European

My husband said to me after I showed him this redo "If you're American in the kitchen, what are you in the bathroom?"

"European".

My response sounded like this... "Hi-ya".

Here's the before picture.

And here it is after.

This project cost $36. All the supplies were purchased at Home Depot. I bought a quart of paint, some small sample paints and a 12' 1x10. I ripped the leftover wood for the trim on the table saw.

Now I don't have to yell at my kids to bring me t.p. when I'm stranded. Classy, aren't I? After I put up the shelves, I discovered my toilet is not even a little level. Weird.

Ok, so my husband has a valid argument. It does feel slightly more British now. I must not have gotten the memo about the Union Jack being SOOOOO last year. Enjoy!

Boys shared room

I was contacted by a client in Phoenix who lives in a beautiful historic home. Although her home doesn't lack character, it does lack space. It's so common in older homes to have tiny bedrooms but to me, it's worth giving up for an interesting home.

Her boys shared this tiny bedroom. The bunk beds and crib had to stay and the rest was at my disposal. Here are a couple before pictures...

I started with a gorgeous rug and floor pouf. I purchased them at "Found" in Mesa. It is by far my favorite store. I could spend hours looking at all the goodies for sale there. Unfortunately, they are only open by appointment. But it's worth making the appointment and drooling everywhere. And while you're there, head on over to Sweet Cakes Cafe just down the road for lunch. It is SOOOO delicious. 

The paint color is called "silver screen" from Behr. It's a nice, light, gray/blue. The next purchases I made were from Jones Design Co. I ordered 3 prints from Emily. I have been reading her blog forever and was excited to be able to incorporate her art into the design. 

The shelves are antique levels. I found one at the flea market a while ago and purchased the other two at the antique mall on Cave Creek road. 

The next project was finding curtain rods. I wanted to add a touch of industrial metal to this side of the room to balance out the awesome storage bins by the rocker. I saw the plumbing pipe rods on pinterest and knew it was exactly what I wanted to use. They were a little pricey at around $50 but good curtain rods are that much anyways.

Here are the storage baskets I was talking about. When designing kids rooms, storage is a must. But when designing a tiny historic home, the least amount of furniture the better. I moved the dresser into the closet and hung these metal bins for books, toys, and diapers.

Take a look at this map! We purchased it off etsy and it adds so much color and interest to the space. Any time I can add antique whimsical pieces to a room, I am on board.

I had so much fun on this room redo. My client was the best and her family was so cute. Her baby even went crazy when we put him in the crib, he was so excited for the change. It reminded me why I love doing this!

Let me know if you have any questions, I'll try to answer them in the comment section. Thanks for reading!

Prescott weekend redo

This past Friday I went up to beautiful Prescott, Arizona for a quick weekend room re-do. If you've never been to Prescott, I highly recommend it. There are historic homes lining the streets surrounding downtown, something that is quite rare in the west. I would move there in a heartbeat. If I was rich.

Anyways, my client contacted me to spruce up her family and master bedroom. Here are a couple of iphone before pics. Sorry the quality is horrible.

She really just needed some new furniture, window treatments, and a few accessories. She already had so many great accessories I could work with so it made my job really easy. Plus, I had my very own assistant this time. Thanks Jenna, your math skills saved my brain from overheating.

My biggest concern for her space was the furniture in the living room. She had this particular couch set for 7+ years and with 7 kids, I wanted to find her a beautiful kid friendly sectional.

Mission accomplished. I went to my go to store for gorgeous, well built furniture in the valley... the Potato Barn. They have a new location on Indian Bend Rd and the 101 in Scottsdale. It is SO sift and comfortable. I really need it in my house actually. After that was purchased everything else seemed to fall into place.

 I bought these two live boxwood topiary's at Home Goods on Stapley and Baseline for her mantle. They were just the right size. I couldn't have gotten any luckier. We also stopped by Goodwill and bought a bunch of old books. We ripped off the covers and tied them together with jute rope. I'll be putting a bunch of these on my mantle in the next couple of days.

She wanted a coffee table like the one my husband and I built. My version was copied from World Market and I was thrilled when I saw they still carried it. The rug is from Pier 1 as well as that giant clock above the piano. This is the third time I've used a coffee table that looks like this and all three clients have had very different tastes. It's so versatile!

My favorite thing in her house were these two panoramic sheet music art pieces. I put them up above the two french doors leading out to her wrap around porch.

I also sewed a couple of quick window treatments for her dining room. They were made out of table cloths that were on clearance from World Market.

I only did a few things in the master bedroom. Her bedding is gorgeous, her furnishings are new. All she really needed was a few accessories, art, lamps and window treatments.

I loved working up in Prescott. It got me out of the heat and I was able to visit my other sister for a couple days. Krista was an amazing client to work with, so easy to please! I hope you like this weekend makeover, I've got another one coming at the end of the week!

Chicken Coop

I mentioned a while back that my husband and I built a chicken coop. As soon as it became functional, I kind of gave up on the rest of it. I still need to do a ton of trim work, another coat of white paint, and add a few pieces of hardware. But it works.

Unlike most coop plans out there, our coop only cost around $300 to build. We didn't want to spend a grand on something that would literally just get crapped on. We used a few tricks to save money like buying stucco netting instead of chicken wire. They are the exact same product but stucco wire is about half the price. We also used particle board instead of MDF, cutting down another $200 dollars or so.

Like I said, it still needs quite a bit of work. But it's functional and my chicks are happy with it so the rest will have to wait for a day I'm bored this summer. Also, if you live in the area and need fresh eggs, I'll have them coming out my ears around Christmas.

Wash. Dry. Fold. Repeat.

Remember when I said I put my kitchen cabinets in my laundry room? Well, it's been done for a while now but I've been working so much that you couldn't really see it under the mounds of backed up laundry. I finally caught up on laundry this morning so I thought I'd snap some pictures before it gets too hot.

What difference does the weather make you ask? Well, for me, it means my children spend all day hosing each other off to keep cool and I'm constantly picking up wet, dirty, molding clothes out of the back yard. If you come around my house between May and September, you're likely to get flashed by a streaking child. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Back to the laundry room, let's take a walk down memory lane. Here it is the day we bought the house.

Yuck. Beige and boring. Its right off of the garage and next to my kids rooms so it's easy for them to chuck in dirty clothes from their bedrooms but there was no place to put anything. Here it is today.

Now I have all the storage, folding surface, and hiding spots for Sardines a girl could ask for. I haven't distressed the cabinets yet but I am planning on it. I bought the antique fishing creel at Merchant Square in the corner to hold some flowers. I found all the flowers at Joanns. Surprising, I know. I usually think their flowers look really fake but these aren't bad.

I also made this sign this morning. My husband took my car to work so I'm marooned at home. I am forced to work on my OWN house now. Gasp. It's probably for the best. I know my laundry room is happy to have it's floor back.

Isn't it the truth though? Wash, Dry, Fold, Repeat. Over and over and over and over... and over. You get the point. I found some boards in my back yard, printed off the font I wanted, traced it with transfer paper, and hand painted it the same color as the cabinets.

That's pretty much it for the laundry room. Oh, here is a picture of what has been shadowing me all morning. I whipped out the camera and heard "cheese... Cheese... CHEEEEEEEESE" so I snapped this. He is pure unadulterated trouble.

Yes, I allow him to carry around a weapon to ward off his brothers. It's a butter knife, what's the worst that can happen?