June before and after Party!

Helloooo! It’s that time again! Another month has come and gone and we’re here again to show off your before and afters. I can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with this month. :)

First, as always, I want to share a few of the awesome projects from last month’s party. It’s always so hard to narrow the highlights down to just a few – I’m always blown away by your talent!

We’ll kick it off with yet another fantastic kitchen makeover, this one at Aimee’s – here’s the before:

And the after:

Just beautiful!! Wow. That is a big transformation. And those are the same cabinets – see how they made over this space here.

I have a thing about penny floors and counters. I just think they are the coolest. So I let out a little squeal when I saw Ashley’s countertop:

I think that is so fun!

Another kitchen redo that I love is Cassie’s – I love her dark cabinets and gray backsplash!:

You can see more details of her kitchen here.

Beth made some very simple changes to her front porch to get it ready for spring:

I especially love how she did that cute mat! See how she did it here.

I have laundry rooms on my brain lately. Once I finish up the baseboards in the basement (almost done!) I’m starting on the laundry room. WHOO! So I was pretty excited to see this Ballard Designs drying rack knock off:

The instructions are detailed and I’m thinking I’m going to have to try this one out. :)

Cristina’s thrifty bathroom makeover is one of the best I’ve seen:

She used touches of orange and aqua just perfectly – it’s a beautiful room!

Finally, I had to share Ashleigh’s sweet painted vases in all of their pretty colors:

Aren’t they beautiful? You can see her how-to here.

Wow, awesome stuff, I tell you! (As always, please go to the specific blogs if you’d like to pin a project!)

Now it’s time to see what you’ve been up to! If you’d like to be considered for a highlight, please link to TDC using this button:

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.simplehomeinteriordesign.blogspot.com/" title="TDC Before and After" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/beforeAndAfterButton_thumb1.gif" alt="TDC Before and After" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

And go ahead and link up your post here!

DIY vintage crate storage

Hey hey! I’ve got a very, simple, quick project to share today – one I’m pretty smitten with. It has all of my loves –  it was inexpensive, easy and cauuute!

And it’s a knock-off of sorts, so that’s an extra bonus. :)

A few weeks ago I saw these cute crates in the Serena & Lily catalog and knew I could DIY them:

 

I wanted to make some myself because, well, these are CRAZY expensive. This (small) size is $88 plus shipping. YOWZA. My plan was to make them from scratch with wood and stencils. I wanted to have a few in the basement for storage.

Well I was at one of my VERY favorite antique spots today, Midland Arts and Antiques (you can see more about this wondrous place here and here) and found the perfect vintage crate:

And I immediately knew what I was going to do with it.

I loved that the crate was solid, clean, and had some really cool details:

It is so old and worn the wood is super soft – no rough spots or splinters (which I watch out for when the Bub will be using something).

Don’t you love the old Good Housekeeping logo? How cool is that?

This little transformation took about 20 minutes – I had some small castors that I never used for another project, so I screwed those on and then put a quick coat of poly on the whole thing, inside and out:

I used a satin so it’s not shiny, but it brought out the tones in the wood. I poly’d it because you never know what’s been in an old crate, and this both protects the wood and helps to protect us from anything that has been inside of it. :)

(I also wiped the whole thing down with cleaning wipes before I started.)

It was SO simple, and I just absolutely love it!:

I wanted to use one of the rolling crates for all of the gaming stuff, and this is perfect!:

There’s plenty of room left for more. Like we need more. Gah.

The awesome part is my version is bigger than the Serena and Lily crate (mine is 22” by 12” by 10” tall) and was only $20. (For the crate – I had everything else. Those little wheels are about a buck each at the hardware store.) That’s a savings of $70, and mine is BIGGER. And BETTER.

OK, that’s subjective, but whatever.

My favorite part? The good luck logo on the side:

Considering it holds the game stuff, I thought that was pretty cute. :)

I love when a project comes together so easily and better than the inspiration! SO FUN.

Have you DIY’d a good knock-off lately? Feel free to share a link in the comments!

Hope you have a fantastic weekend!

Picking out (basement) paint colors

Hey there! How the heck are ya?

I’ve been really excited to tell you about the paint colors in the basement – really excited. I don’t know why exactly, I guess maybe because it’s a whole new floor to decorate. (About the best. thing. ever. for someone like me.) But it’s also that I’m going a direction with colors that I’ve never gone before. And it’s got me giddy.

I finally finished the painting of the main/family room in the basement just tonight. Remember when I said it was going really fast? Yeahhhh. Well, that was a week ago and I worked on it pretty much every night. Not “really fast.”

