Living Room Makeover

So, I always have quite a few projects swirling around in my head.  I don't necessarily do all of them, but its fun to think of the possibilities.  The main one on my brain(or maybe the easiest one to change:) was the color of my living room.  A couple of years ago we painted it a dark brown.  

(Sorry for the Christmas stuff, but I'm still really bad at this whole "before" picture thing when I start a project)

We have a very large open area with vaulted ceilings, so before the brown, the space look cavernous and cold.  At first, I loved the brown.  It made the space cozy and warm, but after a while the brown was getting to feel too dark.  I played around with putting some wainscoting up, but couldn't figure out how to blend the living room and dining room walls together because I didn't want to wainscot the dining room. In the end, we decided to just paint.  Its the cheapest, easiest option!

We still liked brown, just a lighter shade, so we decided to go with Behr's Garden Wall.

Nice, right?  We thought so!  We liked it so much we decided to paint the entryway and stair walls the same color.  All these spaces really just blend into the main living room and had previously been white.  We still liked the dark brown enough to keep one wall as an accent. (Less painting too.)

After some rearranging of furniture, painting some furniture and a new color in the living room, the space is finally complete!  I love how it turned out!

(Apologies for the poor picture.  I am not a photographer.)

I especially love the new color of the entertainment stand against the dark wall!   If you look in the first picture you will see it used to be a dark cherry stain.  Also, the decal over the window used to just blend into the wall, and now it really pops!

(Isn't my little model cute?)

The entry way and stair walls.

Here's a before of the entry way.

And the after

LOVE it!

The living area finally feels complete!  Its amazing what a difference a can of paint can make!

Some Previous Projects

As promised I will document a few of the projects I've been up to.  Luckily for you, if you are interested in repeating anything I've done on this post, most of what I've done I got from Pinterest.  So I will post the links for you too.

In October my little Joby turned three.  For his birthday I decided, of course, to make him a cake.  Right now he is obsessed with The Backyardigans, and his favorite episode is Tale of the Mighty Knights.  At the end of that episode there is a Dragon, which is what I decided to recreate for him.

Here's the picture of the cartoon dragon:

Cute, right?  Joby has GREAT taste. ;)

So here's the awesome tutorial I found on Pinterest:

And here's my attempt at recreating it:

Not great, at least compared with the tutorial, but Joby and Vaeh were impressed.  That's all I care about.

Also, for Joby's birthday I thought I'd make him a super hero cape.  Sewing is one particular skill that I am lacking talent in (as you will soon see), but I wanted one made especially for him with his favorite colors and initials.

Here's the tutorial(also from pinterest):

I used satin, which as a warning, is very difficult to sew with, but nothing flows through the wind like satin. :)
Here's Joby's cape:

Once again, not perfect, but it sure is a favorite toy at this house, and with all my kids friends too!  Every little boy (and some girls too) wants to be a super hero. :)

My next project has to do with some pants my husband bought me last year for my birthday.  Now, last year  on my birthday, I was 9 months pregnant.  My husband bought me a size nine skinny jeans and some awesome boots to rock them with!  I tried on the jeans(while pregnant) and couldn't even get them past my thigh, so I figured they would be perfect when I lost all my baby weight.  I lost about 50 pounds and am now a size 3, or 5 depending on the pants.  As awesome as that felt, my cute skinny jeans were too big!  They looked more like baggy jeans. :( They were so cute that I was determined to make them work!  So I began googling, and I found a tutorial to turn flare jeans into skinny jeans.  Close enough!  I don't have a before, but here's the after:

Sorry, not a great picture, but in my defense its hard to take a picture of your own pants.  Don't believe me?  Try it!  Anyway, those pants had about an extra two inches at least on each leg that I cut off.  I'm pretty proud that I saved them.

 The next project is the one I've been promising for a while.  We finally added the back splash to our kitchen!  It had been sitting in our laundry room for about 6 months while my husband decided how we were going to do it, what tools we needed, blah, blah, blah.  He's the "get it done right" guy, and I'm the "get it done fast" girl.  We make a good team. :)  Finally one day I decided I was sick of it sitting there, so without my husbands permission I started throwing it up.  If I hit any hurdles I would jump them when they came.  Surprisingly it was super easy!!  My husband was very pleased.  I highly recommend the meshed backed squares to do your back splash.  The only tools we needed were a glass cutter, and a trowel.

Here's the before:

And here's the after:

What a difference, right?
I'll give you a super quick tutorial.

