a mud room

Ok, so technically, if you live in Arizona, you don't need a mud room. This room will likely never see a spec of mud. Dust, yes. Maybe even a scorpion or a rat, or two, but never mud. We call it our little office, and this teeny room off of our kitchen has had lots of different lives in the 10 years we've lived in this house (from laundry room to sewing room to office and back again). I've wanted to build in a bench beneath our pretty antique hooks for a long time, and I finally found the energy to do it.

I used a Kallax shelf from Ikea, in white, placed on its side as the base of my bench. I had to raise it up about five inches, so that the baseboard would fit properly, so first I built a platform for it. Once I secured it to the platform, I used the wall brackets that came with the shelf to secure it to the wall.

The shelf wasn't quite as long as I would have hoped, so I added some bead board to enclose the empty space beside it to make it one long, six foot bench. It kind of drives me crazy that the cubbies are off center, but I've let it go. I had my kids fill out questionnaires about themselves and stuck them with a family photo in the space to make a little time capsule. It will be so fun to find in 20 years when we change our minds about this room again!

I stained some plain boards to match the antique hooks and screwed them in place on top of the shelf. I am no carpenter, but I think they'll do.

I love the clean white bead board. It brightens the whole space. And Stella's little work area has everything she needs. She is an avid letter writer and drawer and homework do-er.

But let's be real. Because mud rooms never ever look the way they do on pinterest in real life, here's a shot of the current (and constant) state of that pretty bench. Backpacks everywhere! But at least I'm not tripping on them in the kitchen anymore.

happy weekend

Mike and I have been hard at work on our front yard this week, trying to give 35 years worth of growth a little style. I've become quite adept at hopping on a shovel to remove grass. I've only fallen once, and it was right when our teenaged neighbor and his friend were leaving for school. Totally not embarrassing. And then I tried to move the wheelbarrow full of grass, but it was too heavy and it tipped over. Luckily, they had driven away by then, but still, #winning. Our goal was to finish before the heat came, but it's supposed to be 105 today, so I think we lost.

We're in the home stretch of the school year. It seems like every night has a baseball game or a concert or a recital or an awards ceremony. Or a dance! Mabel has her eighth grade promotion dance tonight. And the boys will be off at the Fathers and Sons campout, so Stella and I are going to paint the town red. Or maybe just rent a movie. :)

Have a happy weekend!

teamwork

Mike and I are making slow and steady progress on our yard. On Monday we built a new gate. I wish I'd taken a before picture. Our old gate was in sorry shape, dragging on the ground, still scratched up from when we had a dog a million years ago, painted a faded red, and just generally completely worn out.

We worked together all day long and finished our new gate with just enough time to hurry to Elliot's baseball game. Mike and I do a lot of things together, but this day just felt really good, for some reason. I think it must have been our matching shirts. Nothing says "team" like matching shirts. :)

a white bedroom

When I went to paint my bedroom, I didn't even test paint swatches. Sometimes I can't be bothered and I just hope for the best. Most of the time that's not a good idea. I picked Swiss Coffee from Behr for my bedroom, because I knew it was a regular, warm white, and I liked that I could just pick up a gallon from the Home Depot without needing any mixing. I don't know if it's because I was painting over a really bright green, but it ended up feeling sort of silvery, which was a happy surprise. Our room feels so much brighter now. I left most of the walls bare, because a bare wall feels quiet and clean, and that makes my brain feel good. But I couldn't resist the "Let's Stay Home" banner. Mike and I are such homebodies. There's no where else we'd rather be together.

And if you had told me 5 years ago that I would happily let a cat sleep on my bed, I would have said you were crazy. Alas.

a bathroom refresh

Alternate title: How to Love Your Bathroom, Even if it Doesn't Have Subway Tile.

Secondary alternate tile: No-one Cares What Your Bathroom Looks Like, Stephanie.

Our master bathroom is a teeny little space right off our bedroom. It was furnished when our home was built, in the dark ages of home decor, 1979. I have hated it since the day we moved in. And for some reason that I can't quite understand, in an effort to "improve" it, I had painted it the worst, most unflattering shade of green.

Ten years later, I finally realized that the remodel of my dreams wasn't going to happen any time soon and that I needed to learn to love this little room--shell-shaped sink, beige shower tiles, and gold linoleum floor and all. (Well, the gold linoleum floor will soon be painted a nice, warm gray, I think. Paint can cure all sorts of ails, I've learned.)

