Gallery wall

I know it's not spring yet in most of the U.S. but it sure feels that way here. In fact, it was a very sunny 76 degrees the other day and my kids were BEGGING me to go swimming. We didn't go swimming, but I did hose one of my kids down because he spilled ice cream down his shorts. He tried to run all serpentine style away from me but my back yard is little enough for the hose to reach ALL corners. Ha. I win.

Because it feels like spring to me, I felt the need for a little color in my life. After seeing multiple ideas on pinterest of how to frame out a flat screen, I decided to go with the trend and try it on my own. I used egg and dart molding from Home depot and some 1 x 6's.

Please excuse my reflection in the glass. good thing you can't see my pj's! My tv isn't as flat as I would like but I don't mind it being a little farther away from the wall.

My letter G in chevron paper. I'm a little obsessed right now with chevron. The paper is from ETC on Lindsay and University in Mesa.

My wooden crate houses remotes, wii paraphernalia (thank goodness for spell check :) and games.

The rest of the wall were things I had all over the house and stored in my craft closet.  I still need to get my hunky electrician to pull all the wires for the speakers and tv through the wall so they're not showing but other than that, I'm all done!

Hope you like it. Now I'm on to sprucing up my front door with a painted door mat, new wreath, tulips and shutters. Happy almost spring!

Valentine Mantle and a new project

I wasn't ready to redecorate my Christmas mantle yet. I really loved how it turned out regardless of how much of a fire hazard it was with my boys running around.

So I just took off the garland, added a new pennant banner I copied off pinterest and threw some tulips up there from Joanns and left the rest.  Now that I see it in pictures though, I have to do something about the green bases on the tulips. Yikes.

I had some left over upholstery webbing from the garland (I purchased it at Hobby Lobby in the fabric section) so I made a few "red cross"  pillows for my couch out of linen look fabric from Joanns.

I've also been working on a fun gallery wall around my t.v. I saw a bunch of people frame out their flat screens with molding on pinterest and wanted to try it out. I love love love the way it's turning out. I'll post pictures soon.

Linking up to Dear Lillie

Chevron picture frames

I've received a huge number of e-mails in the last week or so regarding the zig zag picture frames I made for the barn sale.  So I decided to open an etsy shop and make them available to ship!

I'm only making a limited number of them so if you need one in your life, I suggest you order fast!

*You have to search under SHOPS with the keyword granddesignco to find this listing.*

Thanks to all my readers for making my job fun!

Donnas Dining

Remember how I said I'd show you pictures of my client Donna's kitchen? Well, here it is. I don't have a before picture of her kitchen, but it was pretty boring. All the wood was the same orange color and blended in with her wall color and flooring.

I love it now! We painted the cabinets a creamy white and glazed them. It brightened up the space so much. I can't wait to do it to my own ;)

My favorite thing about this kitchen now has to be the bar stools. I had a really hard time buying these for my client and not keeping them. How freaking amazing are they? I'e never seen this many in such amazing chippy condition. I sewed linen ruffle slipcovers for them to dress them up a little.

I bought the light fixtures at World Market. I love the industrial feel they brought to the room. And talk about inexpensive! I'll stop talking now and let you look...

 We're all finished with the kitchen now except a few odds and ends. Donna is one of the most easy going people to work with. I hope all of my future clients are just like her!

Bunk Beds

I fell in love with this image of bunk beds from pinterest...

So a couple days after Christmas my husband and I decided to try it out. 

I'll take you through our 3 days of construction with these impressive iphone pictures.

I know, great quality right? Anyways, here's the after.

The kids have the perfect place behind the stairs to hide. It's not huge, so it makes for an interesting family sardines game. I still have to put up some trim to cover up where the bead board meets but other than that, it's all done. The two hinged boards on the bottom come up and we can pull out two trundle beds. So that makes a total of SIX twin beds in here.

I bought the light fixtures from Home Depot for $12.00 a piece. I drilled holes in the bottom and wired them to a lamp cord. The kids love it and have already figured out how to hang barbies from the fan. And I love it because when my sisters come to visit, we can chuck all 9 kids in there and watch a movie in peace.

Donnas living and dining room

Sorry I've been gone so long, but I have a good excuse! My client Donna contacted me around Thanksgiving to redo her living and dining room. Unfortunately this was the only before picture I had.

You get it though. Kinda mismatched, a little dorm room feeling. We liked the wall color but that was about it.

This was the first item I found for the room. It was my foundation for the rest of the room and helped me find my gorgeous window treatments. We needed something large in scale and this did the trick.

The room wasn't lacking natural light. In fact, it needed some nice thick, lined curtains so you can actually watch t.v. in the afternoon and I found them at Pottery Barn. They had all the colors I wanted to bring into the room and I love the floral for the lead fabric in the space. Since the rooms are so open I brought the window treatments into the dining and kitchen as well, but used mostly the blue and cream in the living room, and the yellow and green from them in the dining room.

Here's the cute little doggie bed fashioned from an old suitcase I made. I'm not sure if her dog even likes it but I sure do.

And a few of the pillows for the sofa. The union jack one is my favorite, but you probably guessed that.

I still need to decorate the wall with the flat screen tv, so that picture will have to wait for a later date...

The coffee table was purchased at a local favorite of mine, The Potato Barn. I love me some chipping paint.

On to the dining area.

The dining space is small and joined with the kitchen. We couldn't fit a very large table in there and with all the raging parties she throws, we decided benches would be the best fit for her and all her company.

Lucky for me, World Market had the best French farmhouse table that came with benches. I love the distressed wood and it fit perfectly in her tiny space. The twelve pane window is from one of my favorite vendors from the barn sale. She is my source for all kinds of architectural salvage.

Most of the accessories and dishes are from World Market. I pulled the amazing vintage yellow color from the curtains for the upholstered chairs at the heads of the table. I also purchased those from World Market.

I am almost finished with the kitchen. It got the biggest face lift of the two rooms with creamy paint and glaze, new lighting, bar stools and accessories. Stay tuned for those pics!