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…
DIY Leather Pumpkin
Last year I made a trio of denim pumpkins out of a pair of my husband’s old jeans. I had so much fun cutting up those jeans creating those pumpkins that I decided I had one more (at least for now) pumpkin craft in me. In the spirt of reduce, reuse, repurpose and pumpkin-fy everything, I decided to DIY a leather pumpkin. Yes, leather! Everything else has been used to decorate faux pumpkins. Why not leather too? If you’ve been following this blog for a hot minute then it won’t surprise you that the leather for this pumpkin project came from a pair of old boots that I cut apart.…
The $9.60 Table That Almost Broke Me
To clarify, I did not break a table. A table almost broke me. Emotionally speaking, of course. Our current house (I need a name for it because I’ve had a lot of ‘current’ houses) has a good-sized kitchen with a bump-out for a dining table. That bump-out is directly next to what I’m assuming was intended to be a proper dining room. Since our family functions best with an open concept floor plan, I’m making the ‘dining room’ into a living room. However, my table that I love (not as much as my children, but close) is the wrong shape for the dining area IN the kitchen. It’s rectangular and…
Racing Trophy Display Door
My husband became a runner when he was 36 years old. Turns out, he’s really good at it. (I try not to hold that against him.) If you are new to the world of running, let me enlighten you. Some runners become so enthralled with the sport that they start running races. It keeps you motivated in your training and many runners even enjoy *gasp* these races. Crazy, I know. For every race you enter, you will receive a running bib with your number on it and for every race you complete you will usually earn a medal. Before long, you’ve got medals hanging from doorknobs (classy) and you’re looking for your checkbook in the junk…
