A reminder: I’m participating in the ‘One Room Challenge’ (ORC), hosted by Linda from Calling It Home, that challenges home and design bloggers to make over a room in their house from start to finish in 6 weeks. We have decided to tackle our living room. Here’s what you missed: The Before and Vision , The Design Plans, and Tile and Personalization
I’ve been dreaming of a white wood feature wall for about a year, and it’s finally here!
Welcome to the week 4 of the One Room Challenge – which, as I shared last week, is really just week 2 for me.
It was bad enough that I started my living room makeover halfway through the challenge, but this week was met by design paralysis. I am such an indecisive decorator and am often left questioning every move I make. It’s why I normally decorate very slowly, but in his case the speed needed to complete my vision scared me straight!
The first project I really need to get squared away is the white wood feature wall I’ve planned. I contacted Stikwood to get some wood samples to help me feel more confident swatching the project out. I’d been eyeing this solution for a long time, as my husband has had little to no interest in completely DIYing a wood wall for me. This easy peel-and-stick real wood treatment seemed like the perfect solution to get him on board (<< see what I did there?).
Hi Friends! So, I’m doing something a little a lot crazy. I’ve always wanted to take part in Calling It Home’s One Room Challenge – a design challenge for bloggers to make over a room within six weeks. However, I’m jumping in right in the middle, which means I want to try to complete it in just three weeks!. Can I pull off a feature wall and redesign in 3 weeks? We shall see!
When we moved into this home two years ago, one of the first rooms I decorated was my son’s. It’s where inspiration struck first, and I had so much fun creating custom framed engineer prints, pallet art, and industrial pendant lighting. I loved everything about it, and declared his room, “done.”
However, he has since graduated to a bigger bed…which required new bedding…and while I was at it, I decided his room was missing color, and elements that better reflect his personality. Since he’s a little bigger now, he deserves to have a new big boy room to go with it!
My design style, if I had to describe it, is an eclectic mix of colorful, vintage and updated traditional. Today I’m going to reveal his colorful / preppy / rustic / vintage big boy room. Hopefully, this will give you some inspiration on decorating your son’s bedroom and try some of the same things too!
I’m so excited to have my friend, Alicia Bertram of Berties Build on a Budget, guest posting today to share Part II: Our DIY Fixer Upper Reveal – her family’s incredible story of building their dream house, and turning it into a custom home using creativity, inexpensive resources, and lots of elbow grease. To hear how they built their own home, and the crazy sacrifices they made to get out of consumer debt while they did it, please hop over to read Part I of their story!
Last week, I shared how our family built our own home, nail by nail, all while making some incredible sacrifices to get out of consumer debt. This week, I’m excited to share with you the pretty part of our journey – that is, our DIY Fixer Upper reveal!
Pinterest is a girl’s best friend. Am I right!? I knew I wanted to put special touches in most of the rooms but also knew I had to keep our budget in mind at all times. The most important thing I could do in the planning of our house was to first decide how I wanted the house to FEEL. Our last house was dark, choppy but cozy. The dream I had for this space was bright, open and airy. A space that you walk in and just take a deep breath. Cool tones, light wood floors, clean crisp lines and simple.
So here’s what we did:
Entryway: Summer of 2015 we went out to my parents farm where we pulled approximately 500 square feet of barn wood off the barn. It now covers the ceiling of our exterior entryway and also our range hood. We also turned an inexpensive antiqued decoration into a light fixture!
All Photos by Licia Marie Photography
If you have old afghans that are no longer being used, don’t throw them away! Instead, consider repurposing them into new and useful items. Afghans can be a great source of fabric for a variety of projects, from creating pillow covers to making tote bags.
Do you love the look of those great pallet signs on Pinterest (my own version here!), but not the time and labor that goes into them? You’re in luck! Today I’m going to share with you how to make a faux pallet sign in just 10 minutes using inexpensive wood print paper.
Moms who want to get in and out of the kitchen quickly, you’re going to love these vanilla almond sugar cookies! The texture of soft almond sugar cookies just can’t be beat and they are so simple to make.
As you may or may not know, I am not the girl who will make a recipe twice if it’s complicated. Not only that, but I tend to ruin sugar cookies. Yes, it’s true. They came out dry, thin, and don’t even get me started on the way my cut out cookies would look when they didn’t hold their shape!
Let’s just say the kids were not impressed. If you have a history of sugar cookie Pinterest fails like me – there is hope. These sugar cookies with almond extract are here to save your baking reputation.
Recently I attended a holiday party at my friend’s house and she kindly passed the recipe to me when she noticed I couldn’t. stop. eating. them. Oh my gosh, the flavor!
They were perfect vanilla almond sugar cookies. Soft, thick, and just a little chewy. There are so many creative ways to decorate them too!
