we ignored them for a bit while we painted the other side of the kitchen.

I am so happy to finally have finished cabinets with the best, nicest finish ever but I don't think I'll ever look fondly on stripping cabinets or funiture ever! Anyone else stripped cabinets or furniture and hated it??

♥ Crystal

Moulding Before Painting

2013-07-11T22:42:00.001-04:00

Before we started painting the cabinets, we wanted to add some moulding to the top of our upper cabinets. We didn't have room on the upper cabinets as they were to add the moulding so we needed to build up the cabinet a bit. We found some scrap 1x3s in the garage and cut them to fit into the cabinets. To attach them, we glued them in first (they sit down inside the cabinet top by about an inch.

To further hold it in place, we nailed through the front of the cabinet into the new piece to hold it in place along with the glue.

Then we added another piece of 1x3 in front of the first one to sit on the top edge of the cabinet. Now the cabinet has a little extra height and more for adding the moulding. If we'd had room to maneuver between the ceiling and the cabinets, I think we would have just kreg jig the second 1x3 one and not worried about the first.

Then we cut our crown moulding. It definitely takes some thought and internet research (there's even some good video tutorials out there) to cut your crown moulding properly and without buying any special kits!

Seeing the crown moulding go up was definitely exciting and felt good! This was definitely one of those projects where we remind ourselves how far we've come in the past couple years of DIYing stuff in the house. Two years ago I wouldn't have thought doing some as "simple" as adding crown moulding was something that we could do on our own. Of course, having the proper tools helps. :)

We had to nail the corner, to close the small gap we had where the two corners met. Definitely do this carefully since you don't want the nails to go through to the other side.

We had a small gap where the moulding meets the cabinet that we had to deal with.

We added just a small piece of tiny trim wood (had it in the garage already).

The final step was to fill in all the nail holes and caulk around the seams of the moulding. The caulk step is perfect for filling in any tiny gaps like the one we had here where the moulding met the wall. You can also see a bit of paint that came off when we stripped the cabinets. That peachy color was the color of the kitchen when we moved in and from the previous owners. I also sanded that down and smoothed it out and will paint over it later.

Although I really don't feel like sharing this messy cabinet picture, I want you to see the whole view of the moulding. It really makes a huge difference! And doors will be eventually going up here!

And since we're on the subject of crown moulding....check out this abstract and linear moulding and window trim. Not sure I'd want this in my own home but I still think it is cool. What do you think? I like the juxtaposition of the simple and antique stone (or wood) fireplace against the much more modern moulding.

Spaces by New York Design-Build Firms Solomon & Wu

Anyone else add some moulding to their house? I'd love to have it in all our rooms but we've got really low ceilings and the bedrooms all have a curved ceiling on one wall so crown moulding wouldn't work there. We have started painting (which is a long multi-phase process) but I hope to have some pictures of that for you soon!

♥ Crystal

Arrows in Design

2013-07-09T23:37:00.001-04:00

I'm kind of in love with arrows in design. They bring back some childhood memories (like archery lessons at summer camp) but mostly they remind me of Archer. As you may have guessed, his name means someone who shoots arrows. So when I see an arrow I think about him.

Tonight, while browsing ebay for a pair of vintage sconces, I came across these neat art deco ones with arrow detail. Love them but not the price for the pair ($99).

And ever since Emily Henderson got these vintage arrows for $1 a piece, I've had my eye out for some. Love them here.

{via Emily Henderson, photo Zeke Ruelas}

And interestingly enough, I was just thinking that maybe I should learn how to embroider while on my way home from work today. Then I could make this pillow for the cost of the materials (and oodles of my time) instead of the $128 it retails for.

{via Terrain}

But it isn't just home decor, this little coin purse would be a cute little daily reminder of my little man.

{via Anthropologie}

But back to home stuff. For some reason I feel like I'll die without this table which I realize is completely ridiculous and really not true (and not in the obvious since either). I think I just got a bit over excited to see brass and arrows together.

{via Joss & Main}

So after a quick search for sconces on ebay, this is where it led me. I'm thinking about getting some sconces for either Ruby's room or our bedroom...or both. I'll keep you posted on what happens.

How to Update and Refinish Iron Rails

2013-07-01T21:47:00.003-04:00

So remember when I said I wanted to replace all our porch railing which some cool wood designs here? Well, a few of mentioned that you liked the iron rails and we thought we might like to keep some more money in our pockets so we found a compromise. The compromise, I happily have to admit, was also largely inspired by seeing this post by The Cape on the Corner where she removed all the fancy scroll work on her iron rails to modernize and simplify them.

So with us onboard with making due with what we have and saving money at the same time, we got going. The first step was to use the sawzall to cut off the fancy scrolly parts on the old rails.

I tried using the sawzall and I probably could have done it but man that thing VIBRATES!!!! So I let Aaron do it. How sweet of me! With the first stairrail down and the other almost, it didn't take too long.

We used an antique (I'm not kidding, it was left behind in our house) file to smooth out any sharp edges left after sawing off the scrolly parts.We didn't smooth it out perfectly, just enough that we didn't have to worry about the kids cutting their hands on the posts.

I really should have gotten a good close-up of the rails to show you how crummy they were looking but here's a picture from last year which shows a few bad spots. Anyway, the whole thing looked like that.

Oh wait, I do have a good close up example! This is what the rail to our side door looks like. When we finally start tackling the side of the house, we'll follow the same steps as we did for the front porch.

So to get all the peeling paint/rust off, Aaron used these sanding attachment pieces for drills (under $10 for both). I had to get a picture of new ones from the store since the rail basically ate through them and there was nothing left by the time he finished. We also picked up a special face mask at Home Depot that Aaron wore during the sanding process.

Once Aaron finished up his SIX hours of sanding with the drill attachment, we spent another hour or so, taping off the whole porch.

