Personalized address signs

I've had a lot of interest in the address sign I made a month or so ago. I made another one for my friend Jen and I think it turned out pretty cute.

So I'm doing a promotion on personalized address signs. I'll take orders for the next 3 days and you can have a custom, personalized address sign.

The large address sign (probably only for people who live in Castlegate and have that weird alcove thing above their doors) are $65. If you have an interesting place you'd like to put the sign and have exact dimensions, you can let me know and I can do the sign to size. Here's a picture of the large one...


The small address sign with the Monogram, est. in, and address is $45. Here's a picture of the small one...


I can do a small version of the large sign (just with No. and address) for $45 as well.

They are available in black, brown, red, gray, or a custom color of your choice. I can do the writing in black or white.

Like I said earlier, I'm only taking orders this weekend and all signs will be completed early next week. LIMITED TIME!

E-mail me at nikki_grandy@yahoo.com for orders or questions.

Advice....

I hate my kitchen island. Flat paint + messy kids = me scrubbing my island nearly every day. So I figured I may as well put up some sort of bead board or paneling to give it a little more personality while I'm at it. The whole thing is going to be white, but I was thinking of something that looks like this...


Or this wainscoting...


The problem is, I'm considering putting bead board on top of my kitchen cabinets all the way to the ceiling. The little pop out pantry would stay painted drywall.


So will the bead board be too much? It is a lot to have it as the island, back splash, and above the cabinets. Should I not do it above the cabinets and just have it on the island and backsplash? I was thinking I could put my chipping picket fences above the cabinets instead of bead board. OR should I do a combination of the paneling and bead board like this...



So here's an easier way to vote

1. Bead board above the cabinets
2. Picket fence above the cabinets

A. All bead board (first picture)
B. Wainscot paneling (second picture)
c. Combination of bead board and wainscoting (last picture)

Just choose 1-A or 2-C... you get my drift. Help me! I can't make a decision!

*All images are via pinterest*

DIY skeleton key art

I did a mini project on Saturday morning while I was waiting for my husband to get home from playing with his friends. I had some extra zig zag fabric from my couch pillows and hot glued it onto the cardboard backing that was already in the frames. Then I hot glued some old skeleton keys to the fabric. If you like the fabric, you can get some here.




I also bought this great bar stool at the barn sale back in March. I love her cheery yellow paint!

Rest of the great room

Back splash and pantry project

I decided since the kitchen in my new house is smack dab in the middle of the floor plan, it needs to be done soon. And since it's in the center, it doesn't have a single window to it's name. It makes me sad, actually. Although this house is twice as big, it just doesn't have the same light feel as my old home and I miss that. Here's before we moved in...


The cabinets really are beautiful but they're just SO dark. I told my husband that I would wait at least a year before I painted them. The paint on the walls throughout the house is also a darker neutral so once we paint over it all, I think it will help brighten the space. In the mean time, I put up a white bead board back splash and it did help. I want to install bead board on top of the cabinets too, all the way to the ceiling. I think that will help too.



I used thicker molding to finish the edges and I love the chunkier look of it. The whole project took me about 6 hours because I had to wait for paint to dry. I used the new miter saw we got from my husbands grandpa and it cut my molding like butter. I'm spoiled I tell ya.



Here's my new pantry doors. I got them at Merchant Square Antique Mall in Chandler during one of their flea market sales. I actually met a reader while I was loading them up. It was funny to meet someone who reads my blog.


And here's the inside of my pantry before. It's kind of embarrassing to tell you the truth.


I used the template from Jones Design Company (one of my favorite's by the way) found here for the painted wall paper. If you remember, I did it on some pillows a while back and couldn't get it out of my head. I debated about doing a chevron print but I felt that was something I'm probably going to be over in a little while.



And here it is pre-food with all my clearance Hobby Lobby baskets and some others I had laying around.


And finally with all my food in it. I don't know how, but I guess I've been collecting cans of vegetables. Specifically creamed corn. I have 11 cans of creamed corn. I've never even eaten it! Maybe my husband bought it for fishing or something.


One last picture of the whole kitchen. I'll show some of the rest of the great room next.

