DIY : Cookie Cutter Canvas

First of all, thank you all so very much for your sweet words regarding Little Mister's homecoming!  We are sending you all lots of love and snuggles!

And now for a deviation from all things baby...a DIY!

Before Little Mister arrived we had quite the list of things we wanted to get accomplished.  Clearly we didn't get everything done but we did get quite a few things crossed off the list.

Like things normally go, once we started on one projected that led to another and so on and so on.

One of those projects was painting the nursery and guest bedroom.  We decided then to get new carpet.  The nursery used to be Floyd's room (please don't bring it up, he is very sad about losing his room) and I knew I wanted new carpet in there to get rid of his hair and dander.

We decided to paint before we installed new carpet.  By we I mean Mister because I was pregnant and couldn't...darn :)

However we did discover this paint sprayer and while the prep work is a lot, Mister painted an entire room in less than an hour.  (I will say, if you're looking for a gift for hard to shop for man in your life, this would be a great one!)

From there you know how home improvement projects go...once the guest room was painted we wanted a new comforter for the bed and new artwork for the walls.

Well some of you may remember this post by Mister and the canvas he painted.  

We decided we wanted to revamp it and use it in the guest room.

We went back and forth on how/what should be on the canvas.  We knew wanted something easy to do but also a little abstract.  After some Pinteresting we came across the idea of using a cooking cutter dipped in paint and applied on the canvas.

 Hello genius idea.
With SUCH a simple idea, the options are really limitless.  I think it would be so fun to do one of these for a kids bathroom or nursery.  I love the idea of doing the reverse of what we did and doing a dark canvas with white cookie cutter design.

To begin, Mister painted the canvas white so we had a blank slate and then we decided our basset hound cookie cutter seemed most appropriate for our project.

(Can you spot the actual basset?)

This was seriously one of the easiest DIY projects ever

and huge props to Mister for doing it all! Including EVEN going to Hobby Lobby and picking up the supplies!

Now it's hanging in the guest room and it makes me chuckle every time I see it.

 Yes, we really are that crazy of basset people :) 
I just love the way this turned out.
It's subtle enough to be hilarious to us. 

I am planning on a nursery and guest room tour and you can see the canvas in action!

Weekend Wrap Up : Spring Spruce Up

This weekend was all about doing a little sprucing up around our house.

Friday I finalllly finished my puzzle.  I was dorkishly overjoyed.  On to the next one!

We made a simple dinner of buffalo turkey burgers and watched The Intern.

Saturday I got bootcamp out of the way and then Floyd had an appointment with a trainer. 

It is on our 2016 list to get him a little bit of help and this was the first step.  We've known for a while that Floyd is extra anxious and we were able to confirm that this weekend after speaking with the trainer.  It absolutely breaks my heart that he's anxious BUT she gave us some really great suggestions and things to work on.  I plan on keeping a record and sharing some of the tips we are trying out.  Update on all of that soon but so far so good with what we've implemented.

On to the sprucing up!

I ran to HomeGoods (always dangerous) and picked up a new mirror and shelf for our guest room.  I had been wanting to update both of those things and HomeGoods happened to have both #meanttobe 

I wanted the shelf to serve a decorative purpose but also be able to hold my necklaces.  The one I found fit the bill!

While Mister was installing our new ceiling fan (he is rockstar!) I hung up the new mirror and he helped me with the shelf.  

(please don't judge my scarf situation...)

I am so happy with the way they turned out! 

We rested up with a movie and popcorn after everyone's big day.

Sunday I was able to sneak in another long run, this time without all the wind.  I did 8.5 miles, longest run in a long time! I am hoping to keep upping the mileage as much as I can.  However just thinking that makes me crave a massage. 

DIY Sofa Pillows

When we updated our rug awhile ago I immediately knew I no longer liked our pillows (welcome to life with a designer).  I had casually been looking for new ones but could not land on anything I liked.

Then one magical day at Home Goods I found these huge orange and white polka dot ones for $16.99/each and they came home with me.  

But then I was stuck.  I didn't like the new pillows with old but I could not find any others that were what I was looking for.

Then it dawned on me...why not just make mine own?  I had the forms from the original ones and knew I could come by fabric pretty inexpensively.  So off to JoAnn's I went.

