mk's dresser...after

Back in August, I showed you the "before" of MK's dresser.  It was HIDEOUS shape to start with, but had a beautiful shape.

In September, I tried out Annie Sloan's Duck Egg chalk paint and loved the ease that the paint went on with and loved the color...I just didn't love the color against the gray walls of the nursery.

Anxious to save some money and try out some of the DIY chalk paint recipes floating around Pinterest, I set out to paint the dresser in a different color.  I chose Sweet Nothing by Behr, a gorgeous, barely-there pink color.

I came across this recipe from Dear Emmeline and picked it...simply because I already had the ingredients at home! :)    You can pick up a sample pot of paint from Home Depot for $2.94 (exactly 1 cup of flat paint) and a box of baking soda for less than $1!  I am thrilled with the results, for less than $4 - less than half of the price of AS chalk paint.

The dresser was missing a few of the drawer pulls so I simply threaded ribbon through the holes for a few months until I found what I was looking for. On a weekly trip to Home Depot I came across these pulls (they were originally brass) that look simply sweet on the dresser with a coat of white spray paint.

I would definitely recommend this DIY chalk paint recipe and will continue to use it myself!  It has held up remarkably well (I finished it with a coat of Minwax paste wax) over the near-constant use of the dresser/changing table.

Another peek of the dresser from the door to MK's room...it turned out exactly as I pictured!

Linked up to:

 Furniture Feature Friday @ Miss Mustard Seed

Someday Crafts

36th Avenue

Tidy Mom

Whipperberry

Tatertots and Jello

Six Sister's Stuff

I Heart Naptime

It's Overflowing

Be Different Act Normal

Home Stories A to Z'

Skip to My Lou

30 Days Reader's Choice Link Up

laundry basket dresser...

I love Ana White and her fabulous blog!  I have had this laundry basket dresser pinned since the first time I saw it...which was probably before Pinterest was around! :)   The laundry basket dresser seemed so practical and an actual piece of "furniture" in the laundry room.  We started out with one of those fabric laundry sorters, which did it's job, but it was difficult to reach down into all of the fabric bags to get the laundry out.

So, when my parents were here visiting a few months ago, I asked my dad to build me my very own laundry basket dresser to fit the space perfectly.  He actually just looked at a picture and created his own version, but it's similar to the plans that Ana White shares.

My new laundry basket dresser has an open back, to let it "breathe" (according to my dad) and open sides.The dimensions are a little different in order to fit our space perfectly, but it still uses the Sterlite laundry baskets that the other dressers use.

I plan to find a galvanized bucket to sit on top to corral my cleaning supplies and to keep other stuff from piling up there!  I'm also going to add some type of labels to the laundry baskets to separate them - maybe some cute chalkboard labels??

Our laundry room has come a LONG way since we moved in nearly two years ago. Here's an updated look at our laundry room with the laundry basket dresser.  I'm in love!

Have you updated any room in your home lately with a little project?  A big thanks to my dad for helping me cross some projects off of my ever-growing "to do" list!

Linking up to:

30 Handmade Days

Grace at Home No. 29 @ Imparting Grace

It's Overflowing
Fabulously Creative Friday Linky Party 

before and {happily ever} after...master bathroom

I showed you the before and {happily ever} after of our master bedroom a few weeks ago, so I thought I should show you the after of our attached master bath!

It's not a very big bathroom - compared to the huge master bath we had in our last house, complete with a shower and garden tub - but it's a great size for us.  In my book, smaller also equates to less for me to clean!

When we first saw the bathroom it looked like this:

It was decked out in a floral wallpaper that coordinated with the bedroom, lots of oak trim and cabinets, linoleum flooring, popcorn on the ceiling, a shower complete with a handle and a hard-to-clean glass door,  and 2 odd "headers" - one above the shower and one above the vanity that had florescent lights inside.

Here is the {happily ever} after...

We did a lot of work in this small bathroom. We:

• removed all of the wallpaper
• had the walls re-textured
• painted the walls the same blue as the master bedroom
• installed new tile floors (that I grouted myself. Yay!)
• removed the "light box header" and header over the shower
• had a new shower installed
• had the cabinets and trim painted (including the trim on the mirror)
• scraped the popcorn ceiling and had new texture sprayed
• replaced the faucet - we kept the same vanity and counter top with the intention of replacing the top at some point in the (distant) future
• had a new light installed over the sink

There are still a lot of things that I'd like to do in this bathroom, including adding a few decorations and sewing some kind of window treatment, but I love the "after"!

One of my favorite projects in the bathroom involved customizing a regular shower curtain into a darling ruffled one that is the perfect size for our "stall-sized" shower.  I'll have to share that project soon!

What about you...do you have a huge master bathroom, a perfectly-sized room for you, or just wish you had bathroom that your kids didn't follow you into?  Haha!

before and {happily ever} after...closet turned mudroom and laundry room

As soon as we moved from Texas to Missouri, I started a collection of ideas for our "new" home...the home I didn't know anything about and one that would take a year of waiting and 6 weeks of renovation...but our home, no less.   I printed out photos that I had in my "Inspiration" folder (from my pre-Pinterest days), collected paint chips and flooring samples.

One of those ideas was the closet turned mudroom that Wendy over at the Shabby Nest created in 2008.  I loved that idea and filed it away for "someday".  Well, that idea ended up being PERFECT for our home!

When we first walked through this house and walked through to the laundry room, I saw this closet...actually, I saw two closets.  The door to the garage is the door on the left, there is the closet in the photo, a space for the washer and dryer, and another closet by the back door.  Who needs two closets in a laundry room that's full of huge cabinets?