I've always heard that if there is something in your room you don't love, but can't change, try to make it look deliberate. So I chose a pretty, pinkish-peach paint color to blend with the beige shower tiles that even after 36 years are in really great condition. I had always wanted to install paneling or white tile (to match the new tile in the shower that I had dreamed about) on the lower two-thirds of the walls, but decided to make it easy on myself and just paint it a bright white to match the vanity and trim instead. This room gets really great light first thing in the morning, and now it beams. The break in the paint colors makes the ceiling seem ten feet tall, and I really don't mind the lack of paneling or tile.

Another thing that made a big difference: decluttering. I threw everything away that we don't use everyday and stuck in the cabinet instead of on top of the vanity.

I think I can live with it now. And I might even love it a little bit.

Prettiest little cactus painting by Beth Allen. Should I wash my hair today? print by chipper things, can be purchased here.

happy weekend

We call stuffed animals "guys" at our house, and Elliot is my lover of guys. His beloved Wolfie is getting pretty thin and floppy these days from all of the love. So this week, when I was paining my bedroom, I took my old guy, Nosey-Nosey, out of the shadowbox that usually hangs on my wall and let Elliot play with him. As I placed Nosey in Elliot's arms, he let out the sweetest, most reverent gasp. And then he handled Nosey so delicately. Nosey got to meet the rest of our guys, and I think everyone had a really great time together. I even heard Elliot bringing Wolfie into my room this morning to say hello to Nosey, where he is safely back up on the wall.

I painted my bedroom, which I've wanted to do since we painted it green ten years ago when we moved in to our house. I've barely tolerated that green all this time, and it feels really good to have it be a nice, clean, bright white instead. Funny thing, though, I painted it and moved all the furniture back in place and cleaned everything up. . . and then I realized that it needed a second coat. Blerg! So the next day, I did it all over again.

Painting is not my favorite, but it is cheap and it makes a big impact. We painted every square inch of our house when we moved in, and we've almost painted it all again since.

Our spring break kicks off this weekend. I am trying to convince Mike to take us to California for a few days. I'd really love to visit my grandparents and look at the ocean for a minute. Oh, and breathe that wet, salty air that feels so much like home!

We'll see. . .

Have a good weekend!

p.s. Best home makeover I've seen in a long time.

refresh

After testing many, many colors and having paint swatches painted on the walls for months, I finally got around to painting my living room this week. Basically, it looks exactly the same as before, just lighter and brighter. I love it. (It's Canvas Luggage by Behr. You can see the old, darker color here.)

My house is not a gray wall house or a white wall house. There is not a lot of natural light built in to these desert houses (it keeps them cooler), so having a color that moves the light around the room is important. I found this post by Emily Henderson very helpful.

While I was painting, I filled all of the nail holes, and I can't bring myself to rehang any of the old pictures. I also removed some furniture and paired down our book collection. This room is where we spend most of our time, and I want it to feel clean and spare. I dream of replacing those wobbly Ikea bookcases with built-ins someday.

I always get the urge to freshen our house in the fall. It's so much easier to be motivated when it's cool outside! We've had the top of our dutch door open all week. The fresh air is totally worth the mosquitos that come pouring in.

whitewashed

Our parquet floor is at least 35 years old, but I think it has some life in it yet. I love the scrapes and gaps it has acquired over the years. It tells a history of this little house. Plus it feels good under my feet and doesn't shatter dropped dishes. I've been tempted many times to change it to something new, especially after we had a water leak and had to replace part of it, but sometimes having a tight budget is a blessing. I am glad I have kept it. I don't think our house would feel the same without it!

After stripping the paint and sanding off most of the original finish, I whitewashed and sealed it. Yesterday, I finished repainting the baseboards and touching up the kitchen cabinets and now this monster project is done. Phew.

I used a 2 part water, 1 part satin swiss coffee latex paint mixture. At first, I brushed on the watered down paint and immediately wiped most of it off with a damp rag. Some parts of the floor required heavier coats, and after some trial and error, I found that brushing on a couple of thin layers with a foam brush (on each individual square) without wiping any of it off was the most effective method. I put two thin coats of "clear" polyurethane over the top to seal it. I say "clear" because it is actually sort of amber colored and changes the final color of the floor. I knew this ahead of time, so I erred on the side of "too white" while I was whitewashing.

Parquet probably isn't the best candidate for a whitewash. Because it is made up of so many different pieces of wood, it ends up looking sort of splotchy. But anything is better than the original yellow finish, and the solid color paint I applied a couple of years ago, too. I am happy with it.