I sprayed two quick coats (following the directions) of this Rust Reformer. As you can see from the cover, it is suppose to coat any remaining rust and convert it into a paintable surface. Although the ORB that I was going to use for the final coat has some rust protection in it, we wanted to be extra cautious and do a good job the first (and last) time around.

It might be kind of hard to see but the rail on the left has been sprayed with the black Rust Reformer and the right side has only been sanded and not painted yet.

We let the Rust Reformer have its 24 hours to dry and cure before starting the ORBing and here's how it turned out!

Although it is a huge difference, it isn't screaming at your or anything. We briefly considered spraying them white but dropped that idea once we realized that it would be much more obvious if rust ever decided to come back.

We need to do something about our crumbling steps but what we're not sure yet. We know we don't want to spend money on replacing them all (as nice as that would be) so in theory we could just repair. Then we have to decide if we could do it ourselves or if we need to hire out. I'm definitely leaning towards hiring it out because of their condition (it isn't just one tiny crack) so we'll see where we end up with that (and when).

And that concludes this unintended series of outdoor posts (for now at least!). Happy 4th of July!!

♥ Crystal

Perennials and Umbrella Twirlers

2013-06-30T22:19:00.001-04:00

We've been doing some landscaping and planting here and there as we've done in past years but this time we wanted to add some more permanent pieces. We've got a nice amount of greenery in the landscaping but I love flowers so this year we thought some flowering perennials would be nice!

I love purples and oranges with our house so there is lots of that! I love these little pincushion flowers.

We bought another Royal Candles plant to add to the one that we already planted a couple years ago. It definitely helps to balance things out. The bumblebees LOVE these but they never bother us so no worries!

Since they can't all be purple, we added a few of these tall (which are perfect for adding some differing heights amongst all the landscaping) Snow Fountain Gaura plants. I LOVE LOVE that we picked these. Their height really balances things out and the pinkish-white flowers add the perfect amount of contrast between all the different plants.

Our orangey-yellow day lilies hadn't popped out when we did this phase of planting so I had to add these fiery-orange celosia annuals for an extra pop of color. Love these too - they're like bright orange, super-miniature, Christmas trees.

I played around with the placement of all the new perennials before planting like so.

Here's the other side. For the record, that holly bush on the left has got to get moved but I haven't done it yet. At some point, I just need to find a plant that has more height (to balance this side of the stairs with other side that has a mini-Christmas tree looking plant (you can see that tree/bush on the right of the picture above).

Once they were placed, we had two bushes to move so we dug them up and hid them on the side of the house (they're still there too - need to plant them somewhere). I'm not sure what they are, could be fire bushes since the leaves turn red later in the year but they haven't done much in the three years that they've been planted there. I'm definitely happy to see them go!

Everything has been planted and they've all had time to grow in a bit. Some only bloom once but others should bloom through the summer (like the Snow Fountain Guara). I love having so many more flowers and although periannuals aren't cheap, we like to think of them as an investment. Spend more now, spend less on annuals later (not including the potted plants).

Here's how it looks from afar with the window box done too! We obviously have a ton of work to do on the exterior still but it has come along quite a bit from this.

These day lilies have grown so much from the original plant. I was just thinking that maybe we could break these up and transplant some so they don't get too crazy big that they cover everything else.

And believe it or not, I snapped all those pictures while working around these umbrella twirlers. Oh, how easy it is to make kids happy!

As I mentioned above, I did still buy annuals like these impatiens and begunias (from Lowe's which is where we got all the perennials too) for pots on the porch. These flowers are completely shaded and they've done wonderfully which is no surprise since these are shade-loving plants. I just couldn't help myself but pick up a couple of those gold wire lanterns when they went on clearance at Target - now I just need to find some citronella candles that fit inside them.

On a separate trip to Home Depot a couple weeks later, we picked up these petunias and marigolds. For some reason marigolds don't always seem to do so well with me but I still love them. Maybe they need more sun/water....

Now that most of the planting is done (I've also put out a few bags of mulch, skimping it this year to save some money), I might make time to get to this future project of mine. I picked up this elephant garden planter sometime earlier this year (at the Restore) when it was still cold outside and just recently brought it up from the basement. It needs a good cleaning and then I want to paint it a few different colors (sort of like this one).

So does anyone know if you can pull apart day lilies to keep them from getting to crazy? Have you been planting flowers too? I'm kind of late this year but better late than never!

♥ Crystal

Super Quick and Easy DIY Window Box

2013-06-28T22:14:00.002-04:00

We've had some leftover cedar boards in our garage for a while now (ever since I got them for our raised garden) and I've been wanting to add a window box to the front of our house (at the window to the right of the stairs) forever so this weekend I whipped one up all by myself!!

I've really been trying to follow the "Just Do It" motto and get things done that way. It is easy to get caught up and stuck at the brainstorming/planning stage so I'm working on just doing things rather than waiting for things happen. Which is exactly why Aaron found me at the chop saw late Saturday night. :)

But before we get to cutting, I should tell you that earlier that day, we had picked up a liner and the brackets from Home Depot. I needed the liner first so that I'd know what size to cut my boards. I used one 8 foot cedar board that was 5.5 inches wide and about 14 inches worth of a second board for the ends. There was no plan, I just measured the liner and took into consideration the board size that I already had. Here's the pieces all cut and laid out for assembly!

Then I nailed it together. I had a few rogue nails and Aaron wanted to take over and finish it for me but I wouldn't let him! But in fairness and full disclosure, I did have him set up the nail gun and compressor.

Here's how it looked after I assembled it. I made sure it was extra long and because of my board size, the liner sticks out a bit at the top. I'm not complaining though. The cedar board that I already had on hand had originally cost me around $4 and a new pre-built window box would have been $20 minimum, maybe more so I don't really mind. Plus I love that I made it all by myself!

