New Chair in the Living Room

For over a year now we have only had enough seating for 4 people in our living room. We could obviously bring in some chairs or the bench from the dining table if we needed to, but that's not the most comfortable. I've been meaning to get another chair, I just hadn't found something that I loved and that went with the space. Then about a month ago I was at TJ Maxx and saw the perfect chair. We had just gotten back from vacation though, so I was not in the mood to spend anymore money. I have been kicking myself every since, because furniture from there does not last long and I new it was probably gone. So last week I decided to just go take a look again and see if just maybe I was going to get lucky, and sure enough the chair was still there! So this time I did not hesitate and took that baby home with me. 

I love it! It makes the room feel a little more finished and adds one extra seat so it's not as awkward if we have another couple over. The hard part about finding the right chair was the color. I didn't want anything too light for my little guy to destroy and I needed to make sure that the gray was enough of a contrast from my sofa that it didn't look like I was trying to match it exactly.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with that brick fireplace and I will be one happy girl!

Living Room Gallery Wall

You guys, I finally took care of the wall behind our TV in the living room. That has been on  my to-do list for way too long. I came home home from a vacation a couple weeks ago and just decided that I couldn't stand the emptiness anymore. I told my husband that all I wanted for Mother's Day was for him to take me to Ikea and get all the frames I wanted, well that and unlimited foot massages. So Mother's Day weekend that's exactly what we did, and it was very exciting. I still need to fill a few of the frames so it's not completely finished, but it's a great start!

I'm the worst at taking before pictures, so you'll have to just imagine what that wall looked like with nothing on it, and the TV stand with nothing but the TV. I'm always just too excited to get things started that I don't think about taking pictures until I'm done. I'll work on that.

It looks like a peacock

Let's talk about my fireplace for a minute shall we. I like having a fireplace, but the mantel looks like a giant brick H to me. When we bought the house I had every intention of painting it white, but I lost that battle, so I'm learning to love the brick. I would love to tear the whole thing down and replace it, but that is not exactly in the budget.  

The poor space over the mantel has sat bare for months. I had my sunburst mirror up there for a second, but then I found a better home for him. So I have been on the hunt for something else to put there. Since my "H" fireplace is so boxy, I wanted something round to soften it up a little. There are a lot of round mirrors that I like and would work, but I am not about to spend hundreds of dollars on a mirror. Then I saw a picture of this chrysanthemum mirror made out of plastic spoons by Addicted to Decorating. It looked pretty easy and very inexpensive, so I decided to give it a try.

My Version

First I cut the the stems off all the spoons. I used about 300 to make a 25 inch frame.

Next I made a round cardboard frame to glue the spoons onto. In the original tutorial she used two MDF wreath forms and taped them together. I felt like saving a little money and just making my own out of a box I had sitting in the garage. 

Next it was time to start gluing. I just started at the top, leaving a small space between each one, and worked my way down,

After all the spoons were on I took it outside and gave it a couple coats of white spray paint.

I wasn't as careful as I should have been when I got the last row, so after I painted it the inside still wasn't looking so hot. I decided to just cover up the flaws with some white and gray yarn. It worked like a charm; it covered up the ugly and added a little contrast as well.

When I was finished I simply hot glued the frame onto my mirror and hung it on the wall. After I got it hung I asked husband what he thought, expecting him to say he liked it. Instead, he paused for a second and said, "it looks like a peacock." I'm still not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

The project cost me about $15 total. I lucked out and found an 18 inch round mirror on sale at Target for $9. It's pretty much exactly what I was looking for to fill that space.
Linking up to Savvy Southern Style

New Rug for the Living Room

For a while now I have been casually looking for a new for my living room. I didn't want to spend a ton of money on one, so it made for a long search. Then last month West Elm was having an awesome sale on all their rugs. You just can't pass up a good sale! I decided on the Gradated Stripe Cotton Dhurrie Rug. I love how it changed the feel of the space.

I was too excited to lay down my new rug that I forgot to get a good before picture. Here is the only picture I could find of the old rug I had there. It wasn't bad, just boring. 

And here are some pictures of my new rug. Because of the dark color I have to vacuum it more often than the old one, but it's totally worth it to me!

Dining Room Board and Batten

I finally finished my dining room wall that has been 7 months in the making. It really didn't take very long once I got started. My husband and I probably spent a total 3 hours on Saturday putting it all up and filling in nail holes, and that time includes going to Home Depot and having them cut the wood. Anyway, I'll just let the pictures do the talking for a second, that's all we care about anyway.

I love that now when you walk in the front door you don't see a huge empty wall anymore, you see this! And once I get some art up there it will be even better.

Now onto the technical stuff. Since there are literally thousands of tutorials for this out there in blog land I will spare you most of the boring details. But here is a quick rundown of what we did. The first step was to paint the wall. Since we have textured walls I debated weather I would do the real board and batten or the fake. Doing it the real way would have required buying a huge sheet of mdf  and applying it to the wall. I decided to forgo the mdf and just paint it. In the end if I hated how it looked with the textured wall, I would just cut the mdf to fit between the battens and put it up later. I realized that this would be a lot more work, but I'm just trying to save money over here.

