Deck the Halls

Our Christmas decor hasn't changed much since last year. I did a silver, white and light blue color scheme in the living room and bright red and green in the kitchen.

We had to put our tree in a different spot this year since we have a new bookcase where the tree used to go (I promise I'll show you our living room progress someday), but we found a spot for it and I had fun decorating the bookcase as well.

Let's start with the outside.

One of my favorite things is making our front door wreath with live greenery every year. My grandma taught me how to do it and it's one of my favorite parts of our decor. We don't have a live tree anymore, so I love still being able to smell that wonderful Christmas tree smell as we walk in the door.

And now the living room.

Now on to the dining room.

And the red and green kitchen.

This card holder was my DIY project this year. I've been wanting a Christmas card holder since they won't all fit on our fridge (since our fridge is true stainless steel, the front of it isn't magnetic, so we only have a little square on the side where we can hang stuff). I couldn't find a card holder I liked so I decided to make one.

We had this old barnwood frame laying around, so I tacked on some ribbon and used mini clothespins to hang the cards. I originally wanted a regular white frame, but the barnwood really grew on me. (Plus it was f-r-e-e free.)

The card holder is packed to the max now, so I might have to go even bigger next year! I'm not complaining though because one of the things I love most about December is checking the mailbox to find Christmas cards waiting for me.

So that's a peek inside at our Christmas decorations. I have ONE LAST Christmas present to buy and a few more to wrap and then I'm DONE! It'll be here before we know it!

New Chandy

Remember when I showed you our dining room, but said it wouldn't quite be complete until I replaced the non-matching chandelier?

Well we finally got around to it.

I was really coveting the Restoration Hardware chandelier, and it did eventually go really really on sale, but it was still over $300, and once I saw it in person I wasn't sure that the crystal arms were really what I was looking for.

We settled on this guy from Lowe's:

Even though it was a special order item, it was REALLY affordable. As in $130. I was able to sell our old chandelier (which is still selling at Lowe's for $175) for $90 on Craigslist, so I basically upgraded our chandelier for 40 bucks. Not bad at all.

Lee absolutely hates this chandelier. Not sure why, but I'm really happy with it. And we all know that's all that matters.

Master Bathroom Redo

Considering I showed you our master bedroom redo back in March, it's high time I showed you the master bathroom, which was completed at the same time.

First, the befores. While our bathroom has great bones (I mean look at that shower), the decor basically consisted of builder beige paint, a grody bath mat from Lee's old apartment, and a hodgepodge of towels:

We stuck with the Silver Sage paint that we used in the bedroom, but instead of oil rubbed bronze and tan/beige accents, I wanted the bathroom to feel spa-like with brushed nickel, chrome (yes! the two can co-exist) and white.

Now for the afters:

Again, living in the space for a year and a half before decorating helped us know what we needed. First, we had NO useable towel bars. We had one towel bar over the tub, i.e. NOT convenient. We got into the habit of hanging one towel on the back of the closet door (so it never fully dried) and draping the other over the half wall. So the first thing we bought for the new bathroom was a nice chrome double towel bar.

We also needed a bath mat for the double vanity. One regular sized one wouldn't work, and neither would two squished together. This one was a splurge but it was worth every penny. I love it.

We changed out all of the builder-grade towel bars (hand towel bars, toilet paper holder) to match the double towel bar. We also replaced all of the outlet and light switch covers with sleek brushed nickel numbers. Those small (although not cheap) upgrades really make a big difference in the overall feel of the bathroom.

Finally, we added a clock, so I always know how late I am for work when I'm getting ready.

So now for the deets:

• Paint: Restoration Hardware Silver Sage
• Outlet & light switch covers: Lowe's
• Towel bars: Home Depot
• Bath mats: Restoration Hardware Reversible Bath Rugs in Silver Sage
• Towels: Fieldcrest by Target
• Clock: Gift
• Vanity Accessories: Bed, Bath & Beyond
• Soap & Lotion: Restoration Hardware
• Wire Tub Basket: Wal-Mart

Six months later we're still loving the upgrade, although I wish the bathroom was always as clean as it is in these pics. A girl can dream, right?

Office Project Numero Uno: Worktable

After realizing that I didn’t want to spend more than about $30 on a worktable for my office, and realizing that $30 will barely by you one leg of a table, I found this beauty in the Dairy Barn on our family farm and decided to make her mine:



Once we got her home we realized she was in pretty rough condition. Lee got to work sanding the table down and cut off a few inches of each leg because they were dry-rotted a bit at the bottom. One whole leg had to be replaced completely, but Lee made one to match almost perfectly.

Even with sanding though, the top of the table still had a layer of grime on it. You see, the Dairy Barn was not used for the purpose you would think – milking cows – at least not since I’ve been alive. It was used for cooking greasy delicious meals of greasy BBQ, fried fish, BBQ chicken, fish stew and greasy hushpuppies. And the table still held a bit of that deliciousness from every one of those meals:



(The left side is the original table top, the right side is sanded with still a bit of grime hanging around.)