It took forever, and at times I wondered why I didn’t just pay to have it done. But most of the time, I kind of enjoyed it. And at the risk of sounding hokey, I feel fortunate that we have a basement to paint, that we’ve been able to finish our basement and that I’m able-bodied to paint it myself. Cheesy I know, but true.

And I am IN LOVE with the result. But first, I want to share my paint plan for the whole lower level.

I’m taking every color from one paint swatch:

 

They are Benjamin Moore colors that I’m having mixed at Sherwin Williams (they go on sale all the time so are cheaper and I’m just plain in love with it now). Did you know they have the BM formulas? (Or at least they say they do.) Home Depot has Lowe’s colors as well (and vise versa I believe).

I’ve never done this anywhere else in our house, but I’m using the different tones of the colors throughout the spaces.

The lightest color, Pebble Beach, will be the laundry room:

The lighter colors on the swatch show up darker on the computer screen, and the darker colors show up lighter. What the? Oh well.

I tried to examples of each of the colors and it was hard! But Dear Lillie had two rooms painted in Pebble Beach, and they are gorgeous!:

OH my gah. Beautiful!

Isn’t that a lovely color?

The next color is Silver Lake and it will go in the bathroom:

I couldn’t find anything “in real life” in this color, surprisingly. I’m really excited about the tile I hope to use in the bathroom and I think this will go with it beautifully!

I showed you a bit of the next one last week – it’s the one I used in the large family room space:

I had it lightened 25 percent because I was concerned it would get a little too dark. I’m so glad I did – it’s perfect!

We LOVE it. Love love love. Every time hubby walks down there he comments on it. (So does the Bub, which cracks me up every time.)

It’s a very warm gray – so cozy, but cool:

Doesn’t it look great with the moon chairs? Awesome!

I’m not using the next two colors on the swatch (Timber Wolf and Hearthstone). I have a BIG accent wall in mind for the Gunmetal color:

I’ve been hashing out ideas for that wall in my head for months now. I want to do something fun and a little different. I love that I get to stretch a little bit in the basement and do things I may not do in the rest of the house.

The final color is the one I’m most excited about. Like REALLY FREAKIN’ EXCITED:

This color is actually a bit lighter on the screen then it is on the paint chip – it’s dark. And I love it.

Here it is on a bathroom vanity:

(source)

It’s going on the walls (yes, the walls) in hubby’s office. There will be a white treatment around the bottom of the walls, and this will go above. I saw a black room with white trim on a TV show a year ago and I’ve been planning to do this ever since.

It was wicked cool. :)

This color isn’t black, but it’s dark. I’ll do more of a matte finish with this one to keep it from getting shiny.

I can’t wait!! And hubby is all in – it’s gonna be awesome. (In my head anyway.)

This is a different way of picking out paint colors for me, and I gotta say, it’s the easiest yet. :) Seriously, it took all of five minutes. I especially love these grays because they really act as a neutral – pretty much every accent color works with them. (I’ve tried quite a few.)

So how do you pick out paint colors? Go room by room or plan it out and match? Go tonal or every color in the rainbow? Do you like the calming feel of the similar colors or do you need more spice?

Dining room turned library progress

Hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend! I almost started five different projects over the three days but decided I just needed to FOCUS SARAH.

Remember my list? Well the end of the month is quickly approaching and I’m not even half way through the to do list I wanted to complete by the 31st. So I decided to tackle a couple of the items and I didn’t touch anything else all weekend. I need to get a least half of the list marked off, I mean really. That’s just sad.

Last time you saw the dining room, it was kind of a mess:

OK, it’s been a mess for three months. :)

When we had the basement dry walled they patched up the spots in here for free. (They needed to be fixed because I used Liquid Nails to put up the trim in here years ago. Don’t do that if you think you’ll EVER take it down. Ahem.)

Anyhoo! This wall is the first thing you see when you walk in our house and I was tired of it being a mess. So I pulled out the primer and got busy:

Already sooo much better!

The thing about paint – I always procrastinate it to no end, but when I get going with it, I actually find it quite enjoyable. I think it has a lot to do with the instant gratification thing.

And the fact that I didn’t have to cut in around much this time helped too. ;)

So while I had the primer out, I got the cabinets started:

And today I got paint for the walls and got that going:

It’s a very light color called Abalone and it’s SO pretty. Maybe a little too pretty though –I was really happy with it till the sun started setting and the whole room looked pink.

You can’t really tell in the pics, but it’s definitely pinky. UGH. I’m trying to get rid of the pink undertones in our front rooms, not keep them.

