What a week!

WOW!! I was so excited by your response to the giveaway! The winner of The Vintage Pearl’s giveaway is Laura from The Chenoweth Family. Laura, email me and I’ll get you in touch with Erin! Congrats!

Last week was one of those when I wondered if I could fit one more thing in – it started with my speaking engagements at the Indy Home Show…three days, two times a day. Whew! It was a new experience and I’m so glad I did it. I was so thrilled to meet so many of my readers there – I was honored you came out!

I had Thursday to pack both myself and the Bub for our weekends away, and by “I had Thursday” that meant I waited until 11:30 p.m.  on Thursday night to even start packing.

I started to get nervous about getting to Blissdom in Nashville earlier in the week – the weather was supposed to get downright nasty here by Friday morning. Watching the weather report Thursday night was NOT a good idea because it just sent me into a tizzy.

But we woke up Friday to no ice, decent temps, no snow. Huh. Then, just because someone up there thought it would be funny, the snow freakin’ blizzard started quite literally the minute I headed out to the airport.

My flight was delayed once, twice, three times, then four. The fourth time I called hubby and may or may not have cried. Just a little. Maybe.

I took off on my first flight at the exact time my connecting flight was heading to Nashville.  :) I got rebooked on a later flight, and after fastwalkingjoggingrunningsprinting to the gate, I was FINALLY on my way there!!!

I was so excited to meet the fellow “home” bloggers who were going to be at Blissdom and I have to tell you – it was like we had known each other for years. So completely comfortable, so easy. It was truly a joy and a blast to meet these lovely women (and one man named Kevin!)

Layla, me and AnNicole: 

(I swiped this one from Layla cause it’s way better than mine – they have some skills!)

We missed Harry Connick Jr.’s performance by minutes, because we had been gabbing so much.  :) But we found Beckie, Julia and Rhoda right away:

AnNicole and I got in line to get a pic with Harry at the very last second and were the last one’s in!!! I still can’t find out how to find the picture, but when I get it, I’ll show you fo sho!!

Then we spent hours 30 minutes trying to find the Incourage party. (Have I mentioned the Opryland Hotel is MASSIVE?? And stunning.) We made some photo op stops along the way, then the Kimba, Kate and AnNicole couldn’t help but fluff some drapes:

OK, they were just trying to figure out how to open the window, but you know us decorating girls. No window is safe!!

That first night I had the pleasure of just sitting down and talking with Kate, Rhoda, Kevin and Layla and AnNicole for HOURS. I learned SO much from them all, and had so much fun, especially seeing Rhoda (and Kevin!) laugh so hard they cried!  ;)

The next day I met more fantastic women – pictured here are AnNicole, Beckie, Julia and JJ:

 Traci is just absolutely lovely. I mean, just a doll. And you know what? I knew she would be!: I finally met the Nester (I think you know which one she is!):

My friend Beckie and I have known each other for a while now, but I always love a chance to catch up with her:

We have a FUN event planned for next month that we hope to tell you about in the next week or so!

I met so many more wonderful people but don’t have pictures yet. It was an honor to share that time with them.

The last night, Kate, AnNicole and I decided we HAD to go experience the city of Nashville. We took off for the Wildhorse Saloon and chowed down on fried pickles:

OH dear LORD they were good.

Speaking of fried, have I mentioned that every. single. woman. I met was gorgeous and skinny? Like, I’m not even kidding. Gorgeous and skinny, skinny and gorgeous. What the ?! My booty has grown with blogging!! ;)

To work off the fried pickles, we learned how to line dance:

Can I tell you how fun Kate is? F.U.N.

And we couldn’t resist these:

Our big group of home bloggers got a picture together, and I’ll be on the lookout for that to share with you soon. We were just a teensy bit annoying when we passed 15 cameras to every person taking a picture.  ;)

My roomie was AnNicole from Our Suburban Cottage and although we have known each other for years, we had never met. She was lovely, beautiful, such a blast to hang with and she didn’t snore. YES!

Layla and Kevin created a mad lib video with some of us that is pretty dang funny – check it out here.

I am so beyond thrilled with the friendships that were created, and the knowledge I took away with me. I know have 20 new forever friends, and that is a blessing.

Now, it’s time to keep decorating! The help with the stairs hit another road bump, but I think there may be some progress today. I will show you the progress this week, no matter what!

