Curb Appeal

My favorite phrase when it comes to homeownership: curb appeal. Improving the curb appeal can be as easy as painting the front door a different color, or as complex as new windows and siding. I think our house already had pretty decent curb appeal when we purchased it, but a continually fun challenge for me is improving the curb appeal even more.

Last year, we started by painting the front door and shutters. We also did a bit of landscaping by adding some hydrangeas, hostas and mulch. So far this year, we cut down a large tree. There is still so much to be done! D and I have been discussing other updates we can make to improve the curb appeal even more. Some of the things we have talked about include:

washing the house- a must do for spring
more landscaping- including boxwoods in the front of the house
painting the trim- but what color?
adding flower boxes to the front of the house
reseeding the lawn- may have to wait until fall
garage door makeover
landscape lighting- the dollar solar lights just aren't cutting it

So we have a pretty long list of projects for spring. We most definitely have spring fever and can't wait to start. The first step will be to wash the stucco exterior of the house. It's very dirty and grungy looking. This should be a fairly easy project with a hose and gallon of house wash. From there, I'd love to paint the trim a different color from the house to give it more contrast. The trim and house are about the same ivory-yellowish color right now. The snow makes it especially dirty looking. Here's a picture of the house in it's current state (the wreath was a pinterest DIY project made from coffee filters):

Yuck. OK, I am going to use a picture of the house from last summer so it looks a little nicer:

So I have been looking online for some inspiration on trim colors that would make it look a bit fresher. Right now, D and I are thinking a nice white would clean it up a bit. This is the best image I found that shows what it might look like with the black shutters and ivory/yellow:

I would also love to strip the paint off of the porch so that the natural brick is exposed. Right now its painted a maroon color. We also want to add boxwoods and flower boxes so here's a rendering of what that might look like:

OK, maybe the window boxes are a bit much. Here's a render without all of them:

Hmm. I may like that better. Depends on how big the hydrangeas get under the windows. There is an existing window box under the bathroom window that we will definitely be utilizing this year. I like the brighter white trim. I took the liberty of making the existing concrete pathway into brick. I think it looks so much nicer! Looking online, we may be able to lay thin brick pavers right over the existing concrete. Definitely elevates the look. Brick is so much prettier than concrete.

What else could we do to the exterior to improve the curb appeal? Any ideas?

Steel Magnolia

Have you ever seen the movie "Steel Magnolias"? It's an excellent movie. A classic tear jerker. Urban dictionary defines steel magnolia as "a southern woman who is strong and independant yet very feminine." I'd like to think I am a steel magnolia. If only I was from the South. 

The reason I bring this up is because we are getting a tree cut down in our yard today. It's a pretty large tree, but nothing special and it is leaning towards the house. We figured better to be safe than sorry and cut it down before it falls onto our house in a storm. 

D and I have been talking about what to plant in it's place. I have always LOVED flowering trees. The kinds with light pink petals that cover the ground beneath them like a blanket. There's nothing prettier. Like this:

I started doing research on flowering trees that would be hardy for Minnesota winters. We are in zone 4, so I used this key piece of info and decided on a Magnolia tree. There are many different kinds of Magnolia trees, but not all are hardy in zone 4. I used the website Monrovia.com and searched through their plant catalog to narrowed to a few different types (images are from google):

Royal Star Magnolia: white flowers,  grows 10-15 ft tall

Ann Magnolia: reddish purple flowers,  grows 10-15 ft tall

Leonard Messel Magnolia: pink and white flowers,  grows 10-15 ft tall

Saucer Magnolia: white and pink flowers,  grows 20-25 ft tall

While all of these are INCREDIBLY GORGEOUS, I had envisioned a bit larger tree- like the saucer magnolia. When we informed our neighbor that we would be cutting down a tree just to give him a heads up and be neighborly, he pointed to a little tree in his yard that turned out to be an Ann Magnolia. How cool will it be to have 2 magnolia trees next to each other?! The Ann is beautiful, but pretty small. Even his tree is only about 10' tall. I can already start to see buds on it. I know it will probably take years for our tree to get as tall as the trees in the image above, but I know they will be stunning when they do. 

