Domestic Imperfection

Side Yard Reveal!

Ashley — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:00:13 +0000

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Miracle-Gro. All opinions are 100% mine. Last year we built our garage (which we love BTW) and added a sidewalk to connect it to the house. We also had a fence installed around the backyard, and all of that created a little triangle of secluded yard space. I’m using the [...]

Contest Answers & RYOBI Giveaway Winners

Ashley — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:00:00 +0000

Happy Fathers Day everyone! I hope today is awesome and spent celebrating your dad, husband, grandpa, brother...whomever the great men are in your life. Today is also the day we announce the winner of our Massive RYOBI Power Tool Giveaway! Luckily our little Rafflecopter form did the dirty work for us and pulled up our winner in the most random of fashion. Congrats to (drumroll please!)…

Hilarie Sullivan!

Check your inbox asap!

We were so honored that so many of you participated in the ‘Blog Hop’, and were surprised by how quickly we had our winner (congrats Stephanie Richardson for winning the matching contest!). We got tons of positive feedback and are so glad that everyone enjoyed surfing around each blog! We just might make it harder next time!!!

In case you missed it, the premise of the contest was to match each blogger with a popular project of theirs. Here are the correct answers!

Interiors by Kenz ~ Painted Faux Moulding & Headboard

Twist Me Pretty ~ Pink Room Reveal

Vintage Revivals ~ Swig Sugar Cookies

East Coast Creative ~ Large Photo Frame

Whatever Blog ~ Melted Crayon Artwork

Domestic Imperfection ~ Paisley Stencil Table

Home Stories A to Z ~ Tiered Garden Planter

Sarah Dorsey Designs ~ Painted Rug

Pretty Handy Girl ~ Backlight Bookshelf

Sawdust and Embryos ~ Shading with Stain Technique

The Idea Room ~ Lemon Sugar Scrub

Kara Paslay Designs ~ Mason Jar Chandelier

All Things Thrifty ~ Everything I know about Spray Paint

DIY Village ~ Dog Bowl Chairs

One Good Thing By Jillee ~ Yogurt Dots

Nine Red ~ Striped Painted Table

There’s an overwhelming amount of creativity and talent in this group, and you should definitely hop on board and keep up with each one! You’re sure to be inspired to the fullest.

And HUMONGOUS thank you to RYOBI Nation for supplying our giveaway prize! For even more inspiration, check out these great projects!

May Ramblings

Ashley — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 03:49:53 +0000

I think these rambling posts get later and later each month. We spent the last week at the beach with a bunch of family and before we left I thought "what a great time to catch up on blog stuff!" Then we got there and guess what...I barely even cracked open my laptop. It was glorious.

Also, I just happened to notice that I started my ramblings exactly one year ago. Twelve months of ramblings....I wasn't sure I would keep up with it when I started, but here I am! Sure this one is coming out in the middle of June, but whatever...better late then never! I wonder if the internet will let me title this one "May Ramblings" since I already have a post by that title (and every other month). Guess we'll see when I hit publish.

So here we go with May, it's kinda all over the place...

Adam graduated college! He had two graduation ceramonies, the first one was a small one just for veterans. A lot of our family came and they served dinner and it was nice. When it was Adam's turn to walk the stage I snuck up to take picture of him, but the slow auto focus screwed me and I got crappy pics. Then I thought to myself "why the heck didn't you just video it with your phone, dummy?". It would have been perfect since they actually took the time to say a little about each graduate. Adam even wrote a few crazy sweet words to me, thanking me for "many years of unwavering love and support, through multiple deployments, three years of school, and the raising of two rambunctious boys." So sweet, and I probably would have watched it everyday for the rest of my life if I had recorded it. Hindsight. This is what I got instead...

So frustrating.

Match that Blogger! {A Contest and RYOBI Father’s Day Giveaway}

Ashley — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:59:00 +0000

Today I have something awesome for you...a contest AND a giveaway. Two chances to win $400 worth of RYOBI power tools just in time for Fathers Day. I don't know about you, but I want to make sure my husband and father have all the tools they need to build stuff for me.

The premise of the contest is this - all of us are guilty of repinning things on Pinterest without checking that the pin actually leads to the correct source. And you know how annoying it is when you see an awesome pin, click it...and it takes you no where. No tutorial, no extra pics, nothing. It's a bummer. So there are likely pins on your boards that are from your favorite bloggers, and you don’t even know it.

That’s where the contest comes in:

The Grass is Always Greener (Three Years of Yard Work)

Ashley — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:39:13 +0000

Lets start at the beginning...the very beginning. In 2008 Adam and I purchased our first home. It had been on the market forever and despite being a newer house it needed some serious TLC. One of the major downfalls and the first thing everyone noticed was that it had no yard. No grass, no driveway, just a lonely house surrounded by gravel...the gross white dusty kind that sticks to your shoes and is always on your car. Gotta love it.

(Also, I never took a before picture of our house, this MLS picture is all I have.)

I lived here for a year by myself and worked on the house when Adam was being a hero over in Iraq. During that time I planted flower beds along the front. It wasn't as easy as it sounds, I had to use a giant pick and literally chip away at rock to get them to be deep enough to plant anything in. Number of pictures I took during this process - 0.

