Front Porch Painting & Quick Update...

In my last post I mentioned that things have been B-U-S-Y around here lately {life, merger at work, blah, blah, blah}.  Sadly, that means the blog has taken a backseat, but have no fear...we tried are darnedest to keep up with house-related projects.

One of those projects was a quick {well, only on my part...thanks Dad} update to our front porch.  When we purchased our home, we painted just about every square inch of it because it looked like this.  Ahhhh!

Don't worry...it looks more like this these days, so please don't let the nightmares of a big, overgrown, green blob keep you up at night. ;)

I know some people aren't the biggest fans of painting wood or brick, but in our case, the old red steps {refer to the creepy picture above} just weren't doing anything for our house.  They needed to be painted, and we were super happy we did it.

It's been about a year and a half since we painted them, and after tons of use and abuse, the red brick was showing through in some places.

So during my parent's last visit a few weeks ago, my dad asked what he could do to help us around the house.  I kindly told him nothing, and then proceeded to fan him and feed him bon bons jumped at the chance for him to re-paint the steps.

I've said it a million times, but I will say it again...it's crazy what a difference some paint can make!  The steps look so good after getting a fresh coat of grey.

And during a recent trip to Tar-jay, I came across the cutest gradient door mat {reminiscent of the pink Clara rug that YHL decorated with} that perfectly matched our teal front door.  Obviously, I didn't resist and threw it in my cart.  It helped that it was on sale. ;)

Add a few dahlia plants in my new IKEA planters...and our front porch is ready for spring! :)

Canvas Art...Again. For the Last Time. Promise.

A couple weeks ago, I was on a major art kick.  I painted a couple canvases for our bedroom, a wooden sign...also for our bedroom and then some ombre art for the hallway.  Clearly, I was on a mission to fill all of our blank walls.  One art project that I completed and never shared with you guys {I didn't want my beloved readers to OD on my silly art projects} was a set of canvases that call our living room home.  They help to temporarily fill in a blank hole left by the removal of our Christmas tree.  I have more permanent plans to fill the space in the future, but I haven't been able to pick up what I need yet.

So I took the easy route and grabbed some canvases, brushes and paint from the basement and got to work.

I used my favorite colors {blue-greens and greys, obviously}, and mixed in some water as I went along.  It helped me to blend the colors and achieve the look I was going for.

Like my ombre art, I used vinyl letters to put a simple phrase on the piece that is a wonderful reminder to read every day...have faith.

\
And so you can see where some of my latest projects have landed {striped curtains, gold mirror, DIY shelves, wintery mantle}, here is how our living/dining room has looked since we de-Christmas-ified after the holidays.  I love how cozy it's been, but I certainly can't wait to bring back our other curtains and some pops of yellow for the spring!

 Do any of you switch out your curtains for the different seasons?  Am I the only weirdo?  My mom promises me that it used to be a "thing" back in the day. ;)

Rugs, Revealed.

This post has been a long time coming.  I 100% blame the procrastination on the awful pain it is to put an 8 x 10 rug under a crazy heavy king bed, with a million supports beneath it.  Hubby and I just did not feel like tackling that task.  That meant the living room and guest room rugs were in place for a long time, and the rug for our master bedroom sat, rolled up, in our living room for weeks.

Thankfully, due to a fun Super Bowl party we hosted, we were forced to cross things off our to-do list...so we put on our big girl/boy pants, and maneuvered that sucker into place.

If you are new to my blog, and my rug issues, I have made it pretty clear that I have a fear of buying rugs, especially from online retailers.  1) Rugs are usually such an investment, and 2) 99.9% of rugs I want to buy are online, and therefore I can’t see or feel them before I take the plunge.  Well one day I threw caution to the wind and went for it.  Yup, I ordered three rugs from Rugs USA...all at one time.

I didn’t know what to expect, so I was super anxious for them to arrive.  Luckily, when I unrolled each one, I was more and more pleased.  They were all prettier in person than they were online, and I couldn’t be happier with my decision to place the order.  {Plus it didn’t hurt that I got them extremely discounted at 65% off...which is the only way we could afford 3 of them!}

Now I know there are all sorts of "rules" when it comes to rug size and placement...but I'm pretty sure those rules are for people who can afford to follow them.  And we aren't those people. :-/  That means I bought a smaller 5 x 8 rug for our living room space...because really, my main concern was having a cushy rug under foot for relaxing on the couch, or in case some young kids were over and wanted to snuggle on the floor to watch a movie or to play. 

And the guest bedroom rug could probably be bigger too, but I just wanted something to give people's feet a nice place to land when they got out of bed.  Plus, it can also be swapped out for the living room rug in case we wanted a pop of color out there in the spring and summer months.  Like I said, we are working with a budget, people!

For our master bedroom, we had to go with an 8 x 10 rug because anything smaller would have looked ridiculous.  Since we bought two smaller rugs for the other spaces, we could afford to go bigger here.  I love the comfort it adds to our room.

I am so thankful our big purchase wasn't a bust!  I think they add a little something to each room.  And hopefully you'll be seeing more of them soon because I'm determined to pick up my house tour posts again!  I might even re-do the living space because it's changed so much from my original post.

Anyone else on the cusp of purchasing a rug??  Anyone else laugh in the face of rug rules??  {Please tell me I'm not the only one!!}

Winter Mantel.

Hubby and I want to start a new trend.  We are determined to make it totally acceptable to keep Christmas lights up throughout the winter.  And no, I’m not talking about our icicle lights hanging from the gutters. ;)  I am referring to the lovely glow that indoor Christmas lights create in a space.  We had so many lights up during the holidays that after we took everything down, it never felt quite right without that cozy factor during the dark winter nights.  We missed it like crazy.

My solution for our dilemma?  Decorate our mantel in a wintery theme, and buy a strand of white lights to give us our cozy back!  {I couldn’t use the strands of white lights I already had from Christmas...the cords on those were green, and they would have stuck out like a sore thumb.  I needed white to work with my winter theme.}

To begin the process, I wanted to transform the mirror we already had on our mantel.  The size and pattern of the frame was great, but the plastic-ish, black color just didn't do it for me.  I tried to remove the frame, keeping the mirror in tact.  I was going to use some 1 x 5's I had cut down at Home Depot to create a new frame, but for the life of me, I could NOT get the frame off of the mirror.  They used some major league, permanent adhesive on that sucker.  So it was on to plan B...spray paint.

You saw me priming the mirror here {when I transformed the quatrefoil mirror from Tar-jay}.  I'm not sure if it was the weather, or if I didn't clean the frame up enough, but the spray paint didn't seem to stick that well to the beaded part of the frame.  After one coat of spray primer, I decided to switch to my tried and true Behr Paint and Primer...in white semi-gloss.  It gives great coverage, and I already had an entire can of it leftover in the basement from when we painted our trim.  {Free = awesome.}

I painted several coats and after a few days of curing, I put the mirror back up on the mantel.  Hubby and I both agreed...we loved it 10 times more in white.  It was much more “us”.

With the mirror back in place, it was time to add some accessories from around the house, some snowy branches I found at the grocery store {Stop & Shop's floral department has some great things at even better prices} and the pièce de résistance...the white lights.

I am super happy with the mantel and we adore the light it casts at night.  Until we can get a gas fireplace installed, string lights will give us the ambiance we want at night, and for a WHOLE LOT LESS money. ;)

Anyone else want to jump on the “use Christmas lights allllllll throughout the winter months” bandwagon?!?  Come on.  You know you want to! ;)  Or do you think we are being totally tacky?  You can be honest.