Valentines: Adding a Bit of Pink

I made this wreath about two years at "craft night" with some girlfriends. It was up for a while then we took it down. I just hung it back up when the holiday decorations came down. I thought it was "good enough" for winter even though it spots were bare. Then I was at the Dollar Store the other day and found material as the white but in pink. (I said material because I have no idea what to call these twig like things with "berries" on them. I bought two bundles. With wire cutters I cut each one individually and stuck them in. After looking at the picture I am thinking about taking it down completely and redoing in pretty much the same but adding glue to spots with the glue gun. We will see how the weekend develops.

Week 3: Kitchen Window

Our little big kitchen window has been a bare mess for about three years. We left the previous owners valance up for about three months after moving in but that was long enough for me. I needed it out and would rather have it bare than the valance they had. We didn't do anything for a while because we didn't know what to do. When I was at the fabric sale on New Years Day I found 3yds of a jersey like fabric in a cream color. It was $3.97/yd and 30% off of that price!!! Can't beat that.

We got a 96" 2x2 at Home Depot for $1.97 and I first hung that on the wall with screws, no need to cut the wood it was the right length. Then I stapled the fabric to the wood... This is easy, sleazy people! I didn't even have to cut the fabric it was also a good amount for the project. I stapled the fabric at each end and then in the middle. That left a enough on the two sides to gather the fabric when I stapled it. After the fabric was attached I used safety pins to gather in four sections. I played with the gathering for a while and after it was where I wanted it I used a needle and thread, in the same color, to reinforce the gathering, and be able to take out the safety pins. When Andy got home he took out the wood and rotated it so that the fabric with the staples was not at the top of the wood.

The pot and pan rack we have had since we got married and it hung beautifully at our old house in our tiny kitchen. When we moved to this house for some reason I didn't think it would go any where. Andy tried to convince me otherwise but I thought that it would be too high above this window because of the vault ceilings. But in a moment of clarity, I remembered that Emeril was nice enough to include additional chain links to lower his rack when it was hung. I mentioned this to Andy and within minutes the rack was out of the crawl space and he was drilling holes. I think it looks pretty good!

Week 2: A Place for Laundry

Our laundry room is in the basement of our house and there is no way I am making a "quick" trip to the basement to deposit a towel that needs to be washed. I used to attempt to throw the towels down one floor closer to the basement but after a while I started just throwing them to the side our buffet... at least that is what we call it. The dogs licked all the clothes, the kids messed with them, and they would eventually end up all over the floor. So I decided to cover a plastic box with fabric that is already throughout our house and now I have a cute plastic for the dirty towels (and clothes that our 3 year old takes off during the day.)

Week 1: Front Window

Here is the before picture of our front window. This is currently the most used space in our house and the window faces the street. Although I like the wooden blinds they felt naked and I couldn't stand the duck tape on the top right blind. On New Years Day a HUGE fabric store was having a HUGE sale. My mom and I made the trek, about 30 minutes, with the new baby and I got fabric to make a treatment. It was fun to play around and decide what I wanted to do. I had thumbtacks and played with hanging the fabric in tons of different ways. I finally decide on what is below. I used two pieces of wood (you can see in the before pictures) and a staple gun and stapled the fabric to the wood. Then with the General Contractor got home he screwed the two wood pieces up there for me. I went for easy sleazy on this and used a hot glue gun to fold over the edge to give it a finished look. The ribbon tie backs are from Wal-Mart and are currently being held back with thumb tacks. Next time I head to Jo-Anns I will get the little plastic rings and an eye hook. Not bad for $15 dollars!

Why This Started

Last week I was sitting on the couch, feeding my newborn, looking around my main floor and admiring the cutains I had just made and the plastic box I covered with fabric and decide right then that I was going to do a project a week. My goal? Each project would bring function and/or beauty to my house and at the end of the year hopefully, it will finally feel like our home. The rules are pretty simple: 52 projects in 2011, I can do two in one week if we will be away or have a big project coming up. There is no price minimum or maximum. Holiday decoration projects do not count.

I do have a general contractor aka my husband. And when he is not playing with our 3 year old or training for a marathon you can find him rearranging parts of our house or happily playing with power tools.

So we are already three weeks into January and happily I have completed three projects. Curtains in our front room, covering a plastic box that I fill with laundry (with kitchen towels, bibs, 3 yr olds clothes that get flung around) on our main floor, and a window treatment in our kitchen. General Contractor also hung our Emeril pot/pan rack that has been sitting in our basement since we moved in this house three years ago, I even tried to sell it on craigslist two years ago. It looks great but I wanted to save it for a busy week when I needed a project. So we have given ourselves a bonus!

Stay tuned for our year long transformation.

Test Test Test

This is a test. This is just a test. Now laugh because you have heard that phrase before.