It was a good one

Hey. Remember me? My name is Sarah and I write a blog. You may have heard of it.

I didn’t mean to take so much time away but it was nice! I am now ITCHING to get going on something other than holiday decor, let me tell you. I have a list a mile long (I’ll share soon) that I want to tackle. I’m ready to get my hands dirty again (with something other than Christmas glitter)!

I’m also excited about organizing again. Since I purged most of the house earlier this year I feel more in control of our STUFF than I ever have. Now I just want to keep it going in 2014 by making the most of each space.

But today I’m looking back at 2013 at my biggest projects, according to your responses. I have to start with one I’m most proud of -- mostly because I love it, but also because I’m so dang happy to have it DONE:

The downstairs powder room was a work in progress for about three years. Or more. I lost track a couple years back. I’m SO happy with it now, it was truly worth the wait.

I’m slowly but surely (I’m the tortoise of DIY if you couldn't tell) working on redoing our master bedroom. I sold our old bed and so far haven’t even come close to using the money I made from that to redo the space. There were a few popular posts from that room this year, including the new DIY king-sized headboard for less than $100:

And then the 80’s nightstand redo that didn’t cost me anything:

And finally those brass thrift store lamps that were made over into glossy navy blue goodness:

I have big plans for this room coming soon – I still haven’t even finished painting it yet. :)

After a lot of trial and error over the past (nearly) ten years in this house, I’ve finally figured out what works in our yard. In other words – I’ve stopped killing things. Our backyard is coming together as a beautiful oasis for us, and I gave you a tour here:

I was busy in the kitchen this year – some of it I splurged on, like our new sofa table:

And some I did myself, like this IKEA table turned farmhouse table:

The whole nook got a new look with the table and the new light:

It works SO much better in this space compared to our old round table and we can easily fit six around it to eat (even without pulling it out).

I was craving color earlier this year and tried out one of my very favorite chalk paint colors in our foyer:

I painted one of my favorite Craigslist dressers with it and it’s such a deep, gorgeous color. LOVE it!

Speaking of that beautiful blue -- another bathroom in our house that sat undone forever was completed this year too. I showed you how I installed the floating wood shelves in our basement bathroom:

And then later on in my no-spend August I finished up the room and used that chalk paint color again. You can see the finished space here:

I made a few simple changes in the family room this year that made a BIG difference. The first was to change out the old dark mirror that was over the fireplace:

To this lighter, brighter one:

This mirror is one of the top five things I get asked about – I got it at HomeGoods and still haven’t seen another one like it since! It made a HUGE difference in there. Seriously…big. (You can see more about the fall mantel here.)

I saved up and finally found a rug I loved for this space too. It truly transformed the room:

And finally – if you’re like me the last thing you want to see right now is more Christmas stuff, but my holiday home tour was a big one and I appreciated all your sweet comments there so much:  

As always, the posts that got the most feedback were those that just talk about life, and usually those are my favorites. :) You can read more about our mouse problem and how I dealt with that here (I wish I had read something like this before we had the problem), my new favorite place to visit here, a BIG change in our lives (and the love of my life) here, giving up my soda addiction here and a rousing discussion on the prices at Goodwill here.

It was a very good year. Probably one of the best. I am so, SO grateful to do what I do. I have you to thank for that. Thank you for coming back to see what I’m up to, I truly appreciate you and I value the connections I have with so many of you. I’ll be back next week with some DIY and my plans for the new year! Have a great weekend!

Christmases past and month in review

Hello everybody! Sorry for the late post today – we had a two hour delay and things are…well, a couple hours behind. :) We’re supposed to get a ton more snow today and I’m ready – we are stocked up on good food and ready to cuddle in for the night.

Today I’m recapping the month of November and sharing a few of my favorite things (did you watch The Sound of Music last night? Thoughts?) from the past few Christmases. :)

First up, my DIY and decor projects from last month! I shared the hard project that should have been easy:

I love the end result – but let this be your reminder to NEVER utter the words, “This will be easy.” Gets me every time.

I picked a fun color for the mud room door and got all the new door trim up here:

I’m narrowing down the color for the beadboard and hope to do that this weekend. The floors are done too, can’t wait to show you!

Next up I shared the new rug I found for the family room: 

I still can’t believe the difference it made! LOVE IT.