So that is awesome. :) I’m going to look for a different color tomorrow.  It’s rare that a color I pick doesn’t work out, but when it happens you just gotta role with it – and this time I didn’t follow my own advice of painting it on poster board and leaving it in the room. :) The area above those cabinets will be bookcases and the background on that wall will be different anyway. For now I just wanted to get it looking decent and uniform.

By the way, this color would be divine in a baby girl nursery. Divine. It’s really a lovely color!

I got some trim work taken care of this weekend as well – I picked up a side panel for the end of the cabinets and attached it, then primed:

You can see on the pics above that I also got the cabinets trimmed out on bottom – baseboards and then most of the quarter round. I used scraps of what I had but I need to get more. :)

Priming the cabs really brought out the grain, which I knew was going to happen – I gave it a good sanding which helped a bit. I’m using a semi gloss white paint on them and between coats I’ll sand again.

But here’s a good idea of how it will look with hardware and the butcher block:

I’m getting really excited at how it’s coming together! Next up – finish the trim, at least two coats on the cabs, paint the walls (AGAIN), and then sand down, stain and install the butcher.

Then we can get going on the bookcases! (I’m almost ready Dad! Want to come over this weekend?)  :)

Here’s a review of what the room looked like at the start of this year:

It was a lovely room (albeit dark!), but we just didn’t use it. I was tired of that, so we’re going to make it work better for us.

And in the process it’s getting a little update. ;)

I’m SO psyched to get this moving along and have a comfy “library” to hang out in. We may have some awesome bookcases for a while and no furniture though. I’ll be scouring Craigslist for sure. ;)

So, do you see my vision for this room?

Hope your Memorial Day was wonderful! A huge thank you to our past and present military (and families)! We appreciate you so very much.

P.S. One more day of the Canon Rebel Giveaway!

Avocado banana ice cream

OK, bear with me here. When I first heard about this dessert I was pretty cynical. I like bananas. I LOVE avocados. But together? Frozen? Um, not exactly appetizing.

But because I have been known to eat an entire vat of guacamole all by myself, and I have been known to do this often, I just had to try it.

A friend told me about it earlier this week and was raving. She said she couldn’t believe how good it was. I was so curious I didn’t waste much time making it myself.

My friend found it on Pinterest, then I got home and searched and found it immediately as well. We both used the recipe found here at Averie Cooks. 

I had everything but the avocado, so I picked up a ripe one today. It took minutes to make. And did I mention the best part? You do not need an ice cream machine!

There are only six ingredients:

Avocado Banana Ice Cream:

1 ripe avocado
1 medium banana
1/2 cup milk
1 cup ice (optional but I think it helps give it a frozen consistency)
1/2 cup sugar (I think you could do a little less. I may try 1/4 next time.)
tsp vanilla

The only time in this recipe is the freezing – cut up the banana and freeze it beforehand:

Mine was mostly frozen when I made it, but not completely. I was a little anxious to try it. :)

You just dump everything in the blender:

Looks SO appetizing, I know. ;) Just WAIT.

Blend till smooth.

This is when I noticed a tiny bit of avocado on the sides of the blender and while pushing them in to the mixture I gave it at quick taste. Even drawing the spoon up to my mouth, I didn’t believe it was going to be good.

But let. me. tell. you. IT IS GOOD. I quite literally said out loud, “NO way.” And then I tasted it again to make sure.

Um, I’m not kidding you, this is amazing. I tried it again. And again.

Mine wasn’t quite frozen enough, (frosty, but not frozen) so I poured it into a container, tasted it some more. Put it in the freezer, couldn’t stop thinking about it, went back 20 minutes later to check on it (duh, not frozen), tried it again.

Still GOOD.

About 90 minutes later I gave up and got it out:

No I didn’t eat the whole bowl. I wanted to.

OK seriously, it’s scrumptious. Smooth and creamy and sweet. It would have been just as good as a smoothie too (just don’t freeze afterwards). I’ve also heard that it does not get brown with time.

I am going to play with adding a little less sugar next time and maybe just a tad less vanilla. I think it would be just as flavorful with a little less.

It’s been smokin’ hot today and will be this weekend, so I’m going to try and make it last. ;)

I mentioned it on Facebook earlier this week and some were talking about avocado and chocolate? A pudding I think? I’ll believe anything after trying this. Have you tried this ice cream? Tried a weird food combo that was surprisingly good? Two of mine – ranch dressing on pizza and Wendy’s fries dipped in a chocolate frosty. ;) YUM.

Hope you have a LOVELY Memorial Day weekend!

An update on the basement

Hey hey! It’s been awhile since I’ve updated on the basement progress because…well, there hasn’t been much progress. ;)

It kind of pooped out because…WELL. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Drats.

