Jewelry dresser

Hey there!

I have wanted a jewelry dresser for some time, Ed bought me a standing jewelry box a few years ago that I outgrew pretty fast. I love jewelry. Brighton is a place I can do some serious damage to our bank account! One evening Ed and I were in Hobby Lobby admiring all the awesome stuff they have when we came upon a wood piece with lots of shallow drawers. I immediately thought "Jewelry storage"! I ran it past him and he agreed it would make a great place for jewelry storage. It was on sale so off we went with our new treasure. 

Isn't it wonderful? The drawers had no liners and I knew I would have to do something to keep the jewelry from sliding all around. I researched trays I could put in the drawers but they were expensive and wouldn't fit all that great. Finally I decided to pick up some inexpensive velvet at Walmart and line them myself. 

Supplies I used:

Velvet like material, from Walmart

glue gun and glue

glue sticks

card board or foam board

foam hair rollers, got mine at Dollar Tree

Cutting mat

cutting tool

straight edge

I picked up some black velvet like material from Walmart and some foam hair rollers from Dollar Tree, I had everything else already on hand until I ran out of cardboard and bought some foam board. Each drawer has a bottom and four sides made of a piece of either cardboard or foam board with velvet wrapped around it. I measure the bottom and sides of each drawer as I went because no two were the same.

I used the glue sticks to glue the velvet to the card/foam board on the front and wrapped the edges around and used the hot glue gun to glue those down on the back. I then hot glued each piece to the drawer itself. 

For the dividers I did the same thing except I wrapped the velvet all around and glued at the bottom. Placing the dividers was tricky so they are not exactly straight. I used hot glut to glue them to the bottom of the drawer on top of the liner. After placing them I also glued the ends in place. 

The ring drawer was a bit trickier. I used foam hair rollers from Dollar Tree and I tried wrapping each one but that did not work out. I ended up gluing the rollers to the bottom of the drawer, getting them in there pretty tightly, and covering them with the velvet making sure to push it between each roller. It was a pain but it works great! 

This was time consuming, there are a lot of drawers but it was well worth it. I have plenty of space left that I am sure will take me years to fill. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Chris

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Grandkids wall

Hey there!

          I know it has been almost 2 months since Christmas but with the house remodel ongoing I have found it hard to find the time to hang much on the walls. I've also been trying to decide what artwork is going to stay and what is going to go. I have lots of stuff from our last two houses and most of it just won't fit here or is no longer something I care to keep. Plus I have acquired (of course!) some new stuff. One of those items our daughter Jessica gave to me for Christmas. 

          I really liked it but after hanging it up realized that it needed something to go with it. After a week or so I decided to add pictures of the grandkids on either side. 

          I absolutely love the way it turned out! It took me some searching to find exactly the frames I wanted for a price that wouldn't break the bank. I got the frames at Walmart, they are Mainstays. Unfortunately they didn't come with mats so I had to buy those separately. And of course Walmart only had white and I didn't want white. I checked Meijer and they didn't have what I wanted either so I headed off to Michael's because I knew they would have what I was looking for. 

          I really should be careful about going to Michael's. I came out with Easter decor and an awesome vintage looking scale for the kitchen as well as the 4 mats for the grandkids photo project. 

          Doesn't that look great? I will change out the photos yearly and keep them all in the frame so we an look back at them one day. Maybe when they get married I will gift the frame and pictures to them. That's a thought. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Chris

TV gallery wall

Hey there! 

For the most part we have kept our television on top of the entertainment center. We did have it hung above the fireplace in our Fort Wayne house but that didn't last long. It hurt our necks to have to look so far up at it. I know many people like them hung up that high but it wasn't for us. 

This is what it looked like at Christmas. It's the only picture I could find to give you an idea of before. 

In this house we decided to go ahead and hang it up so we cold have more space. It doesn't really give us that much more space but it feels that way. Plus we thought it safer with our grandchildren spending so much time here. Ed found an awesome mount that is adjustable in most directions. We can pull the television out straight or turn it one way or the other. It also allowed us to angle it down so it is easier on our necks. We are having a bit of trouble getting it level but that's the only negative so far. 

