simplefrills

Makin plans, Living Room Style

Yep, more plans.

I just can't quit.

Y'all know I got a few to-dos checked off my looooooonnnnngggg list last weekend (what up, curb appeal and yet-to-be-posted-coffee table!)

Now that my to-do list is shortened by a few items, my natural instinct is to load it back up again.

Seriously, I need to be stopped.

Did you see the first to-do under the living room list? That's what I'm chatting about today. For a while now, I've been eyeing up my options at RugsUSA looking for the perfect BIG area rug for our living room. It's actually a relatively large space considering the size of our house, so a small rug just wasn't cutting it anymore. Style-wise, at least.

So I surfed. I surfed and I surfed and I surfed until I found the rug I was looking for. And the winner (hopefully) is....

This delicious chevron/ikat combination was just what I was looking for! I love the blue color and the fact that it is a large-print pattern so as not to be too distracting. Bonus, it has a tight, low pile so it will be easy to vacuum!! My Fitz fur-hating, vacuum-loving self is so VERY appreciative.

Once it gets to the house, I'll just have to lay it out to make sure that it is as good in person as it is in my dreams. I have high hopes that it will be just right.

Now, being the home decor blog-stalker that I am, I have always wanted to create a design board (virtually) to help figure out what colors, patterns and specific pieces would go best in a room design. This was the perfect opportunity! I'm going to give a brief walk-through of how my board came to be...so here it is!

My living room design board was actually created during the rug-choosing process to help me figure out which patterns and colors looked best with our existing couches and the coffee table I love. It was a huge help to be able to slap the picture of a rug I was considering onto the board and instantly know if it was a contender or not. I got really into it. Like War-of-the-Rugs style.

I made mine in Photoshop, but you can easily do the same thing in Word, Powerpoint or another processing application.

My board started by opening a blank document and pasting in a picture of our current couch, bookshelves and 3-shade lamp. I knew that these were all pieces that I wanted to reuse in the room as they are fully functional and I could style them to fit whatever "statement" pieces I decided on. I removed the background of the images using the "background eraser" tool. (The same effect can be done in Word by choosing the "picture" tab and then using "remove background")

Next is the fun part - searching for the new items to add to the board!

The pillows were the first things that I looked for - I knew I wanted to add some bright, fun colors in a way that would be easily and relatively cheaply changeable in the future. Pillows are a great way to do that! Since I don't want to spend a ton of money on new pillows, the ones I found were actually pillow covers that I can put right over our existing pillows. More cha-ching to spend on other things! Whoop Whoop!

Then I perused the interwebs based on those beautiful pillows that I found to add some more color, texture, and overall awesomeness to the board.

And that's it! It's easy and SO much fun to make these boards. I already have one started for my craft room...and a few others as well :)

Linking up @:

- Creativity Unleashed

- The Party Bunch

- Inspiration Monday

- Monday Funday
- Busy Monday
- The Makers
- Sugar Bee Crafts
- Do Tell Tuesday
- Out of the Box

Curb Appeal - Round 1

The weather in Minnesota these past few days has been just GORGEOUS! You can feel the distinct "crisp" of almost-fall in the air and I'm totally diggin it. Fall is my favorite season - boots! jeans! sweaters! crunching through leaves on walks! What's not to like!?!?

Having some beautiful days over the weekend inspired me to finally give our front entrance the first parts of a multi-step facelift. And boy was it needed.

Sunday morning found me sitting on the front steps in grungy clothes, happily painting away while watching old episodes of Grey's Anatomy on my iPad. Quite the picture, huh? I'm nothing if not a classy DIY girl.

By adding a few plants, some new house numbers and those fresh coats of paint, I made a couple solid steps toward a much more "Welcome to our house that we're working on fixing up bit-by-bit!" feeling for the front entry (instead of the "whatever, come in if you want" feeling it gave before...)

Here's a before....

(and, per the usual, Fitzgerald didn't want to be forgotten about)

Whoof! It was a MESS. The paint on the steps was chipping like a week-old manicure and that railing just wasn't helping the situation either. I decided to paint the railing black to tie in with the new dark house numbers and the hardware on the door. The stairs just got a fresh coat of grey paint that we found in the basement from the old owners.

And now....an after!

I smile when I drive up to the house now! The railing pops in front of the house and it ties together the house numbers and hardware too. Fresh grey steps make it look like people actually care about the house you're driving up to. And a few plants don't hurt either!

Next up in the process is replacing or redoing the light fixture and painting the front door a different color (teal? navy? orange? I can't decide!) I'd also like to build a plant holder to take the job of that tall metal one in the picture...I happened to hide the fact that it's actually a stand that is supposed to be pushed into the ground. Thinking maybe I can use some scrap wood to build a frame around the stand? We'll see :)

Now on to a tiny little DIY project...

