Entry re-do. Or really just "Entry Do."

Since we moved into our house a year ago, I've been wanting to do something with our entryway. You know, like make it look like an actual entryway and not just a short hallway with a door at the end? Plan A was to do board and batten, but I couldn't get away with just doing the batten and painting it white since our walls are textured and that would just look weird. Plan B was beadboard, which I still might do someday, but I wanted something cheaper and easier for now.

A couple weeks ago The Lovely Neighbor Jan and I went to Urban Salvage in downtown Fresno, which is by the way, my new favorite place, and along with a few other things, some of which I have no idea what I'm going to do with, I picked up two sets of shutters. I've been looking for old (cheap) shutters for a year. These, were $2 a pair. SCORE! After bringing them home, I decided that I finally knew what I wanted to do with the entry. Turns out, that one pair of shutters matched the height of an old window I had sitting in a closet. The window used to be in our guest bathroom, but I'd replaced it with something else a little while ago. I painted the window a cream color with some $2 ReStore paint from my paint stash, and then used a dark walnut glaze over it to age it a little bit. The bottom pane used to be a mirror, and the top was just a regular window, but I wanted something a little more functional for an entry so I put the mirror on top, and painted the bottom glass with chalkboard paint. I'd planned on not doing anything with the shutters, but after I got them up, they just didn't look right, so I dry brushed them with some of the leftover grey/blue paint from our bedroom.

The coat hooks I made out of some scrap wood I had in the garage that had come off of a pallet I'd found in a dumpster. In the process of making these I learned how to put in a new blade on a circular saw, and how to use a circular saw. I am woman, hear me roar. Again, I painted them with ReStore paint from my stash. The actual coat hooks I picked up from Lowes for $4 a piece. They're in the doorknob aisle, in case you're ever looking for them. Took me about 20 minutes to figure that one out. Fun fact: The hooks in the bathroom aisle cost 3 times as much as the hooks in the doorknob aisle. (Ok, not fun fact. Just an irritating fact.)

I saw a picture somewhere on Pretty Handy Girl's blog of some similar coat hooks that she'd made and adapted it to what would work for us. Her version had a lot more scrap pieces of wood put together with several hooks. I wanted ours to frame the window, and also have some hooks low enough for the kids to reach by themselves, so I made four individual coat hooks.

The garland came from my bookshelf. I think I've finally found a permanent home for that thing. At least until I decorate for Christmas...

The "Family" thing I found on Pinterest. Well, sort of. They used yarn, I used twine, 'cause I just love twine.

Source: cfabbridesigns.com via Hannah on Pinterest

I wish I had a before picture of the entry, but really, there was nothing, so just close your eyes and pretend like the inside of your eyelids are a light grey/blue color, and you'll get the idea.

If you give a mouse a cookie... (or a light fixture)

Since we moved in to our house, I've wanted to replace the light fixture above our kitchen sink. It would be fine if say, it were still 1980, but (thankfully) it's not. My neighbor confirmed for me today that it is in fact the original fixture, only, it was an upgrade, because hers was just a plain white milkglass, and mine was textured. Wooooooo-wheeee! If I were to try to sell it today, the I would describe it as "art-deco" code word for "ugly." (Sorry all of you art-deco lovers out there. I just don't get it.)

Back to the story. I've been wanting to upgrade it to a pendant light, but didn't want to dish out the moo-la for it. Instead, I've been checking the Habitat Re-Store hoping to find one there. This last trip, I found one! One I actually liked too. Only the mounting plate was missing. I figured I cou go next door to Lowes, and pick one up for a couple bucks, so I went ahead and bought it. I thought wrong.

You see, the light fixture manufacturer hates me. This particular pendant light, is hung on the mounting plate from the sides of the canopy, which means that it needs a special mounting plate. Grrr... While waiting (...and waiting...and waiting.....) for someone at Lowes to help me, I happened to notice in the clearance section that there was a light similar to mine, that had the mounting plate that I needed. Not cool man, not cool- having what I need, but attached to something I don't. When Mr. Lowes Helper Guy told me that he didn't have anything like what I needed, and didn't know where I could get one, I showed him the plate attached to the clearance light that I'd found to explain to him that that is what I need. Mr. Lowes Helper Guy then told me that since I only needed the mounting plate, and not the whole fixture, he could mark down the clearance light from the $13.99 that is was priced at, to just a couple bucks, just for me, and that's exactly what he did.