Fast forward to Spring 2011. Adam was out of the Army and we were settled into our house. Elijah was about a year old, I had just (surprise!) found I was pregnant with Levi, and I had started this blog a few moths prior. One of my first posts was about Adam and I creating a driveway, flagstone path, and planting grass in the front of our house. I wrote one giant post about it (it should have been four or five) and it made a huge impact on the curb appeal of our house. (Go HERE to read that post...my pregnant hard working self of two years ago would appreciate it)

Good news! I did take pictures during that process, here is the general idea...

We spread dirt and planted buffalo grass seed in our new yard. I watered it like a good lawn owner should and it began to come up...kinda. It was loads better than the gravel pit of a yard we had before, but it was sparse and just...not great.

Spring 2012 I started to get desperate. "WHY is my grass refusing to grow?" I started to do crazy/genius things like soak the grass seeds (we had lots leftover) in water for a few days, spread them, and then cover the areas in dirt and old sheets to keep the sun from scorching the seeds/new grass. It worked better than not, but we spent about a month of spring with nasty old moist sheets littering our yard. Number of cool points we scored with the neighbors - 0.

Despite my best efforts and the moldy yard sheets the grass still never took off. Lets take a look at the paisley stenciled table I did last summer. Don't mind the table...look at the grass.

Create a Self Watering Garden

Ashley — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:00:42 +0000

This post brought to you by Miracle-Gro. All opinions are 100% mine. How many of you are thinking about starting a garden this year? Intimidated? I’m with you. I started my first garden last year with my “backyard salad beds” post, and I’m embarrassed to tell you that it was a total and complete failure. The thing about [...]

Answers to Your Most Frequently Asked Questions

Ashley — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:04:55 +0000

Y'all ask a lot of questions. Like, a lot.

I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not. If I didn't like answering questions and helping you with your projects then I wouldn't do what I do. But often the e-mails I get are repetitive and I'm answering the same questions night after night (which is mostly my fault for not including enough information in the original post.) So I thought I would save everyone a little time and add a FAQ's page to the navigation bar on the top of my page. Then I figured I'd also make it a post so that people would actually see it and know it exists.

So here we go...

What is the name of the green paint in your living room?

Y'all are not going to like this answer, but I mixed it myself. Green is a tricky color... I painted the living room green twice and it looked terrible both times. So I bought a TON of green samples and wasn't in love with any of them either. By that time I had a ridiculous about of green paint, so I bought a five gallon bucket, dumped every green I had in it, and painted away. It turned out to be the perfect, and I had so much that I painted my living room, laundry room, and guest bathroom all the same color.

Will you build me a farmhouse table?

April Ramblings

Ashley — Mon, 13 May 2013 03:36:56 +0000

May has been a bit intense so far and I haven't really touched my computer. You know that feeling when you are so crazy tired that you are basically a worthless lump of human flesh? Then you crawl into bed and it is the best thing EVER? Like comfy bed heaven on earth, even if your sheets haven't been washed recently and your bed isn't even close to being made. That was us last night, as soon as our heads hit the pillow Adam and I both comfort moaned and started to talk about how nice the bed felt, but fell asleep before we finished.

The kids are a little worn out too...

But that's May...lets talk about April.

DIY Playset and Staining with Flood Wood

Ashley — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:00:27 +0000

Those of you looking for more progress on our bathroom remodel are going to be disappointed. I'm not that far along yet... how about a playset reveal instead?

As you may or may not know, we had been talking about building/buying the boys a playset for a while, but we talk about doing a lot of stuff that never actually happens. This one was meant to be though....a friend recently bought a house, and in the backyard there was an old playset. He had no need for it, so he asked Adam if we wanted it for the boys. We did. So Adam took a couple of trips over to his house, dismantled it, and brought home all the pieces.

And there they sat, littering our yard for about two months. We still played on it though, I made a series of balance beams with the planks and the boys are now balance experts...or something like that.

Here's the funny thing about all those pieces...Adam didn't use most of it to build the playset. As in, the playset is completely built and 60% of the stuff from the previous picture is still sitting in my yard.

So here is my "tutorial" - I put that is quotes because there aren't building plans or anything. It's just pictures of my husband and family working and me narrating, which may or may not be helpful.

15 Ways to Give Your Furniture New Life

Ashley — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:47:37 +0000

Let's face it, buying new furniture is expensive. So expensive, in fact, that I'e never actually done it (besides couches, because I'm not awesome/crazy enough to DIY a couch). There is also the problem that new furniture is, well... boring. To me it all looks the same and basically has zero personality. A great (and super cheap!) solution to this is to redo old furniture. But what do you do with your ratty old thrift store furniture once you get it home?

1. Paint it a fun color

The simplest and most dramatic way to give your furniture some personality is to paint it a bold color. I know, it's scary...at first. But the chances are that you will love it, and your fierce new furniture will become your favorite things in your house. And if it doesn't...then you can just paint it again. That's the great thing about painting furniture, it's cheap and easy to change.

Fun colored furniture posts - green dresser, yellow command center table, paisley stenciled table, end table dog bed, green porch chair, toy box, small yellow shelf