Hey everyone! Today I wanted to share a one day makeover I finished for my friend Cheryl over the weekend. You remember when I painted her piano last year? We were  hanging out in the backyard by the pool and discussing the sitting space – they have a fabulous pool and a nice pergola but her outdoor seating area was not as pretty as she liked and didn’t have any real sun protection.

We conspired how to change all that on a budget, work with what she had, and finish in a day. I shopped for a few things and added some DIY outdoor curtains made of canvas panels and grommets.  You can see the “before” below with their wood pergola and sectional, and the “after” once I added the curtains and accessories.

She already had a great outdoor sectional they bought earlier this year with Sunbrella cushions (from Costco) the set just needed some color. I stopped by Lowes and Target and another local shop for a few supplies and pulled it all together for her in an afternoon. She wanted to include the blue tones from the backyard pool so that became the dominant accent color.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sentimental about an old wood dresser that sits in my younger daughter’s room. I bought it 13 years ago when we first moved to our town (I know because I wrote the date on the back!) and originally painted it for my oldest daughter. When the younger one was born she inherited it and it’s been in her closet for years. I couldn’t bring myself to replace it knowing that both girls have shared it, so I decided to save some money, treasure the sentiment, and instead give it a new look.

We’re doing the gray + white+ lavender thing in my nine year old’s room and even though I was dying to bust out some bright color she’s already got an aqua desk on the other side and lest it get too hodge podge I kept the palette classic with a gray + white medley.

I found this dresser at one of those inexpensive “everything raw wood” places 13 years ago that’s filled with dining tables, bookcases, shelves, etc. and they’re ready to paint or stain in any color you choose. It was painted white long ago on a cool day in March on the porch of our rental home. I gave it little glass knobs, a mini pink stencil in the corners, and stained bun feet. Witness one of my first furniture makeovers!

You can see I’d already started removing the basic glass knobs when I snapped this picture last week but I’ve gotta give this dresser credit – the paint job has held up for over a decade.

For the upgrade, I ordered these ring pulls and some custom Anne decorative overlays to give the dresser a more modern look, but I realized when they arrived I had to move the position of the hardware on the dresser for it to look balanced.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, Matt and I agreed to host an outdoor party in early summer in our backyard to raise money to benefit the local public elementary school that my children attend (the committee twisted my arm!) so I thought I’d get a head start on sprucing up the rear yard. We had a bare patch of wall looking a little blah and I’d always envisioned a bench with planters to dress it up.

I went searching online and discovered an affordable ready-to-assemble planter bench, but in its natural state it felt a little too rustic so I thought I’d give it a more sophisticated stain + paint treatment.  As you know, I’m a lover of gray and white but I didn’t want to completely cover up the wood grain so I opted for a stain and paint combo and I’m really thrilled with the results.

I started out with this rustic cedar bench I bought for $70 and with a little DIY elbow grease turned it in one day into something more suitable for the style of our home with a few simple products.

This project was pretty simple, I assembled it when it arrived then gave it a two tone stain + paint treatment, trying out a new stain from the Rust-Oleum line of products.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was feeling sentimental about an old piece of furniture I’ve had for many years and couldn’t get rid of it.  I remember purchasing it when we were first married at Bombay Company and back then I was really into traditional dark wood furniture.  (Actually, I still am!)  Anyway, this old console table sat in our entryway for years and then I got tired of it and stored it in our garage but I couldn’t bring myself to part with it since I still kinda liked it, if only for old time’s sake.

I was looking around our living room last week and I was thinking “that one wall sure could use a skinny console table” and then I remembered, oh yeah, I have one.  But I wasn’t fond of the dark wood anymore, I wanted a medium shade of gray (predictable, right?) so that’s what it got.  A new coat of paint in ‘French Linen’.

It was nice in dark wood, but I didn’t love it in dark wood and that’s the key really if you don’t love it, paint it.  So I did.  And now it totally works and it’s looking fab in sophisticated gray with gold detail.  This month it’s looking all cute holding some seasonal decor where it sits on the wall catty corner to the fireplace.

Read the rest of this entry »