What? You wallpapered your bedroom?

I am participating in Rhoda's Beadboard wallpaper party over a Southern Hospitality.

When purchasing a home, I dreamed of something with character and architectural interest. We did get a cute little 50s home, but it didn't come with quite the character I was crossing my fingers for.

So I put it in myself!

I knew we were going to do beadboard or wainscoting of some sort in the master. We used beadboard panels on our kitchen peninsula, which turned out AMAZING! I'll reveal the kitchen soon, I promise - we just got our oven yesterday.

Then one day, I stumbled across THIS POST!!!! I couldn't believe it! I yelled for Jarrod to come look as quick as he could. "LOOK HONEY, THEY MAKE BEADBOARD WALLPAPER!!!" Of course, he didn't share quite the same enthusiasm as I did about this new found treasure. Then I told him how much it would save us to do the wallpaper in lieu of the paneling - and he perked up a little bit more.

Remember my vision for the room?










It's still a work in progress, the chair rail and baseboards need to be caulked, then I'm going to paint all the trim and the wallpaper itself a glossy white.

I would show you more angles of the room, but you would see some pretty awful paper blinds that have paint on them because I wasn't careful when painting because I knew I was replacing them. I am on the lookout for fabric to do a nice DIY roman shade there.

I hesitate though, because I'm not sure I love the wall color after all. I love the blue a lot, and I picked it because I wanted a stark contrast - but I think this is way too stark. I also had these bed linens to work with, and new bed linens were not in the budget.

What do you think? Any suggestions?

How I saved 95% on wall Decor

I love you Pottery Barn.

Too bad I have never purchased a single item from you - and probably never will, because you're just TOO EXPENSIVE!!!

I am, however, lucky enough to be the recipient of the world's most awesomest diaper bag from Pottery Barn Kids (yes, awesomest is a word) that a dear friend got for me.

Unless any other dear friends want to buy me something from Pottery Barn (which you are more than welcome to), you will never see anything from that store in my home.

Here are two reasons why:

1. You can usually find the same looking stuff at Ross or Marshalls (it may not be the same quality, but at this point in my life I'm not really looking for longevity)

2. You can MAKE the stuff yourself.

Let's explore Reason #2.

Here is Pottery Barn's Modern Ledge

This is exactly what I was looking for when I imagined this for Levi's new room:



So, off to the Home Depot and Salvation Army I went, and gathered the following materials for my project:



4 ugly picture frames from the Salvation Army bursting with potential: $5
1 6 foot long 1X2 cut in half: $3
1 8 foot long piece of Brick Moulding cut to size and mitered: $10

I gave the poor outdated picture frames a new fresh makeover, and painted all my other materials with some satin finish black spray paint.



Next you take your favorite tool: your handy dandy husband, to attach the 1X2s to the wall. We (I mean He), just used 3.5 inch long screws and hung them directly into the wall.





So then you end up with your anchors. If I did this over again, I would have gone for the the 1X3 or maybe even 1X4. 2 inches was not as deep as I wanted.



The next step entails power tools, although I'm sure you could do this with a miter box and a really strong arm. We (he) mitered the trim moulding so that the moulding fit together like a box:







Then we (he) took a nail gun and nailed these pieces directly onto our anchors. I did not want it exactly flush on top so that there would be a little lip to rest some frames against. (I still need to touch up and paint over the nails, but I'll get to that when my next 1,000 projects are done).



Shield your eyes from the horrible natural wood color blinds. One of my next 1,000 projects is to make a faux roman shade for that window.





The Vision:



Starting to come together:



And that's it! It took (not including paint drying time) probably about 1 hour, and cost only $18 including the frames! Compare that to $90 for only the ledges themselves over at Pottery Barn. Granted, you could probably find comparable ledges at Kohls or Ross for probably about $20 each, but you would still save more than half and be proud of something you created!

And then, for all your hardwork, you can treat yourself to one of these like we did:



If you want to, you could have one the next night - and then even the next night too. But then you'd stop because you wouldn't want to go overboard or anything. Dang it Braums... if you just wouldn't play that irresistible banana split commercial during the Oprah show!

Now all I need to do is the chalkboard paint, the mirror, and get the toy box/bucket/drawer thing that I have my eye on from IKEA and make a roman shade and I'll be done with that wall in that room. Phew.

Next on the list: Adding Architectural interest to the master bedroom using WALLPAPER! What?!?! Wallpaper?!?! Isn't this 2009?

You'll see ;-)

Entryway

WE HAVE INTERNET AT OUR HOUSE!!!!

We actually now have some stuff up on our walls, and only a few boxes left to unpack.

We still have little projects to take care of all over the house, but I feel settled for the most part - and that feels marvelous!!

I thought I would show you another art project I did for the entry way. Here's the before with a giant mirror that greeted you as soon as you walked in the door. Creepy.

Here is the after. I painted the inside of the niche the same color as an accent wall in the living area it leads in to.

This art project was really easy (it has to be if I'm going to attempt it). It is just canvases covered in textured wallpaper that I painted. Lowes had their textured wallpaper on sale for something like $3 and I already had the canvases from another project that failed miserably.

I covered the canvases in wallpaper, then painted them (our cabinet color). Then I took a little of the paint I used on the wall that these go on and mixed it with the brown to make a slightly lighter hue. I very lightly rolled over the canvases with this color, and it highlighted the raised part and it barely touched the parts that weren't raised giving it a distressed look. Then I went over the raised parts again with a small brush with the plain wall color. I think the art itself turned out pretty well, I just wish it covered more of the "niche." I may have to move the canvases closer together.

Here is a detail shot

I got the canvases on sale for $2.50 I believe, so the whole project was $13!

I love doing these projects, I just wish I could think of them myself. This one came courtesy of Thrifty Decor Chick. I love her blog!