I did recruit Aaron for attaching the window box to the house. It is handy having my handyman around!

You can see the top part of the bracket that hooks onto the box and the bottom part of the bracket that the box sits on. If you want more details pics and steps on how to hang the box, go here.

After planting some flowers and drilling a few holes in the bottom to help with drainage (not that you can see them), it looked like this!

So moral of this story (at least for me), is to just start tackling things and don't over think it!

I've got some more posts on what we've been doing outside soon like what we decided to do (and did) with our porch railing project and I've finished up the landscaping and planting of flowers for the season along with some mulch which make for some pretty flower shots (better get them before the day lilies are gone).

Have a great weekend!!

♥ Crystal

We're Getting There!

2013-06-23T22:40:00.002-04:00

I think I mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, we made some big progress on Ruby's room. I actually think this is the most craziest part of the room that needs a little decluttering or something but either way we've done so much in here!! The layered pom pom curtain covering the closet was from here and the other floral curtains here.

This corner saw the most change. We use to have the canoe (it is a humongous wicker chair) but we moved it out to make room for the new/vintage kids table with the vintage chairs I picked up last summer.We also hung up two special pieces of art in this corner. The one on the left is an original headshot of Shirley Temple holding two adorable puppies. My Dad had originally bought it to give to my Grandma but she passed away before he could do that. Since Ruby's been likened to Shirley Temple a few times (by complete strangers too!), it seemed only natural she'd get it.

On the other wall is this really sweet watercolor of a brown bunny with pink flowers. This was a gift from my Mom to Ruby before she was born and has been up in her room since the beginning. In this slightly wider shot, you can also see the organizer that I re-purposed into a bookshelf for Ruby.

Now we start venturing into unfinished territory. I think I'd like to repaint the bed someday and she definitely needs some new matching bedding. The wall seems a bit bare but I didn't want to go overkill so it is staying as is for now. One thing that is finished are the birdhouses that Ruby and I painted together. The blue chair is from Ikea but I originally got it from the Restore and then later picked up the blue slipcover way back when it was still in Archer's room with its mate.

Someday I'd love to do a more detailed picture post of the bed since we made it for Ruby. It is the sturdiest and cutest thing ever and I can't wait to make Archer's toddler bed too. Something about mini-beds that is really appealing to me. Over on the far wall you can see the agate slice wall art that I made a few months back. The frame above is currently blank but soon I'll fill it with just one kwatcha bill from this project (the old framing was just too big for her room now so we're downsizing).

I can't believe I almost forgot to tell you the story of the new/vintage table!!

I'll try to keep this brief. I saw this ah-mazing, 1930's cabiny/craftsmany vintage solid wood coffee table at my favorite thrift shop. It wouldn't fit in my car so I put it on hold for 48 hours. I went back in 48 hours to see if they'd hold it for me until the weekend when I could find some other way to get it home. They wouldn't. Someone else had placed a second hold on it so if I didn't take they were going to. So I did what any other self-respecting, desperate DIY-er would. I took it apart in the store one rusty, flat-head screw at a time (the round top came off the base). Oh yeah, I was in my fancy work pants on my lunch break. On my hands and knees!!! I finally managed to get it apart and shoved into my tiny, old civic with part of it sticking out the window. Oh man, I tell you what, the wind I was feeling driving down the highway on my way home was just a reminder of the pure feeling satisfaction that I managed to get that puppy home.

And now we're back full circle! Something definitely needs to be done with the dresser someday. It actually belonged to the previous homeowner and we offered to buy it along a few items (she was the original owner and moving in a group home) since we didn't have much when we moved in. I painted it 3.5 years ago but now there is paint chipping and I'm actually thinking about spraying the gold flower knobs a brighter color (hard to believe since I love gold so much). I can't forget to mention the framed faux butterfly art to the right of the closet and the vintage repro lithographs to the right of the dresser.

I love the different wood tones of the table and chair together but I'm toying with the idea of painting the chairs a color. Ruby keeps voting for pink and purple chairs but we'll see. I have made an effort to pull in some non-pink or purple colors into the room (including the new Ikea rug) so I may just give in to the girl's obsession with pink and purple (she calls them "girl colors" but I always tell her girls can like any colors and boys can like pink and purple too!).

So that is Ruby's room now! It has changed quite a bit from this which was taken right after I painted the walls. Go here if you want to see how the walls were painted before they went Misty Lilac.

I can see the light on this room and I'm pretty excited to be finally feeling like a room is going to get finished! So do you have any suggestions on finishing the few remaining thing?

♥ Crystal

One Credenza, Three Ways

2013-06-20T22:28:00.002-04:00

While I was working on the credenza, I thought it'd be fun to style it as I went along, each time with a different paint job. Hence the title: One Credenza, Three Ways. Here's the first way I showed you.

Probably like a lot of things in this house, it is a mix of old and new. The lamp was a curb find (free!!), the horse is vintage Ikea :), the rhino is from Target's Threshold line, the tray from here and the little box on top is my real malachite box.

Now that you've seen the Black and White Abstract Credenza (above) using Sherwin-Williams Incredible White and Tricorn Black, it is time to show you the Glitzy Gold!! You did get a tiny sneek peak here but now it is time to see it all!

For the styling of this one, we've got the same free lamp and rhino but I've added a faux succulent plant (I LOVE real plants but I just can't get over the ease and convenience of faux plants for the inside) on clearance at Target, along with the lion from Target's Threshold line and my new favorite vase on clearance at Target.

I love the all the gold here and the colors in the vase with the Glitzy Gold paint of the credenza.

I also picked up a different faux succulent that I took to work. I've gotten a handful of comments on it. Everyone loves it and thinks its cool. ( :P to all the faux plant haters)

I had originally thought about adding a greek key pattern along the outline of the door and I'm still thinking about that. For now I'm just enjoying the color!

