Our first house, a 1960 ranch home.
The CSI Project is a cool blog that hosts weekly link party contests. This week’s challenge was Before and After: Your Favorite Room, so I entered our dining room.
Well, guess what? It placed in the top ten out of 108 entries! Woo to the hoo! I’ve never really won anything, so I’m pretty excited. Go over and check it out. There are a ton of cool rooms and ideas posted each week; you won’t be disappointed.
I have had this wall sculpture made by PrinceDesignUK in my Etsy favorites for a while now. I wish I had $200.00 to spend on this, but I don’t think I ever will. But, it is so pretty I had to share with you.
What is one item you’d love to have, but can’t afford or justify spending the big bucks on? I’d love to see pictures, too, so please send a link if possible.
All images found via the featured Etsy seller’s listing as linked above.
Yeah, it’s the new version of the Man Cave. My mom cave is my nearly finished office.
We (when I say ‘we’, I mean Ben) still need to build cabinet doors and drawers and add some finishing touches with accessories. The bookshelf could be decorated with bright colors to add some pop to play off the neutral white and chocolate color scheme.
I will say that it has come a long way. Before we started, our entire basement was a concrete shell: concrete floors and concrete walls. Add a ton of sheet rock, miles of trim, 700 square feet of tile and a few custom-built cabinets and we are getting closer.
The other wall serves as our library, and floor to ceiling bookshelves were built to suit.
My office is my place to escape, to read blogs, and work on orders for my Etsy shop. This is my mom cave, which happens to neighbor Ben’s man cave. Funny how that works.
Bedding, that is. As you have seen, we have been revamping our boys’ bedroom with a new color scheme of aqua, pear green and sun yellow. So far, we’ve painted a chevron pattern on a thrift store jute rug, painted the bed sun yellow, created affordable magazine artwork, and refinished a sad bookshelf. And now, I have finally decided on new bedding to compliment the color scheme in our boys’ room. Without further ado, here it is.
I love the color and the texture the rings provide, while keeping the space simple. And I really love the combination of aqua against the sun yellow bed. Just what I was hoping for.
The bedding is from Target and was on clearance for $20.98, marked down from $29.99. The quilt is thin, but we’ve layered Vincent’s CARS blanket under and haven’t had any problems yet.
Do you need or want a few more simple projects to infuse color in your child’s room? Look no further. You can make simple magnet board or a set of alphabet magnets or a cute paper banner.
We’re back with yet another Halloween decorating idea. We’ve already shared a DIY feather wreath and a spooky tree, but why not add a stump side table to an outdoor setting? We did. We have a huge woodpile in our backyard. Usually it helps keep us warm throughout the winter months, but I decided to make it work a little harder. I picked out a relatively level stump and rolled it to our front walkway and parked it next to our chairs. I didn’t do anything else to it.
Then, to Halloween it up a little, I topped it with a vase of pretty flowers, a paper mache skull from Michael’s that I spray painted white, a faux pumpkin from Hobby Lobby (also painted white) and a real baby pumpkin.
Stump decoration breakdown:
Stump: FREE
Paper mache skull: $1.49
Faux pumpkin: $1.49
White spray paint: Left over from our DIY dining table
Baby Pumpkin: FREE from a friend
Total for stump and decorations: $2.98
See the striped pillow? I made that. I had a few yards of white corduroy fabric left over from an earlier project, so I decided to use that rather than buy more fabric. First, I sewed the cover, (here’s a tutorial) turning the fabric inside out. I wanted the smooth part facing out so it would be easier to paint. Once I had my cover, I taped off 2 1/2 inch wide stripes.
After that, it was easy. Use black fabric paint and fill in between the lines. Remove the tape soon after and stuff with a pillow form when completely dry.
Pillow budget breakdown:
Fabric: Left over from another project
Fabric paint: Also left over from a previous project
Two pillow forms: $8.99 at JoAnn Fabric
Total cost for Halloween Pillows: $8.99
To add more spookyness on the cheap, I picked up a plastic skeleton from Dollar Tree.
I didn’t like the color, so covered that baby in white spray paint, too.
Then, my skeleton fell into the freshly cut grass. I let him dry and pulled off as much as I could and hit him with another coat of white. He survived – he’s already dead. Hang with fishing line and you’re done.
One thing I loved about the Pottery Barn inspiration image were the candles. Well, I wasn’t about to spend $30.00 or more on candles, so I looked around the house for suitable substitutes. I had a few vintage oil lamps, so I added those to the mix. Toss in a grapevine pumpkin and we’re done!
Miscellaneous decoration cost:
Skeleton: $1.00
White spray paint: Left over
Oil lamps: FREE (The black one was hanging on our fence when we bought the house and the red was a thrift store find a few years ago. I think it was $1.50 or so.)
Grapevine pumpkin: $2.50 at Target (but can multi-purpose for Thanksgiving, too!)
Miscellaneous Total: $3.50
Which brings our Halloween decoration grand total to…$20.45! And here’s how it all looks together.
Of course, we still need real pumpkins, but we’re not quite ready yet.
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