I picked up three very different but coordinating fabrics for about $25.  

 Then I scoured Pinterest for a simple and quick pillow tutorial.  I've made pillows before but I wanted to make ones with an sham like aspect so they could easily be washed. 

I followed this pin to a 'T' (adjusted for my sizes) and got to sewing! 

 Thankfully these came together quite quickly.  The sewing was easy and I was able to finish them in one evening sitting.  And just like that, our sofa had a bread new look.

I really love them and the pop of color the white adds.  

It just goes to show that something as easy as new pillows can breathe new life into an old space.

Any questions, just ask! 

Candy Cane Lane

While I would LOVE to have a mantel on our first (main) floor to decorate and hang stockings, that is just not how our house is set up.  However, as soon as we had our new table I knew was going to DECK IT OUT for Christmas. 

And that is exactly what I have done. 

Even better it was taken up an extra awesome notch thanks to ProFlowers! 

These Candy Cane Lilly are just what we needed to round out our holiday tablescape.  I am already dreaming of how to reuse those vases too.  

And the fresh greenery is just what we needed in the house to make us feel like we have a live tree!

Have you ever seen such pretty lilies?! I didn't even know candy cane lilies were an option in life.  I have really been missing out.

Lucky for you ProFlowers has offered up a few coupons for you to help decorate your Christmas mantle or tablescape!  Or how about sending a beautiful arrangement to a friend or loved one to spread some Christmas cheer?  Who doesn't love coming home to flowers?!

DIY Wine Shelf

When we redid the kitchen we knew there was a chance we would lose our wine cabinet over the fridge.  We attempted to reuse it but our new cabinets were slightly wider and it ended up not fitting/nor was it really worth modifying in order to save it.

So, I decided we would do what any logical people do and just build one...you know, we hadn't had enough DIY lately ;)

The concept was simple, I wanted a shelf with a solid back and dividers to hold bottles.  Simple enough.  

We had built similar shelves that live behind our dining table and we constructed it in a similar fashion and added the slots for the bottles.

Supplies needed (depending on your span)

(1) 3/4" x 4" x 8' board 

(1) 3/4" x 12" x 8' board

long screws

power screwdriver 

stain

We measured out how long we wanted the shelf and took into consideration the width of wine bottles in order to determine how much wood we needed.  We had Lowes cut our boards down to the sizes we wanted.  I believe those are the board sizes we purchased but I could be slightly off.  You could certainly make the dividers shorter but we wanted to be able to stack two bottles in each slot.  We wanted the base and sides to be approximately 12" deep to line up with the adjoining cabinets.

Assembly:

Once the pieces were cut, I stained them all front back and sides and let dry.

Once dry we took the two larger pieces and held them together so they formed an 'L' and drilled those together.

Then we attached the side pieces.  Drilled those from the back and the bottom to make sure they were secure.

From there, after some math skills, we placed the next divider in the middle of the remaining area and then divided those sections equally.  We used two screws for each of these boards to drill through the back.  We also screwed one up from the bottom so that the dividers did not wiggle.

From there we measured where on the wall we wanted the shelf to hang (far enough above the fridge but not so high that I couldn't reach it!  Gotta be able to reach my wine, duh!!

We love the way it turned out!

Sans waiting for the stain to dry, this was a very quick DIY with a big impact.  I love the contract of the rustic type wood next to our new cabinets.

Friendsgiving

Since having our kitchen all wrapped up, we had been wanting a good excuse to show it off.

With the holidays around the corner, we had the idea to throw a Friendsgiving.

And I am SO glad we did.

We all know I love my meal plans and this was the ultimate meal to plan.

I had so much fun researching recipes, making one million lists, prepping the house and learning how to cook a turkey.  (I went to a class at Williams Sonoma that was extremely helpful.)  

We decided we would handle the turkey, stuffing, gravy and drinks and we had our friends bring the other items.  It worked out really well and (selfishly) helped me not to be too stressed out.

I spread out the prep over 2 days to keep my stress down and our kitchen a little less of a disaster.

I took a 1/2 day on Friday and made the brine then brined the turkey, made cranberry relish, prepped for the stuffing and made 3 desserts and set the table.  (You may see a theme that I went a little beyond my menu list for myself.  I couldn't help it!)