And now for the third way. I styled this one a while back, right after I painted everything Incredible White. It is a bit horizontal and needs some more vertical lines but it was fun searching around the house for some pieces to add.

Clearly, I love my gold lion and rhino :). The sphere is from Target and the foo dogs bookends are from Target a while back and they, along with the books, have been sitting up in my room ever since. The milk glass dish in the background is actually usually on the kitchen shelves and came from Good will for a few bucks.

Anyway, I had fun styling this credenza. And finally painting it and improving a piece of furniture in the living room was fun and worth all the effort and work it took!!

Do you guys have a few favorite pieces you'd like to style with over and over?

♥ Crystal

Blue Pinstripe Rugs

2013-06-18T23:12:00.000-04:00

I've been in love with a good pinstripe rug lately.

1 / 2 / 3

And since we've been on the hunt for a rug for Ruby's room (which is full of navy, lilac and aqua) it was no surprise that when we came across the Tjareby rug at Ikea a couple of weeks ago, we had to snag it for Ruby's room.

If we were going to give it a nickname, I think we'd have to call it the Reby (from Tjareby) for Ruby but I'll be honest, I don't nickname inanimate objects.

I love the pinstripes and the extra detail on the middle section of stripes. They actually kind of remind me of piano keys.

It is also a dhurrie which we've learned is great for us because they're so durable and easy to clean.

We also made some huge strides in Ruby's room over the weekend which you can't see in the pictures above. I took a bunch of pictures of her room as it looks now and I'll post those soon!!

♥ Crystal

Black & White Abstract Credenza - Sherwin-Williams Paint

2013-06-17T00:01:00.003-04:00

So a while back, like during April's Painting Week, a rep for Sherwin-Williams contacted me and offered to help me paint something by providing a couple paints colors of my choice! So I said awesome and yes please! I had never used Sherwin-Williams paint before and I wanted to try it out and see how it stood up to other paint brands I've used.

It has taken me a couple of months but I've used it and I can honestly say that I loved the paint! I had some paint from both the new and super nice Emerald line as well as the popular and durable Duration line. Both very nice paints and easy to paint with.

The first step was to decide which piece of furniture to paint. Well this was easy since I've mentioned many a times that I needed to paint the credenza in the living room. The next thing was to decide how to paint it. At first I thought something like this from Anthropologie but then I thought about how I really wanted to mix some abstract art into our living room and considered something like this as inspiration.

In the end, abstract art-on-furniture won so I brought it out to the garage to paint. This happened the same day I brought the paint home. So excited for the opportunity and didn't want to waste time getting to it.

Once the priming was over, I whipped out the paint for a quick picture. Let me just say that Incredible White is just that. I am IN LOVE with this white (I've even found another use for it!). Tricorn Black is the perfect black and Glitzy Gold is just the right shade of mustardy-gold.

Since the garage is a bit cramped, I decided to focus on the main piece first and then paint the doors afterward. Here's how it looked with the body and the doors painted white (in anticipation of the abstract painting to be done) and legs dipped in black. Honestly I loved it so far and could have stopped here (in fact I did take a pause here and did some styling which I'll share in another post).

From here I moved right into doing the abstract painting on the doors. And that is where my plan went all wrong. My first approach was to tape off lines, then I took a box knife and cut away the tape that overlapped to-be-painted areas. I thought it was going well even thought it took a bit of time to do all the taping (design is totally random) and cutting away.

I painted over all the lines with the Incredible White paint first to seel all the tape edges and then did two coats of Tricorn Black over all the lines.

Then I started peeling off the tape and a little bit of the white background paint came off. I thought I could just touch it up but then bigger and bigger chunks of the paint came up. I'm sure it is because when I used the box knife, I cut through all the paint and so it just peeled right off with the paint. At this point I realized the best thing to do was to scrape it all off and start over.

This also meant sanding it down again, priming, painting the white background, taping and more line painting. So while I regrouped on how I wanted to do the abstract, I decided to go ahead and paint the other side the Glitzy Gold.

The doors turned out great in Glitzy Gold so I took another pause and took some pictures of the cabinet with teak tray that I sprayed red back in May.

Now it was time to tackle the abstract again so I took the doors back out to the garage. This time my idea was even worse than the first. I taped it all over again and decided to paint with an artist brush and then peel away the paint, filling it in with the black as I went. This was really an epic fail - it is hard to describe how/why it was so wrong. But I didn't give up. (I may have cried though.;)

Because the paint had had more time to set, I wasn't able to scrap it off (and sanding just didn't seem to get the extra layer of black paint smooth enough to the white layer) so I decided to strip it (with Citristrip). It seemed like no big deal at the time since we were also stripping our kitchen cabinets (btw - finally finished with the cabinet stripping process tonight), however, it slowed me down tremendously, and not just because of the bagillion extra steps like cleaning it with mineral spirits and sanding again, along with priming and painting it white, but because I honestly was bummed that I'd failed two times.

So I took some more time to regroup (along with everything else that is happening in our lives) and finally decided that maybe the problem was that I was trying to be TOO efficient. Maybe what I needed to do was to paint each line one by one. I don't think I had considered this before because even if I'm able to get out to the garage twice in one day (once before work and once after the kids go to bed) that would take me 6-7 days if there was say 14 lines. Yikes. Anyway, bottomline, it worked really, really well even thought it tacked even more days onto the process.

Here's all the goods on the process that worked. I taped off the lines one at a time (sometimes two if they didn't overlap at all. Then I brushed over the lines with the white paint.

I decided to use black spray paint this time around and so I taped cardboard onto the door covering all of it except for the line to be painted (I used a second piece not shown in the picture). If you don't do this the spray from the can will get everywhere you don't want it.

