I've been holding out: Mini-makeovers

There have been quite a few changes that I have failed to present to the blogosphere. I will remedy that now.

First off, has anyone noticed the sidebar and under-the-post advertisements? Yep, we have officially monetized the blog. This is a good thing. So please, when you check out the ads on the side, you support me and Josh. Theoretically the ads customize to the subject of my blog, so I hope that no inappropriate ads pop up.

Second, The coffee table has been updated. Got a bit of a facelift. Well, more like surgery. Here is the "before."

When we went home about a month ago, we utilized my father-in-law's miter saw. 

AKA ultimate man toy.

So Josh and his dad tore up my coffee table pallets. 

Making any sense yet? 

 Enter cedar planks...

Well this is the outcome...

Ta-dah! Cubbies! The basket on the left is the perfect size, simply my coincidence. I got it a year or two ago, so I hope Michael's still sells them. I think I'm going to spray paint them.

Also, did you notice I put the scraps of wood in the fireplace? hee-hee. (We won't burn them. They will come in handy some day, but they were in the way for now.) I can't wait til we get to have a real fire to cuddle up by.

Josh's mom and dad also gave us some patio furniture.

It has been so handy since it started cooling off.

We've also done a bit of rearranging. We put the record player on top of one of the wooden crates by my grandmother's chair. Now we can actually use it, and it also serves as a side table. 

So the other crate stands alone. Luckily my grandfather-in-law gave me this cool old shoe-polishing contraption. You would put your shoe on top and all your supplies go in the compartment. Which now holds some mason jars and poetry books. 

We also moved things around in the guest bedroom. 

And I made a little wine bottle decor.

It is really difficult for me to throw away glass bottles of any sort... So we had all these wine bottles sitting around.

I thought it looked a little too "college frat party," so I added a bit of brown butcher paper and lace to make it seem more intentional.

I wrap all my presents in this brown paper. (It is also very handy to put under canvas so you don't accidentally get paint on the carpet.)

All I did was cut it to size, use one little piece of tape to secure it (as you can see under that lace), and tie a ribbon of lace around it. I had these twig branches from a previous project and just stuck them in each bottle so it looks like a little wine bottle forest. 

I think it is very autumnal, which is kind of the theme of the "red room" as Josh calls it. 

Speaking of autumn, the mantle got a little mini fall makeover.

 I used the scrapbook paper leaf cutouts that made an appearance at our wedding (we asked out guests to "leave a message" on them) and used the tiny clothespins to clip them to the chicken wire. 

And because I love to include wedding pictures, here are the scrapbook paper leaves at our wedding:

So I used some of the leftovers for decoration.

Another change is in our kitchen. We have very limited counter space (and cabinet space for that matter... small kitchen in general) So we hung a shadow box type shelf thing. 

Here is the "before."

And the "after." We put lots of random things on it that just didn't have a home yet.

Such as our favorite coffee mugs, K-cups, salt n peppa, all our vitamins, an iron trivet, tiny teacup from my pretend tea set as a child, etc.  

Remember kids: always take your vitamins. We really do take these every day. Yay us!

 I don't think I've ever shown you my little side wall between the kitchen and living room. 

Can you spot the thermostat?

It's in the middle! Cute, huh?

By the way, that daisy yarn-embroidery picture is one of my favorites. 

I have also placed a little wooden folding chair (given to me by my sister) in the empty space behind the too-small side table.

I think it is adorable. It's just there to fill the space (and it fits perfectly) but it looks like a little desk.

Also, you can see that the ladder is currently the blanket holder.

Well that's all for now folks. 

Stay tuned,

Haley

DIY Mantle: Warming up the Naked Fireplace

Sorry for the lag, guys. I got a little caught up between a weekend at home and a weekend of pure fun and relaxation (and a week in between).

 Quite a few changes have occurred between our playground adventure and now. 

The biggest change is our new mantle. It has added such a sense of homey-ness to our little old apartment! 