The whole space feels brighter and cleaner now. And because there is some variation in the color, it will hide crumbs and foot prints better than the solid gray paint did. It definitely isn't perfect, but it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful. Or finished. :)

Nativity Advent Calendar

I've received a few emails asking about my nativity advent lately, so I thought I'd repost some information. If you are interested in making a felt nativity advent calendar, now is a good time to start. It is rather time consuming, but so worth the effort. This is still my kids' favorite Christmas tradition, and I am always surprised that they remember who's turn it is to put the first piece up every year.

The figures: I made my figures out of a high quality wool felt. It is more durable and easier to work with than a less expensive craft felt. The entire collection requires such a small amount of fabric, that I was willing to pay a higher price per yard. Each little piece has a magnet affixed to the back. This allows them to stick to the magnetic background and can be moved around to change the scene. I hand stitched mine together using coordinating embroidery thread, but if that's not your thing, I'm sure fabric glue would do the trick. I didn't use a pattern (felt is very forgiving that way), but a reader of my blog, Jessica, made templates based on my design that can be found here.

I made 25 pieces, so there is one to put up every day until Christmas morning. Baby Jesus is always the final piece. I keep them in small brown paper mache boxes (from the craft store, you can see them in an old post I linked to down below) that are numbered one to 25. Each morning it's like opening a little present. Oh, it is fun!

The background: I attached two metal shingles (found at the Home Depot for a few dollars) to the backing of my frame. Then I mod-podged craft paper over the top to create the sky, grass, and stable. I wanted a very simple, almost folk look. I put a layer of mod podge over the top, and several years later, it is still in great condition.

Happy crafting!

Other posts about my nativity, including some close-ups, here and here.

a recipe for dry shampoo

Now that my hair is long, I don't like to wash it everyday. And so I am a firm believer in dry shampoo. Are you? I used to use Suave, even though I never liked the smell. But then I noticed that my scalp burned each time after I used it. And my hair was falling out at an alarming rate. That might be totally unrelated, but I decided to stop using it anyway, just in case.

Instead, I mix 1/4 cup of cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of baking soda in an old spice jar. I read that you can add unsweetened cocoa to darken it a bit for brown hair, if you'd like. But here's the trick: before I go to bed, I sprinkle a little on my palms and gently rub my hands together. Then I sweep my hands through my hair, concentrating on my roots. I do this a few times, making sure to hit the areas most prone to grease. Then I brush my hair to distribute the powder. When I wake up in the morning, my hair is fresh and clean, without a trace of the powder, and with a lot more body. I don't know what I would do without it.

the bathrooms

As promised, some extremely poorly-lit bathroom photos for your perusal.

Now that all of the kids sleep downstairs, the old downstairs guest bathroom has become the kids' bathroom. So it needed something a little more durable than an 80 year old dresser turned sink. I like the one we chose from the Home Decorator's Collection via the Home Depot.

Moving on. . .

The upstairs hall bathroom has become the new guest bathroom, so we brought the old dresser upstairs. Hopefully this is the last time we have to replumb it, although if we ever move, it is coming with us. I love it so.

I'm afraid we ripped out everything that was practical in this bathroom (like the peeling, dingy lineoleum floor that somehow in its dinginess never showed a speck of dirt and the very water-proof faux-marble countertop). But it is so much prettier now!

All we need are some guests.

renovations

Every summer, I make a big list of things I want to fix up around the house. Then the 110 degree days hit and I realize that what I really want to do is lay on the couch with a good book instead. So my list gets pushed to the fall. Every single year.

But I am happy to report that we actually crossed something off that list this summer, even in the midst of this blasted heat. We tiled our main floor hall bathroom! Anything would have been better than the peeling, 35 year old linoleum that was there before, but we chose a clean, white octagonal tile with cream grout. Tiling is hard, but I think I could grout all day long. It is so much fun.

We still have a few other things to complete (like fixing water damaged dry wall, installing baseboards, and moving my antique sink up from the basement), but we are on our way. Hooray!

the office

We have a little room off of the kitchen that serves as our office. It gets the prettiest morning light. I was in there this morning and couldn't resist snapping a few pictures. In it's previous life, this room held the washer and dryer and a really old upright freezer. We ditched the freezer and moved the laundry to the Arizona room years ago. Since then, it has housed our computer and my sewing things and was mostly always a disaster. Now that the big desk is in my sewing room, I feel like I can breathe in here again!

My favorite home transformations are ones that use what I already have. The hooks came from Mike's parents. I painted an old black bench Mike had made white. I gathered all of our extra frames and hung some of my favorite art.

