Little Tweaks

Hi there! I am in an abnormally motivated state right now. For some reason(maybe it is the whole going to bed before 1 am thing) I have energy and am waking up a bit too early even when I don't have to be at work. Maybe it is because I am hungry? I have put myself on an uber strict diet to kick this last bit of baby weight and it seems to be working...but yes I am hungry! If hungry means I get more done I should let myself get hungry more often!
So I am doing a little house tweaking as we get ready to have someone come take some professional pictures of the house this week so we can try to sell it. As of this very second(I change my mind a lot) I am going to list it on craigslist first and see what happens. I am a bit doubtful that it will move that way but I have to give it a shot because if we have to pay realtor fees we won't be left with much of anything to put down on our construction loan. Speaking of construction....I am in the process of trying to get a link up on my sidebar to get you to help me construct our home. I know what I like but when it comes down to specific things like appliances and what not I am going to need some input and what better place to get it than in the blogoshpere with all of you crafty, thrifty, insightful, wonderful fellow bloggers?! Anywho..that is for another day.
For now I wanted to tweak our master bath a bit so that it will photograph better. It was already looking pretty well staged I think but I had recently purchased a little fake flower to bring in some color. It is funny because a year ago I wouldn't have put a fake flower anywhere in our casa and these days they are actually calling my name because it is such an easy way to add color and texture to a room. I originally wanted an orchid to put on the countertop but I didn't like the price nor the way it would take up too much space around our already limited sink space. So I bought this..

Actually just the flower.   I had the vase in a spot in the playroom.  Previously this area of the room looked like this

I had just put that tall vase up there because I didn't have another place for it.  So then out of laziness I just stuck the "fakey" in the vase.  It didn't look right but I started not even noticing it.

I didn't want to cut the stem just in case I had another tall vase that it actually looked good in someday so I just bent the stem

And shoved it in

Now you may notice the little loop de loop of the stem is still poking out a bit...I need to fix that...Maybe in a few months;)

You also may notice that big aqua disc thing on the right is new.  Well it isn't...it just floats around from

here in our first house..do ya see it?

to here in our current kitchen

and now to it's final resting place in this house

 Oh and as I look at this final picture I realize that I forgot to mention the other little fakey the succulent( on the right side of the lower shelf that I put in an old unused vase that was once a diffuser(you know the things with oil and sticks in them that make a room smell all yummy).  I have to say fake succulents look awesome these days and it would be pretty realistic to have it growing here because they need very little soil.  Anywho...I think the bath looks a little more finished and ready for it's photo shoot!

Should They Stay or Should They Go?

Oh this kitchen....It is absolutely fine right?  Newish and clean(sometimes), but when we moved in it was super duper cheapy looking.  I feel like it still is a bit "cheapy looking" but we have done a few things to make it a little less "track builder quality".  I am pretty sure I don't have a before pic anywhere so you will just have to use your imagination, but only a teeny tiny bit.

We started by:

Removing the large florescent light over the bar and replacing it with of course non other than an IKEA light fixture.  Our obsession with IKEA lighting and cabinetry started back when we lived in Houston 10 years ago and honestly before we had a house. Touring the floors of IKEA was sometimes a piece of our weekend entertainment. I digress....

We then replaced the builder grade 4 light chandelier that hung over the breakfast table

And then decided to tackle our ever so sad island that was essentially thin laminated sheets of particle board(and still are).  We trimmed it out with MDF and put a coat of the Sherwin Williams black fox that we had previously used here in our mini master redo just to give it a little character and make it look a tad more sophisticated.

As for the rest of the cabinetry we just have not decided if we should paint or not.  I like wood cabinets I really do but these are just a tad too light for us.  If  going with a wood stained cabinet I prefer something darker. 

 Like this!

(yes this is a tiny pic but you can see a bigger clearer version in the link to it in my pinterest kitchen board)

 I also have had a thing for white cabs lately and of course I can't keep my eyes off of gray.  

(Not a kitchen but you get the idea...again found in the pinterest account on the right sidebar)

So how on earth do you decide whether or not to tackle the uber huge job of painting your cabinets....especially if you don't know what color you really want?  

In comes Sherwin Williams Discover Color program...You can take any photo and easily edit it with the color of your choice to see how you like it!

So here is the kitchen in Black Fox(the gray I am in love with)

What do you think about the gray?  I actually love the way it looks.....but....I am nervous about resale issues with this color.  It would of course look much better with an gorgeous marble or glass subway tile and new countertops but what kitchen wouldn't right?  We just can't put that kinda dough into this house.

So how about a lighter look?  This area in our house it actually a bit dark so I would love to lighten it up..oh and I guess that would be another reason not to go gray;)  Out of fear of going too bright white I thought I would play with this Softer Tan color.  The name is a bit misleading but I new it was a great color when I saw it here.

