Becky vs. Pottery Barn: The Rematch

Pottery Barn ceramic platters with chalkboard center, set of 2: $99 (plus S&H if you live in C-U)

Ceramic platter with chalkboard center I made last night in my basement: $3.99 for platter, $8 for quart of chalkboard paint

I actually found the exact same platters at Target for $11 each, so you could duplicate the PB design exactly for $30 total (paint plus platters). I liked the more ornate one better, plus it was even cheaper.

In other news, there is no news in the basement. I have had a miserable cold for two weeks; Kevin was in LA Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and got the same cold while he was there. We have both been kind of pathetic this week and probably won't start painting this weekend either. I am hoping next week will see some primer going up on those walls.

More Around Our Home

Valentine's Day flowers from my sweetheart.  Got this fab vase from Martha Stewart @ Macy's for $9.70.  I love it.  I made the jute vase out of a roll of jute twine, and the other jar is one of my favorite gifts ever - Liz Y. made it and the little rolled up papers inside are all questions to ponder about being a Mom.  I also painted and decoupaged the tray, but don't look too closely because it's the worst decoupage job you've ever seen.

This project idea from Stephanie K.  These 3 photo frames were all different colors but had the same pattern on them.  I sprayed them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint, and just printed the giant letters onto cardstock and cut them out.  Could that light switch be in a worse spot?  It still turned out pretty cool I think.

These fabric panels have traveled around our home but finally found the perfect place in our downstairs bathroom.  Kevin made them for me out of scraps of wood from the basement project, and some 50% off fabric at Hancock Fabrics.  You do not need to spend very much money to make beautiful things in your home!  Wouldn't you all love it if I had any real photographic skill?  For now, enjoy the blaring light in the top right corner.

This favorite chair was a Christmas gift, I found it in the Country Living catalog.  The pillow is an old junky pillow covered up with a slipcover that I bought off of etsy.com.  There's my little palladian blue stool again!  The plastic toy bin makes this shot.

I made this lampshade out of fabric, spray adhesive and a $5 lampshade.  John gave me this "believe" ornament for Christmas last year, he picked it out himself and although I guess it's kind of Christmasy, I really love it and have kept it out.  Lucy and I made the shell frame from shells we collected on the beach at Anna Maria Island, FL last year - the photo inside is Lucy and Isaac on that same beach.  The other little photo frame I spray painted, of course.  I like all the different textures here, the wicker, the shells, the glitter on the ornament, etc.

Houseplant wrapped in burlap and ribbon

And of course, the most beautiful and decorative part of our home - John's fort.  His special place for reading, drawing comics and playing Bakugan.  Sometimes he falls asleep in here too!  I love that he built this little place.

Becky vs. Pottery Barn

Pottery Barn sweater pillow: $39 for the sweater cover plus $24 for the pillow insert (plus shipping and handling if you live in C-U).
Pottery Barn hack pillow: Old cut up sweater from high school, needle and thread, $2.99 bag of Poly-Fill from Wal-Mart.
I could have made two smaller pillows, but liked the idea of one long one instead.

Perhaps Pottery Barn gets their ideas from The Limited sweaters, circa 1993?

Drywall!

Here they are, the first photos of the beautiful drywall hanging in our basement.  It may not look like much more than a mess to most people, but Kevin and I think it is completely fantastic.  We (that's the we that means my husband) has done SO MUCH work down there to get us to this point.  Let me tell you, he basically figured out how to frame, wire and plumb the space just because he thought he could.  And he was right! 
Check this out!  We have walls!!  We decided to hire out the drywall mostly because of John's asthma.  By hiring a company to do it, it has gone much faster and they make their dust during the day while John is at school.  OK, drywall guys aren't that concerned about making a mess, and they leave McDonald's cups in your precious basement.  But try to look past that and enjoy.
This first photo is the staircase and the door to the storage room.  When we started the project, the staircase had walls going all the way to the floor on both sides.  I wanted to open it up as much as we could, so at Nick J.'s suggestion we hired a structural engineer to come out and take a look at it.  He told us that we could safely remove the wall to expose 4 steps.  Kevin and Jake reinforced the overhead structural beams to redistribute the weight, and then removed part of the wall.  The stairs will be dark walnut stained wood steps with white risers when they are finished.

Here's what you see when you come down the stairs.  It is really going to be a giant, open space for the kids (and adults!) to play.  That opening in the back is going to be a closet for games, art supplies, costumes, all kinds of fun stuff.  All of the electronic stuff will be in there too - Kevin ran a tube in the ceiling to connect the TiVo, Wii, Blu-Ray, etc. in the closet to the TV without any wires or boxes showing.  Isn't he smart?

