Keeping it Simple: Decor to Offset a Small, Awkward and Off Center Space

This is not a sponsored post.

Here is a quick share on my off center closet door (that actually leads to a 1977 wetbar. (We will get to that later). Sometimes it's hard to know what to do with a space like that.

This house is full of awkward spaces and it seems like NOTNING is centered! GAH! I'm a just a little OCD so this drove me crazy in the beginning, however, I have come to love my awkward spaces and found ways to let them shine beautiful character throughout my home.

The first awkward space I worked with was my off centered, 1970's fireplace. You can see that here.

For today's space I chose to balance with some meaningful photos of my kids and their favorite memories I had printed from my Instagram via Walgreen's. Then I fashioned them to the wall with Command Strips. I love those things!

I don't have a lot of family photos up in my house, but I love the very candid, real life - non posed photos. They are the best form of art for me. I love imperfect. I love real. I don't too much care for anything perfect or those perfectly posed pictures. They are not my thing. 

Just to note, what's funny about that is that I was once a professional photographer and loved my job. I'm just drawn to the capture of real life memories. 

That's just me. 

Moving on. I also love plants. I love green and the outdoors. I mention this because I believe in decorating with what you love. You'll be happier in your space. I try to bring the outside in as much as I can without cluttering up the place. 

Here is my little simple (did I mention I also love simple?) reveal:

I wish I had a before photo for you so you could see the serious transformation. I have GOT to get better about that. I have a partial before that includes the stairs and lovely worn linoleum: 

After:

New light fixture coming someday. This whole space was updated with paint, resilient vinyl wood plank flooring, and the stairs de-carpeted and DIY'd to what you see now. More on that another time.

I found the (Bombay) plant stand @ Goodwill (for 10 bucks, which is kind of a big score!) and painted the same color as the door (Rustoleum Dark Walnut) 

The plant (creeping fig) was a Lowe's clearance score (half off)! Woo hoo! A little water and she was good to grow. 

The frames, believe it or not, are dollar tree. I love them. They are the recessed kind and had mats included! 

I thought about leaving the space blank, but it felt like it needed something and I needed to put up some pictures of my kids since my office is the only place I had any. So that's what I decided to do and I'm happy with the turnout. I love decorating, but I'm all about keeping things clean, simple, working & spending less. 

After all... we Americans could use a slow down. All of us stressed out to the max chasing material things and trying to help our kids chase their dreams. Less is more. Decorating is my passion so I know how hard it can be to stop working on it to strengthen my relationships. Because, after all... in the end... they are all that matter. 

The struggle is real. 

Thanks for reading, guys. You're the best. 

Until next time...

How to Design & Decorate on the Cheap. Finding the deals & steals.

This is not a sponsored post.

I recently had a friend ask if I could put together a how to on budget shopping (shoutout, Melissa! & Thanks!).

I thought I would write a post on how I save on design and decorating for anyone else who might be interested as well.

Number One- Design 

There is no faster way to accumulate clutter and waste money than not having a plan first. Ask me how I know! I do not use a design software and I can't draw. That's because I don't have to. Instead I copy. There is so much inspiration on Pinterest, home magazines, Instagram, blogs and home & DIY websites. I find a room I love and copy it. It doesn't turn out exactly like my inspiration photos most of the time. I don't want it to. And it's free. I add my own style and items based on things I find for cheap or already have that will work. I save a ton of $$$ this way.

Garage Sales & Resale Shops

Obviously you can get amazing prices at garage sales and resale shops a lot more often than you can online or in stores. Not all resale or garage sale prices are great deals. You can get a great price on a shelf, but if it's a particle board POS then you'll be shelling out time, energy and money to get rid of it and replace it later.

Then there is the impulse buying factor. You know that if you choose to wait, it won't be available later. Which means you either regret buying or not buying later. It also means you accumulate clutter. Quick. It's easy to buy stuff because it's cheap and not because you need it. The following are my personal resale and garage sale buying guidelines that help keep me from impulse buying:

1) If I can't think of a place for it to go, I don't buy it. Even if I love it and it's cheap. UNLESS, I am willing to replace something with it. If I find an adorable lamp, but I already have a lamp... then I ask myself if it's worth spending the money on the new lamp to replace the old one.

2) I keep a list of things I need to look for. This keeps me focused and also helps me remember what I went in for in the first place. You know... mom brain. That's my excuse and I'm using it until the kids are gone. When I can't use it anymore then I will blame it on old age.

3) I only buy good quality. If I get tired of looking for it, I will look into building or DIYing it.

4) I avoid estate sales like the plague. There's just too much emotional attachment to things. Hence the high prices. Church sales, resale shops, charity sales on donated items hold a lot less emotional attachment and you get a MUCH better price.

