HOME TOUR // KITCHEN (AGAIN)

We first moved into our house in May of 2011, and over the course of the next year or two, we did a ton of painting and settling in. None of the original colors were hideous but this was our chance to customize our first house, so we slowly wound up painting most rooms.

Here we are 4 years later and a lot of these rooms are going through a second transformation.
I'm hesitant to speak for everyone but I feel pretty confident in saying that although it was only over the course of 4 years, my design aesthetic has changed a TON from 24 to 28. I always had a soft spot for the style we ended up gravitating towards but, much like wedding planning, I found myself appreciating many different kinds of styles, which meant that to the naked eye our house looked fine, but it started to feel disjointed to me.

So, slowly, I've been tweaking rooms to bring them in line with my newly defined preference, which I've dubbed a cross between farmhouse and restoration hardware (on a NOT RH budget). Actually if we're being honest, Jenna Sue is my new design style but that's weird to explain to people. Think: neutrals, some rustic wood finishes, a touch of industrial, and natural textiles.

Most of the first floor has gotten updates with this vision in mind.. the office, well, to be blunt I'm waiting until that transforms into a nursery (NOT PREGNANT) because it's weird to do a mini in-between stage and weird to make it a nursery sans baby in utero, so for now it stays. Even though the couch got moved to the living room and I HATE HATE those shelves now. Woof. The bedroom is close to finally finished (after that last update over a year ago, HA), so I'll post about that soon, and the bathroom is going to be going through it's 2nd phase of updates too since we took down some shelves, realized we lost/tossed the original paint color, and now need to repaint it all anyway to cover the spackle marks.

But TODAY is about the kitchen! She got a fresh coat of paint, some new shelves, and new curtains. The color is Benjamin Moore, revere pewter.. I want to slather it on EVERYTHING, it is THE PEFECT greige.. all caps necessary. Thankfully there's literally 1.25 walls showing (the rest are covered by cabinets) so this was a super easy paint job. Previously we had a mini cork board we made out of wine corks, a wine rack, and a chalkboard hanging on this wall. The former and the latter were REALLY early on DIY projects, and were quite honestly, very obviously DIY, which started to bug me as I want a more grown up look. So for now it's just the shelves, but I'm thinking of re-adding a chalkboard to the right, just have to determine my materials. Enough blabbing, here she is:

Shelves were a DIY: that's galvanized steel plumbing pipe that was sprayed in an oil rubbed bronze finish. For each one, we used an end cap, a 6 inch pipe segment, and a flange (this one is black though). We then drilled each assembled bracket into a stud through 2 of the 4 holes in the flange (just left the other 2 empty, it was plenty supported with 2 as is). Used some pipe clips that wrapped around each bracket and went into the bottom of the wood to secure the shelves in case they were bumped. 4 hooks on the bottom and side holding the mugs and keys were from Target and were white, just sprayed them to match the brackets. 

Curtains are from Target as well (also come in yellow and grey). 

And let's not forget what it looked like when we moved in: 

So there's a proper little tour of our little kitchen! Someday I want a great big open kitchen with the same kind of floating wood shelves (for some of my pretty white pieces), white or grey cabinets, white subway tile... but, I love this little kitchen just the same for right now. It's where we blast music and chop veggies and talk about our day as TJ alternates between meowing for scraps and staring out the door. 

The more we tinker with the house the more I realize that even though I know this isn't my "forever" house, I'm going to have a really, really hard time leaving it..and get emotional even thinking about it. I know I offhandedly mentioned it a few times we were sorta casually looking, but after running numbers decided that rather than stretching ourselves or making an intermediary move, we're going to stay here for a few more years and really save and make sure we're ready for the next one. That means we'll undoubtedly (barring complications) be bringing home our first baby to this house. The same house that saw us move in together for the first time, get engaged, get married, lose a parent and so much more. 

I love you, little house. You've been so good to us. 

Office redo: inspiration

Memorial Day weekend was a good one.