For some reason, the fireplace in our apartment (big selling point for us, btw) is just on a blank wall. It has a nice white frame and painted black insides, but it just exists. Which is a crying shame considering it is such a nice feature, and it is on one of the huge vaulted-ceiling walls. It just felt.... naked

(This is the only picture I have of the wall pre-mantle. I guess it was shy because it was so naked)

And here is how we did it. 

-We bought a length of 1x6 from Lowe's (And they cut it to size for us, of course)

-and 2 decorative L-brackets.

-We already had stain from the coffee table project

Here are my raw materials 

(On our new balcony furniture, but we will get to that in another post)

We intentionally got a board that had lots of knots and "character" to it.

But as straight as we could find. Lots of jokes were made.

This time I used an old towel instead of a paintbrush. It was equally as messy. But I work at a preschool so I am totally over caring about messes. Wood stain on my hands is much less of a concern after snot and poop.

I love the color that it turned out to be! More than the coffee table, really. I didn't use the ebony undertone.

And I stained the L-brackets. (No pictures. Just use your imagination)

Here it is again "Before" with all sorts of project materials in the way of what could be a beautiful fireplace.

I made Josh hold this at a dozen different heights. 

In the end, about 3 inches above the fireplace frame was the location that won our hearts.

The brackets have a receiver built in, so all we did was unsuccessfully look for the studs and drive in a screw. We then decided to include an anchor and felt much better about the life expectancy of whatever ends up living on the mantle. (So it wouldn't fall)

So it looked like this for a few days. 

You know how patient I am?... well the stain wasn't even dry at this point. But I was so anxious to get it on the wall that I just covered the edge that touched the wall in painters tape. Worked like a charm, by the way. 

Remember that big ole frame? Yeah... We had plans for that. More on that later.

Now for a detail pic:

See the swirly L-bracket?! So purty.

 Budget Breakdown:

Lumber: 1x6.........$7.00

2 L-Brackets.......$12.74

Stain.......................Free

Total..................~$20.00

And what became of that frame? Well, I'll show you!

We spray painted it (The pictures above were already sporting a cream colored spray paint. But I wasn't diggin' it.)

We moved on to a light blue (A nice accent for our very tan-brown-cream living room)

It was looking awfully "Baby Boy"ish, so I made sure to distress it lots with our handy dandy orbital sander. Better. 

Then we wrapped the whole thing in chicken wire.

I'm really lacking on pictures of this process, but basically we 

1. rolled out some chicken wire, 
2. used all-purposed snips to snip a line we thought was approximately the correct length, 
3. put the frame face down
4. (carefully) wrapped the wire around the edge (pulled it tight)
5. and staple-gunned it on the back

Except we under-estimated a tad on the length, so on one side it didn't reach the back. We just decided that would be the top and no one would see it anyway. Except you. No big.

And here is the front: (bad lighting for all these... I apologize)

Before

After! Nice and level... YAY!

So now to decorate that behemoth sucker.

I have a feeling it will have many different faces throughout its life above my mantle.

Here is the birth of the first one.

Anyone remember these?! I made these moss letters for our wedding. 

Here is proof:

So I removed the orange ribbon and added lace in its place.

Naked mantle

All situated. 

Left details

Right details (I love my felt birdie)

 Josh picture of details

A very fulfilled couple.

(oh, and this was all after we took a hike through Percy Warner Park...)

So we are allll ready for autumn to roll back around so we can utilize our now-beautiful fireplace. And Christmas so we can finally hang stockings!

A couple other changes that deserve a nod are our new lamp shades from Target

Once we (I) saw these, we (I) was hooked. We (Josh) promptly returned the plain jane ivory shades to Lowe's and we fell in love with these burlap drum shades.

And the ladder found a home!

I'm still open to ideas on how to spruce it up. Please comment below if you can think of something!

There are a couple more projects to fill you in on, but that will have to wait for another day.

Stay tuned!

Haley