Imagine you spend forever sanding, priming, and painting a beautiful piece of furniture you found at a garage sale. It looks fantastic...you breathed new life into it like a freaking pro. Go you! The last step is to protect the paint so it looks this amazing forever. You grab a sealer from the hardware store without much thought...because sealer is sealer, right? Except it's not, and your entire project turns yellow and streaky, completely ruining it.
As you can see in the above photo, …
Read More
How to Make a Countertop out of Wood Flooring
So Adam and I have been working on our laundry room for a while now, but as we are not HGTV it actually takes us real-life amounts of time to finish a room remodel. Two years so far, I think... that's normal, right? Don't answer that. It has been a process but I swear we are almost done, and it gets more usable every time we work on it. It's actually starting to look pretty dang amazing.
As a refresher, here are the posts I have already written about the laundry room -
Laundry room …
Read More
The Ultimate Guide to Painting Cabinets
A few months ago I asked which DIY topics y'all would like me to cover, and the most popular answer was a post on how to paint cabinets. That surprised me a bit, because I've actually written quite a few posts on the subject. The information is scattered and not easy to find though, so the obvious answer was to write one big post containing everything I've learned so far. So here it is, my ultimate guide to painting cabinets!
The first thing you need to know about painting …
Read More
Painting Laminate Countertops with Chalkboard Paint
Adam and I considered lots of different things for the laminate countertops in the RV (we were this close to skimming it with concrete). It's a tiny amount of surface space, so we could pretty much do anything without it being expensive. In the end we decided just to paint them, since neither of us wanted to put in the time or effort to rip out and replace the counters (or risk the concrete layer cracking and flaking off). There are a ton of kits and products out there for painting countertops, …
Read More
How to Build a TV Frame
Today I have a very simple and practical project for you. It's something that you 100% can do yourself....even if you are new to DIY and your tool collection is nearly nonexistent.
Why would you want to frame your TV? Well because of this...
This giant gap full of cords isn't exactly the prettiest sight, and I'm going to assume that if you have a flatscreen TV hung on the wall then you have the same issue. Fortunately there is a simple solution, and it only requires is a few …
Read More
Simple Farmhouse Window Trim
The mudroom is so incredibly close to being finished, and I can't wait to get the reveal post up on the blog (thinking it will be next week). It's been way too long since we've had a reveal post around here. In the meantime though, let's take a detour and talk about window trim.
So all of the window and door frames were finished with drywall returns during the building process. Adam and I knew we wanted trim eventually, but figured we would do that later (plus they weren't going to make the …
Read More
How To Install a Light Fixture with the DIYZ App
*Thank you to the DIYZ® app for sponsoring this post. All opinions are 100% mine.
Let’s be honest here....progress in the kitchen is pretty much not happening these days. We got it to where it’s almost completely functional and then quickly became sidetracked with other things. It’s looked like this for a while now -
BUT, we did hang a light above the sink recently, so yay for steps in the right direction!
So last month I was at a local home decor boutique and spotted this …
Read More
Top 10 Places to Shop for Fabric Online
We are finally getting to the stage of building where I’m thinking less about the guts of the house and more about the pretty things. Hardware on cabinets, rugs, curtains, and fabrics are where my mind wanders to these days. For the past few weeks I’ve been spending most of my "stuck on the couch breastfeeding” time scrolling through fabrics looking for inspiration, so I thought I would share my favorite places to shop. I would love to be able to shop for fabric in an actual store, but I have …
Read More
DIY Basics – How to Recover a Dining Room Chair
*Thank you to HomeRight for sponsoring this post, all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.
After writing this blog for nearly six years I tend to assume that my readers are all DIY masters. A lot of you are, but new people happen upon this blog everyday, many of which have never DIYed a single thing. So If you are new to DIY then a great place to start is reupholster a dining room chair. It’s easy to do, requires minimal tools, and old chairs in need of new new fabric are everywhere.
So …
Read More
How to Paint a Rusty Metal Shed
When we bought our house it had zero storage. No garage, no basement, an attic that isn't really usable, and no extra closets. We needed a place to store lawn equipment, paint, and general homeowner stuff, so Adam's parents offered us an old metal shed that was on their property.
We put it on the back part of our lot, filled it with stuff, and promptly forgot about it.