Because of the prep work I had put in, Saturday ended up not being too stressful and I was able to enjoy the day and finish whipping up our feast!

Surprisingly the turkey was not all that difficult.  I had picked up a 15lb bird and we cooked him for about 3 1/2 hours and he was good to go!  

Our stove has an internal thermometer and that was immensely helpful.  

My sidekick was also helpful.  He kept a close eye on that bird for me.

I love hosting and feeding our friends and my heart just about burst out of my chest when we sat down to eat. 

 It warms my soul to have friends that we love, cherish and are thankful for to be all together in our home.

We had a really, really fun night and all went to bed happy and with full bellies.

Floyd was over served...with turkey and had to carried for bed.

I am ready to do it again next year! 

The Muddy Paws Effect + Giveaway

While we all love and adore Floyd, homeboy makes a mess.

Those huge ol chunky paws of his, while smelling of fritos, carry a lot of dirt on them.

Our carpets, stairs and sofa catch the brunt of it.

I do my best to stay on top of it but he is sneaky and once and awhile you just need a deep, deep clean.  

With the holidays (and friends giving) approaching, this past weekend was the perfect time to whip the house into shape.  Once I started I could not be stopped.

Thankfully this Bissell ProHeat 2x Revolution Pet showed up on our doorstep recently.  

Floyd was ecstatic.

and then he heard something outside

But really, he was stoked and very very helpful.

Soon no surface was safe in our house but I started with our bedroom.
We have sort of light carpet on there and someone in this house wakes up in the night to puke often.  This combo is not ideal.

I am very, very happy to report that the Bissell ProHeat 2x Revolution Pet totally got the stain out!

Next up were our stairs...these were in serious trouble.
Thankfully, my right hand man was not too far behind.

Such a slave driver.

Then it was on to the major culprit in our house...the sofa.
We try to deep clean our sofa a couple of times a year but we have slacked on that a little.  We LOVE the way it looks and feels after and really should do it more often.  We often put it off because it is such a tedious process.  However with the Bissell ProHeat 2x Revolution Pet it went SO quickly! I was so impressed and so pleased with the way it turned out.

Supervisor on duty.

The cleaner is so lightweight that it made using it a breeze.
I choose to go with the deep clean + antibacterial option to make sure I was getting all of the dirt and grime out of the sofa.
The dry time was also a bonus...only a few hours!

(P.s. you are also getting a sneak peek at the new pillows I made!  DIY and reveal soon!)

And the best news of all is that for every purchase of the Bissell ProHeat 2x Revolution Pet, Bissell with donate $10 to the Bissell Pet Foundation to help America's homeless pets! #yes

But wait, there's more!
Bissell is offering two product bundles (including a Bissell ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet and Bissell Deep Clean + Antibacterial formula) as a giveaway. 2 winners will be chosen at random across all communities.
To enter, leave a comment (and your email address) telling us what your favorite cleaning tips for the holiday season.

Kitchen : How to Live Without a Sink

I've alluded a few times to the fact that during the kitchen renovation we were living without a sink.

But until you actually do it, I am not sure anyone quite grasps what that means.  We sure didn't.

I mentioned that our countertops took way longer than we originally thought which was the major player in this unfortunate way of living for awhile.  Regardless, it was not super fun but it was an adventure.

It definitely takes some adjusting. 

You know when you're cooking and you drop a crumb or crack and egg and go to toss it in the sink  Yeah nope, can't do that.

You know when you're cooking with raw meat and need to wash your hands quickly

Yeah none of that either.  

You know when its easier to just throw everything in the dishwasher.

Nope not that either.

Alas, we survived and I will share our knowledge with you!

(sweet, sweet sink and faucet)

I would also like to pat ourselves on the backs because sans being out of town, we only ate out twice the entire time.  

1.  Become friends with your neighbors

Thankfully we are besties with our neighbors and they graciously offered up their sink and dishwasher MANY times to us.  We are forever indebted.  I gave Alexis a gift basket at the end of our adventure full of hand soap, dishwasher detergent and all the goodies we had used up at their house.

2.  Grill

We grilled A LOT.   We love grilling so it wasn't a huge deal but it was definitely more frequently than we usually do.  Let's just say we ate a lot of turkey burgers.

