MAKE YOUR OWN STENCIL STICKER

I'll be honest and say that my first try at creating an F on this footboard did not work out so well.

I decided to buy a wooden letter from Joann's and trace it out on contact paper with the knife to create my own "sticker".

I centered the F on the footboard, where the client wanted it and masked off all around it.  I was using ORB spray and that spray paint is SNEAKY!!  Must tape off everything!

Worked out beautifully!

RENOVATION PROGRESS

It's been a loooooong 2 weeks but we are ready for drywall!  Actually, Marc and I really enjoy and have fun working together and after building and renovating a few homes, our kids are pretty used to the chaos.

Ava helping to remove hardware. Jack and Natalie are studying for exams in background…although it looks like Natalie might be texting.  Hmmmm!

It was fun for a while, then it turned into "work".  It's good for them:)

Kinda hard taking out the bench that I build a few years ago but I have new and improved plans for this space!

Can't wait to get rid of that wall!

 We didn't mess around!  By late Friday night, we were ripping down drywall!

I was hoping to find an envelope full of money, or at least a 'love note' in between the walls but nope…nope, I found a petrified mouse! Nasty!

What a MESS!  I can not tell you how many tubs of drywall I hauled out to the 20 yard, 6' tall dumpster!  We are on our 3rd.

We get a little crazy when we are in "demo" mode!

I am freakishly strong for a girl.

Cutting a hole for the exterior door from mudroom to garage.

We moved it down the wall about 5' to the left. Doing this has change my little, dinky 3' closet into a huge 8' closet.

After the drywall, we started taking down and moving walls. 

 This is where my contractor brother came in.  He helped SOOOO much with helping us upset the LVL bean so I didn't have any headers where I didn't want them, like in the middle of my kitchen.

The area for the washer and dryer is going to be a little smaller but I will have front loaders with a nice countertop on top, so I should be fine.  This allowed us to move the wall to the kitchen back a foot for a nice pantry and make my 1/2 bathroom a little bigger.

We ended up hiring a plumber, a long time family friend, to come and move the 'pooper' and do some other rough plumbing work that Marc just didn't have time for because of our 2 week time frame.  Totally worth it and in the end, Marc was happy to have the help!

Installing new windows.

We are also enclosing our porch into a space for the kids to hang out with friends since I have pretty much ruined any chance of creating that space in the basement with my business:)

Lowes peeps know the Petersons:)

My temporary kitchen.  This is the first time I have owned a toaster over, I like it:) 

My pretty sputnik had to come down because we moved the table over and everyone kept hitting their heads on it! 

After 2 weeks of demo, plumbing, new window install, moving and building walls, tons of electrical work, many trips to both Lowes and Homey D, and a dozen other things I am forgetting to mention, we are now ready for drywall!

ADDING TRIM TO FANCY UP A PLAIN DRESSER

I friend of mine picked up this dresser from Goodwill and brought it over to me, knowing it was something that I could work with (thank you Megan:)).

The attached wood hardware was broken in a few spots and really dated the piece so I decided to remove it and add hardware.  I had been wanting to create some sort of trim "overlay" look for a long time and because of the flat drawers, thought this might be a good opportunity to give it a shot.

I ripped down a few 1/4" strips from a 1/2" by 5" piece of maple (found at lowes) and after sketching a few samples, came up with a simple design. 

After dry fitting the design on each drawer, I added a bead of wood glue and a few pin nails on each piece. 

I sold this piece before I even finished it and love the custom color that my client choose, Slate Tile by Sherwin Williams.

DIY BUDGET LAUNDRY ROOM COUNTERTOP AND STORAGE

Before I gutted the mud/laundry room, I decided to take a photo of how I created a countertop and storage space which worked out nicely for the past 2+ years.  

I really do not like having my laundry in the mudroom, so everyone can see my hubbies undies folded on the counter but hey, what do ya do?!?!  

Actually, laundry is the one household chores I hate most, so for the past 15 years, have only done laundry one day a week (besides the random kids sports load).  