With the weather being cloudy, off and on rainy, and overall chilly (60s at best), I didn't feel the desire to take many pictures. M and I went to Bachelor Farmer here in Minneapolis on Friday and ate ourselves stupid (seriously, if you're in MN and have never been there: GO. Such a unique dining experience. All local food, very contemporary, with a Scandinavian twist!). Saturday..hmm.. what did we do. AH, I ran errands to get supplies for my dad's office redo..the actual topic of today's post! and Saturday night we went to the Happy Gnome in St. Paul to celebrate a friend's nursing school graduation. Sunday was a lazy day with the kitty, as was Monday. Monday night we went to my parents to grill, and I closed off the weekend with a viewing of the Bachelorette. I don't even want to hear it. It's trash, probably half fake, and I don't curr.

 

Moving on, since I took no real photos this weekend..

 

I casually mentioned a while ago that I wanted to redo my dad's office. 

A few years back, when my dad was in Florida, I surprised him by updating his kitchen. Nothing terribly fancy, but I painted the cabinets (they had this delightfully hideous sponge painted strawberry detailing), painted the walls, replaced all the hardware, and bought a shelf and some art. He was floored when he got home and saw it. 

Well, my mother... bless her... and her wheelchair, have destroyed the kitchen. She's run into the cabinets, scraped the walls, to the point where there's giant rivets gone in the wood, and the white cabinets are now incredibly dirty and stained. I don't even like talking about it because it bums me out so hard. I know it's not her fault, and now she doesn't really tool around in her wheelchair the way she used to, but it still makes me go "wahhh." 

The bonus with the office is: she never goes in there! Just kidding. But my dad has painted her room and mentioned wanting to paint and clean up the office, which was my childhood bedroom, before the wedding since one of his friends will be staying with them. That's when I realized that his upcoming trip to Canada with M would provide the perfect opportunity to surprise him with an office redo! 

I created a polyvore account (that people continue to "follow" me on, despite the fact that I've only created ONE board?) to mock up an inspiration board for the office. Here's what I came up with:

So yesterday I headed to Target to try to recreate this mood board. I picked up 4 window panels:

 

They were on sale for $13 a piece, and these curtain rods in a silver finish: 

 

Annnd I splurged on this mercury lamp base, that I wanted to keep for myself (although I think it was only $29.99 in store): 

 

and this lamp shade to top her off: 

I'm unsure if I'm going to go through with the rug.. I may sacrifice that for more art in the budget (he has some great old sports photos/memorabilia I may frame). I'm going to go scout desks at IKEA this week, which is where the desk in the inspiration board is from. Although, I may opt for a more plain "table" style desk, with no drawer. I'll have to see what they have in stock.

I'm planning on painting it something like this:

SO, stay tuned for some updates! We'll see how this goes. :P

Wedding DIY: pallet sign

Guys, 

I take back every time I ever said "this is my favorite DIY" because THIS, what you will see below, is my favorite DIY to date. I love art in different mediums, and there's just something about a pallet sign that makes me happy. The thing is, the markup on these things on etsy is out of control. 

I will say, after completing one I now understand the sellers are charging for labor, because holy tedious. 

I based my particular sign off a few different pins on Pinterest. 

The font and layout were inspired by this one:

(via)

I didn't even realize the pin was from a now-defunct etsy seller until just now. 

Nevertheless, this was what I was going for. 

There are tons of DIY's on Pinterest for "pallet signs"... but instead of attempting to locate and dismantle an actual pallet, I went to Home Depot and picked up 6 pieces of balsam in their lumber department that were the exact size of the strips you'll see in the project and required zero cutting. They were about $1.69 a piece. I then bought a thinner piece of the same type of wood that I cut for the back braces. That also was $1.69 or so. 

Total for this project $14.50 (including a sprite purchased at checkout). 

I had the nails, 

I had the black paint and cream paint from other projects (a quart each). 

Here's the finished product:

 

See? 

I love her. 

Now to the "how to"...

1. Assemble your wood into strips.

Because my wood was store bought, I wanted to offset the "newness" of it by not perfectly lining up my pieces of wood. If you look in the finished product photo, you can see they're uneven.