I don't know though...Of course it makes the pendant light stand out but not in a good way(I don't think) Hmm.  It just looks totally different than it does it the link above.

So then...I tried moderate white because that is what all of the trim in the house is.  This is o.k. and definitely lightens the place up but I don't like the way it brings out the tile and the black appliances and since we can't replace the tile and appliances..well...I don't know what to do.

What do you think?  Would you go for the bolder approach of gray(if your into gray at all of course) and/or does the white just look all wrong with this beige tile color?  Is it worth all of the effort?

Waiting in the Wind

Who doesn't love a good ol' before and after?  I have wanted to post about this room for a long time.  We bought this house 4 years ago and it was the first room that I considered "finished" and I have always really loved the way it turned out!  Unfortunately I couldn't find any before pics so she had to sit and wait and wait until I could either find them or find a newly constructed and open home that I could take a pic of since most of the homes in our neighborhood are very similar.  This is your typical builders half bath.

Actually this one is a tad bit nicer than the one we ended up with.  You see with the housing market in a bit of a slump the builders are now upgrading the homes a bit more to bring in the buyers but this gives you the general idea of what we had to work with.  Now they have real ceramic tile instead of linoleum and you see that towel holder? ...ours was a lovely plastic version(the you can't get any cheaper version).

Here is a picture from the outside..It is absolutely impossible to get a good picture of a half bath. 

We started the whole revamp with some color.

We went with the Sherwin Williams low VOC paint in Moody Blue

It is a great color!  Sometimes I second guess my color choices every time I see them but this one has not let me down. 

The art on the wall here is from IKEA

Here is a peek at the new sink and cabinet that we put in.  I love love this too.  Did I mention this is one of my favorite rooms in the house?  You can see here that we have new flooring in this bath as well.  That came waaaay after the bath rehab when we decided to remove all of the carpet from the first floor.

This is my sad attempt to get a picture of the other side of the room.  You can read a post about the art made from styrofoam here.

We found this unique little number at lowes.  I don't remember what we paid but since I am a cheapo I know it wasn't much more if anymore than most of your other average faucets.

This huge lovely sink was another IKEA find and so is the sink cabinet.  The hubby of course did the hard work of actually installing all of this fun stuff but changing out a pedestal sink to this really isn't that difficult.  Even though pedestals can be very simple and good looking we needed more storage space bad in this casa so this helped a ton.  We now had a place for extra T.P. and tons of towels since this room is near the back door and the kids tend to play in the water a lot out back.

Here is my attempt to get a picture of the cabinet.  We already had this mirror and just hung it right over the "builder grade" mirror.  We also replaced the T.P. holder and towel rack with beefier better looking finds from the pottery barn outlet.

And here is the view of this spot if your a really short person sitting on the pot;)

I think it is a pretty nice view!

Linking up to:



Thrifty Decor Chick, C.R.A.F.T, HOUSEography, The Stories of A 2 Z, Type A Decorating, House of Hepworths, A Glimpse Inside, Momnivore's-Dilemm, Green Door Designs

Trendy Thrifty Laundry Art

Hey remember me...I was soo gung ho about blogging for a while and then I fell off of the face of the blogosphere!

Let me reintroduce myself as the girl who seriously has way too many projects on the brain and way too little time to execute. I predict that every once in a while I will mentally need to step back and re-evaluate my priorities, my "free time"(aka..nap time), and my heart and soul.  I want this to be a place that I can document the little unimportant but fun and somewhat fulfilling projects that pop up in my little brain to make our house a cozy home. While..... not neglecting what truly makes this house a "home" which is my hubby and 3 precious laughter inducing, tear producing, bear hug giving , hair pulling outing children! 

So now that I cleared up where my mind has been...

Here is a thrifty little project that I have been tinkering with that finally came to fruition this weekend.  I have been bothered, actually really bothered(it is an illness that many of my fellow bloggers have) by the bare wall in my laundry room.  We have very sloooooowly tried to warm up the room. I am hoping to post about some of the things we have done in the laundry one of these days when I find my before pics!  So for now just this little project will have to do.  Anywho...I had been looking for what I call "laundry art"  I wanted fun, vintagey, maybe even funky art about laundry because well..where else can you put fun, vintagey, funky laundry art?  I was looking for colorful yet cheap and just hadn't come up with anything that was floating any of my boats really.  As I attempted to stimulate my creative side at Hobby Lobby with the kiddos(I usually forgo bringing the kids anywhere where I need to be able to think) I came across these.

Yep clothespins

Correct me if I am wrong...that is what these were used for at some point right?  Fitting for laundry art aren't they?   Well as I have mentioned before I have had a longtime love for a good ol' sunburst.. I am having trouble linking to them at the moment but I have mentioned my love for these fancy wall fillers a couple of times in previous posts.  So I went looking for circles..

and found these....