I showed you how to make my super easy, buttery biscuits on a rare food post:

I decrapified our entire house over the course of a few months and then finished up the garage last month. It took FOREVER, but I’m so happy with it now:

It functions SO much better for us now. You can also see the easy DIY work bench I made last month here.

I shared a simple update I make around our house (a lot) in this post:

Put a wheel on it! :)

I worked on my first Christmas project of the year and what started out as a project-gone-wrong ended up quite pretty:

And finally, I reattempted my attempt at chevron, this time with a twist:

SO much better know, yes? I think so. :)

I’m still working on our Christmas decor around the house and will share much of it next week for a big Christmas home tour! For now I figured I’d share a few of my favorites from Christmases past.

I finished putting my DIY card holder back up last night (it has one lonely card on it so far) and shared it on my Facebook page. It’s one of my faves because it’s so easy and cheap and holds a bunch of cards!:

Last year I made a couple knock offs, including these cute nutcrackers:

And these knock off ornaments filled with “snow”:

You can find both in this post.

And two of my favorite Christmas projects ever – the first one is the paper-wrapped candle holders:

I think they are just so dang pretty. :)

And my cutie Santa hat craft – I think these are still my absolute faves of all the time I’ve been blogging:

Have you done any fun holiday-themed projects yet? Any you are planning any? I’d love to hear about them!

Are you getting all this snow today? I hear it’s even heading down to Texas. Hope you all stay safe and have a great weekend!

Months in review!

What UP? How are you lovelies today? It’s a gorgeous fall day here and I’m excited for the weekend!

I realized the other day I haven’t done a month in review in a couple months and I know you must be incredibly sad, so I’m catching up. ;) I picked a few of my favorite projects of late to recap today.

One that I LOVED was our brass-turned-navy bedside lamps:

I found the lamps at a flea market and transformed them with spray paint. A reader suggested the color and I just LOVE the blue.

I shared my easy DIY roll out drawer here:

I use it almost every day and it works great!

One of our favorite fall traditions is apple picking so I figured out what to do with all of them:

I’ve made this applesauce numerous times since and it’s SO good, SO easy. I may try it with Honeycrisp apples this weekend. YUMMO.

Speaking of fall, some blog friends and I joined forces to share some fall decorating ideas in September. Check out my fall tablescape with Goodwill finds here:

 

And the mantel (with my big fat hydrangeas!) here:

You’ll find more than 300 beautiful fall mantels and vignettes linked up on that post too!

I made a few changes to one of my favorite spots in our master bedroom:

Oh my goodness, it looks SO much better now!

And I finally started the mud room redo that’s been in limbo for years now by painting the walls WHITE:

The bright yellow had overstayed it’s welcome. :)

I moved some bins around and was able to take most of the Christmas decor out of the basement and up to the garage. It allowed me to make better use of that space under the stairs:

Now we have a little game closet/kitchenette and it’s worked so well! Love that little spot.

Last month I finished decluttering the whole house and one spot that wasn’t bad at all was the pantry. I’ve finally figured out what works for us (not as much wasted food!):

It’s actually stayed fairly organized and that’s HUGE for me!

We threw a beautiful baby shower and I shared my low key approach to parties and decor here:

And finally (not really but I need to wrap this up), I showed you how to spray paint your door knobs:

I’ll update more in a few months but I can tell you the one we use a key on is already a mess. I’m not that surprised really. The others are holding up great…so far!

Did you miss a project? Have a wonderful weekend! Anything fun planned? I’ll be cleaning out the garage, doing tons of laundry and watching plenty of Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel. ;) Awesome.

No-spend project review

Well hello all and happy Friday! It’s time to bring this month to a close and review the big projects I completed over the past few weeks. This review is one I’m pretty excited about since it was a self-declared no-spend month for me.

I’ve done this before on the blog and this time I accomplished even more, but it was a little bit harder too. I mean, I still spent money on other stuff, just not DIY or decor. My Instagram feed was incredibly boring this month with zero shopping excursions. Lots of pictures of my cats. Very exciting.

BUT I got a ton done. The to do list is still long but I’ve made a dent.

Here’s a few of the projects I completed this month without spending any cash! I started out with a redo of an old cherry 80’s nightstand:

I’m really happy with how that turned out – I was surprised I liked it as much as I did. ;)

Our outdoor hoses were an absolute mess and I was tired of trying to step over them when I needed to water the plants. So I downsized a bit and then created a hose holder (without digging in the ground):

I’m obsessed with those hoses. Many of you mentioned they gave you problems, but we’ve used ours for about two months without any issues. Crossing my fingers they hold up!  