I gave it a thick and quick spray and peeled the tape right off (everything was still wet). Ahhhhhh, love those nice and perfectly straight lines. It is finally coming together!! As soon was it was all done I got a thin coat of poly on it faster than you can say Bob's your uncle. I didn't want to take any chances of scratching up my new design!

But before I could take pictures and show it off, I had to fix the Glitzy Gold side since the stripping I did above made a huge mess and gunked up the under/Glitzy Gold side. So I primed and painted that again. I can't even begin to count how many times I cleaned a paintbrush during this project.

All that to get to this. Black and white abstract furniture that was definitely worth all the ~~blood~~ paint, sweat and tears.

What a difference a little paint can make!!! And some furniture rearranging. ;)

Thanks so much to Sherwin-Williams for making this furniture makeover possible. I've still got the Glitzy Gold side to show you which I'll do with the other styling I did with the cabinet when it was just painted white. So you'll see one credenza painted three different ways and styled three different ways. Plus I'll show you where else I've used the Incredible White paint.

How's everyone's summer going so far?

♥ Crystal

P.s. Sherwin-Williams provided me with the paint for this project but all the opinions are my own.

16-17th Century Lithgraph Repro Art

2013-06-11T22:28:00.002-04:00

Hey Guys!!! Things have been busy and crazy around here but I'm still working away!! I have an extra special project to share with you soon and I can't wait. Sherwin-Williams contacted me a bit ago and provided me with some extra pretty paints to refinish a piece of furniture.

Now onto to something I finished up for Ruby's room - framed lithograph repros of some royal (and beheaded - there's an Anne Boleyn in the mix) ladies from the 16th/17th centuries.

Here's the lowdown.

I picked up seven of these lithograph prints from my favorite thrift shop for $4 a piece after originally being priced at $25 at some point in their lives.

I'm know they're not original (whatever that means...I don't know much about lithographs) but they are old so I flattened them in my giant 1950s Oxford Dictionary. I thought it was perfect and a bit coincidental that I randomly turned to "plumy" which was often a piece of fashion during the relevant time period.

I found a collection of six 5x7 frames that I had picked up from Target on clearance a long time ago (for under $2 each)

Sanded them down a bit in preparation for the next step.

Sprayed them (back then front) using the same aqua color that I used on Ruby's repurposed bookshelf.

Cut down the prints using the frame glass as a template.. It killed me to do this (I hate changing anything old from its original form).

And then we hung them up! The top row is Noble Dame Vincentine and a Swedish princess.

Here's Anne Boleyn and the Grande Duchesse of Venise

And Anne something (I can't read the name from the photos I took and Ruby's asleep) and Jane Grey.

I still need to get the old art I took down from painting this room but we're getting there!! We got a rug that I'll share soon so there's just a "few" things to do!

Music Makes Anything Possible - Including Refinishing Cabinets

2013-06-02T23:33:00.000-04:00

When we're working around the house, music is an absolute necessity! Most of the time it is pop (I also really love folksy/indie and electro house music - if I had to put a name on it). We listen to the radio a lot (either on the kitchen radio, on our phones using the IHeartRadio app, commuting and while at work). Which got me thinking about my childhood and remembering cassette tapes? I can't remember a specific band that I had on tape but I do remember making mixed tapes from radio play. Good times. Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to go through our prepping-the-cabinets-for-paint process in the same form as a cassette tape. There's a Side 1 and a Side 2 of a tape just like our kitchen (Side 1 is the old cabinets and Side 2 is the new cabinets). It might be a while before we finish all the steps to Side 2 but here's Side 1 for you!

~ Side 1 ~

1. Cleanin' the Grain - First on the list of to dos to get these cabinets paint ready was to wash the dirt and grime off of them. I just used some hot soapy water and the first ~~song~~ step was over.

2. Hinge Screw - I've been working on using the driver myself instead of asking Aaron to hold the power tools so I took all the doors off myself! (P.s. I'm not sure if Aaron should be happy or scared that I'm getting more friendly with the power tools.)

3. Gloves and Gloss - To get a bit of the gloss off from the old finish, I used our deglosser that we've had for a while now and some gloves (although I've done this without gloves before and my hands didn't burn off) and quickly rubbed over all the surfaces with a cut up shirt.

4. More Power To You - Oh yes I'm using more power tools! Woohoo. I've painted something after just deglossing before but this time, I thought it'd be good to go the distance and use the hand sander with 80 grit to really "rough up" the surface.

5. Life In A Vacuum - At least that is what it felt like when we had a dusty mess in the kitchen after sanding the cabinets down inside. We took everything off all of the shelves and cabinets before sanding.

6. Fill Her Up - This one feels a bit country like... "fill up your Chevy, who you call Bevy". Clearly I was not meant to write lyrics. After a good filling with our pink putty, I sanded the it down and when through this step again to make sure the old handle holes were smice (that means smooth and nice :).

Now we're down with Side 1 and in the middle of Side 2. Side 2 is a BIT more of an undertaking than Side 1 since we're stripping down the old (as in 1.5 year old) paint job before we get to all the steps we did for this Side 1. Once we have both sides all prepped for painting we'll start painting. We're definitely limited on space so we're taking our time and doing one thing at a time.

♥ Crystal

P.s. Listening to music makes working so much easier and more fun! I could do anything (e.g. clean poopy diapers or inhale paint stripper fumes) while listening to either this song (the opening sequences on this one makes me laugh every time! watch and read!) or this one! Love them!!

Sneak Peek - Kitchen Cabinets Project

2013-05-21T23:58:00.001-04:00

Hey Guys! I need to get to bed but I thought I'd give you a sneak peek of one of the many projects we've started working on around here!

