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DIY Breadboard

Since I painted the kitchen, I have been wanting new things for the walls. I don’t have much wall space but that doesn’t stop me :) There is one little area next to the back door that I thought would be the perfect spot to add a little something and somehow I got into my head that I needed a breadboard.

First, I started looking around at breadboards and couldn’t find anything I wanted. I needed a skinny one and I definitely wanted all wood. Plus, I wanted to be able to hang it so it needed to have a handle with a hole. I even bought one, and once I got home I realized it was too big. So, back to the store it went.

Next, I found one from West Elm that I liked but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a lighter colored wood. Then, I saw the most amazing cutting boards online at Terrain (Anthropologie’s sister store). They were perfect. And expensive. At $198 and $128 I knew they would not be coming home with me. And then I got to thinking… I bet my Dad could make one of these. Right? I mean, he is amazing at all things wood. So I put a little bug in his ear and he was wonderful and volunteered to help me. Thanks Dad :)

We started with a solid block of wood, maple to be exact. This thing is nice and thick, just like what I wanted. My Dad found a piece that had some pretty colors swirled in. I love it :) We kind of sketched what I wanted onto the wood. I wanted to feel handmade and not super perfect. Knowing my Dad, he could have made it exactly perfect if I had wanted that but since I didn’t, it made things a bit easier for me. And since I was doing the cutting, that was a good thing!

 

Next, using a jigsaw, I cut out the design. I haven’t used one of these in years so I was a little rusty :) But it was fun and now I have all sorts of ideas in my brain for how I could put one of these saws to work!

It was a bit rough, but now you can see the final shape!

Another thing I was super excited about was my cool safety glasses:

I had forgotten mine at home and so I had to borrow some of my Dad’s. Imagine my surprise in opening them (they were new) that they said Yoder Cabinets on them. Yoder Cabinets is the business that my Dad started and operated for over 30 years! These might just be the last pair of these floating around :)

Next was sanding. I really don’t like sanding so whenever there is a power tool that can do the job faster, I am all for it. Here is my Dad giving me a demonstration. He tipped the sander on its side to make it easier. Genius!

After sanding, I used a router to round the edges to give it a polished look. I loved this tool. It was super easy and super fun. I really want to play with it again.

See how excited I am?!

Then, came more sanding. This time I got to use an orbital sander. I have used this one many times but only on flat surfaces. My Dad had to give me a little demonstration for rounded corners. It may not be perfect but it worked. Besides, I want it to look handmade, right?!

Then, after drilling a hole and some more hand sanding, we had a cutting board!

I tied some leather through the hole to hang it.

Isn’t the grain pretty?

I haven’t decided if I am actually going to cut on it or not. If I use it I will put some mineral oil on it first. Until then, it hangs in my kitchen unfinished. I like it that way.

The bow hook was one of my thrift store finds that I hadn’t used yet. I love how you have the frilliness of a bow and the simplicity of the wood together.

And that concludes my adventures in breadboard making. And because my Dad already had the wood handy and I had the leather, the total cost of this project for me was $0. That means I saved $198. That makes me a happy girl :)

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Tagged: DIY, Don't Cost A Dime, Tutorials

New Potholders

Way back in 2008, I made a bunch of potholders for my kitchen. Does anyone remember that? I loved them. I used Amy Butler fabric and they were great. In fact, I had so much fun doing it that I made some coasters out of the same fabric. Well, fast forward 4 years to the present and those potholders aren’t looking so good anymore. In fact, they got kind of nasty. They have burn marks and food marks and are kind of lumpy. Ya, not so pretty anymore. After all, it has been 4 years. How long is a potholder supposed to last anyway?!

Here is an example of one of the sad potholders:

Gross, right? And this is actually one of the good ones :) I think I need to do something about this. Agreed?

Yay for pretty new potholders! I went to Hobby Lobby and bought my supplies. This time I used patterned cotton duck so it was a little bit thicker and hopefully will hold up a bit longer.

I didn’t really care if they matched anything because at our house they just hide out in a drawer and only come out when something is hot.

I kept them pretty simple with just a basic pattern and basic stitching. In no time at all I had 8 potholders done. I bought 1/3 of a yard in 4 fabrics. I had a bit left over so I made some little coasters that matched.