I started the house-wide decrapification in the guest room and cleared out a TON. I made better use of that awkward space in the closet too:

SO much better. I can now close the doors without stuffing things back in. :)

I finally finished up a few details in the basement bathroom and called that one done:

I really love how that space came together!

I don’t have it all figured out when it comes to managing all the paper that comes in our house, but I do have a few tips that have helped a bunch. I shared them in this post:

I am figuring out a few things when it comes to keeping plants alive – slow but sure. I shared our tiny little garden and how we grow a lot of food in a small space:

Earlier this week (wow, it’s been a LONG week!) I shared another big project I completed this month. Our guest room has needed a paint job for years now and I finally got to it, with a little ombre:

Honestly, if I hadn’t done this no-spend month I would have found five other projects to do instead. I’m SO glad I finally just got it done!

As I decluttered our craft/play/I-don’t-know-what room I got sidetracked again and decided to line the drapes that have been hanging there for years:

I shared a quick and dirty tutorial on lining drapes and the unexpected source I used for lining. ;) Use what you’ve got – that’s what this month was all about!

Finally, I cleaned up the front yard a bit and made our outdoor planters new again with some spray paint:

And added a teensy bit of fall. It’s time.

I did a bunch of smaller projects too, I’ll show you those some time soon. I gotta say, I’m kind of proud of myself for getting so much done this month. Usually in August (summer in general) I’m busy being sloth-like so this is pretty big for me.

Have a great Labor Day weekend folks! I’ll have the Before and After Party up on Monday – it just may go up a little later than usual. You can grab the code for the button here if you’d like to add it to your post ahead of time.

July in review and no-spend August

Hello everybody, happy Friday to you! I hope you’ve had a great week – I’m still at the Haven Conference and having a blast! Well…I hope I am anyway. I wrote this before I left. ;)

I’ll be back next week with some more DIY, but for now I’m reviewing the big posts from July and I have a fun little announcement at the end that I’m getting excited about. :)

First up last month I shared how I tackled my first true floating shelves:

These are great storage for some of the Bub’s Lego sets – I love having them on display but these also get them out of the way.

Next I shared the details on the powder room redo:

I covered the sources and details for everything in the room, so if you had questions on anything it should be answered there!

I did a little organizing (and prettifying) in the dining room – those skinny little cabinets hold a TON of stuff:

I’m so glad I decided to incorporate that closed storage in the built ins!

I shared more about our latest RV trip and the little cabin in the woods that we stayed in:

Many of you asked the name of the cabins/RV park and it’s called Neshonoc Lakeside in LaCrosse Wisconsin. :)

Next up I showed you a FUN new DIY product – painters tape that comes in shapes!:

This is the first chevron in our house and it may be the last. We’ll see – I’m still not hooked. I do like this little touch of it though. It’s staying for awhile at least!

Next up I hope to use the wave version of the shape tape. ;)

I shared my plan for our mud room redo in this post, including some lovely inspiration pics:

Drool.

I was busy working on our master bedroom in July and I shared more about our new bed here and the how-to on the tufted headboard here:

I’ve made a few more changes in there since and I’m SO pleased with how the room is coming together! Our bed is still my favorite part. ;)

Last week I shared the ways I deal when cash is low. I’ve learned over the years it’s a horrible feeling and I’ve always had a few tried and true methods to keep my spirits up:

I loved your thoughts too – there were some great ideas in the comments!

This week I shared how I’m not killing my hydrangeas anymore:

I’ve made a concentrated effort to learn more about them and it’s paid off!

So I’m excited about August! This month I’ve decided to do another “no spend” month. I first did this a couple summers ago and actually quite enjoyed it! I have so many projects that need to be finished up, so many spots that need decluttering, and I just enjoy trying to work with what we already have.

So this month I won’t spend any cash on DIY or decorating projects. I have one that we’ve scheduled that will probably happen, more on that later. But otherwise I hope to stick to only what we’ve got! I hope you’ll be inspired!

Take care all and have a great weekend! :)

*P.S. As soon as I get back from Haven we head out for the NKOTB concert.

AWW. yeah.

Can’t wait!!