It works, and it doesn't.

I added a door knocker on to our mudroom door the other day.

Pretty, right? My mom sent it to me a year ago when we moved in and I hadn't gotten around to drilling it into the door, so it just sat in a drawer, waiting.

Well, I really wanted to see how it would look with our nice weathered brass kick-plate. Funny, I never noticed how terrible the door knob is until now. Anyway, the point is that the new door knocker looks great!

Can you guess how I attached it to the door?

It's me we're talking about here.

I hot glued it.

And it worked great!

...until Kennedy saw it and was all "Oooh! A door knocker!" and had to go and actually use the darn thing.

OK, so the hot glue didn't work so well, but at least now I know it will look great when I get around to actually attaching it for real to the door. By that, I mean when Chris does.

For some reason, people seem to think my mud room looks too nice in pictures and sometimes they find it hard to believe that I should really call it a mud room. Here's the room for real. With actual mud in it. So there. Also, you can't see it, but there are about 4 giant trash bags waiting to go out to the garage sitting on the floor just outside of the frame. Ha!

Why am I acting all smug about the fact that my room is a mess again?

Anyway.

It's not really a pretty room, but the door knocker definitely gives it a nudge in the right direction.

A little extra hardware is always a good idea in my books!

Have you ever added non-functioning hardware to something just for the look of it?

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Easy Wall Art: Dollar Store Letter Canvas

I've just got way too many thoughts about this simple little project going around in my head.

Thoughts about how I should really be fancy and do some kind of patterned paint treatment in the background, or use some kind of snooty obscure fabric to wrap the canvas, or some kind of new just-on-the-market metallic goo on the G.

I've been at this whole home blogging thing long enough that I should be so over "simple". I should be so over "easy". Really, isn't it time to move on to DIY decor 2.0?

Isn't it time to show off just a little?

The thing is, I keep thinking back to when I wasn't a blogger, but just a very avid blog reader. And I loved simple. I still do when I get the chance to read what's going on around the rest of the blogosphere.

I love projects like this. Quick. Simple. More than just the sum of their parts.

It's a dollar store canvas, messily painted with a few different colors of dollar store paint, with a $1 Walmart wooden G stuck on it.

It's like a loophole in the decorating system. You take a few cheapo things, mash 'em together and suddenly it's art for your wall. And pretty cute art at that.

You know who reads this blog and possibly makes use of some ideas they find here? Blog readers! Real ones!

Shocking I know, but if I was a blog reader and liked loopholes, then maybe, just maybe, you're a blog reader who likes simple, and easy, and quick, and loopholes too.

So there you go, dear reader. Just for you. Just how you like it.

If you're looking for more ideas for DIY Canvases, here's another really fun one I found! Enjoy!

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I did something on my giant chalkboard that is neither terrible nor embarrassing

The great thing about this whole chalkboard paint trend and having big chalkboards all around your house is that it theoretically makes it really easy to do big impact decorating that changes with the seasons, or whenever you want, and that everyone loves.

This is assuming that most people have fairly decent chalkboarding skills. I've shown you before that, um, I do not.

I've thought about just leaving the darn thing blank, cause that's a look too, but I decided to jump back in and blatantly knock-off Pottery Barn instead.

I've seen this chalkboard style around all over the place lately, so I guess I'm not alone! I think I'm more knocking off the knock-off-ers at this point, rather than the Pottery Barn original, I've seen it done so many times.

So let's not call it a knock-off. Let's call it a new classic, shall we?

I love it. It's striking, totally Halloweeny, fun, and village idiot do-able too.

Maybe I have some chalkboarding skills, after all. I just need to find the right idea to blantantly steal! Things become new classics for a reason, after all.

P.S. I am going to get around to re-finishing that desk sometime, I promise. For real. Probably.

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The Befores

We're starting on a new project!

These are the befores:

OK, these are really more "the durings" at this point. The carpet is already ripped out. Most of the furniture and junk has been moved out.

The wheels are turning as we're trying to figure out how we're going to turn this mess into something beautiful.

We've got our work cut out for us this time, same as always!












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The 15 Minute Yard in the Fall

A few weeks ago I shared with you how I had completely blown it as far as taking care of our yard/property/whatever you want to call it over the Summer. At that time, I started a system of 15 minute daily yard work sessions, hoping to be a little more disciplined in getting things taken care of that were bugging me. I was also really trying not to overwhelm myself and run screaming for the (non-existent) hills.

So far so good! Little things that bug me are getting taken care of and I don't find myself putting things off until that magical time in the future when I have a whole day that I can/want to spend working outside on yard clean up.

