Wish Me Luck...

So, I have spent a few months trying to find the perfect side/end tables for our back room. I have wanted something more rustic looking to balance out some other stuff we have going on in that room.  After months of looking online and checking out a few stores I couldn’t find anything I liked. Well I take that back, I found plenty I liked but I didn’t quite think Cody would think it would be a good idea to spend almost $800 on 2 end tables. But I also didn’t want to buy something that I didn’t really like and something that I would get sick of. So I decided I would make them myself. These are the two end tables that I liked the best, but were wayyyy out of my price range.

The first one is from Crate and Barrel and it is $399 per end table! WHAAAATT? I’ll be honest, for that price they should throw in a coffee table and lamp!

The second one is from a really great shopping site called One King’s Lane. I really liked the stain on this one and that it had sides.

So I am hoping I can come up with something in between these in style and color. That’s my big plan for this weekend. You may be wondering what other pieces of furniture I have made? None. But there’s a first for everything. My goal is for someone not to say “Wow, I’m guessing you made those.” But “Wow, where did you get those?” We’ll see. I have already gone to Lowes and priced out the wood I would need. If I never blog about them again, you will know it was an epic fail. Wish me Luck…

Grab your popcorn...

It's movie time! I have had these vintage movie posters stashed away for a long time. I have been so excited to use them somewhere in the house. We thought the back room/sunroom would be the best space to use them in. First because there was a huge blank wall and second because that's where we watch most of our TV/movies and it only makes sense to have movie posters in a room with a TV. Cody and I love old movies. I grew up on old movies and musicals and Cody loves old westerns so we have watched our fair share of them all. I always tell Cody that in my perfect world everyone would sing how they feel just like in the musicals and we would all sound great too...he just looks at me like I'm crazy. I had seen this image awhile ago with really colorful mats and prints and simple silver frames. I knew that's what I wanted to do with mine too!

I ordered all the movie posters off of Amazon. They were only a couple bucks each and since I knew I wanted to do 8 pictures I wanted to try and keep the cost as low as possible. For my mats I headed to good old Hobby Lobby. The hardest part was choosing a complimentary color to go with each mat. The frames will be 16x20 so it will be a pretty big and fun statement in the room. (Sorry the pictures are terrible, they are from my phone) Here they are all laid out on the floor...

I defiantly got the effect that I wanted, colorful but not too crazy. First up we have Rio Bravo and the original Ocean's 11 with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Cody loves John Wayne movies, and can you blame him? He was a pretty cool cowboy....

Pillow talk and Breakfast at Tiffany's. I love Doris Day movies, they are always super cute and cheeky. And can you get any more classic then Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Meet me in St. Louis and the Sons of Katie Elder. I grew up watching Meet me in St. Louis. This is one movie I could watch over and over again and never get tired of it. The Sons of Katie Elder is another classic western and has Dean Martin in it too. Let me just tell you about our love of Dean Martin... He is our favorite singer by far, wayyy better then Mr. Sinatra if you ask me. We own all his variety shows, movies and CD's. And yes I have even read his biography. And Cody's great Grandpa's name is Dean Martin...no joke.

And then we have Guys and Dolls and Singin in the Rain. How can you not love Gene Kelly? And how can you not love a movie that that makes a song and dance out of a gambling session in the sewers like Guys and Dolls and doesn't make it seem weird??

The mats were around $14 each since I had to have them cut to fit each poster. I found a place online that I can get 16x20 poster frames in a matte silver for a reasonable price. I can't wait to get the frames and hang them up. So, if you haven't seen any of these movies I highly suggest that you do so. And hopefully afterwards you will either be running around singing everything or shooting bad guys with your pistol.



Catch Up!

Holy smokes it's been almost a month since I last blogged. I don't know how you Mom's with kids and a  blog do it! All I have is a husband and a dog, and they are pretty low maintenance so I guess I am just a slacker...so it is time for some serious catch up!

Let's start with the basement...it is coming along nicely! We finished the treatment to the paneling and primed and painted it. Our process was pretty simple...we filled in the seams of the paneling then just used drywall mud and went to town. After it dried for a few days we primed it all then painted it. I will say it looks a whole lot different in person.

It's hard to get on camera how textural it is. But when you look at the before pictures...it is quite the improvement!



We are by no means finished with the basement but at least we can mark this job off our list!

This weekend I have plans to overhaul the bathroom down there, paint, new mirror, new counter, shower curtian, the works! I will post about that next week!

We finally got our new couch in our sunroom! It only took like 8 weeks of waiting! But I love it! These pictures are bad but its a really pretty linen.



We also got our new rug. We got it from rugsusa.com. That is the BEST place to get rugs from! This one is an 8x10 and I got it for around $150. They have the cutest patterns too and free shipping!!!

Ok so we still have a lot to do in here. Remember when I showed you the fabric I was going to use for the room and had everything planned out? Well I changed my mind...It's a wonder  I can even decide what to wear every morning! Anyway, This is the plan for curtains in there...I found the stripe fabric and I am going to buy some white curtain panels and add the stripe to those.

I also have 8 vintage movie posters that I am getting mats cut for and will hang above the sofa. I am super excited about those. All the mats are in really fun colors and I think it will had some color to those walls! Here's the lamp I am going to use in there! I am doing the white one and I am thinking of adding some kind of fun trim to the shades! They are from pottery barn.