5) Check curbside. My living room sofa and wing-back chair were curbside finds.

My living room

Well, the wing-back was given to me by a neighbor who was getting ready to throw it to the curb. Where I would have taken it.

Via Pinterest

You can tell yourself that you'll be recycling and keeping things from the dump that only need a little cleaning up. (This is how I make myself feel okay with trash digging ;). But be careful... this quickly turns into hoarding and clutter as well if you're not careful. I have seen it over and over.

Decide on the pieces you love the most and don't pick up any more until they are made-over and in their places.


Goodwill

Oh Goodwill. Sigh. Sometimes I can find good deals on home decor items. I feel that you can no longer find good deals on furniture here, unfortunately. I have three Goodwill's that I will pop into and it seems like the pricing is different based on who is pricing that day. Still... the prices on their furniture is outrageous to me. I guess it depends on what it is. If I bought furniture from Goodwill it would only be some big expensive name brand where their price is at least 80-90% the original cost. I prefer to find other resale shops for my furniture and home items. IF you must shop Goodwill, it's best to shop often... usually a Monday or Tuesday since they get garage sale leftovers on weekends. You'll have the best selection then. OR find a Goodwill outlet store. Now those are pretty awesome. I like those. Find your local Goodwill Outlet Store here. My first Goodwill Outlet experience happened in Austin, TX. I live in Houston, TX. It's totally worth the drive to me.

As far decor items, I guess I would apply the same principle.

Finding Retail Deals

I find a lot of deals in store. Especially grocery stores or stores you wouldn't normally shop for home decor. The thing is just that. Nobody really shops for home decor in a grocery store so most of the time it doesn't sell and ends up on clearance shelves @ a deep discount. At least where I live. When I shop in store I usually will not buy anything that's not at least a 75% mark down. You also want to shop places that will let you stack coupons with clearance sales. Kroger will let you use their home coupons on clearance items.

I LOVE Kohl's coupon policy. They will let you stack multiple coupons WITH clearance items.

I do more shopping online than in store, usually... but we will get to that in a minute. First I want to mention that you won't know if you're getting a good deal if you don't have a good idea of what an item costs. So shop around. Impulse buying is the fastest way to overspending. Be patient. Even if you miss a deal on something. You'll find another deal on the item later or you'll find a great deal on something else you love that will work equally as well.

Online Shopping

I find amazing deals through coupon blogs like Hip2save, Passionate Penny Pincher, Penny Penchin' Mom & My Frugal Adventures. They will keep you posted! I follow them on Facebook so I'm always seeing the deals in my feed.

Before I buy anything for a "great online deal" I make sure it really is a great deal. One way to do quick research is to Google and item then click on the shopping tab. From there you can refine your search to list products from low to high in price.


Using What You Have

This is my favorite way to decorate. Also most frustrating. This is because sometimes I can get creative or find I already have something that works, and sometimes I spend way too much time and energy on trying to make something work that just isn't going to work.

Via Etsy

 I love decorating but I don't like spending money on it.

I have learned to donate what doesn't work and find something that does.

I absolutely love displaying old or sentimental items. Have old letters? Put them on display! It's much more meaningful artwork or rolled up filler. Old camera's? Old books? Pinterest is a wealth of creativity and ideas for how to display things and get them out of your closet. Anything you can't find a place for... get rid of it. Sell it for cash or donate it. But remember...

a clean house is a pretty house.

It's my belief that stuff weighs people down. Gives you something to worry about. I love quality because it lasts longer but only when I can buy it used for deep discounts. I don't want to pay a lot of money for anything because then I'll worry over it. That's just me. I don't want a lot of stuff because it overwhelms me. That's just me. I like things simple.

DIY

Do it yourself. Buy supplies. Make stuff. Save tons of money every time.

The truth is DIY is NOT always cheaper.


Compare the cost and time required for building or DIY'ing verses the time and cost of finding what you need at a garage sales or resale shops. A reoccurring theme in this blog post is patience. Slow down. Don't get in a hurry. That's how you'll find a better DIY plan, or sweet deal on someting that will work without all the work ;)

The Best for Last
The best way to create a beautiful space is through your attitude. And that costs zilch. Nada. Nothing. In the end... how people feel when they are in your home comes from more than the decor.




Thanks for reading! I hope someone out there finds this helpful. Please let me know if you feel like I left anything out or if you have any questions!

Farmhouse Half Bath Reveal!

This is not a sponsored post.

Phew! It seems like it's taken us forever to complete this half bath project. All of our projects seem to happen a little here and there until, over time they are finally complete. Family life is so stinking busy with three kids. We try to balance home, work, kids, hobbies, chores, errands ect... so we are a bit slow in our completion of things. But they DO get completed... eventually. Actually... I still have caulking and painting to do, but I promised a post soon so here it is. Caulking and painting later.