The $10 coffee table

I know. I know. I said I would catch you up on the stairs tonight. I know. Winces. I’m kind of at the mercy of others when it comes to this one, which I hate. I am not used to people helping out with my DIY projects, and while it is wonderful to have the help – it also means I have to be more patient than usual, which I am so not good at. ;)

Anyhoo, I should be able to show you a close to finished product next week. (Crossing fingers.)

So I figured I would finally share my coffee table project for the family room. I showed you back on the rug post how large our old table was. I absolutely LOVE this table – I got this and a matching end table from Bombay Company years ago. (Can I get a moment of silence for BC? That place rocked.)

It served us well – we could eat off of it, drag choo choos across it, do puzzles easily. It was just so. incredibly. huge. It measures three feet across. HUGE:

Our family room is actually quite large, but as I’ve mentioned, the changes we made to it when building created very little wall space, so the furniture all floats. I love the layout and suggest it all the time – making and “L” with your sofas/chairs in a long room creates a cozy and warm space.

But cozy and a three foot wide coffee table don’t mix. So I was on the lookout for something new, and a few weeks ago I came across this beaut at Goodwill:

Wow, isn’t it fantastic? :) I know, it’s not. It wasn’t. But it was only $9.99. And as soon as I saw it, I knew it could work for what I had in mind. It was labeled as a desk, and was actually quite tall. (You can see how much taller it was than the sofa above.)

Because I heard on HGTV once that your coffee table should be about two inches lower than your sofa, and since HGTV is decorating gospel, (OK, only most of the time) I took this baby out to my fanfreakingtastic compound miter saw and cut down these legs:

Oh yeah, I did! I stuck that baby right under the blade and cut them off! Buwahahaha!! I think I took about four inches off each leg. (Then I added little cushions to the bottom of each one to protect the rug.)

Because the top was beyond fixing with paint, I knew this table would work perfectly for my plan. It’s actually a laminate veneer on top and the sides, but I didn’t mind the color of it at all. I considered painting it, but painting laminate is not a quick job, and I wanted to keep the contrast of the table against the rug. So how the heck was I going to make it work?

I was going to upholster this bad boy:

I turned it over onto the foam and just traced it. (Foam courtesy of Goodwill, a find a few months ago. It’s also served as coloring book for my son as you can see.)

I wanted to tuft the top of the table with buttons and wanted to make sure everything was symmetrical. I realized I could just use the middle point of every square and then one in the middle for five buttons. I just drilled into those points:

Then I upholstered the top with batting (Goodwill again, score!!) and fabric using my staple gun:

At this point I lost steam a bit and let it sit for a good week. Something just wasn’t sitting right with me.

There are three things that are extremely important to me when I decorate our house. The first is the project or item must be comfortable. Second, it has to be something our son can play with/around/on and third, it must be something that I will not FREAK OUT about when our son is playing with/around/on said item.

And this only had one of the three – it sure was comfortable when we propped our feet on it! ;) But as I watched my son playing on it, I realized why I was hesitating to finish it. The choo choos didn’t roll quite as well on this one. There was no way you could set a drink on it. And if you did, I would be over in the corner, biting my nails, breaking out in hives.

Beyond all that, covering the raw edges underneath was going to take more work, and I wasn’t positive how I was even going to do that.

Sooooo…I took it all apart. It took longer to take apart than it did to put it together. Gah.

I had a new brilliant idea – I would use some beadboard I already had and just cover the top. But I wanted a different look than just planks of the beadboard laying across it. Beadboard can get a country feel real quick if you’re not careful how you use it – and as much as I look a country/farmhouse look, it’s just not our family room. :)

So I figured it out – I used miter cuts on the beadboard and started from the outside and worked in, creating a square design:

I was in luuuurve.

To finish off the edges, I added some “fencing” molding – only $2 for an eight foot piece. After living with it for a day or two and getting stabbed by the corners, I quickly realized I would need to sand those down:

It worked perfectly!

I filled in all of the nail holes (I used the nail gun to attach it to the top of the table) and any gaps with spackle:

Sanded it down and primed, then painted:

I got a creamy paint to use on it, but after the first coat I realized it would be too light. So I used the wall color from the family room, mixed a little in to make it a bit deeper, and I couldn’t be more pleased!

I put the drawer towards the sofa so we have easy access to the fifty billion remotes and my bloggy necessities. ;)

Oh yeah, and another spot for me to frantically throw toys when I can’t take stepping on one more itty bitty thing.

