Create curb appeal for your home

Good Morning,

Does your home lack curb appeal? It's the first thing people see when they visit or are just driving by. Is the front of your home warm and inviting?  There are hundreds of ways to spruce up your home's curb appeal. Many are inexpensive.

Kitchen Clock transformation using Fabric Sample

Hello Everyone,  I hope you had a wonderful weekend and are enjoying this much warmer weather. During my mom's move a couple month's ago, her favorite kitchen clock broke. She had the face of the clock propped up on her counter. Her way of salvage is different than mine.  It looked broken and was sitting sideways. She refused to throw it away. I took it and gave it a quick makeover.

Hall Tree Bench Made from Pallet Wood

I finally finished making the entry way hall tree bench this past week. I have been wanting to make one for a very long time now.  It's been so hectic around here with the construction going on for the new addition. We are trying to move furniture from 2 rooms as the new addition gets tied into our home with beams, a door and window. There is just no more room to put anything during  this time. I did manage to complete some DIY projects that you can make too.

Old door for my garden from Mansion Demo

I had a chance to pick through a mansion built in the late 1800's before we demoulished it. The mansion was located an hour away from my house so I was limited to how much stuff  I could load on the trailer and the back of the pickup truck.

Carriage House of  Mansion Demo

joss & Main Inspirational Painted Picture

I'd like to share with you a picture I saw on joss & Main that I gave me inspiration for a special Christmas gift.  I was browsing on their website and came across this picture of a Shih Tzu dog.  It looked almost exactly like my Mom's dog.  Since it was only a few days until Christmas, I didn't have time to purchase it so I decided I'd try to paint one just like it.

Reupholsted Old Kitchen Chairs DIY

Here is a project I finished some time ago.  I have been busy with school and I just haven't had time to post them.  I received these old kitchen chairs for free and reupholstered them.  The material was dirty and in rough shape with rips, but the chairs are sturdy.  It was time to go bold and add some color to the room. For those of you afraid of decorating with red, don't be afraid of the color.  I chose a country plaid and still was able to use the bold color of red without it looking too loud and busy.

Backyard Playhouse Shed made with Recycled Wood

I thought I'd give you a sneak peak at  what I was working on this past summer for our 5 yr old son.  I started to build  an  8 x 10 shed playhouse for him from recycled wood.  It is still under construction and I plan on finishing it up in the spring.  He has alot of those pricey ride-on toys that we didn't want to leave out in the weather.  I didn't want to take up space in our sheds for our mowers and yard tools with all his toys. I built this strictly for him and his toys.

Make a Vegetable Bin

Happy Spring ...I know, I'm taking way too long of a time between my posts. I have many projects behind me and not posted for a reason. I have been busy making some major changes here in our house recently with the new addition project coming up. I'm scrambling you could say because I will be losing a closet and a room will have to be emptied out before construction is started.
I have a moment to show you a vegetable bin I made from some scrap wood that I have been moving around in my garage all winter.

DIY-Electric Fireplace make-over with storage

I thought I would show you what I was busy doing during the Holidays while it's still cold outside. Our master bedroom is very large.  It's approx. 20 by 30 with an en-suite and large walk-in closet.  We have an electric fireplace that we purchased from Home Depot for a couple hundred dollars when our son was an infant to take the chill off of our room when he was in his bassinet. The fireplace cabinet finish is a cheap veneer.  I thought I would paint it to get rid of the veneer fake wood look. Here's the finished fireplace cabinet in which I added top storage for vases and candles.

The bedroom has high cathedral ceilings and rather than cranking the heat up,  this fireplace works great to take the chill out of the air. We run it for about an hour and the temperature is comfortable.

Vintage Bed Spring Toilet Tissue Holder

Awhile back I received a significant amount of old mattress bed springs. I have three different sizes and styles. I have come up with a few ideas on what to do with them, but I mainly have them to sell on my Etsy shop. I think they will sell better if I take different pictures on how to incorporate them into decorating.
Here's is one idea I thought was different.