 **I'm sorry about the terrible before pictures!  I think I was too excited about the house to take semi-decent pictures. Ha!**

We lined the interior of the closet with beadboard, added a few hooks and a "bench" and now we have a mudroom!  It's the perfect place to stash everything as we come in the door from the garage.

I'm still looking for a cute basket to put under the "bench", but for now a laundry basket is the perfect place to put our shoes when we come in from the garage.  I'd also like to make a cushion for the bench to build up the height a little...that'll be a project for the winter!

Here's the after photo of the rest of the laundry room... 

We removed the linoleum flooring and added laminate with a "hand scraped" look, painted the cabinets and trim a crisp white, scraped the popcorn ceiling and had it re-textured, and painted the walls green, Grasscloth by Behr.
 

This room needs is looking a little plain, though...any suggestions for decor for this wall?  I'm also thinking of adding a curtain and maybe a carpet runner?

**Edited to add**

I have had a few people ask me about our floors...I love them!  The brand is Cottage Collection and the color is Rustic Teak.   We purchased ours at Derailed Commodity, but I did a quick Google search and found them at several other places (including online).

I love the hand-scraped look and the wider planks.  We have a big dog and a little boy running around on them constantly and they have yet to show any wear or tear.  They do tend to show more dust (and dog hair!) because they're dark, but it was the look I was going for so I don't mind vacuuming every few days. 

I hope that helps!  Please ask away if you have any other questions!

before & {happily ever} after...master bedroom

It's been a few months since I showed you a "before and after" of our home.    I've showed you the kitchen, the entry and hallway, now it's time to show you the master bedroom.

When we first saw this house, we had already seen a lot of wallpaper before we got to this room, but I hadn't seen the end of it!

{you can click on the pictures to make them larger}

There was a lot of Waverly floral wallpaper in this room and it took a lot of work to get it all down, but I think the after was totally worth it.

{you can click on the pictures to make them larger}

Here's how the room was transformed:

• Removed 2 layers of wallpaper 
• Had the walls re-textured as the original wallpaper was installed directly on the drywall.
• Removed popcorn ceiling and had it re-textured
• Painted all trim white
• Installed new doors
• Removed/replaced window treatments
• New paint
• Installed a ceiling fan (with light) - can you believe there were no overhead lights installed in any of the bedrooms?!
• Installed new carpet

The master bedroom is definitely still a work in progress and probably doesn't suit everyone's style, but it is perfect for us.  There are a few things that I want to change (including our bedding, when the next holiday rolls around!) but it's a relaxing room that doesn't have a speck of Waverly wallpaper left.

before & {happily ever} after...entry and hallway

Last Friday, I showed you the before and after of our kitchen.  There are still a few things that I'd change about our kitchen, but I love, love, LOVE how it looks now.

I said that the kitchen was one of the first things that we saw, but that's not entirely true.  Here was our view the moment our realtor opened the door...

 I loved the fireplace and the bookshelves that flank it on either side.  The spindles and sculptured carpet...not so much.  Here's what it looks like when you walk into our home today...

We took those spindles out - we actually opened that doorway into the playroom up about 6 extra feet - and replaced the carpet with laminate that is made to mimic hand-scraped hardwood.  There are still a few things on the "to do someday" list (like change out the fireplace door/insert), but I love it!

The hallway that leads to the bedrooms and bathrooms was another one of the first things that we saw.  Here's what it looked like in September 2010:

And what it looks like today...

Some of the frames area crooked (a 3-year old and a 90 pound dog running around will do that) and some of the frames are waiting to be filled (a Father's Day present for Scott is in the works for one of the frames), but I think that my work-in-progress gallery wall makes a long hallway a little more stylish.  Isn't it amazing what a little paint can do?!  Painting our dark oak trim white made a huge difference in our home!

Even though I was there for every step of the way, when I look at the "before" pictures, it's still hard to believe that it's the same house!

I'll be back with more before & {happily ever} afters of our home in the coming days!

Linked to:

Our Kitchen...before and after.

We just passed the 6-month mark of living in our new house.  That's a pretty big mark for a couple, now a family, who have lived in 6 places during our almost-6 years of marriage!  There has been an apartment, a couple of houses, and a little over a year spent living with another family when we first moved to Missouri...definitely not traditional, but it's been great!

The story of how this house came about is totally remarkable, one that definitely needs to be shared at some point...but for now, I'm going to devote a few posts to the "befores and afters" of our home. I know that this is a "crafting" blog, but since I've been showing you some of the decor that I've made for our home, I thought it would be fun!

When we first looked at this house, it belonged to an older couple.  This is going to sound crazy, but it felt like "home" as soon as we walked in...at least to me.  It definitely didn't look like my idea of our home, but it felt like it.  My husband thought I was completely crazy, but I could see past the somewhat dated interior to the total potential that this house held in its bones.

This is one of the first things that we saw...the kitchen.

Wow...I know.  I saw past the "faux wood" counter tops, linoleum flooring, and oak cabinets to the size!  Our kitchen in our last home was relatively small and felt totally separated from the rest of the house.  This kitchen was  a perfect size for me and was open to the rest of the home - or at least it would be when we knocked out that cabinet over the peninsula!

Here is what our kitchen looks like today...after a little over 4 weeks of work (with amazing help...part of the remarkable story that I'll share at some point) and 1 flood (a crazy story!), we have a beautiful, perfect-for-us kitchen....

Looking at the old picture, I almost can't believe it's the same place.  But it is...it's home.

I'll be back with more "before and after" posts in the next few days!