1. Watch youtube videos to get a feel for it.  I know it sounds silly, but youtube is great for DIYing!
2. We bought mastic so we didn't have to mix anything and I highly recommend it
3. Lay your mastic thick enough to have the tile stick, but not so thick that you have to clean out extra mastic that comes out through the tile.  Maybe 1/8 inch thick.  Only lay as much as you are going to put your tile on.  I had to work slow because I also have three kids.  I only did one to two tiles at a time. 
4. Plan it so that you only have to cut the tiles where you won't see it.  This for us meant we started at the edges of our kitchen.  We ended up cutting them in the corner behind the microwave.
5. Lay as many full tiles as you can, then come back and cut the ones that need to be cut at the end.
6. When you do the grout do it with a partner.  It was surprisingly the hardest part of the whole project.  It just takes muscle, and dries fast.

We also redid our guest bathroom.  No before of this either.  Here's what it looks like now;

We framed the mirror with baseboard, added bead board and chair rail, painted it a bright a festive color, and added a new shower curtain and towels.  Its so fun now, nobody uses the other bathroom.  Maybe its time to give the master bath a makeover. :)

Oh, and before I go, my awesome wall!

I got this idea from my favorite decorating blog All Things Thrifty.  Check her out!  You will love her site! 

Stair Gate Tutorial

This is for my lovely readers who read my stair gate post and asked for a tutorial.  Before I start let me just remind you we tweaked the plans we followed to work for us, so you may need to do the same to make it work for you.  

The first thing we did was measure the opening of our stairs.  Our walls were pretty square, so the measurement was the same up and down, but you will want to measure at the top, middle and bottom(ignoring the baseboard).  If its different, you will want to use the smallest measurement as your guide.  You will also want to measure how high above the floor you want your gate to hang and how tall you want your gate.

The next thing you need to decide is how many slats you want and how far apart you want them.  The standard if you have pets or kids is 2-3 inches apart.  This took us FOREVER to figure out with our first gate!  We were constantly playing with numbers to figure out how to evenly space our slats.  For you, I have an awesome formula to help you out. 

Gate door width, minus the width of your two side rails, minus (the number of slats times the slat width) divided by (the number of slats plus)

Confused?

Okay, so for us, we have 7 slats, and in case you have no idea what the side rails are, in the picture they are the very side pieces of the gate next to the planks in the wall.  Okay, so our formula would go a little like this:

35.5-1.5(side rail width, they are each 3/4 inches)-(7*1.5(width of a 1*2 slat))/7+1
or simplified
34-10.5/8=2.9375
(Remember order of operation?  Aw, that takes me back to 6th grade:)

Rounded to the nearest 16th it would be 2 and 15/16, but I think we just rounded up to 3 to make it easier.

Okay, so now you have all your measurements and can start cutting.  Here's a picture of the inside of the gate and I will break down all the pieces.

This gate is missing the side rails, and the top 1*3 to sandwich the slats and fillets in.  The top of the gate is basically a 1*3 on bottom, with the slats and fillets in the middle, then another 1*3 on top of all that and another 1*3 to go above it all.  The bottom is exactly the same only we used 1*2's. That way the top looked a little fancier.  So the 1*3's(and the two 1*2's on bottom if you do it like ours) will all be cut @ 34 inches(remember the side rails will add an inch and a half to bring it to 35.5).  We determined the slats to be 3 inches, so you can cut however many you need(we needed 16, 8 on top and 8 on bottom).  The slats will be 37.5(remember there is a top and bottom 1*3 that will bring the total height to 39).

You can have all your wood cut at home depot, but if you can do it all at home that may be better.  That way if you mess up you can fix it yourself.  Or better yet, measure twice, cut once.  Then we used a finish, or brad nailer(you can buy one at harbor freight for around $20) and wood glue to put it all together.

Glue the pieces down first, then nail them from the inside so you don't have to fill too many holes.  Do the fillets and slats first, then glue the front and back pieces.  Finish off with the top and side pieces and repeat for the bottom.  It should look something like this.

 

To complicate it a little more, we didn't care what the back looked like, so to make the front look nicer we flushed everything in the front up.  Meaning the 1*3's on top and bottom would have hung over a little in the front and back, but we decided to have no hang over in the front and about a half inch in back.  That's your call.  Also, if I could do it again,  I would make the top and bottom pieces go all 35.5 inches and cut the side rails an inch and a half shorter.  I just think it would have looked nicer.  

After all of that we added a few decorative molding pieces to cover some of the seams, and here is the finished product.