I thought that now I'd be all set to put up my new lamp. How wrong I was. After taking down my old light, I discovered that the old electrical box in my ceiling was no longer completely in the ceiling. It was hanging out past the ceiling by about 3/4 of an inch, which meant that putting up my light had to wait yet another day.

Yesterday, on my way to the gym, I stopped at OSH (my favorite of the three home-improvement stores because I never have to hunt down a Mr. Helper Guy- they (plural) come to me) to pick up an old work box for the ceiling, and then this morning while William took his morning nap, I put it in, and finally got to put up my new light.

This is what is left of the old box. I broke it out with pliers because that's how I roll. There's probably a better way to do it, but I have, at this point, a limited number of tools, so this is how I do it. Don't worry, I wore gloves since there was insulation falling out of the ceiling. Into my sink.

The new box all put in and flush with the ceiling. Imagine that! As you can see, the ceiling still needs some work. The old light fixture had damaged the ceiling, so I patched that already, but now I need to patch around the box and do the whole spray-the-texture-stuff thing to make it all blend in before I paint it. Oh, and I need to get paint. Minor detail.

The new light, all semi-flush like it's supposed to be. Just think how much better it'll look once I finish painting around the canopy? I left the tag on so that I know what kind of light bulb to get, but after I get one, it'll be coming off. Next kitchen project- painting the cabinets. I'm thinking fall would be a good time for that. You know, when it's below 100 degrees?

New Fruit Bowl

I live a block away from a Target. Problem with living a block away from a Target is that anytime you need a little something, you can just walk (or drive, who are we kidding) over to Target to pick up whatever you need, and of course a little extra, because it's Target. A week ago I needed to get diapers for a baby, or pickles, or maybe it was a light bulb, who knows, but whatever it was, instead of going straight to the light bulb aisle, I had to go check out the "value section," 'cause I'm all about the values. There, sitting up on the top shelf, was this bowl. Well, not JUST this bowl, there were several of them, but this bowl was lucky enough to get to come home with me and get a makeover. Upon arriving to it's new home, it got a couple coats of chalkboard paint on it, and someday, will get some fruit in it. (Why am I getting flashbacks to lessons about prepositions?) After I talk myself into going to the grocery store, or the farmers market, or somewhere that has fruit, we'll actually get to that last step, but for the moment, all of the fruit is in the freezer, and it would probably get pretty messy if I took all that out to put in my new bowl. First of all, because it's a heck of a lot of fruit, and also, because frozen fruit is always messy when it's thawed out, which is why I make smoothies out of it, and don't ever actually thaw it out. Since this post was supposed to be about my new fruit bowl, and not about my fruit thawing habits, I think it's time for me to stop typing. It's also time to stop typing because my two-year-old is eyeing my big glass of iced coffee, and that would be bad if he decided to partake.

Chalk boards, cupboard doors, same thing

Today I have a before and after, but only because I managed to find a "before" picture from awhile ago. It's not like I was patient enough to take a picture of the "before" so you really just got lucky on this one.

The point of this picture, is the big empty space on the far wall. I'm not a fan of empty spaces, but that's not the problem. See that shiny rectangle on the left side of the wall? That's a phone jack. The phone jack that wouldn't be a problem if I could put a phone there. You know, if there were a power outlet anywhere remotely close to the phone jack that I could plug said phone in to. I'm telling you, I'm not sure the designers of this house were all there. After oh, 5 months of living here, I came up with a solution. Something had to cover it up, and also lie flat against the wall so that you wouldn't know that something was being covered up and, whatever was put there, would have to span most of the wall since it's not like it would look normal to just put something over the phone jack. If I did that, someone would probably think, "hey, I wonder what that picture is covering up, and try to look under it or something. Here is my solution-

I headed over to the Habitat ReStore and picked up some cupboard doors, put some chalkboard paint on them, drilled some holes to put some twine through, and hung those suckers up. Noah loves to color on them, so he gets to have his pictures hung up in the dining room.

See, no more phone jack! (Or empty wall.)

Once upon a time, my husband got me coffee...

