Today, you’ll find me over at Mandi’s blog, Interior Design Musings. She has been running a fun series this week called Top Seven Favorites for Spring. Head on over, I know you wanna!
Happy Weekend!
Happy Weekend!
March 23, 2012
I hope the weather is nice for you this weekend and you get out and enjoy it. Yesterday evening was beautiful here. I got outside for a little while to take the pups for a walk, don’t you just love spring?
As you can see from the photos above, I have been playing with my camera again this week. I bought a new lens last weekend and have not taken it off my camera 
.
I have been toying with the idea of sharing some photography tips here on Friday’s. Would you be interested to learn as I learn?
Happy Weekend!
Our Paint Colors
March 22, 2012
As it gets closer to moving day, I have been thinking about cataloging some of the things we have done to our first home. Last week, I took updated photos of our home and updated our Before and After’s, sharing a few of them with you.
In doing this I realized I never have posted about the interior paint colors used throughout our home. I have sent out several emails answering questions about our paint colors, but have never posted them. I have to be honest, I don’t have all of them. Many of the colors we have used were custom mixes and I do not have records of them.
Today I put together a list of the paint colors, that I do have, that we have used in our home over the past few years…
I hope this helps. I use a lot of soft warm gray on the walls. My two favorite’s in our home are Sherwin Williams 7017 Dorian Gray, used in the living room and the soft gray I recently used in our kitchen Olympic Quill.
ABC’s
March 21, 2012
Today, I am over at Style for Living participating in Marianne’s cute ABC’s series….stop on over to say “Hi!”
Tell Me Tuesday…BAM or SLAM!?
March 20, 2012
BAM for The Urban Electric Co.’s Venetian Lantern!
It seems like lately anything and everything are getting transformed with paint, but how about this…paint dipping!
Are you a fan?
Images via Design Sponge, DHome, Siren Lauvdal, Martha Stewart, Design Sponge, Creatively Christie
BAM or SLAM!?
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Sunday Shopping
March 19, 2012
Hey guys! I hope you had a nice weekend. I apologize for the late post this AM. I officially took the weekend off. I didn’t work on house projects, I didn’t work on blogs…I just took it easy.
Yesterday, Alfred and I got out of town for a little shopping in Lubbock, it is always so nice to get away. I haven’t really shopped for “house items” for awhile. Our house is full of furniture and accessories, that for the most part, I like.
However, now that I know we’re putting our house on the market, I have all of a sudden had the urge to buy, buy, buy. Alfred reel’s me in , but I literally wanted to pack up everything in World Market and bring it home with me yesterday.
Here are a few of my favorite things from our Sunday shopping trip…
This dining table was less than $500 yesterday. I love the rustic, gray wash on the wood.
One thing we are needing around this house are a few new rugs. I love the texture on the following…
The photo does not do justice to this rug, it is really pretty in person. The sisal is a combination of warm gray, soft tan and black, it has a lot of interest and dept.
Finally, I really wanted to wrap these great ikat slipper chairs up from Target. They would have been perfect for our Master Bedroom (to replace the current orange ones).
Did you do anything fun this weekend?
Happy Friday!
March 16, 2012
Have you seen this adorable breakfast spread for St. Patty’s Day by Amy at Plain and Fancy Living? It is beautiful, truly a work of art…and a sure way to start your St. Patty’s Day celebration off on the right foot.
Happy weekend!
Interior Photos
March 15, 2012
Remember last week when I said I had officially been bitten by the photography bug…and that I had finally started using the manual setting? Well, I wasn’t lying. I have spent a couple hours each day this week practicing my interior photography by taking new photos of each room in our home.
Once I started doing this, I realized my Our Home page is waaay out of date and in need of some love. So one thing has led to another and I have spent most of my week (when I am not designing blogs or writing blog posts) taking photographs, editing and re-working the page under our home.
It is still a work in progress, but I have added a slideshow of the rooms I have finished photographing and will continue to add to the slideshow as I take more current photos of the house. I figure this may be the last shot I have to take decent photos of this house before we move…here are a few of my favorites from this week…
Ha! Can you tell I had fun with the orange tulips? They are beautiful, I’m so happy it’s spring.
Happy Thursday!
$100 Wooden Countertops: The Tutorial
March 14, 2012
I know many of you have read my posts about how we re-purposed three solid oak doors from Habitat for Humanity, turning them into kitchen counter tops.