My favorite part of this recipe is that this dough doesn’t have to be refrigerated before cutting out cookie shapes – it’s perfect for impatient bakers like me! Or, you know, your kids. Ahem.
As soon as I got my hands on that recipe, I had to try making them myself. So easy. The kids loved making the different Christmas shapes and decorating them and the time spent together in the kitchen was a total mom win.
This is one of my favorite projects to date – also the easiest and least expensive: the children’s artwork display located in our Family Command Center – otherwise known as the mud room.
I wanted plenty of space where the children could hang their artwork and good grades with pride, without that messy cluttered look on the fridge. It also needed to be really flat to the wall, since the area I’d designated is in a space the width of a hallway.
Here’s how I did it:
As for the rest of our family mud room command center, it’s still a work in progress. I have dreams for this space!
I found that sign at the thrift store. I think it was from a hotel long ago. I just love it!
What do you think of my low-tech art center for the kids?
Sources:
Earlier this year, I gave a small tour of ‘Belle’s nursery that is slowly transitioning to a big girl room. SLOWLY. Recently, I tried my hand at creating a DIY Canvas for Baby Nursery.
After making Eve’s wall art project I was inspired to make another one for ‘Belle’s room to fill a blank wall. 
I recently posted a photo of our family room on Instagram and got lots of notes asking me about the space. I had friends tell me it looked like something out of a magazine. What a compliment!
I was really surprised by the reaction I got, though. The truth is, anyone can make a space look amazing in just one photograph. Our home is a work in progress. Most of our home is not decorated. I finish little areas of a room and wait to finish the rest of the space as inspiration strikes me. That means there are uglier areas of the room that don’t get shown in photos – like the comfortable, oversized, slightly worn leather chair the corner where it doesn’t quite fit. The lamps that don’t quite match but that continue to live on in the room until I find the perfect lights that fit my budget.
I’m not very confident as a decorator, so I just go by my gut feeling. If I put a rug in the space and I find that I don’t feel comfortable, it’s not the right fit for me. If I put a wild throw pillow on the couch and it makes me want to sit down and enjoy the space – it was the right design choice for me.
Here are the design tips I follow in my home:
Sources:
It’s feeling more like fall outside, and I’m loving my latest mantle decor. I’ve struggled with what to do above my fireplace and have discovered the following tips to make my changing decor look good, every time:
We recently made the decision to sell our “starter” home and build a new home that better accommodates our growing family. We bought this home just months before our wedding, had three babies here and many, many precious memories as a family. We’re ready for the next chapter, but this sentimental mom is feeling a bit emotional about it, as well.
The moment we signed the papers to build our new home I was immediately motivated to take on a project I’ve been meaning to for a long time – make a family growth chart that we can take with us – wherever we go. Our former growth chart was done the old fashioned way – with pencil on the wall of our kitchen (that I still can’t bring myself to paint over even since I’ve made this beautiful new chart).
I’d once tried my hand at an embroidered chart that was supposed to be cute and charming, but didn’t end up looking quite as polished as my inspiration. I also found that I was too lazy to embroider once a year. My laziness factor is high.
So I moved on to those cute reclaimed signs I’ve seen all over Pinterest.
I started with a 3/4″x7″x8′ piece of cedar lumber that I purchased at Home Depot for less than $9. First, I enlisted Dub to weather it for me. I gave him chains and a hammer and let him have at it. I stained it with leftover stain that I used on our stairs for our garage makeover.
From there, I had to get measuring – my least favorite part. Our family is really tall, so I cut my board to 6′ tall and painted 1′ white stripes using leftover paint from the garage makeover. These are some terrible progress photos, but you get the idea.
I actually liked the way this looked when I was done, but I went ahead and sanded it to give it a more distressed look.
Then, I used my silhouette to create the measurement marks. I barely use my Silhouette but I used it for this, figuring it would make the measuring much easier for me. I measured it on the computer, cut it out on the Silhouette and then used transfer paper to stick it right on the board without having to re-measure.
I’m super happy with the way that it turned out! I can’t wait to hang this measurement chart in our new home next year. I can see keeping this chart in our home forever, and measuring little grandbabies someday.
Postscript: after completing my chart, I stumbled upon this cute version by Handmade Charlotte
If I had to do it over again, I think her way of painting the numbers would be a lot cheaper and easier. However, I’d still want to make the measurement marks so that I could tell visually exactly how tall the kids are. Everytime they get measured they want to know EXACTLY how many feet, inches and centimeters tall they are. Because that matters to 4 and 6 year olds.
What do you think? Do you have a family growth chart in your home?
Last weekend I had the DIY bug – I was really in the mood for a project but didn’t want to spend a lot of money. We’re planning to sell our home within the year and don’t want to invest much more into this house. We landed on a garage to mudroom transformation.
