Over-the-Door Basketball Hoop with Wood Backboard
I love my kids. I don’t love all the kid stuff. It is rarely aesthetically pleasing, but I can fix that – this one time. My son has an over-the-door basketball hoop that is fun to use, but not super easy on the eyes. For the record, I have no one but myself to blame for this eyesore. I’m the one who purchased the over-the-door basketball hoop for him. The things we do for our kids. Here’s how we took an over-the-door basketball hoop and gave it the full court press a makeover with a wood backboard. It’s a total SLAM DUNK! Here is the step-by-step tutorial. Wood Backboard Step 1:…
Modern Live Edge Side Table – Target Hack
This story of how I created a modern live edge side table has the perfect old meets new plot line. Get ready to feel a flutter deep down in your sentimental soul. This story starts a long time ago in a land not so far away. A huge tree used to stand tall and proud about ten steps away from the front of our house. The diameter at the base of this tree was over 6-feet wide. Had this tree stood sentry over our house for one hundred years? Maybe more? Was it here before cars were mainstream and the county road was paved? I don’t know. I was told…
6 Month Progress on the Colonial Farmhouse
It’s time for a 6 month progress report on the Colonial Farmhouse. Sure, we’ve lived here longer than six months. 8 1/2 months, actually, but who’s counting? Let’s not get bogged down in the timing. The truth of the matter is I didn’t think about writing a 6 month progress report until now. While this progress report is almost three months late, I’m only sharing progress that was finished within our first six months of living here because that makes it better. Buckle up blog friends because it turns out we’ve made more progress on this Colonial Farmhouse than I thought! KITCHEN: June 2019 Ah, ambience. Just makes you want…
Cabinet Door Utensil Caddy
I swear it is the simple things in life, isn’t it? One of my favorite things you can’t even see in our “let’s make this kitchen less soul shriveling” makeover is the cabinet door utensil caddy that holds our cooking utensils. I don’t know why we’ve never incorporated something like this into any of our other kitchens because I can think of at least three where it would have worked. I may be slow to join the party, but at least I showed up. That’s a metaphorical party, by the way. My inner introvert is busy for the next million years if there’s an actual party. During our kitchen mini…
Back Staircase Before and After
Our Colonial Farmhouse has a front staircase and a back staircase. The front staircase has gorgeous trim work and is located in the center of our home. The stairs made an appearance in my music room post. Then there is the back staircase. Oh, the back staircase. These stairs are tucked away in a far corner of our home and are a shortcut from the kitchen up to the bedrooms. When we bought the Colonial Farmhouse the back staircase was steep, narrow and ugly. The stairs weren’t inherently ugly. It was more bad bridesmaid dress kind of ugly. However, I saw the potential in those stairs. If fact, it was…
Easily Turn an Accent Table into a Decorative Tray
This easy DIY project to turn an accent table into a decorative tray only took me ten years to finish. Ten. Years. If I don’t win the procrastination prize of the day, I’m going to get around to feeling sad later. Don’t overlook old, wobbly accent tables because they no longer function well as accent tables. You know, because of the wobbly part. All you have to do is cut the legs off of the accent table and use the top of the table as a decorative tray. Seriously! A little chip, a little chop. Boom! It is that easy to turn an accent table into a decorative tray. I…
When DIY Equals True Love
A friend messaged me last weekend and asked if I was doing anything fun. Well… I guess that depends on your definition of fun. If fun means taking down the ugliest fluorescent lights in your kitchen before they actually fall out of the ceiling, then it’s practically been a party at our house. And I’m not joking about the part where one of them was falling out of the ceiling. Taking down the lights meant that we had to deal with the world’s worst drywall job and, honestly, that hasn’t been so fun. Of all the home improvement jobs, drywall sanding is the thing I enjoy the least. “No, kids.…
$20 Outdoor Dining Set Makeover
One of the things I was really glad the seller of our home left when he moved out was all the outdoor furniture. Most of it was dirty and gross and not my style, but we would definitely use the furniture until I found something better…after I cleaned it all up. Okay, fine. We sat in it before too. It was an immunity-building experience. Of the three outdoor dining sets (yes, three!) that were left here, the one I liked the most was the one that was in the worst shape. Of course. It is a classic metal outdoor dining set and you really can’t go wrong with those. This…
Insight on Repairing a Slate Roof
Here’s something I learned last week. My idea of a crisis is not a roofing contractor’s idea of a crisis. Roofing Person: You have an active leak, ma’am? Me: Isn’t that the very definition of a leak? Roofing Person: Okay. We can come out and take a look in 3.5 million years from now and then get you an estimate to do the repairs 1.5 million years after that. Of course, that’s contractor time, so plus or minus another million years on all those dates and times. Me: My house could crumble to the ground by then. Roofing Person: So should I put you on the schedule? I realize when…
DIY Stained Wooden Easter Eggs
I’m on a quest to decorate faux Easter eggs that I will love so much I will want to decorate with them year after year. I’m sure there are far nobler quests out there, but since comparison is the thief of joy, let’s not compare how you are curing cancer and I’m…not. My last attempt at decorating faux Easter eggs was a comedy of errors and I still haven’t fully recovered from that episode. (If you want to get caught up, you can read all about how I painted a marbling effect on fake plastic Easter eggs here.) There was one aspect of that egg painting fiasco that I wanted to…
