Fall Decorating and October Wrap Up

Happy Halloween! This month has flown by. But before the month escapes I thought I would show some of my Fall/Halloween decorating around my house. The chalkboard planters seem to work well for any season.

 I got this beautiful ice bucket at a yard sale and put in some feathers for Fall decorating. I don't know about you but I love white pumpkins and feathers!

 Our Mozart bust got a little witches hat I found at a craft store. He's definitely jazzing up the piano area (along with more white pumpkins-okay, maybe I'm a little obsessed).

If you follow me on instagram you can see some other inspiring pictures of Fall. We just turned our pumpkins into this fun BOO jack-o-lantern and made a monster door. By far, the monster door is my kid's favorite.

This month I went to a couple of antique shops, but this one place is my favorite in Northern Virginia.

Lastly, I made this large mirror this month out of $8 shingles. This project was fun because it didn't take long to make and I made it with one of my friends. I put up some more white pumpkins and some (fake) autumn grass and called it a day.

There you go, a little bit of Fall inspiration and decor around our house. Now, I'm off to make some soup and bread for those cute trick or treaters of mine. Hope you all have a great Halloween and weekend!

One Room Challenge- Week 5

Here we are at week 5 of the ORC! We have one week left to work on our makeovers and I'm far from done. However, our laundry room re-do has made some good progress this week. Check out our board shiplap wall with hooks! I'm loving this look. I'm working on what to hang above the hooks, and those two vintage botanical prints will probably make the cut. The laundry room is right off the small hallway from the garage so I wanted to extend the "mudroom" by putting up hooks for all the kids' gear. 

We also put up our DIY cabinets this week and the folding table. Between the two cabinets we will be installing two open shelves. The sink needs it's skirt still which I'm still working on making. I'm also going to work on adding some texture to the folding table by possibly making it look like Carrera marble. Another thing to add to the list!

With one week left I have to be realistic. I wanted to paint the floors, but we'll see if I have enough time. Do you think it will look good with a black and white runner and call it a day? Or do you think it would look better painted, with a rug?

Things to (still) do for the laundry room makeover:

-hang art
-install two shelves
-install hardware
-poly coat cabinets
-finish and install wood bead chandelier
-sink skirt
-put in new rug
-probably more things I can't think of right now

Let's see how the progress of everyone else's rooms with the 20 main participants and the linking participants of the ORC. Can't wait for next week to see everyone's reveals.

One Room Challenge- Week 4

Hi everyone. This week has been busy with our laundry room makeover (lots of painting). I'm also teaching at a Craft Night tonight so I've been working on a lot of projects lately (more on that later). Our laundry room is coming along. You can catch up with what I've been doing so far in:

week 1

week 2 

week 3

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I started working on making my chandelier fancy with some beads. I wish it looked like this picture, but alas it's not there yet. I'm repainting the chandelier (that came with our house) and I'm using wood beads to give it a natural look. 

I painted the walls Benjamin Moore 'wickham gray'. It's a beautiful color because it looks almost pale blue/gray on the walls. I think it will pair nicely with white cabinets and the board wall white. 

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I started a coat of Benjamin Moore White Dove on the boards and quickly realized in this room it will look too creamy. Our laundry room has no windows for natural light so I want the white in here to look clean and fresh. So I'm off to buy some white paint!  Above the boards I will be putting up these hooks and hanging art with hangers (perfect for a laundry room).

The cabinets that my husband and I are making are looking great. 

The door faces are built and we'll be assembling all of it this week (along with painting them). There are still a lot of things to finish for this room like get a rug and fabric and art work, but it's looking like an improvement already with paint! Thanks for stopping by. Go check out what all of the other linking participants are doing and the 20 fabulous designers are doing in their rooms. Everyone in these groups are doing something inspiring for sure!

One Room Challenge: The Laundry Room, Week 3

If you're new here and not familiar with the One Room Challenge it's basically a room makeover in six weeks. I'm working on a makeover in our laundry room. Only three more weeks until the deadline reveal. You can catch up on what's been happening on week one and two.

First, I looked for two cabinets for the wall with the washer and dryer. I  looked at the Re-Store (which has used building materials), Craigslist, and other stores. However, I wasn't able to find anything within our budget in the size we wanted. We (my hubby and I) decided to build them with the wood we had. We have a lot of scrap wood from other projects which we could use for these cabinets. We did have to buy some wood, but we are using what we have too. Above, is the frame of the cabinets. Next up is to put on the doors and start painting.

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We will be putting our cabinets on either side of the wall with a shelf in the middle, like this picture.

On the wall opposite of the washer and dryer we put up thin boards to give more texture to the wall. This is a picture of the boards primed.