The door leads to our large pantry. To the right of the black chair is a little built in desk for our computer. The bright light is coming from the door to the Arizona room. The floors are painted concrete, and are probably my favorite in the house. They are cool and smooth and easy.

the girls' room

I shared a room with my sister, Leslie, until she left for college. It was the best thing about my childhood, and I think we are such good friends to this day because of it. I wanted that for my girls, too. For the past few years, Mabel and Oliver had been sharing a room in the basement. Now that Elliot is old enough to move downstairs with Oliver, it was time to put the girls together.

This same antique, marble-topped, cupboard sat between mine and Leslie's beds. It is my favorite piece of furniture, and I am so glad my girls get to use it.

The reading lights and bedding (except for the big white pillow cases that I made out of some old sheets) are from Ikea. The headboards are old crib parts, and the dream catchers are from pit stops between here and just about everywhere else.

This room is tiny, and it's in the basement (next door to the boys). Once we cleared out the old guest bed, I was starting to worry that two beds wouldn't fit!  But they did, and somehow, magically, the wall paper and trim make the ceiling feel about 10 feet tall.

Mabel and Stella have only slept in their new room for a few nights, but I can already see a difference in their relationship - a closeness that wasn't there before. There are five years between them, and hopefully those years won't matter much anymore.

progress: wallpaper

The first thing we did when we got the keys to our house seven years ago was to start ripping off the wallpaper. If you had told me then, that one day I'd be hanging wallpaper on those very same walls, I would have thought you were crazy! But here we are.

I ordered my wallpaper from American Blinds and watched this entire series of how-to videos. It was hard, and took forever, but I think it was worth it. I love the results. Would I wallpaper again, though? Probably not.

I still need to put up the trim and install some lights, but then the girls can move in - hopefully this weekend. I've been dreaming about this room for years, so I am excited for it to finally be a reality.

the floors

It is difficult to photograph these floors. The color changes with the light and the time of day. It is a warm, stone-ish color (Flagstone, by Martha Stewart), but the clear polyurethane (which is actually amber colored) changes it a bit. I don't mind. I used a regular flat paint with a satin poly specifically made for floors. The finished product is thick and glossy, but not shiny. It feels good under my feet, and makes for excellent ice skating if wearing socks. So far clean up has been a breeze.

Once I finished the floors, we realized that the wall color was a little off. All of a sudden it was too bright and too green, so I used Martha Stewart's Garden Shed to tone things down. It sort of looks the same as the floor in these pictures, but it's actually quite a bit lighter. And now my kitchen perfectly matches my blog design (not on purpose, I guess these just happen to be my favorite colors?).

You can see our kitchen's transformation starting with the major before photos here, after I painted the cabinets here, and then once I put up the backsplash here.

painted floors

I painted our floors this weekend, a pretty grayish-stone color called flagstone by Martha Stewart. I live by the motto "If you can't afford to replace it, paint it." Almost our entire main floor is covered by 35 year old parquet, which is a wonderful, durable, non-dish breaking floor covering, but ours had seen better days. In my dreams we have pretty wide planked wood, or reclaimed brick, or antique terra cotta, but not all dreams are meant to be realized. At least not yet. And so. . . paint.

Here is my word of advice: If you are planning on painting (and polyurethaning) the floors of almost your entire living space, send your four children and your hair-shedding cat away for a bit. Otherwise, it can be sort of tricky. The painting wasn't so bad, but to put down two coats of polyurethane required two late nights with my children banished to their bedrooms for the duration. Try telling that to a two year old who likes midnight snuggles and a cat who has a mind of her own.

We'll see how well it holds up, but I figured the paint would give us at least a few more years.

a Peter Pan Collar tutorial

One of my favorite trends right now is the Peter Pan Collar. I've seen it everywhere, it seems, but I haven't been able to find the right top to purchase. Not to be discouraged, I decided to make my own collar necklace. It can be worn with just about anything! Even a t-shirt. And it instantly makes whatever you're wearing pop a bit.

I think it would make a great handmade Christmas gift for someone on your list. Let's get started.

1: Find some scrap fabric (I used white flannel) and play around until you get the shape just right (my approx. measurements are in the next photo). I cut out a basic peter pan shape, then trimmed and reshaped and trimmed some more. I made about three versions until I settled on the one I thought was best. I wanted it to be able to fit wide and small neck styles, including boat necks, so I tried it on with lots of my shirts, making adjustments as needed.

2: Once you have settled on the shape, trace it onto muslin. Add 3/8 of an inch around the collar for a seam allowance.