2. Nail your braces into the wood.

If you were going to do this project right, I'd recommend getting wood screws about 1/8 an inch smaller than the width of the brace and strips of wood combined.
BUT I was intensely impatient and discovered that we did not have short enough wood screws, so I just used finishing nails.
After nailing from back to front, the wood didn't seem 100% stable, so I then nailed from front to back to reinforce it.
This is why you can see nail heads in the first picture. I don't mind though, I think it looks more rustic.

3. If you want, paint the wood a base color. 

I had a paint color called "parchment"that matched some of our wedding colors (we're just using tans, creams, black and white.
I applied SUCH a thin layer of it (because I wanted it to look worn and still show the wood grain).
You could also take sandpaper to it when you're done to distress it.
Let dry, and then start on the letters.

4. Print lettering off computer in the actual size it will appear on the sign and trace onto wood.

[I used THIS lettering technique from another pallet sign tutorial.]

In the bottom of the above photo you can see a tiny bit of the printed letters. They were around size 200 font,  and I used Edwardian Script and Century (I believe).
Cut close enough to the letters that you can estimate the layout, but still have some white space around the letters.
Take a black sharpie and very slowly trace the outside of all the letters, moving slow enough so the marker bleeds through and leaves a faint outline on the wood that you can paint in.

Like this:

 

[If you're wondering why the "Love" is so dark, it's because I commissioned Matt to help on that word. At the risk of not doing it dark ENOUGH, he overcompensated. After a few sighs and "there has to be a faster way to do this's" I relieved him of his duty. Bless him for trying.]

5. Paint in the letters using a small paintbrush.

[You can see the thin layer of base paint in the above shot really well. Makes it look worn.]

And again, the finished product.

I think I'm going to utilize the other side of the sign for something else wedding related, too.
Maybe a "pick a seat, not a side" sign.
2-fer-1!

I'm in love...

with my camera. 

Some of you may have seen on social media that my camera came...

annndd then I fell off the face of the earth. 

Just kidding, but I have spent some time tinkering with it, reading blogs, and scaring the crap out of my cat. Turns out it scares him when some large alien like contraption is pointed in his face, whirrs, beeps, and clicks. Although as a result of his confusion, I was able to get some great shots. 

I think I'm going to struggle with not trying to make EVERY photo super artsy, and perfect. 

That being said, I'll share some photos I took of TJ. I sent the first one to Walgreens and when I picked it up (along with an Engagement photo I had printed for a project I did) the guy asked if I had a copyright release for both of them.

New camera, FTW! 

First of all, 

thank you all who left fabulous tips on my first camera post. I've been putzing with it, looking at the manual, and looking at blog posts. So far, I can safely say the "vomit" feeling from making such a big purchase has disappeared totally. 

(also, for unknown reasons the money that had been pulled from my account for the camera, magically REAPPEARED in my checking account after I picked it up. I haven't asked any questions, and I hope it stays there. Also, this is probably why Best Buy is tanking).

Second, 

this camera has reaffirmed one thing for me: I have a VERY sexy cat. Seriously. He's so good looking.

Third, 

I'm obsessed with picmonkey.com. I'd heard the name thrown around before but figured it was enough like Picasa, so 'why bother'.. uhh WRONG. It's like Instagram for real life with bitchin' filters, and I'm in love. 

This weekend, M and I took on a few home projects. We got up and headed to IKEA first thing Saturday morning, and got a new light for the kitchen. After a few hours, some "are we going to burn in our sleep" concerns, it seems to have worked! M was super proud, he's gotten to be quite handy at house stuff but always shied away from electrical (for good reason too.. scary stuff if done wrong!) Now that he's confident, I'm taking advantage and will be getting a chandelier for upstairs in the not so near future ;-) 

also, I took zero photos of that. 

I, on the other hand, was busy makin' pretties..as I call them.

I purchased several frames at IKEA, with the idea to finally make our upstairs feel more homey. So I created a gallery wall to go up the stairs:

I used some engagement photos...

and a little "quote book" Leah got me a while ago..

