Brighten and lighten (family room!)

Helloooo there! I am so excited to show you some changes I made to the family room over the weekend. It was a great weekend – we were home almost the whole time and I had a bunch of time to just piddle around with projects. It was bliss!! I got SO MUCH done -- what a great feeling. Anyway, I tackled a project in the family room that eventually turned into an additional three, four…five??

Magnolia Christmas mantel

Well hello and welcome to the start of our holiday linky parties! Today we kick it off over at The Lettered Cottage with mantels: I like to change up our mantel every year, but I do have one ingredient that MUST be there every time – big, fat, chunkaaay greenery. Since we reworked our fireplace last fall we now have a much bigger mantel to work with. It’s just a normal size but to me it’s

DIY wood tray (& overcoming tool fears)

Hello all! First off, I hope everyone on the east coast is staying safe and dry today!! We are praying that everyone comes out unscathed and the weather isn’t as bad as they are expecting! Well I’ve been working my booty off this weekend peeps! I have worked SO hard on finishing off the bookcases – my body is screaming at me but I am so stinkin’ excited. I WILL show you this week, even if it

Coffee table redo

Hey hey!! How are you? We had an absolutely lovely weekend – my sister (Stink Eye!) got married and it was sooooo beautiful!! I’ve never seen so much crying at a wedding – every time we’d stop someone else would get up and toast and say something that would have us bawling again. ;)  Today I’m sick as a dog but thankful for a day where I don’t have to do much other than a doctor’s visit. :) I

All for the Kleenex

Hello hello! Hope you are having a GREAT week! Today I’m sharing a little change I made to the family room that I’m just silly excited about. And it was all born out of a very simple need…a place to put the Kleenex. :) I’m so not kidding either. We’ve reworked our family room so that the layout is  SO MUCH better than it used to be. But it was lacking something…and that something was a side

Decorating the mantel for fall

Hello all! How are you this fine fall day? Sorry this post is later than usual – I was sidetracked by a quick (if two hours there and two back can be considered quick) trip to IKEA. WHOO! I’m back today with our fall mantel and will be linking up over at Kate’s shindig: Since our new, big mantel is still new to me, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it this fall. I knew I wanted

Fast fall tablescape idea

Hey there!! I’m back today to help kick off our fall linky parties – they start today over at Layla’s place (The Lettered Cottage): Today’s party is all about tablescape ideas and I can’t wait to see the beautiful fall tables!! Well, since we decided to change up the dining room (and make it a library), we no longer have a dining room table. ;) I do kind of miss decorating one, just a

DIY wood art (another PB knock off!)

Hello there! Sorry about the later post today – my computer and I had it out for a good hour and a half this morning…but I won. So far. I need to be nice so I can finish this post. ;) So earlier this year I showed you  how I added some family photos to a small wall in our family room: That little wall is kind of awkward and it was hard to figure out what to put on there – it’s not big, but

DIY nailhead trim

Hey there! I’m back today with a quickie update that only took me a YEAR! You think I kid. ;) OK, the project only took a few minutes, but getting there took a year. When we made some changes to the family room last year I found a new chair at HomeGoods for the space: The chair is different for me – kinda funky and I love it. It doesn’t look it but it is so, so comfortable – I curl up in it

Show us your family spaces!

Good Monday to ya! Hope your weekend was lovely! I’m kicking off the week with our next room in the Show Us Your House series of linky parties – this one is family rooms and I’m really looking forward to seeing these links!! First up, I’ll share our space. This is one room that just did not work for us for years…and it’s completely my fault. ;) When we built our home I chose a corner fireplace

Over the fireplace

Hey hey! I mentioned yesterday that I was feeling the NEED for some DIY up in here. (Hea?) I’ve been planning a project for months now and just needed to figure out the details – mainly the exact materials I wanted to use. Ever since we covered our corner fireplace last year, I’ve been planning a treatment over the mantel to finish it off a bit. It has looked just a bit nekked to me all this

Rug Giveaway!

**This giveaway is now closed. The winner has been contacted via email. Hello there! I’m off at the Haven Conference this week so I’ve got a few fun posts coming for you – and I’m kicking it off with a GREAT giveaway. The folks at Rugs USA contacted me about a giveaway and asked if I’d like one to try out myself and I was all HECK YEAH and WHOOHOO and YOU DON’T HAVE TO ASK ME TWICE! They

How you doin’?

No how YOU doin’?? ;) I’ve been planning this post forever, because there’s lots of projects that I do up in here that I’ve been meaning to update you on. When I see projects out in blogland, I love hearing how they work in real life and how they hold up. It’s like those extreme makeover shows when they show the person a year later and you’re all like, ohhh, they look GREAT. Or ohhh, that’s

Family in the family room

Heya! How the heck are ya? I finished up a project the other day that was a LONG time comin’ – and in the end it only took about an hour to complete. I don't know why I put it off for so long! When we had our corner fireplace covered up with a more lovely corner fireplace (confused? Go here.) last fall, it meant I had to change up what was on the wall to the left of it. I decided to go

Turning a Dresser Into a TV Console

 

Want to see a peek of what we spent way too many hours doing this past weekend?  

 

 

 

We moved the dresser (that was in the foyer blocking that annoying vent) to our family room.  I couldn’t look at that other ugly console for one more minute.  Problem was, we’re using our “biggest” TV now, and the components (which we also have more of now) won’t fit on top like they did in our last house:

 

 

I love TV, but I detest cords and cable boxes.  Why can’t everything just work and be pretty, too?

So, my husband spent waaay longer than anticipated fishing cords here and there, drilling holes and removing drawer glides. 

 

 

 

We’re not quite finished but everything fits now. I still have to paint the inside of the drawers and possibly add some trim to the shelf fronts.

 

 

My (New) Christmas Mantel

Well HEY! I’m so excited to share my Christmas mantel with you today! You know this year was especially fun for me because of the redo our corner fireplace recently went through. If you haven’t seen it yet, go ahead and click over. We’ll wait. :) OK, so here’s a quick stroll down memory lane – the big bad annoying corner decorated for Christmas: I tried my best to work with it…and I

A fireplace redo!

Hello my peeps!! I hope you had a LOVELY Thanksgiving week! I’m so glad to be back, but the little blogging break was nice. :) I can’t wait to tell you what we were up to last week – but for now, I am SO psyched about the project that’s been going on around here over the past couple of weeks! For as long as we’ve lived in this house, I’ve had a thorn in my side…that I may have mentioned one or

Let there be light!

Well HEY! Thanks for all the kind comments on our new floors! I tell you what -- I am more thrilled with them each day. I swear these floors don’t show anything! I so wish I could say I’m the I-want-to-see-the-dirt-so-I-know-when-to-clean type…but I’m just not. Sorry. ;)Anyhoo, I told you the new floors have spurred on some new projects. One in particular I wanted to take care of before they

Our “new” house!

Well, they are DONE! The floors are down, sanded and stained. It took the guys yesterday and today to get the quarter round down and painted, and then the furniture back in – so I’ve been smiling and fluffing and giddy all evening. ;) The house is still (mostly) a mess – but I’ve been trying to get the layer of dust out of a couple rooms to show you the results! I mentioned before that we

Mini Transformations

Hey hey! How are you? I’m super excited because it’s only supposed to get up to 79 tomorrow – ahhh, I’m in heaven! Although that is perfect deck staining weather, unfortunately. Fortunately? Whatever. I’m back with one more post about the family room redo – are you tired of seeing it yet? Don’t answer that. :) Many of you had questions on the little details in the space so I wanted to get