Yep! We're working on the kitchen. We will finish this baby if it is last thing we ever do. There's really only three things we need to do in here (love how easy I make that sound!) - paint the cabinets (we're going with this color!), replace the floors (thinking about this) and get a new refrigerator. Wait. There is four things. We also need to paint all the trim plus the basement door.

Anyway, I'll be back soon with more details (as soon as we make a bit more progress) and in the meantime, please know how much you all mean to me. Seriously, you guys are the best!

♥Crystal

p.s. GO see my friend Geesha here. She found two parrot vases like mine off ebay and she's so sweetly sharing with my other friend Mary here! I love both of these girls and so glad that we found each other through our blogs! I have now dubbed us (even if they don't like it) the Parrot Sisters. :)

A Yard Sale Success

2013-05-19T23:01:00.004-04:00

We had our first yard sale this weekend and I'm happy to say it was a success in our book! It was waaaay more tiring than I could have expected (having stayed up until 1am for one reason or another for the past three nights really did me in) and I got sunburned (I should have got my sunscreen on) but the weather was perfect and we made a nice chunk of money to put into our house account (we're saving up for some new flooring for the kitchen!).

Now we aren't yard sale experts by any means but here's some tips that worked for us!

1. Figure Out the Type of Yard Sale You Want to Have - Our goal was to get rid of stuff that was just taking up space and that we didn't have any intention in using again. This factored into some of our other decisions below. We didn't want anything to come back into the house so we only put things out that we were sure we didn't want to keep.

2. Preparation Is Key - I really didn't want the yard sale to be a major stress event so I started working on rooms and closets a couple months ago. I'd do one space at a time and we designated certain areas for holding the items for the sale. We did stay up super late the night before so we could have been a bit more prepared but there were some things that could only be done last minute. One of the things that we did to make the set up quick (at least quick enough for us) was to fill our garage with as much as we could the night before so it was ready to come straight out in the morning.

2. Signage - We had a street wide yard sale (it was pretty spectacular actually) with four houses participating. Our job was to make signs. So I picked up some neon posterboard and opened a gallon of black paint and quickly freehanded these babies. It was midnight so I didn't worry about penciling it in and just winged it, hoping I wouldn't make a mistake. My main goal was to make them bright (neon poster board), bold with big arrows (black paint) and solid (I taped a piece of cardboard cut from boxes onto the back of each sign). We mapped out a route and stapled them up by 7:30 in the morning.

3. Pricing - First, I suggest pricing as you set items aside for the sale. It will save you loads of time because instead of going through everything a second time for pricing, you just do it as you add it to the pile and don't think of it again until you're setting it out for the sale. Second, blue tape worked really well for us. It sticks perfectly and sticks out on items.

4. Set-Up - I think it helps a lot to group your items by category so we kept all the kids stuff separate from the household/knick-knacky items. It also helps to set up and set out certain items so it is easy to see. For instance, I rolled out our rugs, set up the baby beach cabana, an extra beach umbrella (we also have a Sportbrella which I highly recommend for beach and non-beach shade) and the pack and play which I'm sure went quicker because of it.

5. Deal-Making & Marking Down Items - Like I said above, we really wanted to get rid of the stuff during the sale so we made plenty of deals and did some haggling. Towards the end we even put out signs marking everything on a table just 25¢ which got rid of quite a few items. This approach wouldn't work for everyone, especially if you goal in #1 is to make money and you don't mind saving items for another sale.

All in all it was a success and I'm glad we did it! For the longest time I just thought we weren't the yard sale type and now I just see that we needed to have a plan to execute it in as easy a fashion as possible. We ended up making some extra cash and clearing out our overly packed house a bit. Now that we have more room to move (seriously, the basement was packed!), we're going to work on getting what we do still have organized.

So how was your weekend? Anyone else stupidly get a sunburn like me? Did you have a yard sale or hit up a yard sale? I was a bit sad that I didn't get to go to the Restore and Aaron would not let me go check out this pair of old wood, twin size headboard/footboards over at my neighbor's house. I mean a pair! I have dreams of a huge kid bedroom some day with vintage twin size beds side by side. (Yes, Abby, if you're reading this, I really wanted those! But Aaron said no. Glad to see that someone did pick them up though!)

♥Crystal

Making A Two Door Desk Cabinet

2013-05-17T00:23:00.003-04:00

We're back and except for one small thing (i.e. paint touch-ups), we're finally done with the building/finishing of our double desk!!

When we built the desk a year ago, we cut a piece of Purebond for the door and painted it. We didn't know how to approach attaching it so it has sat behind our bookcase the entire past year. It is amazing how much more confidence and experience we've both developed over the past year. With that, and our determination to finish up some unfinished projects, we were finally ready to tackle it.

We decided to make a bi-fold door since the space is pretty tight and would be hard to maneuver a big door swinging open and closed. So the first thing we did was cut it in half. We wrapped the door in blue tape before cutting it to avoid damaging it from the saw blade.

We picked up four full overlay hinges from Home Depot and following the directions for placement, attached them to the doors first.

The hinges come with a template so you know where to drill for the hinge placement that you want (full overlay v. half overlay). We got them attached to the door eventually but we did get our template flipped around at first so there are a few extra holes!

And just like that we were done attaching the doors!

Before doing the hardware, we wanted to cover this hole. Right through that hole is a fan in Aaron's computer and we wanted to keep the air flowing (he makes that thing run hot!) so we cut the hole when we built it but don't worry, we're going to cover it next.

I bought this wire mesh cover a year ago off of Amazon (it was only a few bucks) and we even had already drilled the holes for the screws but we had held off attaching it until I spray painted it white. Well that never happened and we figured we should just get it on! So it is on.

As far as hardware, I considered brass knobs that matched the pulls on my side but ended up picking up two more brass pulls. I love the pulls (a thousand times more than any knob) but I'm not sure I'm feeling them here (sshhh...don't tell Aaron) so maybe we'll switch it to a knob later.

