Real Life, Real Design, Real Spaces
I LOVE looking at beautiful designed rooms. I spend hours everyday looking on Pinterest, Houzz, tons of blogs and e- magazines that have rooms that are so beautiful I just want to jump into my monitor and live there.
But the truth is, it isn’t really real. I mean real as in real life. There are no toys laying around, dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor, mailed piled up on the counter, you know, how life really is?
Everything we see is styled, put away and designed with a budget most people can’t afford. That is why we love looking at them right? To dream of how we would love our home to look if only we had the money, the time and the talent to pull it all together.
I have had numerous readers e-mail me and ask if I could just give them some suggestion on what they could do with their space to spruce it up. They are on a budget, and pretty much have to work with what they have. So, being the fanatic obsessed design person that I am, I have them send me pictures and I email them my suggestions.
Recently I have been helping one of my readers, her name is Emily. She just felt like her house wasn’t put together and wanted to know if I could give her some suggestions how to spruce it up. We started with her entryway
I’ll have some oil and vinegar with that dresser
I finally have the dresser done for the nursery. Of course I have to give all the credit to Marian of Miss Mustard Seed. I had recently emailed her with some pictures and asked if she knew any tricks to get out water stains and scratches. Well of course she did! And you won’t believe what it was…oil and vinegar. What you say? Oil and vinegar? Yep, and it worked like a charm, that woman is amazing.
Here is the dresser as it was given to us, it is beautiful piece, but just needed some TLC to bring it back to life. I love the fret work on the front and the curvy sides.
I of course thought I could hand sand it and then put a wax on it and be done. But that is never the way it goes right? These were my problem areas
This spot on the side panel
Scratches on the top
Water spots on the bottom drawer.
Marian said I needed to bite the bullet and sand it down with my sander, so I did. Then I went to her blog page for her secret recipe
Before and After-River House Part 1
We all love, well at least I know I do, a good before and after. So I decided to a series of posts of my all time favorite before and after, our river house. It is pretty amazing to see how a little shack became a home. It was a huge undertaking and is something I can’t do in one post. So I thought I would post it in sections so you can really enjoy the transformation. So check back often to see the progress.
Back in August of 2003, my husband and I decided we wanted a family vacation home, not too far from home, but far enough away that it felt like we were away. We found a place on the Colorado river in Arizona, on a lake called Lake Martinez. It was in a quiet cove, away from the busy river, but close enough to have quick access to all the water activities. The location sold us, and even though the house was in clean good shape, it was in need of a major update.
Now remember, this was way before blogging, so I don’t have any great pictures of the before. Below is somewhat a decent picture of the house before. Unfortunately it is taken after we had already started construction, but not too far along.
I never did find out if this was a mobile home or a manufactured home. It was put on this lot back in the 50′s. It was just a flat box sitting on the water, nothing spectacular. Here is the side view on the left side
A Powder Room Updated
Have you ever thought you did something that looked really cool and then years later said to yourself, “what was I thinking?” I am embarrassed, to say the least, to show you the before pictures of my sister’s powder room I did for her 11 years ago. It is for sure a “what was I thinking!” moment.
I want to say for the record, that this bathroom was done on pretty much a zero budget. It originally started out with all white walls, no personality what so ever. I had to be creative, so I did all the faux finish and stamping on the walls myself and had my brother-n-law add the bamboo molding and accessories for me.
Lots of green and fern stamping.
I made the curtains out of a shower curtain and used napkin ring holders as tie backs…what was I thinking!
I wasn’t really good at blending the corners of my rag roll faux finish so I came up with the idea of using bamboo in the corners to hide the imperfections…what was I thinking?
Thank goodness the quality of the picture is bad (never thought I would say that on my blog) I went all out and made the toilet area a tropical paradise. I glued plates on to rattan chargers for the artwork and finished it off with the pineapple hurricanes….what was I thinking?
Painting A Vinyl Seat
I saw this before and after post today from DesignSponge 
Amazing transformation right? I thought for sure this was professionally reupholstered for the after shot. Then as I was reading more about how Karen from redoux made this transformation, I got all excited! I had done this recently to a chair but never shared it here. It is now my new favorite painting technique.
I found this chair for $10 a while back at the thrift store
I loved the curvy lines of it but thought it was a little boring and needed a face lift. I happened to have my paint sprayer out one day and sprayed the frame of the chair with Arizona White. I noticed that the seat was in perfect condition. It was solid and had no rips or tears, but the color was boring {yawn}. Slip covers and reupholstering is not a favorite project I like to tackle. So I thought what the heck, I am going to spray the seat with a can of spray paint and see how it works. If it didn’t work I could still put fabric over it, so I had nothing to loose. I did about 4 light coats of gray spray paint. Letting it dry for a least a half an hour in between, and it worked!