Teaser

I'm feelin HOT HOT HOT

Well, actually right now I'm feeling rather cool, blogging in my nicely air conditioned apartment eating BLUE BELL COFFEE Ice Cream!!

But I was feeling HOT HOT HOT

Why? Because even though we've moved 19 times in 5 years (okay, 9 times in almost five years) we forgot to turn the utilities on at the house before we closed on it.

Whoops!

But, we only have a limited time to work on the house and A LOT of work to do, so we grit our teeth, stripped down to the minimal acceptable clothing in case neighbors could see in our windows and painted in an unairconditioned house with 100 degree temperatures outside.

Not exactly the most pleasant weekend ever. We got a surprising amount of work accomplished given our circumstances (no electricity, no water, 8 month old baby, etc.)

Don't you love the color we decided to paint our cabinets?

A nice country look, don't you think?

HA!! Pick yourself up off the floor, that's just the primer silly!! My favorite amenity in the kitchen: the 30 year old microwave cleverly (cleverly?) hidden in a cabinet above the stove.

The cabinet doors all lined up ready to be painted the dark rich chocolate brown.

Speaking of Chocolate brown, I completed an art project that I found in a Lowes creative ideas magazine. I just about peed in my pants when I saw it - so pretty.

Step 1. Paint your canvas that you got at JoAnne's for 50% off of $15.99 (or at least pretend like you're painting it because you forgot to get a picture of actually painting it. Don't forget your fake candid picture smile!)

2. Step 2- Align your rubber doormat that you got at Target for $19.99 on top of the canvas. The Doormat was slightly bigger than the canvas, so we taped off the outside border from the back.

Step 3. Apply your really cool $3.99 make-a-gun out of your spray paint can thingy (don't worry dad, it's not a real gun)

Step 4. Apply quick thin coats of spray paint

Step Five: Lift your doormat stencil off the canvas to reveal a BEAUTIFUL piece of art. Swoon.

Although I was originally planning on doing 4 of these, like I pictured here:

I decided on 3 because you're supposed to do things in odd numbers in design. It's a rule, I didn't make it up - but I think I might want to do 4 after all, but that would mean buying a whole 'nother can of spray paint at over $6.00 and another canvas at $8.00 so I may not. I told you we were doing this house for AS LITTLE money as possible. Including the doormat, this project only cost: $50!! And if you already had the doormat it would only cost $30!

Here they are practicing for their role in the new house:

I love them. But you wanna know what I love more:


Going on a momma baby date with the best boy on the planet to IKEA and eating momma's favorite gravy and lingonberry soaked IKEA meatballs and a free kids meal of macaroni and cheese and applesauce.

Nursery

So I'm bummed about losing Levi's current nursery. It is so big, and has lots of cool angles and built ins and a nook. His new room is going to be a 10X11 box!! The back wall has a window perfectly centered.

I LOVE symmetry, and I want to play it up. If the closet door wasn't in the way, I would like to build some floor to ceiling built-in shelves on either side of the window with a window seat / toy box under the window, but that's not an option.

So this is what I'm brainstorming. Whether or not I'll be able to do any of it is yet to be determined, but this is what I drew out this morning on powerpoint.

Beneath the window on the left will be a frame with Chalkboard paint inside so Levi can draw on his wall! Then on the other side of the window is a mirror so he can watch his favorite thing in the world - himself!

Here are the potential problems with this room:

1. This is not to scale! This is my main problem with planning a room. I always come up with these great ideas, and then they don't fit! I already know that this picture is much larger than what is actually there, and I'm thinking maybe if I make my animal prints a 2X2 set instead of a 3X3 that may help.

2. I'm afraid of the crib blocking this feature wall and access to the mirror. The crib will be up against the wall on the right side. Because I'm a horrible judge of space I'm afraid that the crib will need to be much to close to the wall with the window to be able to do this at all.

The crib wall remain the same, with my paintings above and probably the sconces on either side. And then we'll put the changing table on the other free wall with his name above it, I think. We're going to eliminate the dresser, because we really don't use it now. We have plenty of space in the changing table for what we will need his dresser for. Ideally we would get a short dresser for him and a changing pad on top, but we'll do that whenever we have extra money just laying around - so possibly never! :-)

We'll see! I'm sure something will work out if this doesn't. Any suggestions?

The original intent

When I created this blog, it was to chronicle the last "flip" we did. I took pictures and walked through just about every stage in the remodeling and selling of our last house. Hence my blog title : Doingflips

Then Levi came, and the blog focus shifted. Well, as of yesterday, we are now homeowners again!!!!!

Holy Moly and not a moment too soon!!!!!!!!!

So, this blog is going to resemble it's original intent, minus the selling part. We are keeping this one.

Oh, I'm in love.

With a house.

This house.

It's not perfect.

It's not grand.

It's not huge.

It's not even large.

It's small.

It's quaint.

It's outdated.

It's a bit ugly.

It's PERFECT!!

It has some huge flaws. So do I! The perfect house must be made... not bought. So, I will do my best to work with these flaws. The difference now is that we have ZERO money to do this with!!!

Let's see how far some creativity (and by creativity I mean doing projects that I have found on other people's blogs and in magazines), and some paint and a bit of moulding can get us.

Some pictures of the outside: The backyard and the trees are what sold us on the house:

Wanna see some ideas for the inside of the house?? Do ya?? The following are examples of my Obession with powerpoint, and my mind not being able to stop racing with ideas. I have to draw them out. And since I can't draw worth a flip, I do what I can with my powerpoint skills.

Here is what I have planned for the front living room:

Another angle of the front living room:

Our Masterbedroom.

I always have plans. They seem to never come together the way I originally thought - but it always seems to work out ok.

Stay Tuned!!!! :-)