We have spring fever already in Minnesota and it's only January! We will have to wait until at least April to plant the tree, but until then we will keep our eyes out for the saucer magnolias. :)

UPDATE- OK, so the tree is cut down and I have to apologize to Mother Nature because I do feel guilty killing a perfectly good tree. It just wasn't worth it falling on the house at some point. We decided to take the cheapest route possible with the tree, having the arborist just basically lay it on the ground. Definitely a job to leave to a professional, even though my tree climbing husband assured me he could have done it himself. I think not. Ha. What remains of the tree is a huge mess in our yard since we decided to do all the cutting and clean up ourselves. By ourselves I mean my husband. 

Yikes. Luckily we have a good friend that is letting us borrow his chainsaw. With the tree down, it has definitely made a difference in how the house looks. It's much more visible. I think a flowering tree will look great in it's place! We may actually end up going with a smaller magnolia tree, possibly the Leonard Messel because D thinks a Saucer magnolia will be too tall. We will see what we can find come spring time. It may also be worth checking out local parks and arboretums that have magnolia trees for us to compare. 

DIY corner work bench

So I guess I was a good girl this year and Santa must really love me because he brought me a nice RIGID corded drill and a worm saw. I actually decided it would be more useful to have a miter saw so Santa was nice enough to let me return the worm saw and pick out my own miter saw. I ended up selecting the Craftsman 10" single bevel sliding compound miter saw. This thing is awesome!!

But alas, it was too large to be really functional on my tiny workbench. So I decided to make another work bench just for the miter saw (and to have extra work space). We have a utility sink in our basement that is for some reason placed about 2 feet from the wall. A very inefficient use of space. It's connected to some old pipes so I don't think it would have been easy to move. I decided this corner would be a perfect spot to build a workbench! I used some blue tape to mark the area where I wanted it to go. (Excuse our gross basement walls)

I figured giving it an angled front would allow me to more easily operate the saw without the corner of the bench stabbing my abdomen.  I started like any project, planning out the dimensions and how much material I would need. I looked to pinterest and other DIY work benches for inspiration. I decided to use particle board for the top to match the existing work bench and 2x4s for the frame. I went to HD to purchase all of my supplies for less than $50. I had to purchase a 4'x8' sheet of particle board which was pretty cheap, but I had to get it cut in half and then some because I couldn't fit it into our CRV. 

Since the area where the workbench is going is kind of cramped, I built it in the center of the laundry room and planned to move it into place after the frame was built.

I had to cut some long 2x4s so I couldn't really use the miter saw on the workbench. Santa was really nice though and let me get a miter saw stand :) Like my dad always says, "measure twice and cut once"!

Wow! Now we are really rocking! I felt super hard-core at this point lol. Apparently I didn't take many pictures of the building process, but I can guarantee there was plenty of cursing. At the least I can show you a plan of how I built it using Adobe illustrator. This program has been super awesome for my DIY projects because I am able to quickly draw things to scale.

So this is a top view of how I built the frame. The purple rectangles represent the 2x4 legs. I measured carefully so that the new workbench would be the same height as the existing work bench. I started by building the top frame, then added the legs. Notice I added cross bars to support the weight of the saw so that the particle board wouldn't sag in the middle.  I used 3" screws for everything. After I had the frame built,  I wrestled with it to get it in place in the corner of the basement. It took some maneuvering and me lifting it up over my head to the best of my abilities, but I eventually got it in place. From there, I just laid the piece of particle board on top which was cut to the same shape as the top view of the frame. I also made a shelf underneath to store my tools with the leftover particle board. I used leftover 2x4 pieces and screwed them to the insides of the feet to rest the shelf on top of. It was pretty easy! 

It worked out perfectly to fit my miter saw and store other tools. I added hook on the side to hold my clamps and air compressor hose. I was also able to fold up the portable miter saw stand and fit it under the workbench so I can easily pull it out and set it up when I need to cut larger material. 

Overall, pretty easy and fun DIY project. It was a great chance to test drive my new miter saw. I also love that its so customizable to your space- do what works best for you and how you like to work.

DIY fabric headboard

Buying an upholstered headboard can get very expensive. Making an upholstered headboard is CHEAP and EASY.  It's a super fun, quick project that you can have done in a day.