I work from home so it it has always worked well for me.  That way I torture myself only one day a week instead of 7:)

I had the countertop custom made from Lowes to fit the "L" space I had.  I was too cheap to buy new set of cabinets because I knew that I would be ripping them out in the future, so after brainstorming, decided to split apart a metal shelving unit into 2 pieces.  This worked great because I could adjust the shelves how I wanted to hold the basket and other items.

Don't look at the floor under the shelf.  It's hard to sweep under that and I obviously didn't have the back wall re drywalled but added grass cloth wallpaper to the back to hide the eyesore. 

I attached the countertop to studs in the wall with "L" brackets for extra support.  I had been wanting to use this fabric somewhere in the house and this was the perfect opportunity. This setup worked beautifully to hide baskets and whatnots.

I hemmed the bottom and sewed a pocket for the rod.  I had to get pretty creative with hanging the rod but I simple bent it at a 90 degree angle at the corner and attached it with the brackets that came with it pinching them tight with a wrench so that the rod wouldn't move or slip out.

Love the vent that happened to be under it to help dry and warm up wet boots in the winter:)

SEWING CABINET MAKEOVER

I have revamped a few sewing cabinets using a piece of back painted glass but this time the customer didn't want none of that and was hoping to have a solid top.

It started off looking like so….

And here is what we ended up with….

I picked up a piece of this from Lowes and cut to side.

After softening up the edges with my sanders, I wiped it down and stained it.  I used some left over board to find the stain I wanted bc my client didn't want it too dark.

Brushed on and let sit for a bit...

I wiped off. I really like how it looked after just one good coat of Minwax Chestnut, so decided to leave good enough alone.  Something I rarely do:)

After.
I am loving the rustic look of this top.  After the stain dried, I sealed with 3 coats of clear.  The graining raised a ton so sanded very well between coats.

I TILE OVER EXISTING UGLY LAMINATE TOO!

No ugly surface is safe from me…evidently I will tile over just about anything!  I didn't really know this  about myself but like I have mentioned before, DIY BUDGET updating is waaaayyyy different than a new build or gut/renovation job.

Here is where we started. Looking back, the wood cabinets were not bad and knowing we would be gutting this room, probably should have just left them…but that's just not what I do!

We cut the corner part off and was left with a raw edge that needed to be covered. We also removed the lower shelf to house our tv. Because you could loose a small child in the 3" thick nasty and very old carpet, we removed that and replaced it with (very cheap and even nastier) carpet.

Because this room, like the kitchen was going to be gutted at some point, I wanted to spend little to no money. Luckily I had just enough left over travertine tile from a shower in our last house to cover this countertop.
This isn't the tile I would choose for this house or what I would have purchased but hey, it was FREE!

I had a handful of 12" x 12" tiles and 6" x 6" tile.  I played with a pattern until I figured out how to make them fit with very little cuts.  Then ripped down 12" tiles for the drip edge.  I also had enough grout (well, 2 bags of different colors I mixed together…see, I am CHEAP!)

I then added molding to the back to cover the seam.  Something I would not do in a kitchen but it was a quick and easy solution for this project.

Even did a fancy little design with the bit of marble marble I had left!

 Ok, this is a shot I wanted really hoped to avoid wanted to show the entire countertop. And you might notice the color patches on lower cabinets…my quest to find the perfect color for kitchen cabinet trickled into the den! 15 shades of gray later, (I think) I found my color:)

I really have a love/hate relationship with this room!  I hate the ugly paneled walls, the old inefficient window, the cheap carpet, the scratched up leather couch. But I love the fact that this is where we watch movies, kids laugh and friends hang.  So even when I redo this room, it will definitely have to be "kid friendly".

LOVING ME SOME 2 TONE FURNITURE!

I can't get enough of mixing wood and paint.  I always think it looks so classy no matter style!

Here is a set I just finished up today as well as a few other pieces I completed in the past 2 weeks.