Clearance alert

I was browsing Hobby Lobby for some baskets for my pantry but they were all around $30-$40. Who would pay that for a basket I ask? Not me. So I walked down the clearance aisle and found these babies.


I thought they were 66% off so I was pretty happy. Then when they checked me out, she said they were NINETY PERCENT OFF! The most I paid for one was $4.00 and it was the biggest one. I went to the Hobby Lobby on Signal Butte and the 60 if you're in the east valley. They had a ton of baskets left! I'm sure the one on Greenfield has their clearance on clearance too!

New blogger.

Well, not new, but new to me. I was browsing pinterest and chucking goldfish crackers at my kids to keep them content, and I found this new blog.

Her husband is in the military too, she's also from Arizona, and we have pretty much the same taste as far as color scheme goes. I love the pantry door she just repainted.


Speaking of pantry doors, I recently installed my new ones. "One's" being plural. They're french doors and I can't WAIT to show you a pic. Head on over to Katie's blog and give her some love!

Paysens room

Remember that inspiration room I shared with you a while back of what I was thinking of doing to Paysens room? Here it is again if you missed it...


I set out to achieve the look of this room but the guts of an actual bedroom instead of play room. I loved the colors and the board and batten and that chalk board. I tweaked a few things but I still think it's pretty spot on as far as the over all look. This is what her room looked like when we moved in.


And this is what it looks like now.


Paysen has one puny window in her room and one ceiling fan light. I originally went with the light pink on top like the inspiration picture but with very little natural lighting, I decided the colors were too close and wanted more of a contrast. So I went with a dark gray Behr color called anonymous. The board and batten is painted my go to white color, swiss coffee. Every piece of furniture that is white in my house is painted swiss coffee.


I searched the internet for tutorials on board and batten. I already had the basic plan in my mind. If you don't think you could ever do this yourself, think again. It was the easiest project I've done. I even had the boards cut for me at Lowes (Home Depot said they wouldn't do it) so all I had to do was measure, make sure the boards are level and finish nail them to the wall with an air compressor. If you want a tutorial, go here. The only difference was I ripped out my old baseboards and used more mdf.


For the bedding, I used Paysens old white comforter, her pink sheets, and the dust ruffle (two layered on top of each other) which were all from the Simply Shabby Chic line at Target. I made the gray duvet and pillow using a sheet set from Ikea.


Her dresser is one of my favorite things in her room. I swiped it from my sister Tara and repainted the stripes the same gray color as the top of the room.


It has antique door nobs for pulls. I set her pink chippy windows on top of the dresser because I literally can't put them anywhere else in the room due to the board and batten.


I still need to make the chalk board and find a cute lamp for the dresser but I think that's about it and her room will be done. Thank goodness because I've been dying to finish my master bedroom!

Linking up to


And Jennifer Rizzo here

Thank you guys. I really appreciate your kind words. It's nice to know I have people thinking of me, even though I've never even met most of you. I was up and running a couple days later and feel part of it was because your encouragement.

My husband's been gone at scout camp ALL week. And you know how that goes, I can't sleep without an hairy Caleb sized elbow in my neck. So bed time came a little later than usual for me. I .did get a lot of projects done though

I decided that I was going to spruce up my front door since I despise the landscaping. Having an all rock yard is like providing a limitless supply of ammunition to my 4 year old. Grass and flowers will come in time I suppose...

In the meantime I had a strange space on top of my front door that I wanted to do something with. Here's a before picture even though you can't really tell how boring it was.



And here's the sign I made for it at 2 am. Yes, the 0 is crooked. I painted it by hand and it was realllly late. I didn't notice until it was already screwed up there. Oh well, no one's perfect.



I painted the door and trim black, added a nickle kick plate from lowes, and wired a new light (also from Lowes). I still need to cut out new seats for the chairs and then the flower bowls will fit right into the seat. I may have broken my scroll saw when I was cutting out the sign so it'll have to wait till the hubs can fix it.



My favorite part of the door is my new wreath holder. You may remember me using it as a towel holder in my old house. It's a vintage paper hole punch.

And one last picture. My husband took my camera CANOEING this week. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be using my iphone for pictures for a while...