The idea behind this system is to find something, anything, to do each day for around 15 minutes on whatever project (the yard in this case). It's about seeing how much you can get done in 15 minutes, but also how much you can get done when you develop a habit and use it 365 days a year. So that means gardening isn't just for Spring and Summer, it's for taking care of a lot of the clean up in the Fall and Winter too, so that when the warm weather hits, you don't just throw in the towel because you think you're so far behind.

I wanted to share with you some of the kinds of things I'm finding to take care of right now that make me feel a whole lot more capable when it comes to dealing with all this space we have out here.

First of all, leaves are almost always a big part of Fall clean up. If we really had to rake all of our leaves, we'd be doomed. I was worried about this last year, but we soon discovered that they all blow out into the fields, so we just enjoy them while they're here.

So what I've really been doing are just little things, but often things that I would just not get to until Spring because they didn't seem big enough to warrant a whole trip outside on their own. Things like:

-Cutting back dying perennials (just 15 minutes worth at a time!)
-Putting away some of the stuff off the back deck. Side tables, chairs, plant pots.
-Rounding up a few balls or sandbox toys that are still outside.
-Bringing in the tomato cages.
-Sweeping down spider webs around doorways.
-Sweeping the front steps.
-Planting a handful of Spring bulbs.
-Putting down a few sheets of newspaper and some mulch to prevent weeds in flower beds (just a little at a time again!)

Individually, all these little jobs are pretty insignificant, but if I pick seven of them to do in a week, then I find I've actually made some pretty good progress!

Getting outside a bit more is helping me enjoy my surroundings more too. Can you spot the tiny purple flowers whose name I forget, but who I planted this Spring and who decided to bloom again in the Fall for some reason?

I love knowing that this whole area is going to be just full of daffodils in March and April and I didn't agonize over trying to plants hundreds of bulbs like last year and then just not get around to it. 15 minutes was all it took! If I decide to, I may even do one more 15 minute bulb planting session, but no 3 hour planting marathons for me.

So there you go. That's what's working for me right now. I have to say though, I'm interested to see if I can actually come up with enough things to get done out here in the Winter! Tune in next time...












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Mason Jar Porch Light Update

My Mason Jar porch light, that I first posted about last Fall, is definitely one of my more popular posts, still to this day. That's mostly because of pure dumb luck and because it's been pinned on Pinterest like a bajillion times.

Here's the original photo of it:

And here's how it's looking these days:

The same, pretty much. Only with a ribbon!

Anyway, since so many people have seen and pinned this idea, I feel kind of responsible for it, you know? I don't want to lead anyone astray.

I don't want anyone to go and try this out and discover it doesn't work and think this is just another Pinterest Fail. Just like I did when I tried to change the light bulb in there recently!

I discovered that the reason I was able to fit the jar over in the first place is that there was a teeny tiny baby version of a regular light bulb in there. Who knew there was such a thing? I didn't even notice it was small until I went to replace it.

Off to Walmart I went to try and find these baby bulbs and discovered that they were, in fact, appliance light bulbs.

So there you go, the info is out there! The appliance bulbs fit right into the normal sockets, but the overall size is smaller so they fit nicely inside a Mason Jar.

There. Now my conscience just feels so much better. And hopefully everyone who's tried this since last year and had it not work for them can stop cursing at me under their breath now too!












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Papered and Painted DIY Flooring

Today, I'm going to take you back to Kennedy's room and her closet that we've been pluggin' away at since last Summer. Like Summer 2011. I know, it's just a closet.

When I last took you through this closet, I told you I'd be back in a few months to work on it a bit more. What can I say? I know myself well.

Now, I've finally got it finished. Mostly. Kind of. Well, here's an update anyway.

Do you even remember her closet? It was a looong time ago. It looks like this:

And this:

And this:

And the bottom half used to look like this:

After we replaced the original baseboards, painted them up, and peeled back the tape, we were left with a bit of a mess.

I'd been looking for a little rug to put down in there after I finished with my kraft paper floor treatment, but hadn't really found anything.

I came up with an easy fix that really was super quick to do. Much quicker than I thought it would be.

I touched up the paint on the walls, which took me all of 5 minutes. Then I quickly taped some wide stripes at 6 inch intervals.

The taping took maybe 10 minutes, the painting, about 20. Seriously, what took me so long to do this?

Well, you'll notice that it's still not quite done, because it could use some quarter round to finish up the bottom of the baseboards there.

The thing is, I waited so long to do this project, that we're actually just in the process of getting ready to put down the real floors in there.

No more hideous yellow carpet for this room! That also means no more painted paper floor, but I still just had to try it out and see how it would work. I couldn't believe how crisp the lines came out!

If you need a quick and easy, dirt cheap, temporary or permanent solution to an ugly floor, this just may be the ticket!

P.S. Closets are impossible to photograph! Impossible!











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