About seven weeks ago we had the drywall put up and mudded. That felt like a HUGE accomplishment. It obviously transformed the space into real rooms. Pretty awesome.

Since then the guys have primed every surface and painted the ceiling. I thought I would be able to do it but really? It would have taken months. They got it done in two days.

When the walls were installed, we had to go ahead with the shower because there was some drywall that had to be installed around it:

Originally I had planned on tiling the whole thing, but an insert was so. much. easier. For me. Because they did installed the insert, and I was going to do the tile. ;) That little area to the right of the shower will be open shelving, so that will be a nice little detail.

The guys came a few weeks ago and installed the trim around the basement steps, which had to be done before carpet:

It was pretty straightforward – just some boards trimmed out on top with quarter round, then baseboards around the landing. (On that wall they had to notch out the board to fit around the steps, but on the other walls the board just fit in next to the steps – much easier.)

A cement wall went up the wall on the stairway and created a little ledge, so the guys did a really nice job of trimming that out:

I hang extra frames for projects in this stairway so they free up storage space. That’s why some of them are empty. :)

The recessed lights have been finished out with their cans, and it made a HUGE difference! I love how much light we have down there, and that everything is on different switches:

We went with a lightly textured ceiling just like upstairs. I love the look of flat ceilings, but especially in the basement where there may be a need to repair it eventually (to get to wiring, plumbing, etc.), I wanted to go with something that would be easily patched and textured again.

We’ve only purchased a couple light fixtures so far, and the guys installed them for free:

I showed you some of the options here and I actually went with what was my third choice for this spot! When I went back to purchase the lights I just loved the industrial look of these and the price tag. I got them at Lowe’s – I’m not sure what they’re called but I’ve seen them at every Lowe’s I’ve looked. (Hold the phone, I found them online here.)

This spot will eventually have cabinets below with a sink:

That area will probably be the last thing we do in the basement, as far as finishing it goes. But I have big plans for this wall!

I envision a wall of tile, something like this maybe:

(source)

Or this. I looove this:

I’m bummed because this had no source when I pinned it. Any idea where I can get it? I’m sure it’s mad expensive.

There won’t be any upper cabinets on that wall, just lowers. But I may do some floating shelves. I’ll just have to see how it comes together and what kind of storage we need. It will be just be a very small snack/drink area, so eventually we hope to have a small fridge and maybe a microwave down there too.

So FUN!

But like I said, that’s WAY down the line. I just like to plan ahead. ;)

I had hoped to have carpet installed next, and then have everything trimmed out after that – I figured we could live without trim and doors for quite a while. And I was going to wait to do the tile in two rooms later as well. But then the guys told me the tile and the trim should really be done before the carpet so that basically shot my entire plan.

Sooo now, we are hoping to get at least the trim done next month, and the carpet done by July. And here a couple months ago I thought we’d be done early – the original plan was to be done by July, and then I thought it may be June. Now it will probably be August. Or later. Probably later. Dangah.

But there is still plenty that I can do and I started tonight. At 9 p.m. No better time, right? I’ve had the paint for the basement for awhile, and I finally bit the bullet and started painting.

I put on my paint shirt:

I don’t wipe my hands on rags or paper towels, I use this shirt. ;) It has every paint color in our house on it. I’ve had it since the day we moved in. I will never get rid of it. Someday it will be framed. ;)

So anyhoo, I went after it and because there is no trim and no carpet, it’s going REALLY fast. I only stopped to write this post and it was hard to walk away. I could have easily gotten the half of the whole family/playroom area done tonight.

I’ll talk to you more about the paint soon, but for now I’ll tell you that it’s a Benjamin Moore color called Marina Gray that I had mixed at Sherwin Williams:

I had it lightened 25 percent because I was worried it would be too dark. And up till I painted I was still worried about that, but I LOVE IT. It is a lovely color and I’m really excited about it. It went on like buttah too.

I’m also excited that I got it during a sale, with a coupon so I spent less on SW paint than I would have at the hardware store. Boo. yah.

So there you go, the latest basement update. I know you’ve been waiting, practically beside yourself because you were so anxious to hear more about it. You can relax now that you know. ;)

The plan now is to finish painting then install baseboards in the whole basement. I’ll bring the saw down there and that should go pretty quick. (Famous last words.) I figure by the time I’m done with all that (I am not putting baseboards up near doorways till they install those), we’ll be able to afford to inch forward a little more.

It’s so hard to be patient, but at least I’ve got plenty to keep me busy while I wait. That's a good thing. Right?!

So have you seen any cool tile that would look good on the bar/kitchenette wall? Any idea where I can find that awesome quatrefoil tile?