Or at least I forgot about it. My husband on the other hand thought it needed some TLC. He would casually say things like …
Read More
9 Room Painting Tips & Tricks that Make the Job Easier
Some women have a lot of shoes, others prefer to spend their hard-earned money on nice purses. Some collect kitchen gadgets, books, hours at crossfit, or cats. Me? I collect paint. My entryway closet holds all my painting supplies and is currently home to nearly eighty cans of paint, stain, sealer, and spray paint. I know, ridiculous...you don't have to tell me. My point is that over the years I have learned a lot about painting and have some tips that will make painting a room easier, faster, …
Read More
How to extend an outlet to be flush with a new wall
Two years ago when Adam and I planked our kitchen we had no idea what to do around the outlets and switches. We ended up just cutting the planks around the current outlets and leaving them like that. It never really bothered me...but I never liked it either. The great thing about being a serial DIYer (or a DIY blog reader!) is that you are always learning new things, and while planking the boy's room I learned that no one expects you to leave your outlets cut around and unfinished looking. In …
Read More
How to Refinish Outdated Tile (yes, I painted my shower)
(Update - Click here to see how my painted shower is holding up after a year of use!)
Who here has outdated tile in their bathroom but doesn't want to rip it out and replace it? (I'm looking at you, mom!) Did you know that you can paint it?
I wavered about doing something with the tile in our master bathroom for a long time. It's not terrible and I don't hate it...but by the same token I don't love it either. I didn't want to rip it out and re-tile...in our forever house, yes, in this …
Read More
The Easiest Way to Tile a Backsplash
I have a sneaking suspicion that many of you have a tiling project you want to take on but don't, because you're unsure of yourself. I don't blame you, there are a lot of steps...planning it out, mixing the thinset (mortar), applying the thinset, applying the tile, waiting for it to dry, grouting, sealing....
I have good news for you. You can tile a small area, like a backsplash, in a few hours WITHOUT wanting to rip your hair out or feeling completely lost.
Here is the secret....
(If …
Read More
15 Ways to Give Your Furniture New Life
Let's face it, buying new furniture is expensive. So expensive, in fact, that I've never actually done it (besides couches, because I'm not awesome/crazy enough to DIY a couch). There is also the problem that new furniture is, well... boring. To me it all looks the same and basically has zero personality. A great (and super cheap!) solution to this is to redo old furniture. But what do you do with your ratty old thrift store furniture once you get it home?
1. Paint it a fun …
Read More
The Wood Flooring Countertop, Part II
Alright everyone, this is part two of my bathroom countertop adventure. (If you haven't read the first part you can do that HERE.) When I left y'all we had successfully made a counter out of maple wood flooring, which happens to be particularly hard to stain. Here was my first attempt...
It looked terrible and Adam vetoed it right away. And that's saying something because he never vetoes things, he usually just lets me gush about weird new ideas that my brain comes up with and then tries his …
Read More
How To Caulk Like A Pro
My caulk lines have never been particularly good...unless you compare them to my husbands caulk lines, then mine look amazing. I've always hated doing a project (like baseboards, for example) and having them look perfect up until the caulking part when everything gets all crooked and sad. THEN I ran across this tip, this one simple trick, and it totally rocked my caulking world. It's so simple that I am in awe that I never thought of it, rather I've used a plethora of objects trying and fix …
Read More
The “Dirty Cowboy” Treatment
Ahh, the Dirty Cowboy...a great way to give your furniture some personality. That's right... furniture. Is that not what you were expecting? What kind of blog do you think I'm running over here?
So I didn't entirely make this technique up, it is really just dry brushing... or antiquing, or distressing with stain, or a variety of other names. I've tried to dry brush furniture a few different ways and this is the way I found worked the best, was the easiest and gave me the best result.
First …
Read More
How To Make an Envelope Closure Pillow
I'm not great at sewing. In fact, I pretty much stick to sewing square things like pillows, curtains, book slings, tablecloths, and handkerchiefs. Okay, not handkerchiefs (do people actually use those anymore?), but you get the picture. Luckily sewing an envelope closure pillow is super simple and a great place to start if you're new to sewing.
So here is the process...
First pick your fabric. This is the best part! Don't be afraid to go with something bold, its just a throw pillow …
Read More