The potholders are great… but the coasters are just so cute :)

And when you flip them over, you get to see even more of the cute patterns. I love them :)

So, I made 8 potholders and 5 coasters (I could make a few more coasters but I ran out of time that day) and the grand total was only $9. If I had bought potholders at the store I probably could have only bought 2. Not bad for an hour or so of work :) Plus, I made them just in time because we bought new pots and pans this past week and now I have shiny new pans to go with my pretty new potholders! Love :)

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Tagged: DIY, Sewing

Repotted

I’m not very good with plants. It’s something I am working to be better at because I really like to have them around at our house. I’m learning from trial and error and a lot of Google searching :)

I have noticed lately that all of my plants seemed to be getting worse. They had kind of quit growing and some of them were starting to die. I wasn’t really sure why because I was taking care of them in the same way that I always have. And then I realized, it’s probably because they needed to be repotted. And since that is the action I have taken, I hope I’m right :)

To tackle this project, I bought some dirt and brought all of my plants outside along with some new containers for them. I really only needed a few new larger ones because the smaller plants could be upgraded to the medium size while the medium size went into the new larger size. Here they are all lined up outside along with some of the new containers:

I gently removed them from their existing pots and freed the roots a bit. Some of them I found to be really root bound enforcing the thought that I might, indeed, be doing the right thing by repotting them. Then I planted them in their new container with new dirt, watering them with some fertilizer. And then I crossed my fingers :)

A few of them after. See how sad they look?! A week later and they are already starting to look better!

Once I finished repotting, I started dispersing them throughout the house. I try to rotate where they get placed because some spots get more light than others. This is the fun part, putting them in new places. While I’m on the subject of house plants, I thought I would take you on a tour of where I keep them in my home. Unfortunately, I don’t know the names of them. Your guess is as good as mine!

In the breakfast nook. I recently found this citron colored pot at an antique store for $5. I LOVE the color. So fun. The one in the tiny pot is barely hanging on by a thread. It used to be bigger but I mostly killed it and then I saw this tiny little guy grow. Here’s hoping he keeps growing. This is the best spot in the whole house for light so I thought he would have the best chance there. These are my first succulents so I am still figuring out how to take care of them. Getting better all the time :)

You already saw this one in the recent kitchen tour. I had this bowl on hand that I wasn’t using and I thought it would be nice to add a pop of color. This ended up being one of my favs.

In the living room. I’ve had this plant for forever, it came with us from Oregon. It’s super easy to care for and I have gotten many new starts from it and planted them elsewhere as you will soon see. I originally got it from a start off a plant that my Mom had. This one I could tell a huge difference in since it was repotted. When I took it out of it’s previous container, it was so root bound there was hardly any dirt left!

I like to keep a few on my coffee table. The one on the left is a start from the plant above. The other two are from Ikea. I love to get my plants and pots from Ikea because they are so cheap and if I accidentally kill them I’m not out much.

In my entryway I have another start from the plant in the living room. This one is freshly picked and planted and doing really well.

Another start, this time in Jason’s office. It gets a lot of light here and has been there for several months. It’s a happy little guy!

This Ikea plant hangs out in the laundry room. You know the expression, out of sight, out of mind? That’s this little guy. Thankfully it doesn’t require much water because I forget about it a lot! And maybe that’s a good thing because then I don’t over water it :)

In the family room I have two plants that are doing very poorly. I’m not sure that they will make it but I’m really hoping so. Both of them and their pots are from Ikea.

And lastly, this one I showed you a couple of weeks ago but I figured I would include it too even though it didn’t get a makeover. The pot that it is in is large and it’s still doing really well. It sits by a window in the family room on the fireplace hearth and seems to be really happy!

So, that completes the plant tour. I love how plants bring life to a space and I always feel like I could use more. But, I try and take it a little bit at a time so as not to overwhelm myself :) How about you? Do you like to keeps plants around your house? Do you have a green thumb? And if so, any tips for me?!

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Tagged: Before & After, Misc

Everyday Life: 04.21.12 – 04.26.12

Another week of photos! I love taking photos with my iPhone. It’s so easy and convenient. But I need to start venturing out again and take photos with my real camera. You know, for artistic reasons. And for practice. There is only so much practice you can do with an iPhone :) But for this week, once again, these were all taken with my phone. And the bottom line is, it still captures life. The ultimate goal for me anyway.

To start off, here is a photo of my new hair cut. I’m still getting used to it but I do like it. I actually have to do my hair now instead of just letting it dry. When it’s long, I do that a lot. But now, I have to either pull it back or use a straightener. I have really straight hair but the ends get all funky if I just let it air dry. So when I am staying close to home I just pull it back. When I’m going out, I straighten it :)

My outfit from last Saturday. I told you I would show my thrifted finds and this outfit definitely qualifies as that. The skirt was $2, the white button down shirt was 50 cents, and the shoes were $2 and they had never been worn. Score! So my whole outfit was only $4.50. Pretty good :)

21. Bottle. These are the bottles I spainted for Christmas a year and a half ago. Now they are in the dining room.I love it that you can see my hand in the mirror as I took this shot. I like to keep it real :)

22. The Last Thing You Bought. Our library sells their old magazines for 10 cents each. Sometimes when I am there I will pick up a couple. They have magazines from 10 years ago sometimes! But these were just last year so they weren’t too bad :)

23. Vegetable. The older I get, the more vegetables I like. Things I thought I hated, I now like (for example: beets. I love them now!). This is a photo of romaine lettuce and it made its way into my tummy via a wonderful salad full of beets (and other yummy stuff).