I created some collages with the quotes..

aannnddd laid it all out like so: 

And this is how it looks, except, on the wall. I took these at night and the lighting up the stairs is garbage so, I knew I wouldn't get a good shot of it in action on the wall. 

I freaking love it. 

I also love that I finally have a "nice" photo of my cat. I feel like it's more socially acceptable to hang photos of pets if they look artsy. 

Lastly, M helped me complete a project I've been wanting to for ages. After seeing a Pinterest pin, I knew I had to recreate it. 

Ta da!

The frame was $8 or so at IKEA,... I printed off an 8x10 of us for $3, I had the wine bottle and fake flowers, and all that was left to purchase was this (at Home Depot):

M pre-drilled a hole, and then drilled through that little hole in the base of the hanger and into the wall. The one we have has a hinge on one side, and then the threaded screw to close it on the other side. SO, if we ever want to change out the wine bottle, all we have to do is unscrew it. 

All in all, it cost me about $13....annnnddd I love it. I'm a big advocate of hanging "different" things on the wall.. I like wall installations (like the one from the upstairs remodel) and things you may not expect to find for visual interest. 

That's all! 

Stay tuned for many more very fancy cat photos in the future. 

Just kidding. kind of.

HOME TOUR // HOLIDAY EDITION

While everyone else posts Thanksgiving recaps,

I'm here to bring you some holiday decor.

I might get around to posting a Thanksgiving recap, but really it just involved a trip to Moorhead Wednesday-Saturday, an impromptu date night at the Bulldog N.E. Saturday night (we had buffalo wings, truffle fries w/parmesean cheese, and bacon scallion cream cheese wontons. I don't even feel bad about it, it was the best meal ever.) 

Whilst up north, there was also LOTS of food, one day involved a lot of turkey, gravy, stuffing and potatoes (I bet you can guess which one!)..another involved knockoff Red Lobster biscuits (BETTER than the RL biscuits, actually) and homemade tortilla soup. Basically I ate my ass off, snuggled with a kitten, and devoured Kelle Hampton's book, Bloom, in a little over a day. It was delightfully relaxing, and I am writing this because I know full well there will never BE a "full" recap post.. partially due to my laziness (and the belief that if I can't get it in by Monday, then..well..what's the point?) aaannndd due to the fact that most my photos are of the cat (Cassie). 

Moving on. We decorated last weekend, because it was freaking awesome to come home after thanksgiving to an already decorated house. And because we didn't have anyone over for Thanksgiving, it's pretty much like it never happened before Thanksgiving..since no one saw it (but us). 

So far, it's been a losing battle of keeping TJ away from the tree, and he's probably been doused in over 32 oz. of water for being a naughty little shit. I foresee this dance lasting until early January. 

Moving on, I've just compiled some collages of before (the photo on the far left, in each collage) and after, where I've decorated. It's not a lot, but, it's perfect to me. :) 

The front entryway table:

 The "faux mantle" (that garland has lights on it.. and I suspect will fall off 2-3 times before Christmas. It's being held up all janky like with electrical tape, which I noticed today had already come undone in the middle once.. aaannnddd I think is ruining the shelf. Oh well. Shelf can always be painted, and nobody will see it anyway). 

I had the burlap (as anybody who has been around here for any amount of time could tell you ;-) ... that 100 yards has gone a LONG way), and the stockings were $3 at Target. 

I also bought pins to put on them. They didn't have an "M", so I bought a W (genius, I know) and flipped it upside down.

Aaannnddd the tree. 

TJ's favorite game is to dive under it, chew on the branches, and tug off the bottom layer of burlap. I love that cat with all my being, but man does he try my patience during the holidays. Last year he was tiny enough, he'd scale the center of the tree. M and I would look over and see 2 eyes peeking out of it about 3 feet up. Thankfully he hasn't tried that this year, he must know he's too big. 

So there it is! 

I have a huge black mirror on the wall opposite this window (above), that I'm thinking of making/putting a wreath over. Other than that, this is pretty much going to be it for the year. There are Christmas lights strung around that window behind the tree too. I love me some Christmas lights.