A Spring Vignette

This year, I decided to bypass the St. Patrick's Day decorating and head straight for the Springtime decor. Although there is a whole lot of green, so that counts right?

I love creating new vignettes... it is my JAM! I love playing around with the pieces I have and rearranging them until everything is just so. In case you haven't noticed, things in my home don't stay in one place for long.

This vignette was pretty simple because I left a few things in place from Valentine's Day. I just swapped out the pinks and reds for some greens and wah lah... a whole new look!

Source list is at the bottom of this post. 

Do you have a space in your home that you are constantly changing?

Source List:

Black striped table runner: Target
"Welcome to our happily ever after" printable: View from the Fridge

Decorative Ball: Gordman's
Wood Tray: TJ Maxx
Moss Balls: TJ Maxx
White and Burlap Basket with Greens: TJ Maxx

Projects: 

White & Whimsical Chalk Paint Buffet
Wood Pallet Wall Plaque
Burlap Wreath

Wood Pallet Wall Plaque

After posting my Valentine's Vignette, I had quite a few questions about this new addition to my living room. Apparently, I can't slip anything past you guys. No really though, I'm glad you noticed it and liked it enough to ask about it, because it's one of my new favorite parts of the living room!

Adam always comes home with more pallets. I'm not really sure where they come from, but we've got quite the collection of them in our basement, and I love the look of a good pallet wall. I have allowed a pallet wall to consume my thoughts for so long, but I just don't seem to have anywhere to put one in our home. 

Instead of a entire pallet wall, I decided a small "pallet wall" would look great over our buffet. I've never really loved anything that I've put above the buffet, and always just seemed to be putting things there to fill the empty space... until this pallet wall plaque! 

Adam built this for me because he made the mistake of mentioning he was "itching for a project" so unfortunately I can't take the credit. But I can tell you how he made it! 

He started with pulling apart the pallets and arranging them in an aesthetically pleasing way. He then had me approve his design before building a frame on the back. 

Here is the frame he put in the back. All of the pallets have been individually glued onto the frame with wood glue. As you can tell, the frame isn't centered from top to bottom. This was purposeful, so the plaque could hang on the wall by the frame, but the bottom still had as much support as possible.

We decided to leave all the nails in the wood to create an even more rustic look, so some of the nails needed the backs cut so they didn't hit the wall. 

He stained it with Minwax's Wood Finish in Provincial. 

For one final touch, he added a nail in the top center of the plaque so I could hang my wreaths.

I would love to find an incredibly inexpensive boxwood wreath to hang here this spring/summer, but so far I haven't had much luck. So for now, the burlap wreath is a great replacement. 

Come back next week to see my Spring Vignette for this space!

projects in this post:

burlap bubble wreath | white & whimsical chalk paint buffet

A White & Whimsical Buffet Makeover

Ahh, it's been a while since I had a big project to show off, and it feels so refreshing to have finished this one! When we moved into our first apartment together, we got all kinds of hand-me-downs that still fill our home today. This buffet was own by my grandparents, followed by my parents, and then passed on to us about 5 years ago.

I really liked it in our living room, especially all the storage it offered. BUT, I wasn't really loving the look of it anymore. I felt like it didn't really match the living room or my vision for my home. I didn't want to get rid of it, but I didn't want to keep it the way it was. I debated for a while, and then I finally got out my chalk paint and went to town!

The process of chalk painting is really quite simple. While this gem required 3 coats of chalk paint, it dries within about an hour, so I was easily able to get it done in little to no time! After sanding and waxing, I picked out some new knobs and this piece was good as new! 

I found these blue knobs at Hobby Lobby and fell in love!

I now have the urge to attack every piece of furniture I own with some a paint brush and some chalk paint! I'm not crazy, I swear!

What fun projects have you been up to lately? Have you fallen under the chalk paint spell yet?

DIY Wood Shelves

My living room has always puzzled me. It is a decent size, rectangular in shape, and the center of our whole home. I have redecorated it about a thousand times, yet I never seem to be able to get it right. I have always loved everything that I put in the living room, I just never seemed to love everything once I put them all together.

First: I didn't like the paint color when we first moved in, so we painted it slightly darker.

Second, I made this Burlap Rosette Heart for over the couch, which I loved for a long time, but I'm ready for a change.

Then, I decided it needed a bench under the window, but now I sometimes think it makes it look too crammed.

Next, I thought it was too dark, so I lighted it up with lighter curtains and a white entertainment center.

After that, I made a wood plank coffee table to make the room a little more unique.

Even after all of that, I always felt like something was missing, that "WOW" factor.

I've changed my pillow covers about 12 times thinking that I just needed to change up the colors.

And then I saw Shanty 2 Chic's DIY Floating Shelves (Check out her full tutorial). They seem to have these shelves, or something similar all over their houses and I love them! My husband was nice enough to build some for me and I am seriously obsessed! He followed Ashley's instructions, but tweaked them a little. Here's what he did differently:

• created the E-shaped frame of 2x4's and attached the wood top to the E with pocket holes.
• attached the 1x6 side pieces with pocket holes as well. 
• pre-drilled everything to make sure it all fit together nicely. 
• We decided to stain the shelves before hanging them to make sure the stain didn't get all over the house (we used 2 coats of Minwax Provincial)
• Then he hung the shelves first putting on the E-shaped with the top, then attaching the sides, and finally screwing in the bottom.

We hung the shelves 14 inches apart, which has worked out perfectly for us. 

Here is our final project:

Okay, one last look...

What do you guys think? I want to build these for every room of my house!

Happy October!!

Wood Plank Coffee Table

I had been wanting to switch out our coffee table for a while. There was nothing wrong with the coffee table we had, I was just ready for a change and envisioned something that matched both our entertainment center and our bench.

Since I am always terrified of ruining our furniture when doing a makeover. I always try to makeover our older pieces, or pieces people have given us (usually those hanging around in the basement). So when I decided to do a coffee table makeover, it's no surprise that I used the basement's coffee table and put the other one in its place.

This coffee table was still in pretty good shape as well, it just wasn't really my style. While plain and do-able for a basement, I wanted to create something amazing for the living room. 

what you will need:

paint of your choice

wood stain and poyurethane

7-1x4's

sander

wood glue

Our first step was to lightly sanded the top of the coffee table to ensure the wood glue would stick properly and then I painted the bottom. I used Folk Art's Chalk Paint in White Adirondack, as well as their Clear Wax. I ended up needing two coats of the chalk paint before waxing. 

While I was painting, I enlisted my husband to cut the 1x4's to a length that just fit over the coffee table. He sanded all the edges and curved them a little bit for me as well. Once he was down, I stained all the wood. 

Once everything was dry, we used very generous amounts of wood glue to put the planks in place. We also used my school books and some weights to hold all the planks down while the glue dried. We waited to put the polyurethane on until the glue had dried and we could remove the books and weights without shifting the planks. Another 24 hours for the polyurethane to dry, and our wood plank coffee table was complete!

I think that it really does tie in well to the rest of the living room, it matches the TV stand and bench nicely as well. Now that I've made the coffee table, I want to make some end tables to match! In fact, the matching end tables for the coffee table are in my basement too!

Now if I could just figure out that funky corner where the shelf is, we'd be all set!

Happy Hump Day, friends!

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