Dining room (pretty) organization

Hey hey! How the heck are ya? There are some beautiful projects linked up at the before and after shindig – check it out here to see them or link up yours!

Today I’m back in the dining room – or is it the library? This room is a little confused right now. :) Last year we decided to do away with our dining room (that we used twice in seven years?) and make it into a more functional space for us. I shared the progress on this DIY built in project early last year and the final result here. The “book” part of the library is done…but we still need a cozy place to sit.

I love the built ins for so many different reasons, but one of the BIGGIES is all of the glorious storage they provide:

I chose to use upper kitchen cabinets as the bases, which I’ve done a couple times elsewhere in the house. They aren’t nearly as deep as a regular cabinet base (12 inches instead of 24), but I knew they would still provide plenty of storage.

I use this area for most of our serving stuff – the items we don’t use every day or even every week, but I like to have it all for special occasions/holidays/parties. You know – all that pretty stuff you hardly use but still need (want)?

When I finished the built ins I was so excited I just shoved everything back into the cabinets and called it done. For a long time now I’ve been wanting to clean them out, purge some of the stuff and pretty it up just a tad.

I started by pulling every single item out of the cabinets. You know, the whole it gets worse before it gets better thing? Yeah:

Well the dog wasn’t in the cabinets, of course. He just has to be in front of the camera every. single. time.

And this is another reason the room is still in limbo – the table and chairs from the kitchen were moved in here temporarily and have stayed. Hubby sits here to work most days lately instead of the basement so we’ve kept it for now. I’m itching to get those comfy chairs in here though. :)

So I cleaned them out and then cleaned them out – vacuumed all the leftover sawdust (nice) and wiped them down:

Side note – no I don’t paint the insides of the doors. SOMEONE (me) doesn’t have the patience for that.

I pulled out the top shelf in each one to cover them with some cute contact paper I had picked up for this project a year ago:

But I ran out of it before I could do the bottom shelves. I was just going to leave them as is but it looked wonky. Sooooo I quickly taped them off and did one coat of the color I used on the backs of the built ins – Storm Cloud (I think it’s Sherwin Williams?):

Do you see that little piece of Frogtape on the back of the door? That’s been there all this time – I used those to number the doors when I took them off to paint them. I highly recommend doing that because otherwise you’ll have to do a lot of adjusting to get the doors just right again.

Anyhoo, did I need to paint the inside the cabinets no one but me will ever see? (I mean, obviously I have no life.) No. But there’s something to be said for having an organized space look pretty too. It only took me five minutes for each one, so it wasn’t too bad.

I only had to do one coat each too – which totally surprised me. The paint is the SW Duration kind and it covered great.

After it was dry I did a super quick purge and then loaded everything back in. I have a cabinet for holiday stuff:

One for vases/pitchers/birthday party supplies (there’s no rhyme or reason to this as you can see):

One for random serving stuff, with room to spare:

I have more in the kitchen that will fill that space, don’t you worry. ;)

And finally, one dedicated to dishes. My vintage glass plates (from Goodwill) for showers and small get togethers, our white dishes for big meals and some serving plates and linens as well:

And, I gotta say, it doesn’t ever get any less weird that I share the insides of our drawers and cabinets with you, even after five years. ;)

It is SO GREAT to have a spot for all of this stuff! Most of it was in the basement before – now I like having it close by in a pretty spot:

I still LOVE how this all came together. So very much.

We’ve lived here for nine years and I feel like I am on the cusp of having a good spot for everything – it’s taken that long. If you’ve been around for awhile you know I have to live with things for some time before making them right for us – the same goes for how I (try to) organize the STUFF in our house.

How do you organize all the dining stuff you rarely use but want to keep? :) Or do you use them often? I think I need to throw a party.

July Before and After Party!

Good Monday to you all! It’s time for another before and after shindig! Well…it was time last week and I totally spaced it. Better late than never I say.

As always I found so many great projects to share from last month. I seriously had to tell myself it was time to stop…I just am so impressed, like always. So enjoy these highlights and then go ahead and link up your own!

The room Tiffany created for her kids was one of my favorites – it’s just beautiful!:

I love the combination of the gray, purple and yellow – so pretty. 