Once upon a time while riding in the car, I was very very thirsty. I begged and pleaded (ok, so maybe I just mentioned to) my dear husband to pull over and find me liquid. Preferably, cold liquid since the temperature was likely over 100 degrees since this is the central CA valley. In JULY. Anyways, back to my story. My dear husband did indeed pull the car over, and since when he asked me what I wanted I just said "surprise me," it was entirely up to him to decide what I would like best. Well, he knows me well, and returned with a Starbucks Mocha Frappaccino thingy. I think I downed the thing within a minute or so, (except for the couple sips that I saved for him) and then started looking at my empty bottle, and thought about how it must cost them a little more to make a glass bottle than a plastic one...and how that's pretty nice of them, because I, for one, like glass bottles better than plastic bottles- They just feel better. ....and then I thought about how it kinda looked like a giant baby food jar....and how people use baby food jars to store spices in (I promise, there's a point to all this), and how I should do that too, once I start buying baby food for William....and how I had a few big bags of spices that I bought in bulk at Winco, like cinnamon, and cayenne ('cause I use a lot of that to cook with), and ground mustard. At that very moment, right after the ground mustard thought, I knew what I was going to do with my glass bottle- It was going to be a cinnamon shaker.

You see,when my mom made coffee when I was a teenager she'd occasionally sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon on top of the grounds before brewing it. I always make it like that now, and so for the longest time, I've just had a very ugly bottle of ground cinnamon sitting next to my coffee pot, so that Josh, when he makes my coffee for me in the mornings, doesn't have to go looking for it.

I took a hammer and nail and stuck a few holes in the top, and wha-la. Now I have a pretty cinnamon shaker, with the Starbucks logo on the lid, that just so happens to match the logo that's on my Starbucks coffee cup-shaped coffee canister. It all just matches so well!You know you want to try it.... ;)

Before and After

This is the end table I mentioned way back here. I really thought I would have it done before now. Guess I was wrong. Woops. Anyways, it's been painted, received a "something pretty," distressed, and polyurethaned. That's a word, right? Eh, probably not. Here's the after.

This end table/night stand is currently for sale here, and here. Let me know if you're interested!

A small before and after

This is a little metal tub thingy I found for a few cents at The Salvation Army that needed a little bit of a makeover. I liked it as it was, or really, as they were, since there were 3 of them, but as usual, I thought they could be better. Enter Rustolium's Heirloom White spray paint.

Better, right? Still not done though. Distressing makes everything better.

NOW it's all done. Slightly distressed to bring out the details, and give it a little personality.

Yes....no...maybe?....meh. (A project I'm not sure about.).

A few days ago a friend mentioned how she liked to make things out of books. I too like that whole concept, but have never really done anything about it. So, off I went to browse Pinterest to find something for future crafty endeavors. Sure enough, I found something, and I knew exactly where I wanted to put it. Problem is, now that it's done, I'm not sure I like it. I know the husband doesn't like it, but I didn't really expect him to. That's fine though - he pretty much lets me do what I want, unless it's antiquing the kitchen cabinets. I think that part of the problem with this project is that I didn't have any hot glue sticks. I have the gun, but no sticks. I even took the oldest boy-child and walked over to Target to see if I could get some there, but couldn't find any. (We did manage to find an orange slushie and potato chips, though.) All of that to say, the way it is, I kinda expect it to fall apart at any moment. At least it won't hurt anyone if it does.

The place I had in mind for this project was above our fireplace. You see, when we bought the house there was dark wood paneling. That was quickly painted over, and now it's a cream color. Problem is, there's a BIG open space between the top of the fireplace and our vaulted ceiling. It needs something. So, now I have a "something." Too bad I'm not sure if I like it.

So, without further adieu, my wreath-

There it is. Meh. I'm not exactly sure why it doesn't quite float my boat. There's nothing really wrong with it, I'm just not all that happy with it. But there it hangs, at least until I find something I like better. It only cost me about $3 so it's not the end of the world if I don't keep it up for long, right?

My dumpster shelf

Photo Credit

This picture was the inspiration. I came across it while I was wasting time on Pinterest. Funny thing about Pinterest- I waste time on it only to give myself more to do. Anyways, I saw this and loved the whole pallet shelf idea. I don't exactly have plates to put on something like this, but I like the concept. Besides that, I wanted it in my bathroom, and the bathroom would be a funny place to put plates. Just sayin'.

