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"diy"
Wanna get your holiday craft on? It may seem kinda late in the season to just be getting started (ahem, me) but there’s always room for a quick little, Martha Stewart-esque craft project. This one, from Wit & Whistle, is at the top of my “have to try” list! It’s inexpensive (I’d get the mugs at Goodwill instead of buying retail), quick, and super easy! It would even make a great winter afternoon with the girls type of project. With wine, of course. Always wine…
In my opinion, it’s never too early to start your holiday shopping. I generally like to keep a stock of wrapping paper and ribbon all the time, so I am always prepared for gift giving, even when it’s not a holiday. And I am really excited about adding this to my collection of supplies.
Oribbon is a Japanese sticky ribbon. It’s a sticky strip of paper that has been scored in multiple directions so you can fold it any number of ways. With just a few folds you can create some pretty amazing three dimensional designs. The set comes with six strips of paper in three different colors, as well as illustrated instructions on different folding techniques.
My presents just got a whole lot cuter!
Our current home construction project is our guest bath (we’re almost done so pics coming soon), which backs up to our home office. Well, during the demo phase, we managed to knock not only all the pictures off the office wall, but also some of the drywall as well. So now I need to refinish the office wall, patch and paint it. And apparently, not hang anything back on it since the back side of it is thousands of dollars worth of tile in the bathroom. So… I’m thinking about chalkboard paint. Or maybe even magnetic chalkboard paint. Does anyone have any experience with either? What was the application like? How does it look? Is the magnetic paint actually magnetic? Better yet – has anyone ever used a color other than black (or green, if that’s even possible)?
Here’s a few lovely inspiration images.
We have been up to our eyeballs in diy home improvement this summer. Last weekend I was pretty sure I had died and gone to Ikea furniture hell as I was buried in a room full of stuff requiring assembly with a piece of shut allen wrench. Needless to say, I probably stripped at least half the screws I put in, which is always good later if you ever need to take them out.
That was sarcasm just in case you didn’t recognize it…
Anyhow, thanks to this months edition of Good Housekeeping, husband can’t get mad at me for stopped screws. GH says simply to use a rubber band between the screwdriver an the screw if it’s been stripped. Use the small ones that come on produce bundles (although lifehacker says to use the wide bands) and you’ll get a good grip just like if you hadn’t jacked it all up!
Thanks, Good Housekeeping (and lifehacker)!
Remember way back in February when we started our half bath renovation? Well, it’s finally done. It was actually finished about a month ago but I never got around to taking proper pictures of it. My bad. Before I take you through the whole process, let’s take another look at the before.
Boo! Hiss! Ick!
Ok, now that we have that out of the way, notice, if you will, the tools sitting on the toilet. Also check out the white stripe along the bottom of the wall. Once again, my bad. I halted the demo because I realized I hadn’t yet shot the “before” photos. Massive sledgehammering ensued just after this photo was taken. The floor and the fixtures came out first, thanks to my man and kid, giving my dog an anxiety attack and me a temporary job as supervisor.
Then we prepped for the new tile floor with hardi-backer and applied what seemed like 13 coats of paint to the walls to cover up the diarrhea green.
That many coats of paint takes a few days to dry, especially in a room with no windows or cross ventilation. So fast forward to the following week (hey, we have day jobs too!) when we prepped the walls with the basecoat color and taped for horizontal stripes. Notice the multicolored stripe on the bottom where we ran out of Frog Tape and had to switch to Scotch Blue at the last minute. Oops.
Since I ordered 99% of the supplies for the new room online, they arrived in stages, and thus, were installed in stages. And since the room has no windows, lights were up first.
The floor came next. And the next step after that. If that doesn’t make sense, let me rephrase that for you… We did the floor twice. Again, oops. Here’s the thing, instead of a white hex tile like I had originally selected, I changed my mind and went with a white penny round instead. Which would have been all well and good, had we taken our time and perhaps, went with a matching color grout. But noooooooo, I had my mind set on a contrasting grout – BLACK! I was opposed to white tile with white grout for fear that it would be terribly dirty and always look like someone had peed on it. SO…at the end of what had proved to be a very long and backbreaking day of perfecting all the last details of the stripes, we slapped that tile on the floor like a Vegas blackjack dealer (picture it). We had laid tile before and thought not much of it. In hindsight, NOT the best way to lay tile, especially tile in any other shape than square or rectangle. However, without grout, it was hard to tell the gravity of the situation.
Not so bad, right? Wrong.
See all the black rivers running through it? HID.E.OUS. And far beyond what it’s not supposed to look like. Trying to be the good sport that I am and not waste the $200 we had spent on the penny tiles, I said I could live with it. Husband, however, had a different opinion. So the decision was made and no sooner had the grout dried, that the new floor came up. Being the fab husband that he is, he even said we could go with penny tiles again, given that we take our time and USE THE SAME COLOR GROUT. I pondered that for approximately 2.5 seconds and decided against it, opting for a more geometric (re: easy to install) shape; the grout, however, matching the color of the tile (I’m not that stupid). This time around we went for a pinwheel style with a black accent piece in the center.
Confident that we had weathered the storm, the remainder was simply installing all the pieces. Easy. Breezy. Albeit time consuming. But in the end, totally worth it! Check out the final product:
Let’s take one last look at the bathroom in a side-by-side comparison of before and after, shall we.
Pretty damn nice, if I do say so myself! A vast improvement if nothing else. Kinda makes me feel like I’m in a fancy hotel every time I use it. And remember how I said I purchased almost everything online? Most people are quite surprised by that, I am too a little, if we’re being honest. Here’s a breakdown of sources for everything in the room (except the toilet, cuz that was old):
Vanity cabinet: Sagehill Apothecary Collection from Faucet Direct
Granite countertop: Stone by Nature (they have changed their site since we purchased, but we did the custom top)
Vessel sink: Kraus ceramic sink from Faucet Direct
Faucet: Danze vessel faucet from Home Indoor
Mirror: Target
Towel ring, paper holder and hook (on the back of the door – can’t see it): Delta from Lowes
Lights: Jeremiah Lighting from Lighting Direct
Paint: Behr Premium Plus Ultra; Hazelnut Cream & Ivory Mist
Type print: Holstee Manifesto
Everyone poops print: Etsy
Glass shelf: Target
Towel(s): HomeGoods (can only purchase in store)
Penny tile: Gloss white from The Tile Shop
Pinwheel tile: Merola spiral from Home Depot