I knew that decorating the wall around it was going to be interesting so I dug out what pieces I could find that I thought would go well and started working on it. 

Here are some pics I took trying to figure out exactly what I was going to do. 

Please excuse the disgusting beige carpet. I have had it cleaned but it is old and just needs to be removed. Just a few more months and that will be done as well! 

I didn't use all of the items I had been playing around with. When I finally decided where I wanted the ones I would be using I had to fill the holes. Off to Hobby Lobby I went. That place is awesome for this type of thing and it won't break the bank like a lot of other places will. 

Here is what we ended up with (with Easter decor).  

The Dr. Seuss book title above the television is one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books. When I saw that online at Hobby Lobby I knew I had to have it. 

My biggest issue here was working around the thermostat. It's that small black square under the clock. The pieces we had from before are the metal bicycle I bought at Gordman's when we lived in Fort Wayne and the Numbers art and Rare Prints art I made back in 2011 or so. All of the other pieces are new. I found the Be Nice or Leave at Marshall's, This is Our Happy Place at Home Goods, I Can't Adult today and the white tray were from Walmart and everything else including the clock is from Hobby Lobby. I love that store! 

The plan is to replace the entertainment center with a longer, less deep one. We haven't found exactly what we want in our price range so it's likely Ed will build one and I will stain it exactly the color we want. But that will have to wait until we get all of the other stuff we are working on done. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Chris

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Kitchen remodel: Out with the old, in with the new...door

Hey there!

Let's talk about doors. Sliding doors to be specific. I hate them. No. I LOATHE them. Seriously. I know they are cheap to put in and bring in a lot of light compared to a regular door but they are such a pain to deal with. We replaced the slider in our house in Fort Wayne with an atrium door which we were very pleased with so we decided to do something similar here. Ed didn't do it on his own this time, we hired it out and it was much easier and less stressful for all of us that way! 

Here is a picture of the slider while they are working to remove it. 

During installation. 

After installation but before the trim was added. They were nice enough to pick up the trim and paint it in their shop and come back a few days later and put it up. 

And here it is in it's present glory. We will paint the door when we paint the rest of the trim in the kitchen. Baby steps. If we had had the door people pick up the door from Menard's they would have painted the door for us before installation. Lesson learned. 

The door has integrated blinds and we love it! The back of the house faces west so we get a lot of sun through that door. We put a bamboo shade on the end of the pergola last summer and that helps depending on the angle of the sun. But with the integrated blinds we can just shut them and we are done with it no matter where the sun hits. 

And the awesome thing about this door is that it is actually French doors! We can open BOTH doors and let the fresh air in! Now all we need is some nice weather. I hope that groundhog was wrong.  

Thanks for stopping by! 

Chris

Our Georgia House (house number 4)

Hey there! 

I thought I would share our house in Georgia. I know there are a few pics on the blog from that house but not a lot. We lived there a little over a year so we had very little time to do a lot to the house. We actually found out we were moving a few days shy of our 1 year mark. At that point we had to finish up what we had begun and get the house ready to sell. We loved that house. We had no idea how good we had it until we no longer had it. I miss that house a lot. I don't miss living in Georgia but I do miss the house. 

The before pictures are pictures I took before we moved in. The house was still being built when we put in our offer. We got to watch it be finished and changed the carpet in the great room out for wood before we purchased it. We also had the builder add a fence. The after pictures are from the listing. The realtor's photographer did an excellent job. I only added before pictures of the areas we changed. Enjoy!

Details:

3500 sq ft

5 bedroom

4 full bathrooms

3 car garage

upstairs laundry

9 ft ceilings on main floor

You can find the post about some of the work we did here.

Not sure what color the builder painted the house but the rooms we painted were painted Agreeable Grey by Sherwin Williams. The tile in the kitchen was changed to white subway tile with Warm Grey grout from Lowe's. The wood floors were engineered wood put in by the builder. 