Photo credit

It just so happened that a couple weeks ago I was taking the trash out at church, and lo and behold, a pallet was sitting there right on top of all the trash. It was like it was there waiting for me. The only thing missing was the light shining down on it from the heavens. I believe my exact exclamation at this moment was "Hot dog!" which was when my two-year-old little boy wanted to know where the hot dog was. It rode around in the back of our van for a little while, and then this last week, I decided it was time to take my saw to it....and hammer....and drill....and paintbrush. My plan was for it to replace the picture in our bathroom that really doesn't fit with the rest of the decor. I put the picture there in the first place because the spot looked empty, it sorta matched, and I didn't have anything else.

(This picture is also before my mirror was framed.)

After some cutting in half, and rearranging of my pallet, I had myself a brand new (sort of) shelf.

As usual, I wanted a little "something pretty" on my shelf, but went in a little different direction than usual. Instead of painting something, I decided to use one of my favorite things: burlap. (I'll take burlap over raindrops on roses any day.) As far as the stuff on the shelf, I'm not in love, but it's what I have, so it'll have to do for now. Maybe next week I'll find something I like more....in the dumpster.

I just kinda made up the flowers as I went. I've seen flowers made from burlap before, so I wasn't completely winging it, but I hadn't really found a tutorial of something that I liked, so I just kinda...went with the flow. After I was done making them, I decided that the edges just blended into each other, so I put some dark brown paint on the edges of the "petals" to make them stand out a little more. They're not attached to the shelf permanently, so I can always take them off whenever, like say, after spring/summer and replace them with something else later.

No more icky mirror

This is my bathroom.

This is the ugly spot on my mirror. I don't know how it got this way, I just know that this is how it was when we bought the house. I got so excited when I found this. That is, until I saw the $250 price tag. No thank you-I'd rather look at my ugly mirror. Then I saw this blog post over at {Show & Tell}. (It's a great blog, and since finding this particular post I've subscribed.) I decided that THIS was how I was going to fix my problem. So, off I went to pick out something to use for my framing. I decided on some door/window casing, because is was the width I wanted, but mostly because it was on clearance. I'm a sucker for clearance.

My mirror is held up with these

Which are big, and ugly, and hard to cover up without some major filing of the casing. My first idea was to attach my mirror to the wall with mirror glue, but the guy at the big home improvement store that we'll call Lowes, told me that if I wanted to keep my face, I shouldn't glue it to the wall. So, after coming home and thinking about it for a little while (there were a few days there when Josh would ask me what I was thinking and I'd answer "the bathroom.") and I went back to the store we'll call Lowes and bought these-

These are also mirror clips, but they are much flatter mirror clips, made even more flat by the filing I did to the little decorative raised part. Don't worry, I didn't file it down paper thin or anything- I just got rid of the point on it so that I wouldn't have to file quite as deep into my casing. I attached these to the wall, and then took out my old honkin' clips. I can't say I was sad to see them go. In fact, I was rather ecstatic.

I patched and painted, and then it was off to use my saw for the very first time. YAY!

This is the maiden miter box voyage. I didn't even know what I miter box was before I set out on this project. I'm pretty sure it was love at first sight. I measured and cut my casing, and then it was time to paint.

I painted the first couple inches of the underside of my casing because you can see some of it reflecting in the mirror.

I did file the casing a little bit where the clips were behind it so that it would sit flat against the mirror, and then I painted the clips the same color as the wall, (Yes, I am that ghetto. Next thing you know I'll be using glue instead of nails.) and then used liquid nails type stuff that said it could be used on mirrors, and...

Tada! The finished product.

Goodbye 1978!

Meet my bathroom vanity. (Sorry about the shooting pain you're getting in your eyeball from seeing this graphic picture.) I don't even know where to start. It looks like at some point a previous owner tried to refinish them by staining them....only instead of brushing or wiping on the stain like a normal person, they just kinda threw it. Possibly with a spoon. It gets worse. As I was cleaning them I found grooves in the cabinet doors that I didn't know were there. Why? Because they were filled with goo. Not normal goo like Spackle, or caulking, goo like....like the goo you find in the back of your refrigerator. The drawer pulls....oh boy. Hello, 1970! Oh, and there was some sort of green "fun" stuck in them. The hinges...I'm not sure they qualify as hinges anymore.