So glad to call this one done! The finishing touches we made on this cabinet and my drawers, was pretty easy so I only wish we had done it sooner!

I love seeing these doors closed. I've always found computer boxes (especially big and fancy ones like Aaron's) a bit unslightly so it is nice to just see crisp white with a touch of brass now.

And since I didn't get a full shot of the desks and window seat, here's a side by side of our quick updates to finish off these desks.

While I'm off to start decorating the desks and walls (not really, it is past midnight), what are you working on? Any projects you've put off forever but now want to finish? Or do you just take a whole year to figure out what you want to do in the first place???

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend! We're going to be having our first tag sale ever. Surpisingly, I'm not nervous but that is just because I feel like I've been through so many already just reading about other bloggers experiences.

♥Crystal

Pssst...Don't forget to send me your saving money tips if you have any! Just go to the Contact tap at the top of the page and it will send it right to my email!

Wood Porch Railing Options

2013-05-14T21:02:00.001-04:00

Well it has been over a month since I mentioned the projects we have planned for the backyard but we haven't made any progress on them yet. We've actually decided to switch our focus a bit and rather than start new, spendy projects (we still want to build the chaise), we're going to work on fixing and finishing problems/issues that already exist.

We're not planning on selling anytime soon but we do want to up the curb appeal and we think a nicer front porch will have a greater effect on a person's first impression of the house rather than a shed in the backyard. This picture was taken last summer but it looks the same as now for the most part.

I've got a list of to do's for the porch below but here's the first thing we're thinking about...porch railings. These old iron rails have got to go! (Another old picture but you get the point. :)

1. Upside down Arrows - Aaron and I both really love this design. I do tend to stray from zig zag but every once in a while I see a color combo or a slight variation in design that I love. This actually reminds me of upside down arrows.

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2. Diamond - I love this pattern and it's cool how it either looks like diamonds with straight balusters next to them or like three pieces of wood cinched together. Do you see it? Which design sticks out to you more?

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3. Dual Pattern - I love both of these railing styles and I'm surprised how well two different designs work together on the same house.

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4. Cabin Squares - I really like this one a lot, especially in this backwoods cabin style home.

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5. Chinese Chippendale - I love all the Chinese Chippendale (which are repetitive, geometric motifs) porch railings.

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6. Craftsman Rectangles - The clean lines of this design are very pretty and looks great with this craftsman looking house. Wonder how it'd look on mine....

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So which do you prefer from the above 1-6 or do you like something different altogether? I know I don't hate the iron rails, I think it is just one of those things where you have to accept that it is time to replace something.

Now for the list (started last year with some adjustments):

paint the front door
~~refinish the hardware on front door~~ (we did it but did a bad job so we need to re-do this)
add a door knocker
replace old screen door with a new full-panel glass storm door
make the house numbers more visible
paint the shutters
~~paint all the trim around the porch, door and windows~~
~~spray the mailbox with ORB~~
~~replace porch light with a new one~~
refinish/replace the porch railing (thought we'd try sanding/painting the old iron rails but I think it is time they go)
replace the concrete steps or cover them with wood ones
~~find or build some seating for the porch~~ (we found a bench but I should probably refinish it)
add some ceramic pots for flowers
paint the concrete porch
change up the landscaping, taking out plants we don't like and adding some flowers
have our ancient antenna removed from the roof

As for the porch rail, we've gathered all the prices for the materials from Home Depot this past weekend so now we just need to decide on a design, take measurements and figure out how much the materials will cost. We'll also need to figure out what we're doing with the front steps (getting new concrete steps or DIYing wood steps overtop) before we start the rail project.

♥Crystal

Teak Tray Redo in Red

2013-05-12T23:02:00.004-04:00

Way back in February, I mentioned how I'd really like to add some read accents to our living room. I wanted to have at least three red accents in the room which in theory would be spread through out the room. In practice, they've all been concentrated in the corner by the tv. The first piece with red in it was this floral painting that I picked up from my favorite thrift store. That is my phone picture from the store. The next picture is a little more true to life.

The second was the chair that I reupolstered.

See that tray sitting on the credenza, I picked it up from the Restore for $5 and it's about to become the third pop of red.

You can also see it here when I had my parrot vase out. It is a teak tray by Dansk and actually goes for $30 or more on ebay. I know some might think it is crazy to paint a teak tray but I figured what the heck, it is mine and I want to.

Anyway, now it is red!

I seem to change the styling of the credenza often but I love doing it. Here's a pile of my favorite decorating books and animal figurines. Oh you might have noticed that I've painted the credenza! I'm not quite done so this is a spoiler alert but this has been an exciting project for me (if not a suuuuuper long one) and I can't wait to finish and show/tell you about it.

I don't have any process pictures of painting the tray since I just sanded and sprayed it in a hurry. I did add little pads to the bottom of it so it won't scrape the newly painted credenza and I really like how it gives it a little more height and layer to the style.

And one more shot of my thrifty update. I did have to buy the spray paint but I'm sure I'll use it again some day!

Anyone else spraying painting this weekend? Did you do anything special for Mother's Day (either as a Mom or with your Mom)? My day was perfect and besides getting to spend it with my family, I'got some pretty earrings and bracelets along with a trip to Home Depot!

♥Crystal

Pssst...I'm going to do another money saving tips post on some things that I have worked for us and I'd love to include some quotes (with a link to your site) from you on ways that you save money! It could be for saving to spend on something else, to squirrel away or to pay off debt faster. If it helps you, it might help someone else! So send me an email through the Contact tab up above or send me a message through Facebook (find the "Like Me" button over on the right sidebar if we aren't already connected).