Next we went to Home Depot, bought the wood, and had them cut it there for us. I used 3 1/2 inch wide sheets of primed mdf for the vertical battens and 5 1/2 inch wide mdf board for the top. In all the wood cost about $50. Most people paint the battens before they put them up, but we decided to just go ahead and put them up first. I really didn't notice that painting them after they were up was any harder than it would have been if I did it first.

Next, we decided to put the top, vertical, on first. The Home Depot guy was not the most accurate and none of our boards came out the same length. So we decided it would be best to have them flush at the top and then fill in any gaps at the bottom.

To apply everything we first did a squiggly, I'm getting real technical here, of liquid nails and slapped it on the wall. We then followed with four or five nails for support. We used my dad's nail gun, but a hammer and nails would work too. Those guys aren't going anywhere!

Once we got everything up, I then went through and Spackled all the nail holes and gaps. I then caulked all the edges. Caulking made it look so much nicer and finished.

Before Caulk

After caulk

Finally, I painted, and turned it all into this:

Weekend Snapshots

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend. The little guy and I are headed to Texas in a few days  and then a couple days after I get back my in-laws are going to be here for Christmas. So needless to say, I have been scrambling to get things done around the house. I feel like for every item I cross off my list, two more things are added!I got a really good start on two major projects over the weekend.

First, I got my gift wrapping started, and I loved every second of it!

I love wrapping presents! Growing up, my brothers would have me wrap all of their presents for them before I went to bed on Christmas eve, yes, including my own. Part of the fun of giving someone a gift is wrapping it up all cute. Also, having presents under the tree just makes it feel more festive. I didn't get all of my presents wrapped, but I got a good start on it. 

Second, we got the board and batten up!

This is just a sneak peek of the wall. I still need to finish patching some nail holes and painting, but it's almost done and it's looking so good! I'm really excited to show you the finished product! And if I've played my cards right, hopefully you will be seeing a pretty new pendant light hanging over that table after Christmas. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Sprucing up the Walls...finally

Many of the walls in my house have been very neglected since we moved in. I have had plans of putting up board and batten on our dining room wall as well as a wall in the living room. It's just been a lot harder than I thought to find time to actually do it, so our sad little dining area has looked like this for that last few months. 

I finally decided I just need to start it so that I will actually get it done. My husband's family is coming for Christmas, so that is my motivation to get something on the walls. Last night my husband helped me measure everything out so I could paint, hence the blue line on the wall.

This morning I got the wall painted. I know it's not even close to being done, but just having that paint on the wall is helping me visualize how it will look when it's done,* and I am loving it! I probably won't be working on it anymore this week, with the holiday and family time and all, but hopefully I will have it finished by the middle of next week. I can't wait! Once I get the board and batten done, I can finally paint over all the beige. Woo Hoo!

I also plan on getting one of these guys from Ballard Designs to put over the table. Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later. So if anyone is planning on getting me a Christmas present this year, feel free to send the large one my way!

Thank you Target

I've had my eyes on a particular lamp base from Target for a while now, but I'm just too dang cheap to spend $55 on that. But yesterday as I was strolling through the home aisles I spotted that guy on the clearance aisle for $25. So of course I did what any great mother would do and put back the big box of diapers I had so I could fit the lamp in my cart. That's normal right? It fits perfectly on my entry table, and I love it!

I wasn't excited just because I got the lamp that I wanted, I was also excited because this sad little table has been used as a catch all for junk for the last few months. It finally has some sort of styling and purpose.

Major Paint Fail

Last week I mentioned that I have the sudden urge to fancy up my little laundry closet. Yesterday I decided to go ahead and start painting the back wall. I have quite a few cans of paint in my garage from previous projects so instead of buying more, I thought I would just use some that I already had. I only had one out there that was not white or gray of some kind, so I went with this lovely shade of turquoise. I only did one coat on part of the wall, but I could tell that this was just not going to work.

A little much right? Yeah, not feeling it. In my defense, when I used it before it was not on a wall, it was not in a teeny tiny closet, and it did not look this green. Luckily I'm not out any money. So it looks like I'll be making a trip to Lowes this weekend to pick up some paint! My husband suggested I get a lovely shade of lavender, which was slightly shocking coming from him. I may or may not be taking his suggestion to heart. I know I can't be the only one who gets some major painters regret every once in a while, right?

Even though I had a minor set back, I still got something accomplished for operation  laundry room. I needed to get some sort of storage boxes, but those can be a little pricey if you want anything remotely attractive. Instead of buying some, I made my own with a couple old baby wipe boxes and paint.

It's already looking better and more organized in there, as long as you can look past the unfinished, funky color on the wall.