Jaime and her husband made their basement space fun for both the adults and the littles:

Thing is, it’s not even technically a basement – it’s a tall crawlspace! I think that makes it even cooler!

Andrea’s living room is so well done I just had to share:

Isn’t it lovely? She’s revealing her kitchen redo soon, which I’m dying to see!

I’m all about bathroom renos lately and I loved Jess’s powder room and laundry combo:

I love the dark gray with the white – and all the finishing touches are so well done!

So I’ve been meaning to stop by our Tractor Supply store for years now – and now I think I may have to do it today because of Debbie’s post:

Did you know they had decorative items? Not me! Seriously…now I must check it out. :)

Kimberlee’s dining room redo turned out beautifully:

I adore all the viburnum on the table – I’m so doing that next spring!

I spent half the day outside working yesterday – it was so good to work in the dirt again! I’m definitely in an outdoor project state of mind right now. There were SO many great exterior posts linked up, I couldn’t pick just one.

I LOVE Heather’s back porch reveal:

She had me at twinkling lights at dusk, for real.

Jo-Anna is making over her deck and I just loved the color she picked for the furniture:

I love that dark stained deck too!

Samantha’s pretty porch had me swooning:

The brick, the columns, the red door! Perfection!

And finally, but certainly not least, I loved how Tonya transformed her side yard:

I have a similar spot I’ve been meaning to show you, but her annuals looks so pretty in there, I may have to add some of those first. ;) Our side yards are neglected big time, which is funny because they are really what people see when they drive by! Next summer I’m planning to focus on getting them spruced up.

Speaking of outdoors – this is the BEST time to find stuff for your deck or backyard. It still drives me crazy that everything goes on clearance in JULY – but it does. So check out the stores for great discounts on outdoor furniture and plants right now!

OK, time to link it up for July! As always, if you’d like to be considered for next month’s round up, please link to TDC or use this button in your post:

<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>

(Just copy and paste the html.)

Now I can’t wait to see what you link up this month! Here you go!:

Ikea Hemnes vanity and more

Hello and happy almost Fourth to ya! Do you have any fun plans for the holiday weekend? One thing is a priority for us – Despicable Me 2. We have been waiting YEARS for this and are all so excited. It’s a little ridiculous.

So a couple weeks ago I showed you the finished powder room:

Thank you for all the lovely comments, yet again! And I went back and answered your questions in the comments but I just realized some of them didn’t go through, so I’m going back again today. Or you can ask any questions here too.

I promised a more detailed post on the vanity area and that’s what we have today. I’m thrilled with EVERY part of this room but especially all these pieces. They were all brand new and I love every one.

First up, the vanity – I searched for months for the right one! I knew I wanted something with storage, most importantly. We’ve had a pedestal sink in there all this time and I was ready for something more substantial. It’s a big powder room – it can take it.

I searched both Lowe’s and Home Depot and couldn’t find what I wanted for under $300 (for both the sink and vanity). I found plenty I loved…but most of those were around $400. I had been eyeing the Hemnes vanity from IKEA but didn’t want to make the drive unless I was sure:

 

It’s 31 inches wide and has a ton of storage space. And the vanity and the sink combined were $290. Originally I had planned to find an old dresser and transform it with a sink, but I couldn't find what I wanted. So I met two girlfriends at IKEA and we made a fun day of it – a great excuse to travel for the vanity. ;)

I gotta say, I’m thrilled with it:

The sink is lovely and pretty – but really shallow. Not sure I’d love using it for washing my face in a master bathroom. But I don’t mind it at all for a powder room.

The installation was fairly easy – my Dad had never worked with an IKEA plumbing and overall he thought it went pretty smooth. All of the plumbing is installed in a way so that the drawers can close, at least they’re supposed to. ;)

When all was said and done (and installed exactly how it was supposed to be), the top drawer wouldn’t close because of one of the pipes. So I had to jigsaw out a little notch in the back of the drawer:

Not a big deal. A little annoying, but it just took a few minutes. You don’t really notice it when you open the drawer so no biggie. The GREAT thing about these drawers (other than the cutie stripes) is that they are soft close. Glorious!