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Sticky Drawers No More

2013-05-09T22:21:00.002-04:00

We recently decided it was time we finish up projects that have gone untouched for far too long. Our desks, which we built last year, never really got finished up (and I definitely never organized or styled them) so we're picking up where we left off and adding hardware to my desk drawers.

I always intended on adding hardware but I wasn't sure what so it has been a whole year of opening sticky drawers (you know how painted surfaces stick to each other). Oh and there's our new desk chairs - I guess that is another update we've done recently. I love them and so do the cats...you'll see.

I love over-thinking things but lately I've been working to learn to just make decisions and roll with them. So without spending much time at all considering what drawer pulls to get, we went and picked up these drawer pulls from Home Depot. They're part of the Martha Stewart line and are under $2 (plus they are getting lots of air time lately, I've seen them on a couple of other blogs in kitchens).

We brought them home and realized that the bolts they came with weren't long enough to fit through the face of our drawers so Aaron had to run right back to Home Depot (thankfully it is not more than 10 minutes away) to get longer bolts.

We decided to place the pull in about the middle of the drawer so Aaron drilled two holes in each drawer. He skipped using a template/jig and did it just by measuring and making pencil marks. By using a drill bit that was a smidge bigger than the bolt, we had some wiggle room to make sure the pull went on straight.

As you tighten the bolt, you can slide the pull around and up and down until you get it nice and straight which we checked by measure each side of the pull to the top of the drawer.

This was a pretty quick project (minus the extra trip to HD) and definitely worth the $8 we spent.

There's still lots of decorating to do but now we're one step closer to getting this desk...and this room...done. And remember how I said the cats love the chairs. There's Sadie taking her nap on it.

And now that we've resolved the drawer situation, we're going to figure out how to attach the door we already made onto Aaron's cabinet. We've got some ideas for the door, just need to buy the materials and execute. And Leo decided to use Aaron's chair as a licking station.

I'm really in love with all things gold and brass and as for these pulls, I especially love the awning shape as opposed to the cup pulls that we have in our kitchen.

Anyone else doing new hardware? How's your week been? I've been working on this one painting project and it is really dragging out after I messed it up and had to start over. I'm so ready for the weekend even though I have no idea what we're doing.

♥Crystal

Repurposed Kids Bookshelf

2013-05-08T00:10:00.002-04:00

It is time for the latest installment of the Pinterest Challenge and I'll be linking up with Sherry of YHL, Katie of Bower Power, Emily at Sparkle Meets Pop and Renee at Red Bird Blue! Now, here's what we made/repurposed!!!!

You know that we've been working on Ruby's room and one of the things on our list was to remedy the book storage situation which looked like this. I painted those crates (before I came up with the final color scheme) thinking that they'd work but they don't for a number of reasons.

I didn't know what I was going to do but then I came across this divider/organizer thing at TJ Maxx for fifteen dollars and I knew it could be something. I left it but took a picture to get Aaron's - I didn't really want to buy and then not do anything with it. You can probably guess that I went back and bought it - scuff marks and all!

So I've been holding onto it for a couple of weeks, contemplating uses and paint colors, and finally this past weekend, I just did it! The first thing to do was to get rid of that board that sits at the top. It would get in the way of putting books in it.

After I asked Aaron if he thought it would just pop off if I banged on it with a hammer, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Apparently, he didn't have much faith in my approach so instead he carefully pried it off

I sanded the newly exposed parts down, taped over the chalkboard sections and then spray painted it in aqua.

The organizer came with two small brackets to hang it up but we decided to forego those and screw through the front. You can't see them when it is loaded with books and by not using the brackets, we were able to center it under the window and screw directly into studs. Of course we checked for level too!

Then we loaded her up and you know I had two little helpers to do that.

For the chalkboard part, I conditioned it before writing on it by just swiping chalk all over it and then wiping it off. I've heard that if you don't do this, whatever you write may "stain" the chalkboard.

I toyed with the idea of writing some phrase like "Books are fun!" with a word on each section but in the end, I went with alphabet categories.

But, clearly, I did not have the time to actually organize the books like that. Notice that Doctor De Soto is in the Q-Z section. Actually, now that I think about, it could be fun to help Ruby organize it while she practices her alphabet.

Now for some more pictures! I have to admit, I'm pretty in love with this. I love how the color is light and bright in the room and it goes perfectly with the curtains (and even though you can't see it, it also goes well with the curtain over the closet).

Hopefully it will keep the book situation a little more under control too since it should be easy for her to put them away and they won't fall through the slats. I also like how it will be easier for Ruby to flip through and decide what she wants to read.

I think it is pretty funny and just plain pretty how the tree in the backyard (it is a Crimson King Maple) goes so well with her bedroom. Almost like it is a framed print or something.

And one last one for fun!

Here's the to do list for Ruby's room which I am happy (or sad since it has been two months since I last looked at it) to say that I can cross three more items off.

~~paint closet~~
~~add shelves/organize the closet~~
~~remove closet door and add curtain~~
~~paint walls~~
paint woodwork
find a new rug
~~figure out book situation~~
repaint/touch-up the bed
add decor/accent wallpaper to the walls
refinish the table chairs and find/DIY a table
paint the inside of the door something other than white
refinish/repaint the dresser
~~change out the curtains~~
paint the wicker chair and/or change out the cushion fabric
~~finish organizing the toys~~
find/make new bedding
switch out the ceiling light (not high on the priority list) and add some reading sconces

So what did you guys do for your Pinterest Project? Or have you been up to other stuff lately? I've been working on this project off and on for 2 weeks now and I'm just ready to be done so I can show you! Are you getting ready for Mother's Day? I wish we could get together with all of our mothers/families for Mother's Day but we don't live close enough!

♥Crystal

P.S. For past Pinterest Challenge projects check out here, here and here.

Also linking up to That DIY Party at DIY Showoff!