3.  Get a dishpan

We had a dishpan of dirty dishes in constant rotation to be washed down the street or in the tub.  It was nice to have somewhere to corral all of our dirty dishes. 

4.  Crockpot

Along with grilling, we crock potted a lot.  I did my best to find recipes that did not require a lot of ingredients or prep work.  Not only was it easier, it lessened the nights I needed to cook.  

5.  Paper and plastic

Generally I really hate paper plates.  I think they are so wasteful and fall apart.  But during all of this I had to give in.  We (regretfully) used quite a few (that I then recycled), plastic silverware and plastic plates that could be later washed and reused.  The plastic plates and bowls were easier than banging our good dishes around.  

I am still not quite sure how we survived but we did but I will be happy to not do that again.

I am obsessed with our new sink so the wait was almost worth it.  

I am planning on a post soon with all the specific details of each item but for now our sink is from here if you're in the market. 

Kitchen : During

Oh my my the during process.

(If you need to catch up on the kitchen process you can do that here.)

I knew our kitchen would be out of commission for awhile.  And I was prepared for that (for the most part) as was Mister.  But it's never easy to fully comprehend until you are in the middle of it. 

For the most part it was okay.  There were definitely some trying times.

But let me back up to where I last left off.

I came home on the day of the install to one cabinet door short of mass chaos.  Turns out the installers had been using the wrong drawings all day and were convinced they had a large majority of the wrong cabinets.  No one bothered to call me to confirm or deny this so its a good thing I came home when I did.  Once I got them straightened out we were on the right path.  By the end of day one they had most of the boxes built.  

By the end of day two they had everything built, hung on the walls and attached.  

They came back the following day for a few more items. Then we said toot a loo and went along our merry way.

UNTIL (there's always a but isn't there?) we noticed they had mistakenly BURNT our wood floor. 

Oh yes.  

The tracks Ikea uses to hold the cabinets on the wall are metal, which need to be cut to size.  They must have brought a few tracks in while they were still hot and the hot metal dripped on the floor.  Clearly they did not mean to but ugggh not fun.  

Thankfully they were more than happy to come back and fix it.  It was a good thing they did because in the mean time we discovered they had added an extra (unnecessary) filler on our wall cabinets and everything had to be moved down...1".  Yep 1 stinkin inch.  But it had to be done because if not our fridge would not fit properly.  

So to do this they had to cut the metal track in the house (because it was already attached to the wall).  I walked into our kitchen to see this 

I couldn't breathe.

Something about seeing sparks flying through your house is not the most comforting thing.  

Once all of that was settled we were in business as much as we could be.

The countertop installers came a few days later to template and then we waited.  And waited.  And waited for 4+ weeks for our countertops to be actually installed.

Sounds fun, right?

During this time we somehow managed to function without countertops.  We borrowed plywood from the neighbors and got by for awhile with that for the most part.  I was even crazy enough to have a dinner party in the midst of all of that.  Turns out if you put a table cloth on plywood it doesn't look half bad. 

Which leads to me living without a sink...coming up on the next post!

Kitchen : The Before Process

Now that we've seen the final kitchen product and how we budgeted for it...let's go back to the beginning. 

How did this whole process begin?

This alllll started because we wanted new countertops.

However, I refused to put new countertops on our, not so great, cabinets.  I knew better than to do that.  

We had grazed the idea of Ikea cabinetry in passing and finally decided to give it a go once they came out with their gray Bodbyn line.  We saw it in person and were in love.

Ikea offers a design process that involves a designer coming to your house, measuring, drawing your plans and placing the cabinets in said plan...all for a fee.  Being as I have a design degree and have experience with kitchens, we bypassed this and saved a few dollars.  

Ikea also offers a design program on their website where you can place your measurements, walls, windows etc and plop in their cabinets.  I will say, this is not the easiest program to use.  So Ikea if you're listening, it's time to work on that program.   It's doable but it is a little trying.  

Thankfully the Ikea staff at the store was very helpful when we pulled up our plans there.  Like with all kitchen designs, ours took a few revisions and advice from their staff on which exact cabinets to use in places.  But overall, it was a terribly painful process.

Once we were all set we headed off to Ikea and bought cabinets!!!