Rustic and Rusty Hearts

Hello . While it was snowing heavily the other day , I was dreading to have to go outside to snow blow ,  shovel , and roof rake again, I decided to sit and watch the  snow from the window. I made a strong cup of coffee and sat at the table to make some hearts. I added an old chippy painted window to the wall and it needed some accents.

Painted Wooden Sign and Post

I finished painting the post I made the other day. I made a sign for the Holidays . Paint the post white first and let it set for about 10 - 15 minutes.

Wooden Sign Post for the Holidays

If you have no porch at your house to decorate for the holidays , don't worry , you're not alone.  Since I don't have much space to decorate when you come to my front door , I decided to make a post to hang a holiday sign and some decorations.  I had a bunch of scrap wood in the garage and out in the yard.  I grabbed the pieces that were the closest to the size I needed to make the post.

Chalk Painted dresser with a stencil

Last year I got this dresser from a woman who was down sizing.  It's old and definitely shows it's age. The top was peeling and part of the hardware is missing.  I thought this would be a great piece to try chalk paint.  I let it sit for awhile out in the garage. That's where my projects await me.

I was looking thru some blogs that I follow and got my inspiration from Red Hen Home (www.redhenhome.blogspot.com).

How to make a Pine Cone Wreath - DIY

I told you about a couple of wreaths that I made last week for Kim. Here is one of the wreaths and the way that I like to make pine cone wreaths.

Holiday Wreaths as a way to say ' thanks '

A month ago I met this wonderful woman named Kim. She collect these beautiful pinecones , thistle , and eucalyptus pods a few years back in California and Colorado and was saving them in her garage. She wanted to make ' something ' with them someday. Well she never got around to it and passed them onto me. There were bags and boxes of them.  I was thrilled because the pinecones were so different from the pinecones here in Massachusetts. I made a promise to her that I would make her a gift with the pinecones, etc.  I wondered for a couple of weeks what could I create for Kim that would be a wonderful gift as way to say ' thanks '.  I had come up with so many ideas that I could do with the pinecones , but not knowing her style or what her house looked like on the inside it came down to making a wreath for her front door for her home.

I wanted to make something that she could have for the years to come.  She can easily change the bow to give a it a fresh look year after year.
I'm on my way to deliver it to her, along with a second wreath of ribbon and door knob bells.

 

I will take pictures of it on Kim's door and show them when I get back home.  I'm a little sluggish today because last night we went to NFL patriots game and boy,  it was colder than cold.  It was around 6 degress with the windchill.  The wind was just going thru me.  We definitely dressed properly but it didn't matter.

This is what we do for fun. We have one more game to go to for this season.  I just hope it's not as cold as last night.  There's something about the air at 1 am that just makes it feel colder when you're already freezing. My camera was freezing up so that's all I took for pictures.  Needless to say, it was a great night despite freezing out feet off. I will show a tutorial of how I made the wreaths in another post when I get back home from Kim's.

DIY SCRAP WOOD ' CHUNKY ' FRAMES

While I was staining and painting the house , it was hard not to notice some of my outside decorations weren't looking so good. I thought I would clean them up a bit and add to the frames.

Recycled Cabinet Door

I take trips to the local Restore often to see what has changed since my last visit. I often find myself leaving there with ' stuff ' and later asking myself " what am I going to do with this? " I got a plain old cabinet door for $5. I didn't need it for anything and didn't even know why I bought it. Maybe because I thought it was a good deal. It was hanging around in my garage (place where I create) and 4yr old son said to me " Mom, look what I did with the pencil ! " He wrote all over my new $ 5 cabinet door which would now need to be painted since he was bearing down on the pencil.

Here's the cabinet door. I didn't have much scrap wood in my pile and now I was in the mood to do something with the cabinet door. I looked around the yard and there it was...a section of fence. I wish now that I didn't use that section of fence because we need it for the yard but it's too late.

Oopps...

Go " Green " for Halloween

I donated a few bags of recycled Enfamil formula bottles to the school.  I use them for leftover paint and some craft supplies.  Here's what the art teacher at the school did with the children for Halloween.