24. Something You’re Grateful For. I am so grateful for our house. Yes, there is the never ending maintenance and projects but I love it. I’m thankful to call it home.

25. Looking Down. Since I always do my outfit posts looking down, I figured this would be perfect for the day’s word. In this outfit the only thrifted item was the shirt ($2) which I picked up last summer.

A before and after side by side of my garden. Instead of planting my veggies in pots this year, I am planting them in the ground. So I cleared out a very sad overgrown flower bed in the backyard and we are building a raised bed in it’s place. I am super excited about it. We are even going to work on it this afternoon. Yay!

26. Black and White. There are a lot of places in my house that are black and white. Since my cat is gray, she kind of fits in most of the time. I snapped this photo from above of her looking down toward the family room. She’s funny :)

Okay, so this is my last post for the day! I promise!! Now I am all caught up and next will, hopefully, be back to normal!

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Tagged: Everyday Life, Personal, Photography

Painting The Kitchen

Ahhh… more painting! I feel like that is all I do these days. But it feels so productive. There is such a drastic change when you paint a room and it feels good. Instant update with very little fuss and money. The best kind of project :)

Our kitchen was one of the first things painted in our house and has lasted the longest. Usually, I feel the need to choose a new color in about a couple of years but the color that was in the kitchen lasted 6 years! Ya, I’m pretty impressed with myself for making it that long :) The last couple of months though, I have been itching to paint in there. I could just feel the urge building and building. Finally, I mentioned it to Jason again how much I wanted to paint the kitchen. He told me to just go down to Sherwin Williams and buy paint. So I did, that very same day :)

Here is a photo of the before:

Now, I admit, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the before. In fact, I’m sure some of you will like the before better. But I was ready for a change…

I painted it white :) Surprise, surprise. I have been painting everything white lately! I can’t help it. It’s a sickness. I wish I could paint everything white sometimes. And usually, when I paint something white, I don’t regret it. The other culprit? Pinterest. That’s right, I blame it all on Pinterest. I keep seeing (and pinning, check out my kitchen board here) all of these beautiful white kitchens and I want that. So I decided to finally act.

I still have some things to work on in here. I don’t really have many knickknacks sitting around but what I do have are pretty neutral since I had neutral colors going on before. Now I’m hoping to spice it up a bit and add some pops of color. Now I’m in the phase of trying to decide what exactly I want and where.

I did add the metal bins to the bottom of the island which I really love. And aren’t the flowers pretty? My neighbor brought them over for me the other day. I love peonies!

Another dream of mine is to tile the whole back splash in white tile. Ahhh, maybe someday :)

I did add the little yellow pot up on the top shelf for a little color. I love it there, now I just need to incorporate more!

My “D” stripe towel is from West Elm. I actually got it to go in the newly improved laundry room but decided to let it hang out in the kitchen for a little while first because I love it so much. But now that I think about it, that would be a great way to add some color. I will have to be on the hunt for the perfect hand towel.

I don’t normally show this in photos but this is the pendant light that hangs over the island. When we redid the kitchen, we found this at the Pottery Barn outlet for $15! It was especially awesome because it was the exact type of light fixture I was looking for at the time. We also found one to go above the breakfast nook at Home Depot that was very similar but it was black. I left it that way this whole time and then I finally decided to paint it so they would match better.

Much better! Now they look like they belong together. A little sprainting does wonders!

So, this room is getting closer to completion. There are still a few things left to do. You know how when you live with something undone, you just start to forget about it? So I decided to make a list so I couldn’t ignore it any longer! Here is my list:

1. Repaint the ceiling. We got some water damage from our leaky roof. We fixed the problem and so now we have to repaint. I’ve bought the paint, now to get it done.
2. Add crown molding. Something we always planned on doing but never did :)
3. Add a small piece of molding next to the pantry where it’s missing. Another thing that has been on my to-do list for forever (you can kind of see it in the first photo)!
4. Add pops of color.
5. Tile the back splash.
6. Add corner round trim to the floor. Not super noticeable, but I notice that it needs to be done.
7. Add surrounds to the can lights. We had the can lights professionally put in and they didn’t come with the surround covers. We didn’t even know they were missing for quite a while. Now that I know it, it bugs me!
8. Hang a shelf. Hopefully this little DIY will be completed soon :)
9. Add some sort of blinds or something to the breakfast nook. Just to make it feel a bit cozier.

Okay, I think that about covers it. Or at least it’s close to a complete list. Hopefully it won’t take another 6 years to get it all done :) But ya, it probably will. Haha!

Have a great weekend everyone! I will be posting my Everyday Life post soon so I don’t get behind AGAIN!

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Tagged: Before & After, DIY, Our House