We had a large basket on the top of our old coffee table for the remotes, and it fits perfectly under the table. I wanted to be able to slide it easily on the rug without it snagging, so I hot glued some of my mini-moving men to the bottom:

I never used the little ones anyway and it did the trick! This baby flies! And yet another spot for itty. bitty. teeny. tiny. toys. They breed.

The whole coffee table ended up costing $30 -- $10 for the table, $10 for additional beadboard and $10 for the paint. In the end, $30 is still way, way, WAY less than I would ever spend at a furniture store. AND I absolutely love it!:

Before, with the old table, old rug, same cat:

After…ahhhh….

Now, just a few more (potential) changes to this room and I am done! (Still can’t decide if I can part with my beloved drapes, even though I think they may be too much now.) I’ll show you the mantel next week!

Stay tuned for another great giveaway this weekend!

Decor inspiration

OK, these are going to be the worst pictures in the history of this blog, but I couldn’t resist showing you some of the fun ideas I saw at the design home at the Indy Home Show today.

I was trying to take better pictures, but the people behind me were getting incredibly annoyed at the woman (uhh, me) taking pictures of every. single. thing., so I was trying to be quick.  :)

Don’t they know how important it is that I share this stuff with you?! My peeps? My Squeezays?

Anyway, here are just a few of the incredible decorations they used in the house…

A mirror surrounded by pipes:

You would need about 100 pipes for this, but the idea is what is inspiring – you could use just about anything you have in large quantity. Some hot glue and you are set!

I’ve seen these before, but I bet you could make your own with a lamp kit:

If real books wouldn’t work, I bet faux books would.

This chair was just lovely, and I loved the contrast of the dark pillow with it:

I remember seeing shelves like these growing up – and here they look updated just because of the way they are accessorized:

I love how they used the letters throughout, the books on their sides, stacked up and facing forward:

This kitchen window treatment is hung from a door knocker:

I love that! I have a knocker I never used and now I want to do this – just have to find a window!  :)

I love using things in new ways – this is a bread box!:

Isn’t that brilliant?! You can’t use it for storage (maybe you could hang things inside?) but it sure is cool. Do you know how many of these I’ve passed up at Goodwill?

This was simple “art” -- pages from a book layered with typography, layered with a frame:

I am so tempted to use Scrabble tiles for something like this. We have a Scrabble game that we haven’t played in years. But I just know the day I use the tiles one of us will get a wild hair to play the stinkin’ game. :)

This looks vintage just because of the photos used on it, but I doubt it is:

Anyone got a contact at the floral department so I can snag one of these little card holders to put beautiful old photos in? Hmmm?

The laundry room had a window treatment that was dressed up with very simple items:

Buttons added along the bottom, and clothes pins on the top. Adorable!

Oh, what a great idea for a message board:

An old frame, distressed, and chicken wire secured to the back. What an inexpensive project! Perfect for a vintage touch in a kitchen too.

I doubt this gate is real, (like from a farm real) but it looks like it:

Take old wood (or new wood, distressed) and connect together. Paint whatever you want on the front – what a fab headboard this would be, with a large monogram on it?

Not sure if these came like this or not, but they got me thinking:

 

Any similar container with vinyl lettering would give the same look. (And probably way less than if you bought them this way!)

A table cut in half became art:

I couldn’t figure out what was different about these tiles at first:

And then it hit me – the grout is RED. It was a kid’s bathroom and the accessories were all red, so it actually looked really, really cool.

And I love how they used a swing arm lamp as an overhead light for the mirror!:

Brilliant!

The boy’s room was Lego themed, and after looking at the bed for a few seconds, I realized it looked Legos simply because of the round discs that were glue on and painted the same color:

How easy is that?

They used an old chunky door and then hung the TV on it:

I love old doors, yes I do.

Oh, hello Peyton!

Getting ready I see!  ;)

This home was decorated by The Inside Job design firm – they never fail to showcase fun, unique ideas that are easy to replicate!

I was going to show you the stairs tonight, but my father-in-law is coming tomorrow to work on the sanding a bit more. I will update you after they are done!  I decided on the stain I’m going to use on the treads – it’s going to be geeeeooorgeous!!! Ack!!

Check out the links at the Before and After party! Fabulous ideas all over the place! You all are so inspiring!

P.S. For those of you who asked about the hiding the TV cords – yes, you drill another hole down the wall, level with the outlet – then take the cords and put them through the top hole and pull them back through the bottom one, then plug in and connect to the receiver, DVD player, etc. It really is easy, I swear!!