DIY Chunky Shelf

I'm proud to say that I had a pretty productive weekend. I started a few projects, and yesterday I actually finished one! I mentioned my floating shelf drama here, and was prepared to spend a little bit more money to get a quality shelf. But then I decided that I would just take matters into my hands and make one. I like the look of big chunky shelves, but I never want to spend the money on them. I've seen a couple tutorials for shelves in the past, and decided to give it a try myself. I love how it turned out!

Supplies 

*7 or 8 in. wide board

*2 Corbels

*Door Casing

*liquid nails

*Wood Filler

*Paint

First step is to cut your board. I just bought a thin shelf that was already the size I needed so I didn't have to do any sawing. Next, cut the door casing at 45 degree angles to fit around the sides of the board.

Once everything is cut, glue the molding on by running a bead of liquid nails along the side of the board. I also added a few small nails to the sides for extra support as well.

Once everything is dry, fill in any holes with or cracks with wood filler or spackeling. After that, paint the shelf and the corbels! I then glued the corbels onto the shelf and added a few nails for extra support. And that's it, done! It was so easy and only cost me about $25. I already had the paint and liquid nails, so it would cost more if you didn't already have some of the supplies.

And here she is! I shopped my house for a few things to put on it for these pictures, but now I'm off to the store to get some real accessories!

 I love how it has the look of a thick, chunky shelf, but is actually just a piece of wood and some trim.

New Knobs

If your looking for a simple and relatively inexpensive way to spruce up cabinets, knobs or pulls are the way to go. I love how they can add some personality to your typical cabinets. My little guy and I took a trip to Hobby Lobby the other day and picked up some knobs for the bathroom vanity. I went in there thinking I was going to get some glass ones, but as I was looking through the many many knobs, I changed my mind. I decided instead to go with white. I'm glad I did, I love the knobs that I found.

 

 

I like how they have a little distressing on them

The bathroom feels so much more complete now. I love my new knobs! It's the simple things in life that make me happy!

Towel Hooks, Art, and Crashing Shelves

Remember a couple months ago when I was working on our guest bathroom? Yeah, well, I'm finally working on that again. I've had most of the big stuff done, you know, painting the walls and cabinets, but it has sat unaccessorized for the last month. So sad! Well actually, as of a couple weeks ago I did have pictures on the wall, but they were all from my college apartment and were all of my friends and I. So basically whenever anyone used that bathroom they thought I was ridiculously vain, and stuck in my college days. It wasn't intentional, I just happened to have those frames lying around and put them up to see how it looked, and well, it took longer than I planned to switch out the pictures.

It took me forever to figure out what to do on the one long wall in the bathroom. I knew I wanted some sort of art, but I didn't want anything too busy that would distract from or clash with the shower curtain. Then, my sister in law Kerry posted on her blog, La Conception Des Femmes, about some DIY artwork she did for her bathroom, and I decided that it would also be perfect in mine. So, I completely stole her idea. Thanks to Kerry's inspiration I turned this ...

into this...

Check out LCDF for the complete tutorial

 I also took care of the towel rod situation in there. It started out with two awful, uneven rods. DROVE. ME. CRAZY!

I've always liked the look of hooks instead of towel rod. It might sound weird, but I like the "hang" of the towel better on a hook. and since this will be a kiddo's bathroom, hooks just seemed a little more practical. Simply putting three hooks on the wall felt a little too boring, so I used the rest of the baseboards that I used for the mirror frame and put that up to add some interest. I used liquid nails and glued it the entire width of the wall.

After I glued the baseboard up, I screwed in the hooks. I then wanted to add a little shelf on top. For the shelf I used a door stop and just turned it upside down so there would be a small ledge for pictures. I love how it all turned out.

The next thing to do was figure out what to do over the toilet. I bought a floating shelf on sale at Target a couple weeks ago and, for once, Target has seriously let me down. This blasted shelf will not hold anything! The package says that it will hold up to 10 pounds, but it fell multiple times when I had no more than 2 pounds on it. AND when it fell it broke a vase that I had sitting on the toilet. So, I am returning that guy and finding one that will actually hold more than one hand towel. Here is my shelf in all it's glory, obviously with nothing on it for safety reasons.

Once I replace the shelf and the vase that broke, then I will start accessorizing this side of the bathroom. One step at a time folks, one step at a time.

I've been framed

Well I had another productive weekend, and I have to tell you, it feels good to actually cross things off my ever growing list of things to do. Before you think that this is regular occurrence for me, let me reassure you that is most definitely not. I have been talking about painting my living room and dining room walls for months now, and they are still the same beige they were when we moved in.

Anyway, over the weekend I framed the mirror in our guest bathroom. Let me tell you, it was so easy and very inexpensive, my favorite kind of DIY project. So even though there are about a million and one tutorials for this out there, I thought I would go ahead and make that one million and two. Before I started I read through tons of tutorials and picked out all the shortcuts I could find to make this as simple as possible. I'm a big fan of taking the easy way out. 