Here I am standing in the corner by the window, so you are looking in the opposite direction from the last photo.  You can see the GIANT space in the wall for the built-in flat screen TV.  Hey, when a man builds you a basement, you let him pick the size of the TV.  Agreed?
You can also see how the staircase looks with part of the wall removed, I really think it opens up the space a lot.  We had one soffit to deal with, you can see it in these last two photos, but it was really no problem.  The ceilings are nice and high so the soffit was no big deal.

Here's the rest of the space.  It makes an "L" shape.  So, now you are looking down the other leg of the "L."  At the end will be a kitchenette.  We will have a pantry (I have always wanted someplace to store John's bulk allergy-friendly foods other than the basement floor), a second refridgerator, a sink, a couple of bottom cabinets and a little countertop space for a microwave.  The goal is for the kids to have a place to hang out, make popcorn and have sodas with their friends, watch movies, etc. where I can keep an eye on them!  OK, OK, so maybe the adults will have some fun down here too.  (Our original plan included a hot tub no joke.  We quickly nixed that.)  You can see the bathroom door on the right.

Finally, here is the little bathroom, there is a full tub w/shower, you can see where the toilet and vanity will go and there's still plenty of space to get dressed and put a bag or suitcase.  Our other goal for the basement space was to have a place where guests could stay and have some privacy.  With this configuration, someone could have breakfast, get showered, and watch a little TV before coming upstairs.  It also gives us more flexibility with our early-waking children, meaning our guests don't have to wake up as soon as the kids start making noise at 6 AM.

More updates soon!  We hope to start priming and painting this weekend.  Give us a couple more months and we'll start taking reservations!  Ha ha!

Recent Projects

Hmm.  I guess I don't have it in me right now to update the blog very frequently.  I have been wanting to post a few photos of some recent projects and little things I have been working on.  There are several more things I am wanting to do, but right now all of my paint things are off limits as the drywall guys work in our basement!  We had to move everything into one small corner and the paint things are temporarily buried.  The other day I considered climbing over the stacks of bins and tools in our storage/work area to reach them, but reconsidered.
On to the photos!  Of course I am constantly changing things and playing interior design Where's Waldo.  So, these are the current configurations that might (probably will) be different next week.  Or tomorrow.
I can't remember if I've posted this photo already on Facebook but here's our office.  This old rocking chair has been in our family for probably 30 years.  My dad gave it to me, I painted it and sanded it down.  I love it.  The quilt was a gift to Lucy from Kevin's coworkers when she was born, and she used it for a long time.  I like having it out, it reminds me of when she was a baby.  The pillow was made for me by my friend Erin Taylor, with fabric that used to be the curtains in Lucy's room when she was a baby.  So, there is sort of a Lucy baby theme going on there.  The little table is covered with a curtain panel that I took off the window, but really loved and still wanted to see around the house.  I stuck a black woven charger on top for a little texture.  It needs a lamp.

 

This next photo is the family room (or den or whatever you call it).  This little table was Kevin's when he was little, again I just painted it and put a coat of polyurethane over the top for durability.  The tiny stool is Isaac's favorite little seat, it was only a couple of dollars at Hobby Lobby, and I painted it with the remainder of the test sample can of our basement paint color.  Yes there it is!  Palladian Blue, which will be covering our beautiful drywall in short order.  The TV stand used to be red, I got tired of it, changed it to black and added some textured baskets which I like a lot better.

 

 Here's a close-up of what's behind the TV.  I bought this old weathered frame at Hobby Lobby, I love it.  I painted a large piece of fiberboard and then glazed it with Valspar Antiquing Glaze.  (I bought the Valspar brand because Donna used to work there.  Really!) Then Kevin drilled a hole in it and attached a knob for me.  I made this wreath out of an old hanger and long strips of burlap for a total of about $4.50. 

 Here's the current configuration of the mantle.  This is one thing I just can't be satisfied with but I'm almost there.  I've already got the paint to change the mirror from blue to white.  The blue color just isn't right, I've never been happy with it.  But I painted these old frames silver and took them to a glass shop.  They put mirrors into the frames for me for $13.  The branches are from our tree out front, and the other trinkets are sale items of course - because I am so cheap as you all know!  I think they are from Target and Gordman's.  I am also planning to use the antiquing glaze on the mantle itself, I love the brown color but it needs a little something, some depth or something.  We'll see how that goes.  I also added some wooden accents to the mantle, it was so plain before, I think the little scrolly flowery things add a little something to it.

A couple of people have seen this already, but I took down the picture wall!!  I am going to replace it with a couple of long shelves that the photo frames will rest on, instead of hanging them on the wall.  Then I can change them at will.  I am also going to try and match the frames up a little more, instead of the random frames I liked for so long.  The purple couch also got covered up with a washable slipcover, which I am very happy with. 