And in some kitchen related news...We went to Lumber Liquidators to get some flooring samples. We are planning on doing cork in the kitchen/dining/laundry room and hard wood in the hallway and front room (where the fireplace is). I have been reading a lot about cork flooring and I am really excited to use it! We knew we didn’t want tile in the kitchen because it is a much harder surface and I feel like it makes kitchens colder….the hardwood option was also nixed for the kitchen/dining because it would be a whole lot more expensive! The cork is really reasonably priced, it’s softer, and wears the same as hardwood. Here's a sample of one of the cork options.

My process was pretty high tech for choosing the best cork and hard wood options. I ruled out all the hardwood that was over 5$ a sq. foot. I knew I wanted something dark with wider planks as apposed to the skinny kind. Once I found a few hardwood options I liked I laid them with the cork to see what went better with what.

I basically came up with 2 options.  Option one was a speckled looking cork with almost a ridged looking hard wood. I have no idea what the technical term is for that. The second option was a pretty basic bamboo hard wood. The cork almost has a marble effect to it. Here is option 1:

And Option 2:

I am waiting to get the samples of these in the mail so I can see what they look like in our house. We also have to make sure whatever cork we use matches the wood floor we have in the sun room. I am hoping to have pictures of the hall closet makeover I started. Let's just say it turned into a whole lot more of job then I thought it was going to be...

Opinions Please!

So as you can tell by my picture, I obviously did not major in graphic designJ  But, as crazy as this looks it actually helps me visualize what our dresser could look like!

So, here are the options…

1, 2, and 8 are all stencils

3, 4, and 7 are actually fabric samples that I just like the pattern of. So, I would have to replicate these on my own without the help of a stencil.

5 & 6 are what we were initially thinking…just adding some small detail to each drawer by painting an outline of a box or with box filled in.

9 is a little out there but my thought on that was that I am loving the ombre effect lately, with the gradation in color. I could do this to each drawer separately or all the drawers as one (if that makes sense).

Ignore the color on them all too, I was thinking something navy but maybe bringing another color in would be good, or perhaps I should just leave them all white… I defiantly don’t want to make any rash decisions, so even after I decide what I should do I will probably wait to pull the trigger till I finish some other things in the room.

Ok so I now I need your opinion! Which number is your fav??

Mrs. Hubbards Cupboards

Was that a children's story or nursery rhyme? I cant remember...maybe it was neither. I think it is about time to show you the progress we have been  making on our sun room. We started with the room looking like this...

all we did for a while was put up the drywall once we got rid of the paneling and that awkward window. Then we took a long extended break because I couldn't pick out a paint color. Well I finally did. It is Moonshine by Benjamin Moore, and I love it. Once the room was painted we put in the baseboard. We had to buy baseboard and shoe moulding for this room. If we would have just left the baseboard as is you would be able to see a gap between the wood floor and drywall.



So with the baseboard in, we focused our attention to creating a built in look with cabinets. When we looked at this house I saw this room and thought that a window bench/nook with a table would be perfect in the corner. Here were some of my inspirations images all found via pinterest.

I wanted that built in look of cabinets to look like it fit the space and was meant to be there but with room to add a small round table and plenty of pillows for a comfy vibe. I had been searching for something to work in that space for awhile. I tried Ikea, Lowes, and Menards and even thought about building something ourselves. Nothing I found seemed to be exactly right. We were either going to have to take apart something we bought to fit the space or spend a few hundred dollars on cabinets from Lowes. I didn't love either option. So one Saturday morning after a 2 hour long trip to Bass Pro, Cody and I stopped by Builders Warehouse. For those that don't live in the area it is located downtown Peoria in an old warehouse. It has five floors of home remodeling things at super discounted prices. Well, the fourth floor was the gold mine. It was full of unfinished oak cabinets in a variety of sizes. Score! We tried a few layouts with the different sizes of cabinets in the store and found 3 that would work perfectly. Our total came to $116  for all three cabinets.

This is what they looked like unfinished. I forgot to take a picture of all three of them before because I was too excited to get started on painting them. I did a coat of primer then two coats of white paint, the same paint we used on the baseboards.

We ended up take one of the doors off and covering the small opening with a piece of wood for a seamless look. This was before we added any of the molding.

You can see how we brought the baseboard around on the sides and the shoe molding around the whole front of the cabinets. I think that's what makes it look like a custom built in piece.

Lastly all we did was cut a piece of plywood for the top. That will get painted white and we still have a few more pieces of trim to add to cover up the front of the plywood and the corners. That fabric sample is what I am using to make the cushions out of! Here's a better picture of it.

Oh la la! I know this fabric is not every ones cup of tea but I love it! I love all the colors that it has. For curtains I am doing a navy and white strip with a two inch coral band around the edge.

And, I finally refinished a dresser I bought for $15 from the Habitat for Humanity Store. Here is what it looks like now. We are trying to decide what to do with the drawers. We don't know if we should stencil them with a fun pattern or add some lines like I made with the painters tape.



 Here is what it looked like before...



The drawers I painted white and everything else is navy. This is probably what the color really looks like...



So that's where were at. Any suggestions on what we should do with those drawers? Boxes, a pattern, stripes, or paint them navy too?? To many options and I have such commitment issues making paint decisions...