Showing posts with label Home Projects.... Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home Projects.... Show all posts

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Leaf Day with Lollie... :)

One of the things we love most about our house is our backyard! Our deck and outdoor area has become an extra living space for us to entertain and spend time together. However, we quickly learned that our wonderful backyard "hangout" also comes with a lot of yard work and maintenance. Every Fall, we have a  "leaf day" to try and get a handle on the massive amount of leaves that cover our backyard. A few weekends ago, we chose to have  our official "leaf day"... and it was exhausting exciting! :) 

Whit in the middle of his HUGE pile of leaves...


That's a lot of leaves...


Just to show you how deep the leaf pile was...


So of course our little helper, Lollie, wanted to get involved...


She's trying to figure out how she can 
make the most out of her first official "leaf day"...


So she decides to throw her toy in the leaf pile and jump on in...


...and she hides in the leaves...


...just in case you need a visual demo of just how much fun Lollie had during leaf day...


...can you see Lollie?...


Oh there she is! 
(with her trusty sidekick...
the Stuffed Snowman that Whit bought her a few weeks ago)


My Cute Outdoorsman...:) 



Lollie couldn't get enough of the leaf pile!


We had such a great time playing in the leaves! 
It was a reminder that Fall is truly here...and we are trying to soak up every minute of it! 
Is everyone getting excited about Thanksgiving...?!!
Much more to come... :) 

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The New Shade We Made... :)

This Sunday, Whit and I stayed up way too late working on a little project. While I was at my Grandmother's house a few weeks ago, she gave us this cute white lamp that she didn't have room for anymore and we absolutely love it!


We put the lamp in our living room and decided with a few slight updates, it would be the perfect little piece to help add some color into our living room. Soooo....we ventured into an unknown project land and made up our own rules of how to accomplish this task. I ordered some fabric that I LOVED that also happened to be on sale on Fabric.com and it arrived on the front steps of Our Little House On The Ridge in 2 days!! :) With my hot glue gun and new fabric in hand, I went to work...(with lots of help from Whit) :)

This is the new shade I bought on sale from TJ Maxx Homegoods
I am terrible with measurements...
so luckily I have a very great "measurer" for a husband :) 
Here is the strip of fabric we cut for the new shade...
I just fell in love with it as soon as I saw it!

My trusty hot glue gun, fired up and ready for our project :)
After we lined up and centered our fabric on the shade,
we started hot gluing one end to the edge of the lampshade
We continued all the way around the shade on both of the edges
Our lampshade-makeover :)
I chose this fabric because I really loved all of the colors
and the green tones tie in with the green that runs throughout our living room
Ta-Da!
The finished product! :)
This project did not take a long time at all and made such a change in our living room. I have enjoyed walking through the front door every afternoon and having our new, cute lampshade there to greet me! :)
Sometimes I think it is the little changes in your house that make a big difference... :)

Monday, September 12, 2011

Our Bedroom Makeover On a Budget... :)

Hi Everyone! Sorry we have been MIA for a few days! It seems like the last days of summer are flying by and in the midst of it all, we have been trying to work on a few little home projects and I haven't seemed to find the time to blog. But, I have been documenting our adventures along the way, so I have a few fun house things to update you on. :)

When we moved into our new house last September, I quickly learned that if I focused on one room at a time and developed a good "decorating" foundation in each room before moving onto the next one, I seemed to be most successful. This method helped me not feel overwhelmed by all of the changes I'd like to make around our house and allowed me to enjoy each room throughout the process. Although there really wasn't much we wanted to change as far as paint colors etc. it has taken us a while to work through the house and make our way to our bedrooms. So this summer, our master bedroom has been our focus. :)

When we moved in, we quickly decided we wanted to paint our bedroom walls a really rich, charcoal gray. We wanted it to feel very crisp, clean, and soothing. But the inspiration for our room really began this summer when we purchased our pie safe. For some reason this piece got the ball rolling on our bedroom makeover project. :) Thank you pie safe (and our Pleasant Valley Pickers - a.k.a. Betsy and Dan)


 Since the completion of our "pie safe" project, our Bedroom Makeover has really kicked into high gear!
To get started, I knew the first thing I wanted to accomplish with the bedroom was to improve the look of our bedding and I needed to do this in a budget friendly way. Pillows and new bedding can really add up so I started a serious hunt for pillow deals! :) I was able to buy some budget friendly Euro Pillows off of Overstock.com and then spent one Saturday on a fabric search looking for the perfect fabric color and design for our bedding. Luckily, I have a sweet mother-in-law who is a wonderful seamstress (a skill I hope to learn someday soon) and she made us two BEAUTIFUL pillow covers!



So after our pillows were complete, the final touch to our bedding update was our headboard "flip." When Whit and I went to the flea market a few weeks ago, we stumbled upon two unique wooden tiles that we fell in love with and desperately wanted to find a place for in our house. We got such a great deal on them and thought they would look really cool as a headboard, so we took a chance and brought them home and we love them!



Well, to sum up, here are the before and after pictures of Project: Re-do Our Bedding 
(original name, I know)...

Before...
More Before...
And After :)
After :)   

I think we might get a little throw to put on the end of the bed to finish it off - but for now, we are really enjoying our new pillows and bedding. :) 

The final phase on our Bedroom Makeover was to come up with some interesting "wall art." I have always loved the way glass plates looked on walls and thought a bedroom would be the last place that you would expect plates to be displayed. So this seemed like the perfect, cost effective option to dress up our blank gray wall. At first, I was going to do some blue colored plates but a very "tasty" decorator all the way from Jackson, Mississippi suggested I use a variety of white plates - an idea I really loved! So this weekend, Whit and I were finally able to hang the plates. (In other words, Whit meticulously hung them, while I observed) :)



Overall, the bedroom makeover has been a very enjoyable and rewarding project! It's a good start to a room that I'm sure we will continue to edit throughout our time in the Little House on the Ridge. :)

We are lucky to have so many helpers - especially Whit's mom, for so many reasons, but we do appreciate her sewing skills! :) 

Well, I'm off to our new and improved bedroom to do a little reading and relaxing. :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! 

P.S. The Fall is fast approaching...and I cannot wait!!! :)

Monday, August 29, 2011

Our New Linen Cabinet :)

Yesterday, we added a new piece to our bedroom - our restored pie safe, which we will use as a linen cabinet. :)
We bought this pie safe at a garage sale a few weeks ago, thanks to a tip from our good friends, Betsy and Dan. It definitely needed a lot of work (considering it wouldn't stand on it's own when we brought it home) but this weekend, after lots of hard work, we were finally able to finish our pie safe project! :)

Before Pictures:



And After:

Since the wood was very worn, we decided to do a true shabby chic look to embrace the character flaws of the cabinet :)


I bought some crystal glass hardware to add knobs to the doors

As a little surprise, we painted the inside a light blue :)
Just something fun when you open the doors.

Side View :)


Whit and I had so much fun working on this together in our garage on Sunday afternoon - we listened to some music, picked up a paintbrush and in the midst of all the fun, were able to finish another project! :)