Dinning Room

Hey there! I'm guest posting over at Beneath My Heart today. I was absolutely thrilled and honored when Traci asked me to join her for Simple and Inexpensive Christmas Decorating ideas. I just love Traci and her inspiring blog. And I can't wait to see how her current home renovations look when complete.   Hop on over to check out our Christmas tree and a few ideas for decorating for the holidays in a simple and inexpensive way. Have a great day!

Hey there!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  I was finally able to work on this cabinet that hubby found and let me tell ya, it had me completely stumped.  I just didn't have a clue what to do with it.   No matter how much I stared at it, I came up with nothin'.   But after some time away from it,  I finally decided to just try to bring it back to its original beauty.   Here is the before pic. The top had a huge hole in it, so I removed that and bought another top at Lowe's for around 10 bucks.   We attached the new top and I applied two coats of Minwax Special Walnut stain. I decided to just leave the tin sides alone, but I did give them a good cleaning.  We removed all the hardware and I spray painted them with Rustoleum oil rubbed bronze spray paint.  I also gave the entire piece a couple of coats of Minwax special walnut to match the top and when it was completely dry, I gave it a coat of wax.  Here's how it looks now. I really love the darker co

Hey there!  Did everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving?  Did you stuff yourselves silly like we did?  We have been nursing our sweet little boy back to health so I wanted to make something fast and light today.  Although, with a stick of butter in the vinaigrette, I'm not sure it's light on calories.  But hey, all the healthy fruit and spinach cancels that out, right??  The warm vanilla bean vinaigrette is what makes this salad so special and I could seriously just drink it by itself.  It's that good.  Also, this salad is a good way to get some veggies into your kiddos because of the sweetness of the dressing and the fruit added.   It's really a simple recipe and so yummy.  If you like vanilla or vanilla bean, you will love this salad.  Here's what you need for the vinaigrette. Melt a stick of butter in a small saucepan. To that, add 3 TBS of brown sugar and 2 TBS of honey.  Then scoop in the pulp of a vanilla bean and stir together until brown sugar is melted.  Now, I

Hey all! I'm guest posting over at AKA Design today and I've got a fun Christmas inspired wooden sign project how to!  Be sure to click here and check it out and also make sure to check out the rest of their amazing blog, such inspiration! Have a great day!  I'll be taking the rest of the week off to enjoy the holidays with my family!  Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Happy Monday to you!  Although I wouldn't actually call a Monday a happy day, it's a short week and Thanksgiving week, too!  I don't know about you, but that makes me pretty happy. Tis the season, it's almost gift giving time, one of my favorite things to do ever, and that means lots of possibilities for pretty packaging.   When I saw these oh so cute vintage school styled gift tags at Anthropologie , I just knew there could be a way to DIY them.  So how lucky was it that I came across this easy tutorial for them over at Flamingo Toes .  It's super simple and cheap, my kind of project, so I spent an evening whipping these things up and I just LOVE them!  Here's my version..... All you need is card stock, red thread, blue thread and thin hemp twine, or whatever kind of twine you prefer.  Flamingo Toes even provides you with a template to print off to make it easier.  For teacher and coach appreciation gifts, I picked up these fun kraft gable boxes, available her

Hey friends!  I apologize for the lack of posts this week.  What a week it has been!  I had hoped to work on this.... But it is still sitting right there, just waiting for me to spiff it up.  I'm fairly certain I've decided what I want to do with it and hope to finish it up (or at least get started) this weekend so I can blog about it next week! Have a great weekend all!  What are you working on?

Happy Monday everyone!  Did you have a good weekend?  My hubby is in the process of cleaning out a few storage units he purchased so he has been bringing home fun things for me to play with.  His latest find is this cabinet that I've not figured out what to do with yet.  Here it is in it's original state. I think it is beautiful but I'm not really sure what it is.  Does anyone know?  The end reminds me of a little pie safe with it's tin sides and shelving.   The hardware is beautiful but I'm not sure I want to keep the hinges.  However, I love the door handles so they are staying. The top has a hole in it and will have to be replaced.  And I haven't decided if I want to paint it or just improve it's original features.    I'm also not sure if I even like the tin sides.  I love the aged tin sides on this piece from Anthropologie. via  I wonder if there is some sort of treatment I could apply to the tin to replicate that look.   Anyone know?  Lots of decisi

Happy Friday everyone!  Just wanted to share a fun idea with you in a short post today. I came across these old metal trays going through a box of junk and I thought surely they could be used for something.  They've certainly seen better days, right?  Anyway, I grabbed a can of this..... And gave each one a few coats and let dry (after I gave them a good cleaning).  Here's what I did with them.... I thought it would be fun to use them for snack trays for the kiddos.  My older children are, well, too old to enjoy them, but my youngest is certainly having fun using them for his after school snack.  Include a piece of chalk and they can have a little fun while eating their snack or meal.  If you have a lot of them, they would also be lots of fun for a kids party.  Have a great day and weekend! P.S.  Our $50 Visa Gift Card Giveaway is still going on so if you haven't left a comment on this post to enter, be sure to do so before Sunday!

Hey there!  I'm so excited about today's post because I LOVE giveaways!   More on that below. First, I want to show you a project we worked on over the weekend using the remaining section of this reclaimed bowling alley flooring leftover from our coffee table project . I was afraid it was going to go to waste because I had decorators block and couldn't come up with anything to do with it, until hubby came home with a pair of these amazing iron nesting tables that he found.  The scroll work isn't my cup of tea, but, I knew we could remove that somehow. Because I'm unorganized and get in a hurry when working on these things, the pic is just of one of the tables and I forgot to take pics as we worked.  To remove the scroll work, we just used a jig saw with a blade for steel cutting (and eye protection, there were plenty of sparks) and then I sanded down any sharp edges with sandpaper.  I liked the aged roughed up look of the iron tables so I just left them as is after

Happy Monday everyone!  Did you have a good weekend?  We experienced our first earthquake Saturday night and let me just say, I'm not a fan.  Hubby slept through it but our boys were a little unsettled, as was I.   Pretty sure I'd rather poke my own eye with a stick than experience one again. :) Anyway, I'm so excited to show you a few new bread boards that I've been working on that are now available in my shop !  I have always admired french cheese boards but they are always out of my price range.  So I decided to come up with a set of mini bread boards that are inspired by my favorites.  I'm crazy about these and I hope you will love them as much as I do.  I also decided to add a large maple bread board to my shop.  I've started purchasing my maple from the same supplier that I purchase my walnut and I think the wood is just gorgeous.  I couldn't be more happy with it.  The colors running through the grain of the wood are stunning. And so many of you have

Hey there!  It's Friday!  Without a doubt, the best day of the week, yes? A few weeks ago, I picked up this chair at a yard sale for 8 bucks.  It was marked $10, but I did a little bargaining...... :) I don't know why, but I was really drawn to it.  Then when I got it home, I had no idea what I wanted to do with it, so, it sat outside, neglected, for a couple weeks.  And then finally, I had an idea.  Because I sometimes get ahead of myself, I painted it white BEFORE removing all the fabric.  I knew I wanted it white, so, I thought if I got that done, I could figure out what direction I wanted to go in for the rest of the chair. Because the wood was so old and porous, it sucked up the white spray paint like crazy, so it took A LOT of coats before it finally looked good. THEN, I completely stripped the chair to find the upholstery webbing in pretty sad shape. So, I removed all of it and replaced it with new jute webbing, available at any fabric store.  I used carpet tacks to atta