I decided it was time to do something about this. The only reason I hadn't done anything about it before now was because I didn't know what color I wanted, and I sure don't want to re-paint them any more than I need to. It's a pain to paint cabinets. The day I decided, I went to get my paint, and the next day started painting.

Meet my new vanity. It's SO much better. No more stain spatters, no more goo, and no more 30-year-old drawer pulls with green fun. I love it. My mom had given me the drawer pulls and handles leftover from her kitchen remodel, so I didn't have to pay for those. I even have enough left over for our master bath. Score!

I decided to use handles on the drawers instead of the pulls like were on originally, so I had to patch the hole in the center of the drawer, and then drill new holes for the handles. I learned through that that you need to drill the holes BIGGER than the screws, and also that if the screws are too long and you try to screw them in farther than they're supposed to go, they'll start trying to come out the other side of the handles, and that's bad. (Thankfully I caught that before too much damage was done.) But hey, now I have the 1.25" screws that I need for the other bathroom, 'cause I'm willing to bet the the drawers are the same thickness in the master bathroom as they are in this one.

Someday I'd like to get new counters and faucet, but that day is a long way away.

In my next post, I'll show you all what I did to fix the uh...beauty mark in the mirror for only $12!

A Boring Bench Made Pretty

Remember the bench that I mentioned here? Well, I finally got the thing finished. It's been sitting in our spare bedroom for a month or so, half done because I just haven't gotten around to finishing it. Partially because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with it. I knew I wanted a "something pretty" on it, but didn't know what. A week or so ago, I decided, so then it was time to get her done.

This isn't a great "before picture," because well, it wasn't supposed to be a "before picture." It was meant to show our out-of-state family what our entryway looks like, but with the magic of the crop tool, it also works for a before picture of our bench.

The personality-less bench.

And now *drum roll please!*

All better. She (I can call it a "she" right?) is now full of personality.

My "something pretty."

Just had to put one in there of my little bench model. :)

She was painted with an "oops paint," the "something pretty" was done with paint I had left over from other projects, then glazed with an acrylic craft paint, sanded down with 60 grit sand paper, and once I get some, will be getting a coat of poly.

While doing this I decided that I really really like refinishing furniture. I like it to the point that's it's my preferred sanity saver when the kids are starting to make me feel a little nutty. So, I decided to open an etsy store and make a little bit of extra money by selling my pieces. I have an end table that I found on Craigslist yesterday waiting to be given a personality, so hopefully before too long, it'll be done and up for sale!

Stay away! Or how 'bout not ringing the doorbell.

Since moving into our house it seems like we get someone knocking on our door almost once a day about something or other. Yesterday it happened twice. I'm a pretty private person so I'm not a huge fan of someone showing up at my door every day, but I can get over that. The bigger problem is that they always ring the door bell at least once, and there is usually one, if not two kids sleeping, which are then no longer sleeping. A few weeks ago one of the blogs I follow, Pretty Handy Girl, did a post about this very problem and made a "No Solicitors" sign which fixed the daily doorbellers. So, I decided that a sign was also (hopefully) the solution to my problem. So, I took the wording from hers and another sign I saw, combined them into something I liked, and used my graphic design skills (that are pretty much lying dormant at this point) to make it all pretty because a plain one is just not gonna do.

Then I headed over to Michaels last night because this week their frames are the same price as the Goodwill and bought a frame (and a few more for another project), and then headed home. Then I realized there was no way to hang the frame on the door. Bummer.

So, while the dear husband was xboxing, I cut a few strips of burlap (oh, my beloved burlap *swoon*) and made a rope out of it, whipped out my trusty drill to drill a few holes through the back of my frame, attached my rope with some wire, and it was all done. I love it. It's very me. Anyways, here is the finished product.

For any of you who want to use my sign, I'm giving you that very option. It's currently an 8x10, so just keep that in mind when buying your frame. I did give a little extra room on the sides so that it could be cropped into a different size for any of the rebels out there.