Weekend project: decorating with reclaimed wood
A few weekends ago, we did a little home renovation that had a big impact, adding a reclaimed wood frame to our giant map and some shelves to an awkward alcove on the side of our fireplace. This is how the alcove looked first. It was an awkward space that was left after tearing down the wall to open the kitchen into the living room. There were some pipes in the wall that had to stay, so we were forced to build this little drywall box to hide them. We weren't sure what to do with it. We . . .
Design Dilemma: decorating our bedrooom
After living here for nearly a year, our "fixer" is nearly fixed. We've remodeled and finished every room in the house with one exception: our bedroom. It's a little sad, seeing as this is supposed to be our place of respite and sanctuary. But in our home, it's the room that has been aesthetically neglected. I started out with the best of intentions, choosing a nice celery green for the walls with big plans to work around that color. Except that the color I chose was less . . .
BEFORE & AFTER: converting our garage into an office/playroom
It’s been several months since we moved into our new house but we have just finally finished converting the garage into an office/playroom. I have been working for home for 7 years now and this is the first time I’ve ever had a dedicated office space. Sure, it’s technically the garage . . . but home prices in Southern California are at a premium, which means that we have to use every square inch of space that we’ve got. Here is a quick look at what it looked like before, and how it looks . . .
DIY swimsuit drying rack
This little hack for drying swimsuits may seem like a no-brainer, but the concept eluded me until this summer. We used to throw wet swimsuits over the shower curtain rod, which meant that the suits dripped into the bath but also out onto the floor. The other issue with this technique is that the kids could not reach their own swimsuits, and since they were in and out of their suits all summer it became frustrating for all of us that they required assistance to retrieve their suit. A . . .
Win your own interior designer: a Box of Design giveaway!
If you have always wanted to hire a professional design but it’s been out of your price range, you are going to love the concept of Box of Design. Interior designer Hillary Nichols started Box of Design with the mission to make design accessible and affordable. Here’s how it works: Hilary let me try her services with my living room, and I can’t tell you what a help it was for me. I love design, but I have never worked with a designer before. I tend to get a bit paralyzed in the . . .
Painting a piano (before and after)
It’s been over a year since I bought our piano (a $100 score at a local Goodwill – you can read about that adventure here). I had every intention of painting the thing, but as life happens, it never got checked off the to-do list. Once we moved into the new house, I was determined to get it painted, once and for all. But indecision about the color put things on hold (again). I couldn’t decide between bright yellow or turquoise blue. Or green? A simple search of painted pianos yielded so many . . .
I am a composter and so can you! (composting for beginners)
If you’d asked me a couple years ago about composting, I would have assumed it was a fringe thing that hippie mamas in Birkenstocks did. Storing your trash and turning it into soil just seemed so . . . granola. Way too granola for this city dweller. But then I visited my sister-in-law Jodie in Seattle, and noticed a small little container on her counter that she used to collect composting items. She showed me how it worked and really demystified it for me, and suddenly I saw it as . . .
design dilemma: choosing a kitchen window treatment
Okay, I am bringing another design dilemma to the table, because it seems that any decisions revolving around design tend to put me into paralysis mode. This one involves finding a fabric to use for window shades in the kitchen. I’ve been searching fabric options obsessively (my apologies to anyone following me on Pinterest) and I just need to make a decision already. Here is a picture of my kitchen. As you can see, there are two windows, one above the sink and one on the door, and they . . .
THE KITCHEN: before and after
I’ve been putting off posting pictures of the house because, while we’ve been living here for a bit, there is still so much to do. But I thought I would share the before-and-after photos of our kitchen since it is technically done. I still need to “dress” the kitchen. We need window treatments and a backsplash and some accessories to tie it all together. But the bare bones are there, and I’m really please with the result. I posted last year about how much trouble I was having choosing the . . .
design dilemma: to paint or not to paint
Alright, folks, I’m once again coming to you with a design dilemma . . . this time, about painting the fireplace. A few months ago I wrote about all of the different options for our fireplace, and due to the fact that we have basically run out of money, it looked like painting the thing was our only option. When we first bought the house, I felt like the fireplace was a huge eyesore in the middle of a dark and dingy house. Since that time, though, we have opened up walls, painted . . .