I replaced the IKEA hardware with some knobs from Hobby Lobby:

For a hot second I was going to try and paint the vanity, just because I was worried there wouldn't be enough color in there. I’m SO glad I didn’t and just added a pop of color with the knobs. (You can see more about those here.)

The only major problem we had with the sink was that it only has one hole for the faucet installation – you don’t really think of that until you get to the store and realize all but about two of the bathroom faucets are for multiple holes. (Meaning there are more holes already installed in the sink.) I really wanted to reuse the faucet we had on the pedestal but we couldn’t because of that.

Soooo, after a moment of panic, thinking I would have to drive the four hour round trip to IKEA to get a faucet that worked because Lowe’s guy kept telling us they didn’t sell one hole bathroom faucets…I finally spotted one:

It was GORGEOUS. And EXPENSIVE. It was about $90 I think? Ouch, I think I actually winced. But it was between that and one other one they had, both were expensive.

I do love it though, really. I mean, REALLY love it. It’s a Moen (single hole) faucet:

I chose not to use the plate at the bottom – I just liked the simpler look without it.

I especially love that the faucet ended up matching the finish on the new light fixtures exactly:

I mentioned that I had the one light we had in here changed into two lights, and we did use an electrician. I just had the guy who did everything for the basement do it, he’s great and inexpensive and was done in 30 minutes.

If you know much about electrical stuff I guess it’s not that hard, but I’m not ready to take that leap quite yet. ;)

I did find the light fixture online, although this one is in shiny chrome:

There called the Archie Collection and I LOVE love love the vintage vibe of the glass and the pretty arch of the arm.

They are one of my very favorite parts of the room!:

So the last piece of the puzzle was the mirror, and I think I spent as much time looking for that as I did the vanity! For years I knew I wanted an oval mirror here, like we had before – but something simpler and classic. And more than anything I wanted those super cute mirror brackets on each side so that the mirror would tilt.

Like this:

I actually saw on a blog forever ago that you can actually just buy the brackets/pivots separately at Home Depot and use them to hang a regular mirror. Well I searched everywhere for them and they just aren’t there anymore. Bummer dude.

So then I found a mirror at HD that already had them and the price was about $60 – not too bad really. But it was way too small for the room (about 18 inches tall I think) and the pivot things were actually a pain in the patoot. They didn’t allow you to tighten anything, so the mirror was permanently angled down. It wasn’t going to work. (I’m sure a more expensive one would have a way to keep the mirror at a certain angle.)

Sooooo…I took it back to HD and ended up with a pretty, basic oval mirror they had for $40:

I ended up with this one because it’s the only oval mirror that had a cleat on the back – so you don’t see any of the hanging hardware. The one I found at Lowe’s had to use the little mirror brackets to hang it.

I hung it on the actual board and batten trim:

And I think it’s just perfect in there! The size is much better (21 inches tall) and it just works so well in the room – love how it all came together!

OH! And some of you asked where the “S” hook for the towel came from:

I actually got that hook at Anthropologie (one of probably three things I’ve ever purchased from there) about a year ago. I saw it and knew it would be perfect in this room, before I even knew for sure what I was going to do in there. ;)

Looks like they still sell them! You can find them here.

So there you go! All the deets on the vanity area – I hope that helps with any questions you had. Overall I’m thrilled with everything, but again I took forever to find it all so I better be! Geesh.

I’m taking the rest of the week off for the July Fourth holiday, have a lovely weekend and God Bless the USA! :)

Building a Lego house

Hey all! Can you believe it’s July? This is one of my favorite weeks of the year! It’s even better than years past because our temps are unseasonably cool and we’ve had tons of rain – two things I like very much. Last year we had drought conditions and couldn’t set off fireworks, so we’ve already made up for that this year. ;)

Oh by the way, I wrote this whole post and then realized it’s the first Monday of the month so I should be doing the Before and After Party today. I totally forgot. We’ll do it next Monday, hope that works!

This weekend I finished up a DIY in the basement that I’ve been planning for a while. Since we had the built in cubbies installed I’ve been hoping to get this done, just to take advantage of some odd wall space down there.

I have never built true floating shelves – I have built shelves (here in the dining room built ins, here in the pantry, here in the basement bathroom) but all of those had supports on the sides for me to attach supports to.