Over Labor Day weekend I made the wood board with the new house numbers on it. You may have seen the little glimpse on instagram! Here's the process of how I did it:

The first step in the process was to choose a stain color for the backer board for the numbers.

My go-to stain for a lot of projects is Varathane Kona. It's rich without being too red or orange toned, so it usually matches my style. In this case, I wanted the boards to be a little lighter so the house numbers would stand out. That brought me to one of my other favorite new stain colors, Varathane Sunbleached. It's great for when you want a weathered look that isn't dark.

Neither Sunbleached or Kona were quite right for the project, so I decided to do a little mixing and create a color of my own. I used about a 1/4 cup of Sunbleached and just a teaspoon of the Kona to get the color I was looking for.

After measuring and cutting down my scrap wood, I was ready to stain! After 3 coats of my special mixture, the wood pieces were looking exactly how I had imagined them.

And holding one up to the house confirmed the color was right!

Once the boards were dry, I glued them together with some liquid nails. Since they weren't going to be holding up too much weight or moved constantly, screws or nails weren't necessary. Plus, it kept me from having to run to the store to get some kind of really thin board to screw them too :)

I gave the completed, glued together boards a quick coat of Thompson's Water Seal to protect them from the elements, and then let the whole thing dry for a few hours.

Next was the numbers!

The new house numbers came from my number-one BFF, Home Depot. I swear I spend WAY too much time there. I could browse all day.

Anywho, the numbers had caught my eye a while back and I thought they would be the perfect modern-meets-homey touch to the front entrance. They come with templates for installation and screws to put them in either floating or flush. I chose to use neither of those tools because I am a rebel. So there. (and also, it wouldn't have worked with the way I wanted it to.)

Since the screws were too long for the boards and I didn't want to screw all the way into the house, I decided to just glue the numbers to the board. The spacing was just eyeballed because I didn't feel like cutting out the stencils.

After adding 2 picture hooks to the back of the board and popping a couple nails in the house, the new numbers were up! And I am totally in love with them.

I'll do an update post a few months down the road to let you know how the numbers are holding up and if I would do anything differently. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy looking at a spruced-up entry when I pull in the drive!

Linking up @:

- The Makers

A Blank Slate

We said goodbye to my little bro this week - he moved out of our house and into a house with my other 2 brothers and a friend. I'm sad that he won't be around anymore - he's a great help with projects and reaching things in our tall kitchen cabinets :) But he's happy to have his own space again, and I'm happy for him too!

That being said, my permanent craft room is now empty and ready to be designed! First thing I want to decide is whether or not I'm going to paint it. Right now it's a pale grey color. Not bad, but maybe not the most inspiring color either. Green is my favorite color but I've always been too nervous to paint a room green...maybe this is my chance! This one is at the top of my green paint list right now...

Since I have a lot more space to work with, I've been spending FAR too much time on Pinterest looking for ideas! I've known from the beginning that I want to put a large desk in the middle of the room...so that will be my starting point!

Below are some of my favorite picks for getting my new craft space up and running - I'll keep the words to a minimum and let the pictures speak for themselves this time!

Via

(I know this is a kitchen, but I love the white shelves with gold brackets!)

Via

Ahhh! All these organization and decor ideas make me just giddy!!

What do you think? Have an idea that you've used in a craft/highly organized space that you want to share? Please do! Comment below - I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Project Update: Stencil Madness

How's about a stencil update? Yeah? Ok, let's go!

Prepare yourself - if you think you're going to see a completed room with furniture rearranged and all mess put away, this is not the post for you. You'll want to wait for the post I eventually title "FINALLY DONE WITH STENCILING - WOOHOOOO!" Or something to that effect.

If you're still interested in the progress, then you can keep on reading :)

Since I have yet to track down my good camera, you'll have to put up with my grainy cell phone pictures...but it will give the same effect!

The little wall is done!! Yay yay yay!!!!!! (Pause for mini victory dance)

The little wall is what you see when you walk right into the room. I love seeing it when I turn the corner into the hallway.

And now, for the larger wall.....

*Pow*Pow*Pow* *WHA-BAM!* (that's for you, Mr. B!)

Not done. But the main large section is! I just have to do the top and bottom and the far left side, and I'll be like 2/3 of the way done!

I told you that it would take a while.

But it's ok! Life got in the way - and that's the way it should be!! Weddings and friends and enjoying the sunshine is far more important than a wall being done. No rush!

Ok, quick segue. Ya'll need to keep me honest though. It's ok that it's not done now, but if you happen to mention it to me in another month and I haven't made any progress, sit me down for an intervention and whip me into shape. I give you permission. Segue done.

So, that's where painting is at. Once I'm all done with the actual stenciling, I'll have some touch ups to do. Those are good to save for rainy days though :)

At least, that's what I tell myself.

Thanks for reading!