We added a hidden lock in the top so that our kids wouldn't be able to open it.  For that we just used a circular saw to cut a small chunk out and smoothed it with a chisel.  Here's a close up.

Don't forget, all the measurements I posted were for OUR house, and yours will most likely be different.  This is just a guide.  Also, for those of you who have never built anything and are confused with my measurements about 1*3's and 1*2's, they are actually more like .5*1.5 and .5*2.5.  I think its just easier to say 1*2 and 1*3, so that's what they are called. :)

I hope that helps!  This is the first tutorial I've ever written, so sorry if it was confusing.  If you have any other questions feel free to email me.

Happy gate building!

My Best Cake Yet

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves

The princess cakes turned out GREAT!  Really, the pictures don't do them justice.  I am always a little sad to cut into them.  It's like painting a picture and having someone tear it apart.  Oh well, it was fun to do, and we will always have the pictures.  

If anyone wants to do the same for their daughter, all I did was use a small pyrex glass bowl to bake large cupcakes(or small cakes).  Since we cooked them in bowls I turned the heat to 325 and baked them for longer.  Each cake took about 40 minutes.  The princess dolls were polly pockets that my mom already had, but if you want to buy them I see them a lot at the checkout and several stores for $5 each.  As far as decorating, I didn't end up using the cake tips.  This was all a ziploc baggie with a whole cut in the corner.  If I can do it, so can you!  I'm not even sure how much a custom cake like this would cost, but it only cost me about $6! 

Happy birthday to my little Vaeh, who made me a mother.  I love her to pieces!

Making Your Own Birthday Cake

Tomorrow is my daughter's 5th birthday!  So, as a tradition in my family, that means we will be making some kind of fun cake.

Here are some of the fun cakes I've made for my kids in the past:

Vaeh's first with a lady bug

Joby's 2nd birthday with Funshine Bear

Joby's first birthday with a caterpillar

Vaeh's 3rd birthday with a box of crayons

Vaeh's 4th birthday with a princess castle

Wondering where Vaeh's 2nd birthday cake is?

Obviously, I did not make this.  The reason we bought it was because she was in LOVE with Kung Fu Panda.  I think my thought process was, "I can't make Kung Fu Panda, so I guess I'll just buy it".  Yeah, never again!  That cake cost me $20 some dollars and wasn't very big.  I usually spend at the most half of that, but usually closer to $5-8.

Not only is making your own cake cheaper, but you can do something specific for your child, and its FUN!  My kids always get into it with me and always pick what they want.

You don't need fancy equipment.  A plastic ziploc bag with the corner cut out will suffice for doing designs on most simple cakes.  However, if you want something with more fun designs like on Vaeh's castle cake I think you can get a set of cake decorating tips at walmart for not too much.  I just borrow my sister in law's set. (Thanks again Lisa!)  I also have a cousin who will take a picture of Dora, or some other character and do some kind of transfer paper.  They look awesome!  I've never done it, but here's a tutorial for those interested.

This year I am going to be making something like this:

Stay tuned to see how they turn out!

The Stair Gate

When we moved into our house a year and a half ago, both my husband and I decided we needed a gate for the top of our stairs.  The way our stairs are situated is a little hazardous in my opinion.  The are to your left right after you come in the front door, and at the end of the hallway. 

(forgive the really old picture, just wanted to show the position of our stairs)

So, you can imagine with three young children who love to run through the house, we wanted to secure the area so no one fell down by accident.  Although, even without kids, me being as clumsy as I am was afraid I might fall down the stairs as well.   That being said, a stair gate was the first of all our building projects.  

Luckily, a neighbor of ours had built one of his own out of scrap wood that looked pretty good, and he had a box of scrap wood he gave us to do the same thing.   We didn't know what we were doing, but we figured since the wood was free we couldn't go wrong.  Even if it sucked, it gave us experience building without plans.  And this is what we came up with:

Not bad for winging it with free wood, right?   Well, you can't really see it close up, but it had issues.  For starters, we made it too big for the opening, so when you tried to open it it wouldn't open more than about a foot because it hit the wall it was screwed to. So we had to chop about an inch off that side so it would swing all the way, and this was after we stained it.  So now we have the moulding chopped off and the whole side not stained.  (We always said we were going to stain it so it wouldn't look so stupid, but it never happened)  Then, the screws we bought to screw the hinges in to the gate were too long and ended up sticking out. It was potentially hazardous, so I put black play dough on them.  On top of that, it was flimsy and stuck out in front of the wall.  So really, this gate was pretty ghetto, but it was functional.  It kept the kids out, it swung open and shut, so, as much as my husband wanted to take it down and build another I convinced him to leave it and we would fix it later.  

