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, …
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Our DIY Farmhouse Laundry Room – The Reveal!
It's a big day around here, because it's room reveal day! Our farmhouse laundry room is completely finished...man it feels good to type that. Room reveals are my absolute favorite, not only because they mean I get to check another space off my to-do list, but also because I get to move onto a new space and appease my project ADD.
So here is the finished laundry room...check out this before and after!
Looking at the photo makes me smile so hard...what a difference!
To get a better …
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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 …
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Our Leather Article Sofa – One Year Later
Every once in a while I go through my blog analytics to see what posts are doing really well, and which ones were a big 'ol flop. Doing this is extremely eye-opening, because the posts/projects that do really well are never the ones I expect. The two most popular posts I wrote in 2018 were "How to Paint Shiplap" (this one surprised the heck out of me), my series and review of our leather furniture from Article.
The question I get asked most often these days is "How is your Timber leather sofa …
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Hot Tub Patio Reveal!
*Thank you to Article for providing the furniture to complete this project!
Hey there strangers, hope your summer is going well! Ours has been good...busy at times, slow at others, sometimes I'm enjoying the heck out of it, and sometimes I look at the calendar and count the days till school starts again. Don't pretend you don't do it too. This is a safe space.
Honestly Adam and I haven't been doing many projects lately, and it's been kinda nice. We did recently finish the hot tub patio …
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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 …
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Entry Refresh and a Wooden Doormat Update
Today I have the most well-tested follow-up post for you ever. Not a year, or two years like most of my follow-up posts, but SEVEN years. So what project are we talking about today? These babies...
I made these wooden doormats back in 2012, when my blog was just a year old and I only had two kids. It feels like yesterday, but it wasn't. It's crazy how quickly time goes.
In the original post I said that I had no idea how these mats were going to work out...if they would catch dirt and …
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Hot Tub Patio – Our 2019 Surprise Project
At the beginning of this year I wrote a post outlining our house goals for 2019. It had projects we for sure wanted to finish, along with projects we may or may not get to (you can read that list here). So as soon as Adam and I scratched the RV remodel off that list we started talking about what project we wanted to conquer next.
My suggestion was to finish the laundry room. We started it about a year and a half ago, and it is probably 70% finished. I would love to wrap that up, check another …
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Our DIY Epoxy Garage Floor – One Year Later
Alright, time for another follow-up post! Today we are talking about the DIY epoxy floor coating Adam and I did in the garage a little over a year ago. We used the RockSolid kit from RustOleum. and applying it was simple but fairly labor intensive.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE ORIGINAL POST AND TUTORIAL
Before -
After -
Here is a quick video about the process of applying the epoxy floor coating -
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So our garage is really large, a four car. The front half is where we park …
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A Review of our Brick Flooring – One Year Later
Almost exactly a year ago we installed the brick flooring in the mudroom, laundry room, and half bathroom. When we installed it I knew I loved the look, but had no idea how it would actually function and hold up in real life. Would it be easy to clean? Catch all the dirt? Can you mop it? Will it hurt to walk on with bare feet? Will it stain easily? Adam and I didn't know the answers to any of these questions, but we decided to install it anyway and see how it …
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Lightweight Rustic Wood RV Walls
*Thank you to Stikwood for sponsoring this post!*
I'm so excited to finally be at this point in the RV remodel! This entire time I have been schlepping away at this remodel....painting cabinets, painting walls, and painting countertops, and that whole time all I wanted to do was get to the part where Adam and I got to install the rustic wood walls. I knew it would be my favorite part, and I am not disappointed. Just look at the difference!
Bedroom before (WAY before) -
Bedroom, …
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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, …
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DIY Electric Fireplace
So I know we said the bedroom was finished, but that was a lie. We still needed to add wood flooring and a fireplace, but neither one was going to happen for a few years (since my four sons are now eating our house projects budget. Literally eating it...they never stop eating. I'm screwed when they're teenagers.)
Adam and I found a way to add a fireplace and not break the bank though, and now this exists in our bedroom...
I'm so glad we didn't wait, because having a fireplace in …
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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 …
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Painting RV Walls (it’s actually really easy!)
When Adam and I first started planning the RV remodel I was very against painting the walls. For some reason, I thought they would be a giant pain and require lots of prep, plus the spongy brown was fairly neutral and inoffensive.
In hindsight, that was stupid. Adam told me that was stupid, and he was right. It hurts just to admit it, but he was.
We painted the walls, it was super easy (unlike the cabinets) and it looks so much better. It looks less like an outdated travel trailer and more …
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Our Rustic Master Bedroom Retreat – The Reveal!
Thank you to Modsy for sponsoring this post. Want to try Modsy for yourself? Use code ASHLEY20 to get 20% off a design package!
It's here! Master bedroom reveal day!
Adam and I have been chipping away at the bedroom for the last couple of years, and slowly but surely it went from a mostly empty mishmash of random items to a relaxing retreat where we can escape at the end of the day. It's amazing.
So just to tide you over before we get to the guts of the blog post, here are a few pictures …
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Painting RV Cabinets (and what I did wrong)
Y'all...I did it. I finished painting the cabinets in the RV. Somebody get me a drink.
I'd love to tell you a wonderful, uplifting tale about how it was an easy project and I enjoyed every second of it, but that would be a lie. This project sucked and I'm really glad its over. I CAN tell you it was worth it though, so at least this story has a happy ending.I mean, just look at how much brighter and less depressing the kitchen looks with bright white cabinets. Worth it.
Alright, let's …
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A Bedroom Ceiling (Un) Update
A few weeks ago I blogged about our wooden bedroom ceiling, and I finished that post by saying I was pretty sure I was going to stain it.
My issue with the ceiling was that it looked very fresh and new, not rustic and old like I had hoped. Adding to that feel was the fact that the wooden window headers are old and gray, and the two just didn't look like they belonged in the same room.
Staining it seemed like the best solution. Nothing too dramatic, just something to add age. After …
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Vaulted Wood Ceiling (from cedar fence pickets)
In the process of building our house, Adam and I messed up. We knew that we only wanted the builder to build the "shell" of the house and leave the rest for us to DIY, but what we didn't realize (no one along the way did... I'm guessing people don't finance half-built houses very often) is that in order to close on a construction loan, the house has to be 100% finished. This led to a giant, stressful, drawn-out mess when we tried to convert the construction loan to a mortgage. Our solution was …
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Our NBI Drainboard Sink – Two Years Later
It was exactly two years ago now that we started using our NBI Drainboard sink, which means its received enough use and abuse to give it a fair review. A lot of you will have no interest in this, but ever since my initial post about the sink I've received a slow but steady flow of emails asking how it is holding up, so I know there is some interest out there.
When we chose this sink I was skeptical about its durability and functionality. All I knew is that it fit with my vision for the …
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Installing Our Highback Drainboard Sink
The first draft of this post was titled "Installing our Highback, Double Drainboard, Faux Vintage Kitchen Sink", which is quite a big description for a simple sink. That title is like when they introduce Kahaleesi on Game of Thrones, and they're all "Daenerys of the House Targaryen, The First of Her Name, The Unburnt.... eight more super long descriptive tiles...and Mother of Dragons." It's the longest title ever, and I'm over here rolling my eyes at the TV and thinking "just call her the queen …
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