Proof that we actually did it!

We were scared but elated for the new project!

(Like I said, we staggered our costs and bought our countertops on a separate trip.)

A few weeks later they delivered all of our cabinets.

In one million, small, narrow boxes.

There's our kitchen!

The next step was to get rid of the old kitchen.

I used a company that operates as a job training program that teaches their employees how to carefully remove and reinstall cabinetry/tops/sinks, etc.  They also have a store front where you can purchase these goods for reuse.  I loved this concept and the company and was more than happy to use them.  Plus they were in and out in no time flat.

They literally took everything.

No seriously, everything.

And then we lived like this for almost a week...
The demo happened on a Friday and install was supposed to start that Monday.
The Thursday before I received a call that our local install team that Ikea partnered with and whom we had been communicating with, had severed ties.  They quickly followed that up with the fact that they were flying a team in from Florida to install our kitchen asap.  Regardless, we were delayed a few days which led to a few more delays which I will get in to next time.

So that's the before...next time we will venture into the during and then the after.  And a whole separate post focused on how it is truly possible (with some help) to live without a kitchen sink for two months.

Any questions, just ask! 

Budgeting for a Kitchen Remodel

Earlier this week I revealed our kitchen renovation!
Thank you thank you everyone for your wonderful comments!
We are still oohing and ahhing over it ourselves and so happy to share it with everyone!

Like with most things in life, these great things come with a price.

And while our kitchen remodel would have been more enjoyable had it been free, we were able to save money here and there and still afford to eat.

Considering my career (interior design), I ventured into this project with quite a bit of background knowledge and insight (but there is always more to learn).

Luckily for you, I am here today to share a bit of that knowledge with you and a few money saving tricks we used!

1.  Make it matter

A kitchen renovation/remodel (or any renovation for that matter) is generally a big and worthwhile investment for your home.

It is important to evaluate if a renovation you are looking at is beneficial for your home. 

For example we could have gone with full custom, highly detailed cabinetry for our kitchen. 

But for one, we cannot afford that and two, neither can our house or neighborhood.  

Whenever we do leave our current house, we would have not gotten our money back.

2.  Keep it simple

One way to keep costs down during a renovation or remodel is to keep the plans simple.  Once you get into moving walls, electrical, plumbing, etc the costs automatically creep up, quickly.

The layout of our kitchen is is what it is.  We were not interested (nor had the option) of moving walls or changing the floor plan in the kitchen.  We kept the layout the same and only swapped out the type of cabinets in a few areas.  This saved us a tremendous amount of dollars.

3.  Plan 

As I mentioned on Wednesday, we started thinking about this project months before it actually happened.  Large home projects usually require large amounts of money.  Mister and I knew this was on the horizon at some point so we began saving early on to help the costs not be such a big hit.  While I am not a proponent of building up credit card debit, I am a believer in using those cards to get points and then automatically paying them off in order to get points/rewards for later on.

4.  Space it out
If you can space out your purchases, it makes biting the bullet a little easier.
We staggered buying our cabinets, tops, faucet/sink and tile over a few months.  We would make one big purchase, pay it off and move on to the next.  This helped the costs not seem like such a tornado through our finances.  We caught wind that the cabinets that we wanted were going up in price so we purchased those but then had to wait about 4 weeks for them to be installed.  While we wanted everything done asap, this helped us save money.

5.  DIY (and lean on your friends)
While Mister and I knew that installing the kitchen ourselves was not an option (not even one that needed entertaining) we knew there were some areas we could tackle.  We are semi handy and love DIY around the house.
 One area in particular was the backsplash.  While we could have paid someone to install it, we figured we could do it ourselves and save a few dollars.  And dollars we saved!
We purchased the tile online from Overstock and were able to save quite a bit.  We also found the majority of our tiling tools on sale at Lowes.  And the most helpful was that our neighbor lent us his wet saw #majorsavings
Think about what you can tackle on your own and go for it! I feel even more proud of our kitchen now knowing that our blood, sweat and yes, tears went into it.

Overall we enjoyed the kitchen renovation process and love sharing about it.  Let me know if you have any questions!

I am linking up with Kait today to talk all things budget...head on other there to see some more fabulous budgeting advice!