Design. Home. Renovation. This is a real life blog; let's get ugly!
Oh boy, want to know what’s so much better looking than 45 year old yellow patterned laminate counters? Pretty much anything. Yup. Also, my new DIY skimcoated counters. Those are also pretty amazing. And today’s post is all about how I made some simple forms to skimcoat and create a more uniformed counter surface in my kitchen!
Continue reading “One Room Challenge – Week 4 DIY Skim-coated Concrete Counters”
Modern houses pile on the bedrooms, one for each kid, a guest suite, and a glorious and generously sized master bedroom. Old houses — like mine — do not. Although one day I might no longer have roommates and gain a guest bedroom, until then, guests are sleeping on my hand-me-down sofa. It’s not ideal. What might make it better though, is a nice new sleeper sofa! It would be so great to be able to just pull out a bed when I need it and tuck it away when I don’t. Since I’ve been hunting for a sofa anyways, I might as well make the leap to the sleeper, right?
Continue reading “Sleeper Sofas For the Multipurpose Living Room”
The kitchen cabinets are painted and it is life-changing! So things are going to get a little hairy in this posts since some of the kitchen cabinet painting happened during the wainscotting installation and wall prep from last week! Basically, remember how my kitchen looked like this? Partially sanded cabinets? Look a little closer. See how those cabinets are all different styles? My kitchen cabinets were cobbled together over a few decades no earlier than 1930, but probably not later than 1960. It’s a mystery. There are 4 door styles. And none of them are good. The insides of the cabinets were gross and everything was a bit of a hot mess.
Continue reading “One Room Challenge – Week 3 Painting 1940s Kitchen Cabinets”
Let’s chat about the Berrybrier kitchen some more! It’s a big project and it started out crazy. Legit, no one wanted to cook in here kind of crazy. You can see more of the before pictures as well as the plan for the kitchen in last week’s post.
Continue reading “One Room Challenge – Week 2 Prepping Walls, Adding Wainscotting, and a New Door”
Being an interior designer is one of the most entertaining jobs! We get to use the creative part of our brain and the hyper-organized part of our brain every day to make spaces work harder and smarter. We get to see the physical impact of our work come to life in front of our eyes and that is just too fun! It’s a great position for anyone who is particularly tactile, since we play with texture and feel all day every day. Want to know some more secrets about interior designers? As a full time, professional interior designer, I thought I’d dish!
Continue reading “Secrets About Interior Designers”
You guys, I needed motivation to finish my kitchen, bad, like real bad. It’s just been hanging out in renovation purgatory for ages. I won’t lie and say I haven’t touched it since I last posted about it — I definitely have — but I never actually got around to completing it. I even chatted about my plans for a Phase I and Phase II renovation here in this post, but still never actually got the Phase I of this project completed. Enter: the One Room Challenge. Nothing kicks my butt like a project deadline! My last ORC was my tiny master bathroom renovation.
Continue reading “One Room Challege – Week 1 Kitchen Plan”
I thought I’d continue today on the theme of paint! If you’ve been reading along I’ve already covered the Berrybrier whole house paint color palette and how to pick paint colors. I’ve got something juicy today: a round up of 5 paint color palettes that will work in nearly every home! Picking paint can be daunting, so I’m taking the guess work out of it for you. I headed to my local Benjamin Moore paint store (Dick’s Color Center for you Portland locals) and pulled some fun color palettes that will work for anyone. I’ve included some descriptions of where I can envision each color palette, but these are just jumping off points, each palette would work in any style home! And, if you want to dive into diagnosing your own personal design style, check out this post here!
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about artwork and how well it finishes off a space. It’s the eyeliner of interiors styling. My house tends to have a rather random assortment of pieces. I’ve got a small gallery wall going in the Living Room that needs tweaking now that there’s no longer a TV in that room. The pieces in my house that I really love are the big huge ones that have more of a visual presence. I think we often buy art that’s too small without realizing the impact a larger piece might have!
Continue reading “Art From Minted I’m Loving Right Now”
Land of Laurel 