I have a window frame sitting in my office begging for me to use it.  I’ve considered stringing twine across it and clothespinning photos to it.  But a nice table could be an option.  From You Are Who I Am,

As you can see, the top of the island is an antique door (minus the hardware) and to prevent the paint from chipping either further (food+paint=ewww) a coat or two of polyurethane was used. There was also a 1/4″ tempered glass sheet laid over the top to ensure an even prep space but since it’s clear you can still see it’s unique beauty.

Love these!

The single easiest and possibly most dramatic way to transform a room (or a house!) is to buy a can of paint and apply it to the walls. I adore painting.  I love taping to get a room ready, I love opening the can and putting the wooden stick in to stir it, then pouring it onto my paint tray.  But the magic truly happens when I roll that first coat on the wall.  That’s the point of no return and the point when you see how beautiful the new room will be.

Momma Schmitt is busy transforming her living room with paint.  It’s already looking fantastic!

And ignore the toys all over the floor, just keeping it real. If it’s between 8 in the morning and 8 in the evening, there’s no getting away from them. But other than those little details… isn’t it just a marvelous change? Come on say it.. Oh la la! The color we went with is Sherwin Williams 7534 Outerbanks. I love it, It just infuses light and warmth into the room.

From white walls with a red focus wall to a soft green all around is a perfect decision!  LOVE!

I have always said a nice house is up (look at fixtures), down (look at floor), and around (fresh wall paint).  Here’s the up part!

From our Shak to yours, wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Photo by simplyla.

Are you the kind of person who likes non-traditional Christmas trees?  Do you love reading and have a vast book collection?  If you answered yes to these questions, building a Christmas tree of books could be in your future!  From Jason Boog of GalleyCat, here’s an idea that looks creative, easy, and inspiring!

It is a simple but powerful way to show your support for print books and bookstores in this digital age.

What book would you put at the top of your tree? Mine would be Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey!

When I think of mirrored walls, all I’m able to muster is the walls on popular design shows that have to be taken down.  The 12×12 squares that sometimes have patterns around the edges must go!

However, there has been a resurgence in mirrored designs, according to 97Sullivan.

Mirrors really open up a space and reflect the light, which makes small spaces feel much larger and dark spaces feel much brighter.

Truly the images shown on the post are gorgeous.

How I admire people who take on remodeling projects – whether it’s a table, a room, or an entire house!  My projects are things like scrapbooking or making homemade Christmas cards.  Having the ability to take a blank room and make it beautiful is applaudable!

The family of A Moving Tale gladly share their progress on renovating an old farm house – room by room.  They’ve run into one snag in their living room and I feel for them,

Plus side? We’ve paid this guy NOTHING for his work so far (who knows how much it even costs?…) We asked for the sum of work completed to-date, and never received it. So on Sunday we decided to ‘fire’ him (pardon the pun … ie, not pursue him anymore), and find someone else. Bad part? We feel like our bill is ‘unsettled’ – and we should pay him for what he’s done, but we have no idea what that is, nor was it ever provided to us in a quote, like we asked.

I’m glad to see the family will pay when they get their itemized bill, but I do understand their frustrations. Read the whole experience here!

This would be me.

Happy weekend!

When we finally tackled painting the huge job of tearing down the heinous wallpaper from my kitchen walls, I was determined to get a light yellow color, then hang a Tuscany-like framed picture and clock.  We bought paint chips and worked hard.  In the end, our walls were the EXACT color of the yellow post-it notes.

Nancy Mitchell also shares a cautionary tale about selecting paint colors on Apartment Therapy,

About halfway through, Rachel articulated a worry already taking shape in my own mind – namely, that the color was super, super light. “Is it supposed to look like this? I can hardly tell which parts of the wall I’ve already painted.” I hated to admit that she was right. The only discernible difference between the painted and non-painted parts of the wall was that the painted parts were shiny and wet. “Keep on painting!” I urged. “Maybe it’ll be darker when it dries.” My aqua dream died hard.

Where Nancy did repaint, our walls remain post-it note yellow!

Photo from New Life Office.