Palette Shelf - Complete!

Remember this? It is complete! This was my inspiration:

Then I made it my own:

For us, this project cost about $4 - boom!!

We got the palette from my husband's work warehouse - FREE
The old tools were given to us by my husband's grandfather - FREE (and awesome)
We had the mason jars around the house - FREE
I just got the plates from a thrift store - $4 for both

Please excuse the hideous light fixture...it's on our list of things to replace

Junk is a Treasure

I saw this on a blog the other day and LOVED the idea, so I'm going to do it! You know that anything rustic/junky makes me drool, and I have just the place for it

Daniel brought home the palette we're going to adjust, so it's just a matter of doing it! Final product to come....

(Unknown source)

DIY Chandelier

Our Saturdays have quickly become "Project Saturdays", and we love it! Am I glad I married a handy husband, or what??

A couple weeks ago I saw a DIY project that was inspired by the below Pottery Barn chandelier. Amazing and right up by style alley! I love anything rustic so this made me drool.

So Daniel and I made our own! Here are pictures of a few stages:

Daniel did all the electrical work himself. We just bought 18/2 black cable, he cut it to size, ran it through the mason jar lid, & attached a lamp socket to the end.

He also built the box it hung from out of an old palette from his work's warehouse. It was perfect. (Sorry didn't get a good picture of that before he hung it)

Before:

After:

It looks so much better in person! These were taken with my phone...sorry for the poor quality. We find ourselves just sitting at the dining room table just to enjoy the chandelier (lame, I know)...

The Word made Art

As I mentioned in the last post, Passion Conferences just happened at the beginning of this month. Well, last year for Do Something Now, I made a wall collage out of Bible pages in all different languages. It was pretty amazing to have the Bible represented by so many countries all in my hands that would soon end up in the hands of someone who had never heard its contents.

I still had a stack of pages from last year, so I finally made something out of it! With just a little Modge Podge and a canvas that I already had, I made this:

We put it over our bed, and it works perfectly! Such a low-cost, yet meaningful, piece of art!

Desk Magnificence!

The office in our house has been one of the last things we've gotten to since moving, but we are taking great strides in the process!

Last week, Daniel made an amazing, but simple, desk for the office that we both love. It's big, but perfect.

The table top is a door that was made for Do Something Now, which is the heartbeat of Passion Conferences that just happened at the beginning of this month. If you've never heard of Do Something Now, you need to visit the new site (launching Feb 15th). It will change your heart. Daniel built a few huts for DSN, and this door was leftover after we tore everything down post-conference.

Then he just made some sawhorse legs, painted it white and that was that!

To top it off, I got some clear jars and filled them with office supplies for effect :) And practicality, I guess...The other two things, I got at Hobby Lobby for 70% off! I LOVE that place!

Mirror Makeover

So when we moved in, the downstairs 1/2 bath already had a mirror in it. It's not one that I'm too fond of, but it's nice to have one. The question is, what tactic should I use to cover up the hideousness of its border?

We've talked about spray paint, but that makes me a little nervous...I don't want it to look cheap.

Any suggestions??

Our New Kitchen!

Major update!!

We just moved into our new home in Suwanee 2 weeks ago, and we have been hard at work! There isn't a whole lot to change about this house, it's in great shape. Our biggest urge, though, was to do something about the outdated kitchen. So we did!

Here is a before shot of one side:

And with the cabinets painted:

Also, my husband/my project hero installed new counter tops from IKEA (VERY cost efficient!)
AND I got a farmstyle sink from IKEA for HALF OFF in the As-Is room! Swoon.

Here is the final project! I LOVE it!

I'll post some more from the rest of our house this week...

Free Project!

If you know me, you know that I'm frugal. So that's why a free project makes me feel really good! If you've followed by blog for a while, you may remember this:

I figured the tulips are pretty summery, so I decided to change them out for another look. The new accent is still just as bright, but it adds a little taste of fall. I already had some spray paint, so all I needed were some branches from outside!

 I'll probably change the apples out at some point for some pine cones or maybe something a little more "fall like". Then at Christmas I can do cranberries! So easy!

Cheap Expensive Taste

Sometimes (ok more than that) I feel that things I like are too expensive...all the cool looking things are just out of my price range! Well, not this weekend!

In one of our super cool downtown Athens stores, they sell sheets of wrapping paper for about $2.95. Seems a little ridiculous, but this paper is amazing. I wanted some of the wall space in our dining area to be filled a little more, so I decided to make some art! My friend Staci and I had talked about how neat it would look to frame a pattern that we like, so I did just that.

I got 3 different patterns and Daniel and I got some really great rustic frames at Hobby Lobby at 50% off! I don't know about yours, but our Hobby Lobby has A LOT on sale for half price this week!

Daniel then cut some foam board to back the paper, so it was more solid and wouldn't rip.

Then we just used double sided tape and placed them in the frames! We LOVE them!!

Here's another thing we found for half price...I've always wanted these in my kitchen!

Since I've been doing so much, I've been cut off from home projects for a while :) Enjoy!

Making Old into New

Lately, I've been in major home project mode, so today I acted on it!

Last week, my friend Beth put some project inspiration on her blog here, and I saw something that I loved! It was a moss-covered letter. I love the look of moss, and I already had our initial in a white wood, so I decided to run to Michaels and get some moss to glue on it!

I got a bag of this:

And just hot glue gunned it to the "A", and here's how it turned out! It was a little messy, but it all came together.

My next project for the day was to make some use out of the multiple glass vases that have collected in my house over the years. They were just sitting on top of my kitchen cabinets, so I wanted to recycle them! I went out and bought some glossy white spray paint, made them white, and added some fake green hydrangeas. 

 

I'm trying to reduce some clutter in our house, so I think these really helped! And they brighten up the room! Ahh home projects...

Kitchen Island in the Making

Daniel and I LOVE projects, and we've been busy lately with some fun ones! Our project this evening is making a kitchen island.

We currently don't have one, but would really enjoy the extra storage and counter space. We have a good amount of space for one, so I think it will be a great addition.

We went to a thrift store in Athens and found the storage piece below that we will restore:

Daniel is going to take out the back, so it's open, then I'll paint it a shade of tan and antique it.

Next Day:
Daniel finished repairing and solidifying our island, so then I painted it! I just used leftover paint from the walls in our house (efficient, right?). I only did one coat so it looked antiqued and old.

It turned out so well! Better than I thought it would! We're using baskets from Target instead of building a drawer, and we sealed the surface with a table top resin so it's protected from any spills. All in all, we're really happy about it! Very cost efficient.

Home Projects Here and There

So on Friday I got a little curious and rearranged all of our living room furniture for fun. Turns out, we really liked the change! {I love/need a little change in my life often}. After taking in the new arrangement, we were inspired to go further and to check some projects off our list, so that's what we did today!

We started out by taking down a mounted coat rack that was just messy and moved it into the closet, which made that wall look so much better.

We also have a bookshelf in our dining area that is full of games, cookbooks, etc. and it just looks cluttered to the eye. So we went to Hancock fabrics and remedied the issue. Here is a before and after:

Before:

After:

A few months ago, Daniel added some sliding baskets under our coffee table for extra storage (he's very clever and handy), and we just now got around to painting the wooden support for it. Now it looks finished and we love it!

So that has been our Saturday of home projects. We love them!