Soon it will be white with a row of hooks above it and some art work or a drying rack. Like this idea:

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There is a lot more to do for the room:

-Paint room

-Paint cabinets

-Paint folding table (on top of washer and dryer)

-buy a rug

-drying rack

-hang hooks

-hang chandelier (and possibly paint it)

-baskets

-art work

-new cover for ironing board

I better get going on this list! Go check out what some of the other bloggers and designers are up to HERE and HERE. I'll have another update next week. Thanks for stopping by. 

Navy Blue Velvet Sofas and An Upholstery Project

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I found a camel back sofa (at a thrift store) that I saw as a diamond in the rough and I've been working on it for over a year. It's no biggie. Not! This project doesn't settee well with me, but I've learned a tons (see what I did there?). Here are a few pictures to show you where things are with the project, but first I want to show you some pretty images of navy blue velvet sofas that inspired me to continue with this project.

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Emily Henderson

I love the rich color and texture of velvet. 

The frame was in good shape but it needed a new covering. I put it in our library by the bookshelves because I have this vision of my kids studiously reading Homer's Odyssey on a cold winter's day and there's no finer place to do that than on a blue velvet sofa! Actually, the real reason is that we didn't have anything else in there yet (except our piano). I looked up how much fabric I would need to recover this sofa using this chart:

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For the camel back I needed twelve yards. When I started my search for navy blue velvet it was not easy to find. Fabric.com and JoAnn's carry velvets but not the navy. I ended up finding some beautiful velvet on ebay for $12/yard!! That is a great price compared to what I found on other sites. 

Here's a nice process picture for you, stuffing and all. It takes a long time to pull out all the staples from the original covering and the sofa has pretty much looked like this for the past year.  Luckily, I've had some good friends come help me (more like I begged and bribed them to come over and help), which made the process fun.

Here she is now, looking a bit more recovered (here's another one) but still more to go. Sofa, so good (okay, I'll stop with the puns!). This beauty is almost done! I'll show you how it looks soon and blog about the things I've learned about upholstering furniture. 

One Room Challenge: Laundry Room Makeover, Week 2

Thanks for all your kind comments about the plan of our laundry room makeover last week. This week was not a huge amount of progress in the room. I better get on it! I have researched fabrics and affordable wallpaper and stencils this week. I'm entertaining the idea of framing out wallpaper on our back wall and found this one at an affordable price. It's from Laura Ashley and I love it!

                                                              Summer palace powder blue

                             I think framing it on the back wall would look pretty. What do you think?

I've also been 'shopping my house'. I remembered when we moved into our home we took down the original chandelier from the dining room and put up a different light. This chandelier was silver and then I painted it with Annie Sloan chalk paint (Paris Gray). However, I might be giving it a pop of color soon.

This coming week we'll be taking down the wire shelves and installing new shelving. Also on the agenda this weekend is painting!! Hopefully, I'll have more progress to show next week. Thanks for stopping by. You can see the progress of 20 amazing designer/bloggers and other bloggers like me who are in the challenge. There is a ton of inspiration!

DIY Large Statement Mirror

I was planning something different for today's blog post, but I just finished this mirror and couldn't wait to show you! I love when a DIY project turns out the way you envisioned it, and this one did. It's super easy to make and cost only $43! The inspiration: Ballard Design large wooden mirror (I don't think they make this anymore, with a price tag of around $300). I love the look of a large statement piece above a fireplace and wanted something similar for our home. 

Here's how I made this large statement piece:

One Room Challenge: The Laundry Room Redo (Week 1)

I'm joining the rest of the crazies in Linda's ORC! If you are unfamiliar with the ORC, it's a design challenge to get a room done in six weeks. Plenty of time right? Well, last time I worked on my daughter's room and it was pretty tight right up to the end. I'm sure this experience will be similar. Every Thursday, for the next six weeks I will be updating you on the progress of the room. I'm a linking participant, and there are twenty designers who were selected to show their skills. I can't wait to see what they come up with. I really like this challenge because it forces me to get going on a room I've been wanting to do for awhile. So here's the blank slate of a laundry room that I'm going to tackle:

                 

This little sink has a lot of potential to look cute. I'm thinking a skirt would dress her up. 

Baskets and bins will help me a lot in this room. Also, hooks on the long wall, and a new light will go a long way. I'm not for sure about the wallpaper, even though I love it. It's out of my price range so we'll see what I end up doing.

Now for some room inspirations:                            

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I love the idea of an accent wall either painted dark, stenciled or wallpaper. Floating shelves would be a great DIY to do in here too. 

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I like the idea of putting up pictures of my children and family in here so I can remember why I do laundry.
Overall, I want our laundry room to be practical, organized, happy and a place where I'll want to stay around and fold laundry. I can't wait to get started! I'll show you sneak peaks along the way of my progress every Thursday. Thanks for stopping by!