I didn’t necessarily want a film of grease on my worktable, so what do to? Enter: the pressure washer.

These days, Lee’s answer for everything is the pressure washer, and I have to say it worked miracles. Ten minutes later, grime was gone and it was time to move on to painting and sealing.

The bottom legs got a fresh white coat of paint and the top was left as natural wood with about 20 coats of Deft sealant.

So here she is now:





Not bad for the cost of a can of Deft, huh? (We already had the white paint lying around.)

Although most of our furniture is more contemporary, I’m finding myself drawn more and more to the vintage / farmhouse / cottage look. I was a bit worried about mixing the two styles but I think everything is going to come together nicely. Fingers crossed.

Office Introduction

I mentioned last week that I finally started to clean out our loft, which serves as my office slash craft space. Although in reality it has mostly been serving as storage for leftover wedding crap and boxes of scrapbooking supplies that I don't use anymore.

The loft really is a cool space -- as you walk upstairs it's off to the right and has a half wall that looks down over the living room. It's a big space though, big enough to be a bedroom, and has a large walk-in closet.

And now I'm on a mission to make it a space that is actually functional.

Although I don't scrapbook much anymore (because I'm now leaning more towards super quick and easy photobooks), I still love being creative and need a space for working on random crafts, wrapping presents, and scheming my next home design project.

Here's a glimpse of where the loft was a couple of weeks ago:

Not an ideal space for productivity or creativity.

Again, living with this mess for a year and a half has given me a pretty good idea of what I'd like in this space. So, here's the wish list:

- A large worktable for craft projects

- Lots of storage for books and magazines, craft supplies, and wrapping supplies

- Storage/organization for the closet

- Curtains

- A table fan (because it gets hot up here in the summer)

- Possibly a little sitting/reading area

I'm convinced that having all of my supplies nice and organized and a nice blank workspace (without having to run downstairs to the dining table to wrap a present) is going to be super inspiring. We'll see.

So, now that you know the plan, I'll be posting small projects along the way and will keep you up to date on the progress.

Tune in tomorrow for the first installation: Project Worktable.

Bedroom Makeover

The second room in our house that I'm willing to declare complete is our master bedroom. It underwent a serious makeover over Christmas break and now that I'm looking back at the Before pictures, I think it's safe to say that it was a long time coming.

Oprah always says that your house should "rise up to meet you." I'm not entirely sure what that even means, but I am sure that our bedroom was NOT rising up to meet us. Here are some befores:

See what I mean?

When we moved in, we transferred everything I had in my apartment bedroom into the master. Which left us with only one nightstand -- eventually Lee got sick of that and repurposed a TV tray as his nightstand. Pitiful, right? And while I loved the Nautica Highland bedding in my apartment, it just didn't scream "warm and cozy master bedroom retreat" when we put it in our house. Oh, and one whole wall adorned with nothing but a Tupperware tub and a $10 mirror? Niiiiice.

Our first order of business was installing crown molding. We thought it would be a simple little project that would be fun to tackle.

Umm, WRONG. I'll spare you the gory details but let's just say there was lots of math and ladder-climbing involved. But two days and lots of curse words later, the crown molding was successfully installed.

Painting was another two day project (we did the bathroom as well) but it was actually pretty enjoyable. Then came the really fun part -- playing with all the new stuff we had bought and seeing it all come together. Here's where we ended up:

I'm actually glad it took us so long to get around to decorating our bedroom because it gave us time to live in the room for over a year and see what we needed to make it functional. We knew we needed a proper nightstand for Lee and more dresser space (luckily Rooms to Go still carries this furniture line so we just ordered the two new pieces). And I also knew that I wanted a chair or bench in the room as I was having to go into the living room every morning to put my shoes and socks on.

And although I was opposed to having a TV in the bedroom, living in our house for a year with only one TV downstairs totally convinced me that we needed another. I'm so happy that we made that decision -- I love watching the news in there every morning and banishing Lee to the bedroom TV when I want to watch something on DVR other than Survivorman. Plus, we were able to mount it on the wall and Lee worked his magic to relocate the cable and electrical outlets so there were no messy cords hanging down, so I think it looks pretty chic in there.

Here's a rundown of the goodies we used:

• Wall paint: Silver Sage, Restoration Hardware
• Furniture: Rooms to Go Valencia collection
• Chair: Dolce Lounge Chair by Target
• TV: 32" Sony BRAVIA
• Duvet cover, euro shams, boudoir sham: Italian Antiqued Floral in Eucalyptus, Restoration Hardware
• Regular shams: Diamond Matelasse in Silver Sage, Restoration Hardware
• Lamps: Target
• Curtains: Bed, Bath & Beyond
• Curtain hardware: Lowe's
• Orchid, candleholder: Target
• Candle: Restoration Hardware
• Mirror: Home Goods
• Light switch plates and outlet covers: Lowe's

So now, our bedroom not only rises up to meet us, but it gives us a shoulder rub and says "come in, put your feet up, can I get you a glass of wine?"

Now that's more like it, room.