Onto the reveal...

Before:

Unfortunately, this is the only before picture I have. Because I have to get better about taking before photos. You can't see it but the fiberglass sink is cracked and disgusting. Especially around the drain. Just like all the sinks and tubs in this house. There was also cracked and very VERY worn (with holes in it) white "tile" linoleum on the floor before we tore it out and laid down resilient vinyl wood plank flooring.

During:

What a mess!

This project, like all of the projects, took a lot longer and was more labor intensive than I anticipated. And like all projects... nothing went according to plan.

This is me tired of installing sheetrock while the hubby was at work: 

We discovered mold in the walls, cut out the moldy sheetrock all around the room and installed new sheetrock. 

Our initial plan was just to paint to save time and money. However, hubby and I discovered that neither one of us is good at the mud work (patching and texturing drywall) part of drywall and we set off for a solution that would keep us from having to hire someone to finish it for us. 

So we slapped some sloppy coats of "mud"on and we ship-lapped over it. 

After:

We did not replace the cabinet. I painted it (painting tutorial and up close photos coming soon), and gave it a new counter top, sink and spray painted hardware. I use Rustoleum car primer first, then finish with Rustoleum spray paint for the drawer and cabinet pulls. The lantern light fixture was an outdoor Amazon find for $25. I'm a bit disappointed in my decision to buy it because I find great light fixtures at garage sales frequently. In fact, all of my "new" fixtures have been garage sale finds that I've not paid over $5 for. Well... too late now. Moving on.

Foliage artwork inspired by Jenna Sue! Find her how to here. If you guys don't already know, Jenna Sue is my hero. 

Lowe's cut sheets of plywood into 12" strips for us for free. We could have saved a significant amount by doing this with sheets of MDF (medium density fiberboard). I'm not sure why I didn't do that. I blame mom brain.

Like the kitchen, the half bath sports a DIY wood counter top (how to and follow up post coming soon). We had to get creative to fit the under-mount sink in. The cabinet did not have the support the sink needed so we had to improvise. Which is why it looks like we have a stacked counter top. I'm just glad it's functional at this point.

I want to talk about the faucet. I mentioned in a previous post that I scored big on faucets on Amazon. This is one of the faucets I was talking about. It's a MR direct (sir faucet) lavatory faucet. When I bought it, the retail price was $699!!! The sale price was $49. Now, I'm pretty skeptical about those retail prices, but the faucet had great reviews and the price was way better than what I would find at Lowe's or Home Depot. The faucet has been installed for over a year and we love it. We have had absolutely NO problems at all!

Overall project cost: Roughly $500. Frowney face. Updating the kitchen and bathroom have been our most expensive projects. Both costing more than I wanted or anticipated. Atleast with the kitchen we had hired help. The total includes our sheetrock, paint, lumber, supplies, light fixture, sink, faucet, mirror, trim & resilient vinyl plank wood floor. And a whole lot of elbow grease. Some things we already had on hand...but most of it was bought specifically for this project. There was definitely room for more saving. We seem to span these projects over a super long period of time, as I mentioned, so we don't feel the sting of taking it all at once. Still... as I am learning through this experience am always learning of news ways to cut costs and that will inspire future posts.

I love the look of the "planked" walls and can't wait to do it to our other bathrooms! The total cost for planking this tiny half bath was still $170. This includes plywood, trim & caulk. I could have saved $30 right off the bat just by having Lowe's rip MDF instead of plywood. You don't get the wood grain but it still looks nice and it's a way to save 30 bucks.

Thank you for reading. As always, if you have any questions, or things you'd like to know/see please comment!

I hope you enjoyed this post. Until next time....

Kitchen Reveal! The Big Picture.

This is not a sponsored post.

Here it is! My kitchen reveal. I couldn't wait to show you all.

Realtors say the kitchen and bath are the most important updates in a home. That's why I'm not TOO upset about dropping $5k on the kitchen by the time all was said and done. Granted, this took place over time. It didn't happen all at once, but it was still way more than I wanted to spend.

Still...when I see how easy it is for people to spend $25k+ on a kitchen remodel, I don't feel so bad.

All labor, materials, paint, appliances & supplies are included in the $5k.

Kitchen before:

To cut costs, we tried to keep the layout as original as possible.

During:

Those funky square holes in the wall are where the wall drawers were. They were unsightly, stopped flow and did not make use of all the room we had under the stairs. We opened up the pantry instead by removing a wall on the inside and closing the wall here. 

Hubby's DIY built in for the stove/microwave combo re replaced the island range with. 

After:

The 5k included appliances. Lowe's has a wonderful program where they will beat any competitors price by 10%. So I waited for local appliance sales then I called Lowe's up. It. was. awesome.