3: Then use the muslin as a pattern and cut out all of the pieces you will need for the collar. (I used a nice silky cream satin for the back, then the muslin for the center + fusible interfacing for stability, and a top layer of cream pointe d'esprit. But you can use whatever fabric you would like. I think a lace collar would be beautiful. Or even velvet!) You only need a little bit of each fabric, about 1/3 of a yard. Make sure to cut two pieces of each fabric for both halves of the collar.

Attach the fusible interfacing to the back of the muslin. Then stack the pieces in the correct order, as if you were looking at the finished collar (for my collar that meant: satin, shiny side down + muslin with interfacing on the back + pointe d'esprit). To sew them together, flip the top two layers to the back so that the very top layer is sandwiched between the others. For my collar, that meant the right sides of the muslin and satin were sandwiching the pointe d'esprit.

Pin in place and sew the layers together, using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Remember to leave an opening in the back so that you can flip the collar right side out later. This part can be a little tricky. I found that to keep the fabrics from pulling and shifting while sewing, first pin and sew one side. Then press the collar flat. Then carefully pin and sew the other side, making sure to keep the collar nice and flat as you go along, starting at one end and sewing to the center, then stopping and starting from the other end and meeting the stitching in the middle. (See the photo above)

4: Now trim the seam allowance.

5: Turn the collar right side out.

6. A chopstick comes in handy. Make sure to get that corner completely turned out, then press your pieces.

7: Now it is time to sew the two halves together. Overlap the point just a teeny bit and use some hidden hand stitches to secure them together.

Now for the ribbon at the back. You will need 2 pieces, each about 18 inches long. 

8: Pin the ribbon to the back of the collar where it was left open during stitching. With right sides together, pin it to the top two layers, leaving the back layer free. Then stitch in place.

9: Turn the back layer in to cover the line of stitching and pin in place.

10: Use a slip stitch to secure the backing and close up the opening.

Hooray! It's finished! What do you think?

scenes from my whiter kitchen

While the kids spent the week tearing up the basement, I worked on our backsplash. I've always wanted to add something there, and had always planned on tile. But tile is expensive. And I'm not totally confident in my tiling abilities, so I went with bead board instead. Guess what? It was easy. And cheap. And quick! And that makes it a winner in my book.

It really brightens the space, which is always my goal. Our house was not built with many windows, and the previous owners enclosed the back patio to be an Arizona room, so the kitchen doesn't get as much light as I'd like. Painting the cabinets, and now adding the backsplash has helped.

It's still cloudy and gorgeous here today. Our forecasted high is in the 70s! Pinch me. To celebrate, we are baking lots and lots of cookies. And probably going to the park. Or at least out back. Hooray!

a basement bathroom

 before: retro harvest gold disaster  ::  after: not gold

There were lots of things I didn't like about the old bathroom. Like that rusty corner medicine cabinet. And the gold "marble" countertop. The faucet didn't work well and the cabinet doors didn't close all the way. This bathroom has been on my list since we moved in, but was never a priority because it is so seldom used. 

But, we are having lots of houseguests in a couple of weeks and on a whim I bought this pretty dresser, which fit the space perfectly. I've always loved dressers-turned-sinks, so I decided to try it. I'm so glad I did!

I'm keeping my eyes peeled for the perfect mirror.

My first task was replacing the old baseboards. We had run out of baseboard-replacing energy by the time we got to this bathroom years ago when we did the rest of the house. It is an easy project and makes such a difference.

About five years ago, we had these hexagonal tiles installed on top of the yucky (gold!) linoleum. I still love them. All I needed to do was fill in the space under the old sink. (I didn't have quite enough, and they are discontinued, so I used a similarly colored but different shaped tile back by the wall. It's not very noticeable.) It makes the room seem so much bigger to see the floor under that dresser!

I have to admit, tiling was sort of a dream come true. I've always wanted to try it. I definitely need more practice, but I am happy to say that I would be willing to give it another go.

I can't even tell where the old tile stops and the new tile starts. Hooray!

I found the sink at a garage sale (thanks to Abbie) and my dresser on craigslist. It had already been refinished in a pretty blue color (See here. Darn basement lighting!). I used a strong varnish on the top to save it from water damage. I turned the top two small drawers into false drawers to make room for the sink. Then I shortened the middle drawer to make room for the pipes. I didn't follow this tutorial exactly, but I found it helpful.

I used Martha's Heavy Cream on the walls, which is the same color I used for my kitchen cabinets. This bathroom gets no natural light, though, so it turned out quite yellow-y, which surprised me, but I don't mind one bit.

He doesn't mind, either.