Since I posted the final reveal of our kitchen, I have had several emails to write a tutorial on how we did it. Technically I have a couple posts on the how-to, but I thought I would take the time today to put it all in one place.
We took these…3 solid oak commercial grade doors and turned them into…
STEP 1: DEMO THE OLD COUNTER TOPS
First, we ripped out the ancient 1950′s laminate counter tops, the old laminate top is what we used to create a template for the cuts.
STEP 2: CREATE TEMPLATE FOR NEW COUNTER TOPS AND CUT
It was as easy as laying the old counter top on top of the wooden door and tracing the shape.
Sand, Tape…and cut
STEP 3: INSTALL
After making the cuts for the new counter tops, it is time for the fun part….installation.
The first part of installation is easy, simply lay the counter top on top of the cabinets. We had to use one door + a couple of pieces from the second door to make the first counter top. Above you can see where we had to add a couple pieces.
Next, simply screw the countertop in place.
Step 4: DRESSING IT UP
Now it’s time to make these bad boy’s pretty .
First step, we had to piece together the large portion of the counter top with the two extra pieces…easy
We simply used a wood filler and sanded. I was a little concerned that the wood filler would not stain properly, but it worked beautifully.
Next, add the veneer edging. When we first bought the doors we thought they were solid oak throughout. Once we cut them we realized they were oak veneered with a heavy duty particle board filler. Still a nice product for counter tops, but we had to add a veneered edge so the interior particle board would not show.
After inspecting the grain we decided to use a white oak 1 1/2″ iron on veneer for the edging. I bought it on Amazon.
We bought the iron on edging. I lined the top edge of the the veneer with the top edge of the counter top and started ironing. The edging was a little wider than the width of the counter top. To trim it down Alfred ran an exacto knife along the bottom edge, trimming it to size.
After we touched up the cracks and installed the edging. We sanded the counter tops down a third time and wiped them to remove the sawdust. Then we applied wood conditioner, in preparation for the final steps…stain and polyurethane.
To stain the countertops we used Minwax color Special Walnut.
The stain was applied by brushing it on using even strokes. We allowed it to penetrate through the wood a few minutes and then wiped the excess off with a soft rag (basically we followed the directions on the container).
After two coats of stain and 24 hours of drying time….it was time for the protective finish, polyurethane.
We used Minwax Wipe-On Poly in a satin finish. It was applied with a lambs wool applicator (you can find these in Lowe’s in the wood floor re-finishing section). The lambs wool applicator applied a nice, even finish to the countertops. We applied one coat, let it dry, then sanded it down with a very fine steel wool. This step we repeated approximately four times. The Poly raises the grain in the wood, we continued to apply poly and sand until the counter tops were smooth and had a nice protective finish.
STEP 5: ENJOY!
I cannot tell you how much I love our new countertops, they really add warmth to the kitchen and they are durable. I had a question from one of my reader’s as we were going through the process. She asked if we were going to cut on them, like butcher block. We do not use them as a cutting surface, but I think as they get worn in they will still be beautiful.
Wow, this was a long post. Thanks for sticking through to the end .
Linking Up: Craftomanic Mondays, Just Something I Whipped Up, Mod Mix Mondays , Home Stories A to Z , Tuesday’s Treasures, One Project at a Time, DIY by Design, Domestically Speaking, Wicked Awesome Wednesday, Restored It Wednesdsay, WOW Us Wednesday, Hooking up with HOH, Open House Party, Simply Creations, House Party, Transformation Thursday, Addicts(not so)Anonymous Party, Inspiration Friday, Flaunt it Friday, Frugalicious Friday, Catch as Catch Can, Weekend Wrap Up, Home Sweet Home, Frugal Friday
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Tell Me Tuesday…BAM or SLAM!?
March 13, 2012
BAM, BAM, BAM for painted furniture! We did not have one SLAM last week.
This week we’re going BOLD again! I saw this lantern fixture by The Urban Electric, Co. recently and thought….how interesting.
The scale is grand, the fixture dramatic…are you a fan?
I first saw the Venetian lantern in this month’s issue of Elle Decor. The lantern hangs dramatically over the dining room table in the Elle Decor showhouse at Paramount Bay in Miami, FL.
By the way, how do you feel about this room?
Images via The Urban Electric Co., Richard Mishaan Design, Elle Decor
BAM or SLAM!?
Today you’ll find me at Bird and Branch Redesign sharing my favorite room…stop by and say hello.
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