The stove range on the over sized island was in a dangerous place for my kids so there was no way around replacing that. We actually tore down the old island ourselves and my husband built a DIY stove/microwave combo to house the new, safer location where the double oven used to be. He also did a DIY built-in for the fridge. It looks so much more polished now! You'll find plenty of how-to's on credible websites like HGTV, Old House Magazine, and DIY network. My husband just winged it. I don't think he actually had a plan at all. He is a natural improviser. I don't get that because I am a planner. For me, not having a plan spells disaster. For him, he loses all will to do anything when it's planned. Everything turns out ok in the end, I guess. Just different ways of doing things.

Long story short, as I mentioned in a previous post, this is our first DIY everything. We don't have any kind of education or experience in the area of home construction. Everything has been research and learning for me... and winging it for him. He's very smart and careful and nothing has caught on fire or exploded yet so I guess I'm ok. I guess.

The most frustrating part for us both is that nothing is square or level in this house. Nothing. Everything else is easy, once you get it down. However, caulk covers a multitude of sins.

By painting the cabinets light it really brightened up the space. Painting the area above the cabinets the same color made the small kitchen feel bigger and more unified, drawing the eye all the way up to the ceiling rather than having a stopping point at the cabinets like before. We also removed some of the cabinet doors for open shelving. 

We did a DIY wood plank counter top. You can find plenty of tutorials on that via Pinterest. I love that people are doing follow up posts after some time has passed to let others know how things hold up! In the future, I will have a few of those as well.

For the counter top color I  used Miniwax stain in Gunstock & Early American. I use Butcher Block to protect it. You can find it @ Lowe's. It's food safe and much easier to repair than polyurethane or acrylic coatings.

We used the same "set in" sink we had, but we under-mounted it. The chandelier was a $2 garage sale score. The faucet was one I'm not so excited about.

One night, while the (not so frugal) hubster was fixing an emergency plumbing problem, he rushed off to Lowe's and bought a replacement fixture he thought I would like. And he was right. I just didn't like the price tag that came with it. $200. Ouch! $200!?! I appreciated his thoughtfulness but inside I was panicking. Everything turned out ok... and I do love the faucet, but I recommend shopping Amazon for fixtures. Not only is it a lot easier to find great deals on brands built to last, you also get customer product reviews. We have wished we had those reviews handy when we've bought a few things in store before. Plus, Amazon offers a lot bigger selection. I scored some beautiful, sturdy faucets for our bathrooms on Amazon clearance for.... get this... $50 down from $600! Holy smokes! Sometimes I question how true that original retail price really is... but these had terrific reviews and I've now had one installed for a year and LOVE it! We have had absolutely no problems with it and always receive compliments on how much other people love it.

For our backsplash, we DIY installed faux brick paneling from Lowe's and painted it in the same shade of Sherwin Williams Summer White that we used on the rest of the kitchen. They have held up beautifully.

I used satin for the walls, semi gloss for the cabinets and gloss for the backsplash.

(closer look at wood countertops & faux brick backsplash)

The island is a dresser makeover. It was given to my sister by a friend of ours. When she moved, she gave it to me and it is now and island. I used Rustoleum spray paint in Dark Walnut to paint the dresser before I painted the stripe using the SW Summer White we used on the rest of the kitchen. I just pray painted the original hardware. I always prime first using Rustoleum auto primer, then used a Rustoleum Hammered Bronze spray paint. I also added legs that I picked up at Lowe's for cheap. 

For the stairs wall, we were only able to cut a whole to open it up a little because of structural reasons. I would have loved to open them up all the way, but the professional costs are astronomical and we were not comfortable (nor knowledgeable) enough to do it ourselves. Still... what we DID do really helped to open up the room so much and unite the kitchen and dining area. We needed for things to feel more open. The rooms in this house are very small except for a huge living room and master bedroom. Was that a 70's thing? I don't understand the proportions. Well... it is what it is, and tearing down walls is labor intensive. Costly too, if you hire someone. So we shall live with it and do the best we can to create and open and airy feel. Paint does so much, and it's not expensive on the scale of home reno expenses, nor is it labor intensive. I guess. Personally, I hate painting. But it isn't hard. Just time consuming. 

(view into the dining area)

We hired a day laborer to paint and finish the drywall work on the portion of the stairs that we opened up. The $5k covered that too. So there was definitely room for more money saving. If you do the labor yourself or use your current appliances, the cost becomes much less. I got overwhelmed with everything and wound up spending $1800 on the day laborer costs to help out with the amount of work.

And last but not least... the flooring is resilient vinyl plank flooring found at Lowe's. I haven't been particularly thrilled with this flooring, but over all I'm happy. It scratches easily but can be covered up with crayon. Other than that, it's very easy to install.

That concludes the kitchen reveal. Thank you so much for reading! Until next time...