We added lighting in 2 of the bathrooms and can lighting in the great room and the master bedroom living area. We also added wainscoting similar to what the builder had put in the dining room to the stairs and the entry hall. We put board and batten up in the breakfast nook. By the way, that breakfast nook was HUGE! It was one of my favorite things about the house, other than the 5 linen closets. Yes, FIVE LINEN CLOSETS. It was awesome. We have 1 now. Kinda sucks. 

I hope you enjoyed this. It was such an awesome house. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Chris

Spring is coming!

Happy President's Day! I am happy to say that my grandchildren are all in daycare now and I can focus on home schooling the boys, our house and the blog. Yay me! 

After this cold and icky winter we have had I am ready for Spring! Since Mother Nature isn't really cooperating I am doing what I can to make it feel Spring like inside. In Spring, usually March,  I switch out our duvet covers. I have a nice thick one from Pottery Barn that we use in winter. Right now it really is too warm and we are in need of something cooler. I have one that I could use but I feel that it is more for summer and I really wanted a white one for Spring. I have had my eye on the white pin pleated ones for a couple of years now and finally decided to take the leap with one I found at Target. I also found some pillow covers that I liked at H&M Home online. Shipping was free with a $40 or more purchase so I ordered 3 covers and 1 insert. I didn't have a 16x16 to fit the chiffon flower cover so I ordered one! The other two covers are 20x20 and I have my IKEA inserts to fit those. 

(Idea board is made of pictures from Target and H&M websites linked below)

I have been itching to add pink somewhere in the house. The living room has a chair with yellow/gold and gray and pillows to match for the sectional. Pink just won't look good in there so the bedroom was the next logical place. I threw in a gray pillow cover for Ed, gotta keep it a little masculine. 

Details:

The Duvet cover is from Target. 

The pillows are from H&M; pink flower, pink color block, gray velvet. 

I am in the process of decorating our room and I am trying to keep most of the decor more neutral because I do change the duvet covers out about every three months or so. I am on the hunt for something to go over our bed. The picture we have now has been above our bed since we lived in Germany. We actually bought it at IKEA while living in Germany as something temporary while we lived there. That was 2003. I think 15 years is long enough and definitely not temporary! The only change I have made to it is that I painted the frame about 6 years ago.  We are long over due for a change. I am thinking old wood window...but we'll see. I will share the room once I get the Spring duvet and pillows on. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Chris

Easy Easter Wreath

 Hey there!

Today I want to share a wreath I made. I had seen a similar wreath shared by someone on FaceBook made using a bunny ear headband and boa around a foam wreath. I had planned to do the same but when I went to Hobby Lobby to buy the materials I found a bunny ear and foot set designed for making a wreath. You can see it here.  It took 3 feather boas, a foam wreath and the ear/foot set and here it is! 

It's nothing fancy but I love it! I want to add a bow but I have yet to find the color pink I want. My daughter suggested adding a face but I like it faceless.

Thanks for stopping by!

Chris

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Catching up

Hello there! It has been a while since I updated. We have been overwhelmed with watching grandchildren during the week and running errands and working around the house on weekends. We have made some progress but nothing is finished just yet. I will post the finished rooms as soon as they are done. 

We ordered our kitchen cabinets from IKEA last weekend! I can't convey how exciting that was. It is a long process but well worth it. They will be delivered in 2 weeks and we will begin the kitchen remodel. We will be doing it in stages with the last stage being done when we return from vacation in May. We are trying to minimize the amount of time we can't use the kitchen. We are also ordering our counter tops from IKEA and I am excited to see how it all comes out! The kitchen sale is not happening right now but we are IKEA family members so as long as the sale is 90 days or less from the day we ordered them we will get a refund. I'm pretty sure the sale will begin soon so we are good. I am hoping they put the counter tops on sale as well so we can order them when we go up to get our refund on the cabinets. 

Here is a picture of the cabinet doors and counter top we are using .

Details: Doors are Bodbyn in off white and gray.

Counter top is Quartz Himalayan Moon. 

This is all so very exciting! 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Chris