True floating shelves with no side support are another thing – but I think I did pretty OK at it for a first try!

I didn’t follow any specific tutorial, just used what I’ve seen here and there and winged it myself. This is a relatively simple project if you work with tools. And sometimes I make relatively easy projects total pains in the butt, so yeah. This was one of those. :)

I started out with some 1x2’s from the hardware store – I cut them down to the length I wanted the shelves to be and then cut supports (same exact length) and glued them on with wood glue:

Then when I thought I had let them dry well enough, I flipped them over to secure them even more with screws. That’s when I realized I didn’t let them dry enough and every. single. support. fell off.

Sometimes I look like I know what I’m doing. This was not one of those times. I’m sure my neighbors were all, awww, look at her, trying to DIY! So cute!

ANYWAY…I always go way overkill with nails/screws/glue and this was no different – I used two (long) screws in each support:

Before I put the front of this support on, I installed them on the wall. This way I could get the screws into the wall straight on (if the front support was on I’d have to work around it, make sense)?:

After both supports were up I went to grab the wood I had bought to make the actual shelves I was going to build to slip over them. And I realized I had totally made the supports the wrong size. DOH!

So…back to the store I went. I ended up getting a big sheet of stain grade particle board cut down instead, which in the long run ended up being better anyway (a lot more light weight and less bulky):

That photo is why I have an SUV. That photo is also why I don’t have a nice SUV. ;)

So instead of making a shelf that slips on over the support, I ended up just securing all the wood to it instead. Which is fine, I just won’t be able to take these down…like, ever. Good thing I like them.

Here’s the process as I started covering the supports with the wood:

I hope that makes sense! The trim on the right is just the start of what I wrapped around the whole shelf to make it look finished off.

Here they are all done – I taped off the walls with FrogTape so I could get them stained with little mess:

So sometimes I recommend you paint before you do a project because I think sometimes it would make the project easier. I NEVER do this and many of you ask why. It’s mostly because of projects like this – they are rarely perfection. So I fudge with stuff, have to recut many times, sometimes make additional trips to the store – and if I had painted the wood I originally wanted to use for this I wouldn’t have been able to return it.

So…sometimes it’s easier to paint/stain before – I just work better doing it all after all is done. That usually ends up being quicker for me.

I used the beautiful Kona (Rustoleum) stain I’ve used elsewhere in the basement – love it!! When that was dry I did a coat of semi gloss polyurethane and called it done. Then I loaded them up with the little Lego sets that have been all over the countertop for months:

I’ve been planning these shelves forever now – their purpose is two-fold. Obviously as a place to display all the little Lego sets our boy makes, but to keep them up off the countertop as well. I just want to use the storage space as best we can.

The basement is such a fun space for us and my goal all along has been to make the art down there be very personal to our family. So the Lego sets, although not styled to perfection, are just us. :)

Here you can see how the trim looks and how the bottom piece of particle board hides the supports inside:

I just started grabbing the Lego sets and putting them on the shelves – there’s not much hope that this is ever going to look “perfect” but I kind of LOVE it:

Although the Bub did say later that it’s a “little messy” so he’s going to rearrange it. Gah. (He did NOT get this from me.)

Of course these are all sets he plays with, so he needs help getting them from the top shelf, but he can reach the bottom shelf easily. They are both fairly low because of the bulkhead in that spot.

I had to include a pic of us on a roller coaster in Legoland -- we had it made into a Lego set:

It’s hard to see but it makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it. You can’t even see the Bub because he’s ducking down, totally freaking out. My husband has his eyes tightly shut, probably praying for his life. And I’m in the front laughing my butt off – it’s pretty obvious who loves roller coasters in this family.

Now this little spot is dedicated to what the kiddo loves – I’ve mentioned a few times that he’s a Lego freak and we encourage it (within reason). I like that this part of the room really speaks to what he loves:

Like I mentioned, this was my first try at the true floating shelves – and I think they turned out pretty well! Just don’t look too close. :) The bottom one is secured to the wall on one side so it’s super secure. The top one is definitely staying put but I wouldn’t do any pull ups on it. Good thing I can’t do a pull up.

Have you tried this DIY project? Did you do them any differently? Do you have a Lego house that you try to organize too?