 (The close up.  I almost forgot, this was also the first time we had used a finish nailer, can you tell? ;)

Fast forward a year and a half and there we were with the same ghetto gate.  My brother and sister in law decided to move into our basement for  awhile, and in the process the gate cracked a little where the bottom hinge was.  A few days later my daughter polished it off by standing on it. 

So here we were with no gate, and now 4 small children(my niece Kailyn) and no stair gate.  Needless to say, that had to be the next project on our list of "to do's".  My husband had bought a stair gate plan long ago from a website called Gates2U for $5.  So our gate is a modified plan of theirs if anyone is interested.  The one thing that was really helpful about it is it gave us the formula to figure out how to space out the planks for the front of the gate.  That was a MAJOR pain in the but with our first gate!

So a week after the first gate bit the dust we came up with this:

 

 No play dough, it fits the opening, is very sturdy, no brad nails hanging out, and in general just looks better!  Now we have a gate to last us hopefully as long as the house lasts us.  All we have to do if we want a change is paint it a different color.

So, even though our first gate cost us nothing, this gate was about $25 including paint and primer.  Not bad considering wooden gates like ours go for $70-$150!

If anyone is interested in the step by step you can email me!

 Update:  I now have a stair gate tutorial here.

Reupholstering a Toddler Couch

So, we still haven't finished our sprinklers yet, but its not because of this project!  We needed to switch the heads from pop ups to rotaries and are just waiting for the sprinkler guy to finish our plans and deliver the parts.  In the mean time, I got bored!  I really LOVED making the bed, and wanted to do more with my house.  Other than knock-offwood  (the inspiration for the bed), my other favorite blog to follow is All Things Thrifty courtesy of my friend Mackenzie Walker(thanks again by the way, I totally LOVE her blog!).
Anywho, she has TONS of fun stuff on her blog, but the one I decided to conquer was reupholstering my daughter's couch.  It was somewhat unsightly to begin with, but over the last year and a half since we bought it it has become covered in marker, and tons of other stains.

Ugly, right?  There has been a lot of spilling on this poor little couch!  So I decided it needed a makeover.  On the blog I mentioned earlier there is this tutorial that was super easy to follow, and she made it sound easy.  Plus, it was a toddler couch.  How much could I mess that up?  Luckily, it was easy!  It was a bit time consuming taking all the staples out to take the fabric off, but once it was off it took about 2 hours to finish!  I am so pleased with it, and of course, I can't wait to start my next project!  I've found a fun new hobby!  Here's the end result.  I didn't even realize that I picked the same colors for the couch as my living room and dining room walls.  I really like blue and brown together, apparently.

Building a bed

So we finished out very first building project from Ana of KnockoffWood and it turned out great!  From start to finish we built and finished(painted) the bed in about 6 days.  We had a few problems, but overall it was fun and easy!  Vaeh's bed had been sitting on the floor for almost a year!  I had been meaning to just buy a metal frame, but couldn't spend $40 on a new one and couldn't find any cheap or free ones.  So we discovered Ana's website and fell in love with this bed.  Total it cost to build was a bout $140.  I know, its a lot more than $40, but this bed is beautiful and it will hopefully last her until she gets married, and even then maybe her and her hubby will want to share a full.  Who knows?  And the reason it ended up being so much is that we didn't have any supplies.  You'd be surprised at how much the cost of screws, wood putty, wood glue, sand paper, primer and paint add up!  The lumber by itself was about $80.

I also have to thank Rayan of The Frugal Designer.  She did a guest post on Ana's site about antique finishing that I thought would look perfect for Vaeh's bedroom.  We(or rather she) decided she wanted a Tinker bell bed spread so I thought we would design her room around that.  So we decided to put a purple underlayment under the white so that when we sanded the edges the purple would show through.  It turned out better than I thought it would and I LOVED the effect!

We still have a ways to go for the rest of her bedroom, but so far my husband and I like our daughter's room more than ours.  Its just so cozy!  I think we were more excited than she was, although she loves jumping on her bed now. 

Next up on the agenda is to put the same finish on the nightstand and decoupage some pretty fabric on it to spice it up a little.  Then we are going to paint the whole room a lavender color.  Its going to be pretty!  But my husband says we have to finish the landscaping first :(.  Probably a good idea.  I would like some grass in the yard!
I've got some big plans for our little house though, so stay tuned!