I added this little black table, lamp and tiny plate to our entryway.  The additional light from the lamp is very nice.  So far we haven't really used it to put keys, mail, bags, etc. on, so maybe it's just in the way.  I like how it looks though!  We'll see if it stays!

Here are a couple of wall hangings I made.  The top one is simply framed fabric.  The second one is a painted frame and a piece of chalkboard I made.  It is very easy to make with fiberboard and chalkboard paint ($8 for a quart).  The bottom one is a painted frame and a piece of scrapbook paper!  Really anything can be art!

Finally here's the front door to our house.  We really need something where people can put their shoes, coats, purses, etc.  I got this new rug which I really like, and added this little table stand.  But so far, nobody has really used the table stand to put anything on.  I think I need some entryway lessons! 

  I hope you've enjoyed all my little projects and home updates!

Let There Be Light

The first thing I discovered on my foray into interior design is that you need to let light into your home.  Every house can benefit from an abundance of natural light coming in through the windows.  Window treatments are an easy way to introduce softness and pattern in a room, but it is very easy to overdo it and cover up the beautiful natural light with all the fabric.  Clearly I have learned this the hard way.  See Exhibit A:


This is our front room circa 2006.  I am sure I will revisit this disaster several times so just for now ignore the flower border and paint color and furniture craziness and all that.  Look just at the windows.  The windows are very small to begin with and all of the heavy layered fabric is allowing only a small bit of light to shine through the bottom halves of the windows.  The curtain rod is hanging just outside of, and at the same height as, the window frame.  On top of that, the flowery pattern and scarves are just way too formal and fussy for our casual kid-filled house.  With a few small changes I opened up just about the whole window and filled our front room with sunshine.  First I took down the curtain rods and re-hung them 3 inches higher and 6 inches wider than the window frame.  I would have liked to hang them even higher, but then my curtains wouldn't be long enough so I compromised here.  Even just a little extra height helps.  The curtains should be hanging mostly over wall, which makes it seem like your windows are much wider than they actually are.  Hanging the curtains high and wide, so that your fabric is just covering up the window frame and no actual window, not only lets in more light but makes the whole room look larger and more grand.
I took down the panels, balloon shades, and scarves and changed to one simple panel on each window.  I think that using only one panel per window here creates a sort-of illusion that the whole wall is filled with windows, instead of two dinky ones with drywall in between.  I chose a favorite color (brick red) and something with a little texture to it, it's a waffle weave.  I considered having no treatments at all on the windows, but we do need the privacy at night and it was a little too stark without the extra fabric in the room.
Here is the room as of this morning:

Let the sun shine! 
I will post more photos of window makeovers around our home tomorrow.

Design On A Dime

OK.  So.  I have spent a good deal of last year's free time learning about interior design.  I remember exactly what kicked off the frenzy.  It was an oak laminate corner TV stand in our family room that had to be red.  It just had to be red.  Being the cheapskate that I am, instead of shopping for a new red TV stand, I went online to try and figure out how to make the thing red myself.  Not only did I discover that you can paint laminate furniture whatever color you want (prime, sand, paint, sand, paint again) but you can in fact paint all kinds of things in lots of different colors.  You can also move things around your house and make little changes to accentuate the positive elements.  I discovered blog after blog from both amateur and professional designers about color, furniture, trim, decor, light, texture, layering, fabrics, and everything else that goes into making a beautiful home.  This appealed to me immediately because, as I have told Kevin since February 22, 2002, I have to look at this stuff all day.  I am here in the house with our children every day and I enjoy a little beauty around me.  I also enjoy having a project (or two or twelve) to work on, and something new to learn.  So here I am one year later with all kinds of design ideas in my head. 
I thought it might be fun to blog about some of the things I've learned and some of the things I've done in our house.  Just about everything is copied, stolen or modified from someone else's good work.  I can't really say that I've thought of anything all that new or different, just taken it and changed it to fit what I like and work in our home.
One of the most fun parts of it all has been trying to reuse what I already have and buy things inexpensively.  I haven't spent very much money at all on my little projects.  Mostly I have moved things around our house over and over again.  It has become a running joke that when Kevin gets home from work, he has to find the thing that's been moved that day.  There is a certain satisfaction you get from making or building a thing yourself, rather than buying it or having someone else do it for you.  Plus, it is a joy to discover that anyone and everyone can have a beautiful home, not just wealthy people who hire designers.  And, as the pros will tell you, the best and most beautiful homes are built over time, and not assembled all at once, which lends itself to garage sale, flea market and clearance shopping. 
But now I am getting ahead of myself.  This is just a little introduction to what I am going to attempt over the next several weeks and months.  I hope you all enjoy seeing what I've been working on, and maybe take away one or two things that you can use in your own home.