First thing to do is measure and figure out how much trim you need to buy. Once you get that done, head to your local hardware store and pick up your supplies. Here's what you will need: 

Baseboards or some sort of trim (preferably primed)

Liquid Nails

Caulk or spackling

miter saw or miter box

paint

In my case, all I needed was the liquid nails. Luckily the previous owners left 4 long pieces of baseboard in our garage. That was so nice of them! 

 

My little guy wanted to help me measure, so he grabbed a toothbrush and climbed on the toilet...

Now onto the fun part, cutting your trim. This is where having a miter saw would be very handy, but that's for the fancy people. I just used a good ol' miter box. So not only did I get all my pieces cut out, but I got an awesome arm workout while I was at it. That, my friends, it what I call multitasking.

 *This is where most people would paint the pieces, I skipped this step because I wasn't sure what color I wanted quite yet, and I was impatient and realized that I would have to wait for my paint to dry completely before I glued them to the wall.*

Next up, gluing. I started with the bottom piece so I could make sure it was straight. I'm a little paranoid and used a lot of liquid nails, so of course when I pushed it on a lot of it oozed out the sides. I just wiped it off with a paper towel and all was well.

Once the bottom was pretty dry, after about a half hour, I glued on the two side pieces. Some parts of the wood was slightly warped since it was in the hot garage all summer so the bottom right corner would not stay down. This is where my husband came in and saved the day by McGyvering the shower curtain rod as a holding mechanism. Genius I tell ya, pure genius!

And then, the same thing, when the sides were dry I glued on the top. After it was dry and not going anywhere I spackled the corners to fill in any gaps that I had. Most people would use caulk for this, but I didn't have caulk or a caulk gun, so Spackle worked just perfectly! Like I said, shortcuts only please. Finally came the paint. At first I wasn't sure what color I wanted to do, but once it was all up I decided I liked it white, so white it is! And there you have it, easy peasy!

Before:

After:

Bathroom to-do list:

paint cabinets

paint walls

new light fixture

new towels and shower curtain

shelves over toilet

replace towel rod (you can see from the reflection in the mirror that I started this, but I'm not quite done, so stay tuned)

frame mirror

hang pictures and accessorize

hardware on cabinets

Bathroom Progress

Well over the weekend I successfully crossed another thing off my "get the guest bathroom out of the 80's, on a budget" list. I got the walls painted! Whoop whoop! Yes, I that just happened, maybe I need to get myself out of the 80's while I'm at it. AND I got the shower curtain I wanted from World Market. I had a 10% off coupon so I even saved myself a whopping $3! I painted the walls Martha Stewart's Nimbus Cloud. It's a nice cool gray with a soft hint of blue. I love it! (these pictures were all taken from my phone)

Here's a before picture to refresh your memory

And here she is after

I also got this strange situation taken care of a little bit. I removed the top towel rod, which required some yanking and pulling by husband, and then some wall patching by me.

After

I still need to take the other one down because let's be honest, that thing is ug-ly. I just need to get a another one first so we don't have to put our towels on the floor.

Here is what still needs to be done in this room

• new light fixture
• new sink faucet
•  frame mirror
• add floating shelves over toilet
• remove medicine cabinet (maybe)
• new towels and accessories
• new towel rod
• hardware for the cabinets and drawers

Bathroom Plans

Ok I have finally reached the point of not being able to stand my guest bathroom any longer, so it's time to fix it up. I would love to just rip everything out and do a complete makeover, but since we don't plan on being here forever I really don't want to put that much money into it. Hopefully with a little paint and some new accessories I can get this place looking great! Here's what I have planned.

I really don't know why there are 2 towel rods on the wall, but those will definitely be coming down. I got all motivated the other day and started taking the higher one down only to realize that the wall behind it was painted a nasty forest green, so that will be staying up until I paint the walls. I haven't quite decided on all the accessories yet, but here is kind of what I have in mind.

I'm pretty much set on the paint colors, I just need to run it by the husband first. I don't think he'll have a problem with it.

 I like the colors and design of this World Market shower curtain.

I would rather put sconces on either side of the mirror instead of over it, but that would require rewiring and patching up holes, and that is something I am not up for.  Since I am stuck with the light where it is, I love this fixture I found on Shades of Light.

 via

I'm thinking of doing something like this with the board and batten and hooks instead of a towel rod. I'm really excited to get started on all of this. My plan is to get the vanity painted this week. Wish me luck!

Dreamy Bathrooms

We have two small bathrooms in our house, and I haven't spent much time on either of them, and by that I mean I have neglected them completely. So I have been thinking about and planning what I want to do with those little guys. One thing I have decided on is that I will do the guest bathroom first, since people actually see that one, and it doesn't need as much work as the master bath does.

Although I would love to do something like this, I don't have enough money or space, so I'll stick with painting the cabinets. Isn't that wash stand amazing, I have a new obsession with these.

via Mahogany Builders
 

Here are a few inspiration pictures I've found, hopefully I will be able to narrow it down to what I like best.

via Tineke Triggs

 /

via Elizabeth Reich
I would love to do some wallpaper in there.

I'm thinking of painting the vanity a color similar to this gray.

 I love the striped curtains!

 Images via Pinterest

Oh boy I have some work ahead of me... decisions, decisions!