 1.99 for six 8" cake boards

And then I found these lovely little wood circles too so I bought both because I wasn't sure what would work best.  Just fyi I have a tendency to think very little about the execution of a project..I prefer the buy it and if it is or isn't going to work take it back approach hence why I have 4 bags of "stuff to take back" in the car at the moment.  Problem is finding the time to take it back..Need to work on this!

 When I got home I realized I had purchased two different kinds of clothespins.  Ugh!   Turns out it worked to my advantage.  Again, not a planner but I am just going to roll with it.

See how one is pointed and one isn't?  This actually helps when varying the height of your "bursts"

In this pic below I was playing with the pointed ones and varying the height.  This was before I knew I would run out of these and find shorter stubbier ones in the second bag.

Here I was playing with the clothespins that most of us know a little more personally but I didn't like the more kitschy look that it gave the project.

Here it is ready for a coat of white spray paint.  I got lazy and only coated the front.

Remember this "cirlce" of wood?  I painted it with Americana craft paint in Spa Blue and hot glued it to the front of the sunburst after it was painted.

Then I dug around for some ribbon and hot glued a loop to the back to hang it.

And here she is!!!!!

Kind of fun and quirky with a sophisticated side right?

Now she isn't bright and bold but I decided I need to hold back a bit since we will have the house on the market soon(I will save my boldness for the next laundry room).  

I do think she turned out super cute though.  Have you guys done any quirky laundry room projects?  Don't you think it is the one place where you almost feel like you can get away with something a little more out of the norm because it is really only you that sees it?  I can't wait to explore all my color options when we move to the new house..It will be my little "office" so to speak so I am hoping to step out of the box with color there.  But until then this little project helps keep me from being annoyed at the blank wall!

this project was linked to the fabulous parties on the right sidebar and since I need to update my list..

these great blogs too!

Craftomaniac

Making the world Cuter

The Stories of A 2 Z

Sew Woodsy

Momnivores Dilemma

Green Door Designs

C.R.A.F.T

Between Naps On the Porch

At Home with K

Seeing a Trend Here

I have kitchens on the brain today(mostly because mine is a mess) so I thought I would take my mind off of the mess and into my kitchen inspiration file.  Yes..I have one of those.  I save almost any picture that has something in it that I want to remember or should I say try to imitate in a thrifty way.  Since we are in the very early stages of house planning and honestly have been foreva....I have a pretty good stash of photos of potential kitchen looks.  As I was scrolling through them I definitely saw a trend.  WHITE/GRAY/BLACK

I love it at the moment.

This first kitchen is a bit more rustic than we are but I love the barstools and love the look of old with brand spankin new and can't wait to incorporate more of it into our casa soon.

Again..Rustic...I am always drawn to exposed beams and we plan to have some transom(sp?) windows in the new casa so this caught my eye..Also love the flow...All one big room perfect for all those huge gatherings we have..NOT

But we want to..we really really do...

More exposed beams but white and bright and mod and lovely

Hmm..this one is blurry..but I think this may be the way one wall in the kitchen looks in the new build.  There will probably be doors on either side of the stove wall but with above mentioned "transom windows" above the doors to let light into the room behind the wall(we can't figure out how to get windows in the room behind so transoms and maybe a skylight will have to work.

Love the open shelving here but will I like dusting it...Or maybe I will just ignore the dust..I am pretty good at that now.

Gray Gray what can I say..oh and the stainless farmhouse sink.. so purdy

Another great open space...but I am picturing the light bright space to the left as our sunroom/breakfast nook.

I just like this...great colors, great light..love the black behind the dishes in the glass cabs

One of our main goals when we build is to have a huge island like this...Can you imagine seating 10 at your island..Who needs a table?  Uh oh...I already have one though...(hope the hubs doesn't read this one)..  I will work it in somewhere;)

Another option I am looking into...It is almost like having a window over the kitchen sink but your not as limited to a 'U" or "L" shaped kitchen.

Love how this has my beloved gray but is still warm...

Another more useable "window over the kitchen sink" look

What can I say...White and Dark...I like it.

Big happy island.. Oh and doors on either side of that back wall...This may be more similar to our flow and ceiling heights.

This one is just pretty..more clean lines for a less traditional look in all white.

Way more traditional but I love the open space...

Heavenly windows and great lighting all around

I want to be able to incorporate pieces of real furniture like this in the space as well..And love the glass pendant lights here too.

I have had a crush on this light fixture for a long time and can picture her right over the breakfast table..The colors in this photo are also Oh So Happy!

Clean and classic

Too "farmy" for us but love the windows over the cabinets for some extra light yet with privacy

So there it is.... my dreamy kitchen inspiration folder...It will be interesting to see if it turns out to look anything like any of these(I change my mind a lot)!  Only time and budget (and mood swings) will tell.

All pictures can be found and were linked to via my Kitchen Inspiration file on Pinterest

http://re.pn/b/0cpI