If you are redesigning a bedroom, I think a nice headboard can really set up the room. It will kick it up a couple notches and help round out the design.

There are so many options for DIY headboards and they are all so customizable which makes this an awesome project for any DIY-er.

The materials you will need for this project are:

- a sheet of plywood or other sheet material ( I actually used OSB board because it's cheaper. Some people have concerns about the glue used but I have found the smell goes away after a couple days and it hasn't been a problem)

- fabric (you can use anything that is large enough to cover at least one side of the headboard. I actually used a curtain for mine!)

- batting (the thickness will depend on how padded you want yours to be. 1-2 layers of batting over the front of the headboard should be good) I bought this at Joanns.

- a jigsaw to cut out the shape of the headboard (if you want a simple rectangular shape you can have HD or other store where you purchase the wood cut it to size) I got this at Target. It's a great tool to have for DIY projects!

- staple gun

That is basically it! Super easy and inexpensive. The first step is to determine the size of your bed. I would recommend looking up measurements of your mattress size online or measuring the width yourself. You can also adjust the height depending on your bed frame and how high you want your headboard to come up the wall.

After you have your basic size, create a template with paper or draw on the wood with the shape of your headboard. Some shape examples (as found on http://www.thriftydecorchick.com), or you can make your own!

After you have the shape you want, you really only need to do one side, then you can flip it over for the other side as shown below:

Once you have your design drawn, use your jigsaw to cut it out. You may want to have a second set of hands to help you keep the board steady while you cut. I recommend having it on a table with just the edge that needs to be cut hanging off. 

The next step is to staple on the fabric and batting. I brought the wood inside and laid the curtain on the floor and put the batting on top. 

Next, Start to stretch the fabric over the edges and staple to the wood. I tried to fold the batting over the edges of the wood so that it would look nice and smooth and you wouldn't be able to tell where the batting stopped. I ended up leaving the curtain rings on the fabric because no one would see them anyway! Make sure you staple one or two times at the top, then the bottom, then the sides and keep repeating this and going around the edges until it is secure. It's much like stretching a canvas if you have ever done that. This prevents the fabric from bunching up at any one spot and helps make it nice and tight.

And thats it! You can then attached the headboard to your wall or bed frame, but I decided just to prop it up against the wall.

We have a pretty high king size bed from Ikea so the bed was actually a bit tall for the headboard. I was initially going to attach the headboard to the wall, but since we have plaster walls I instead decided to attach wood to the bottom of the headboard to make feet. It's a little janky, but no one will see it anyway! They will just be impressed with your mad headboard-making skills! You can see how much taller the bed was in the image below.

The final look (it was a coincidence that the fabric matched the walls perfectly!):

The plus about this project is that if you ever get sick of the fabric, you can easily attach new fabric right over top! I used a striped fabric so you can see where it got a little wavy in the middle. Oh well, I can eventually cover it with new solid fabric :) Just something to be aware of when you are selecting your fabric. 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I have been on a little hiatus, but I plan to try and blog more frequently in the coming year because we have many exciting projects planned :)

I will start with a little preview of things we did and things we plan to do:

- back entry before & after- more skim coating

- wedding update with pictures :)

- entry, hallway & stairway painted & gallery wall hung

- radiator covers

- crown moulding

-  work bench DIY

I would also like to write some how to posts on painting our shutters, headboard DIY, and corn hole DIY. these are long overdue!

Some projects we are planning to do or are in progress now are:

- insulation & bats in the attic (what???!)

- refinishing the basement stairs

- preparing to finish the basement


OK, I have no excuse not to blog. I have plenty of things to blog about to keep me busy!

Stay tuned.

Kitchen Floor makeover

My favorite hobby is to make our house more beautiful, one project at a time. The kitchen floor was at the top of my list.

The floor was the one major thing I didn't like about our house when we first saw it. The flooring in the kitchen is hardwood, but the planks are wide and satined a very orange color and the don't match the flooring in the rest of the house. Honestly to me they look like sub floors. They had a lot of imperfections, nails, gaps, etc. So needless to say, they didn't exactly match the clean look of the rest of the kitchen.

The easiest, most cost effective solution we decided on was luxury vinyl plank flooring. Its basically like laminate wood flooring, only it's made out of vinyl so it's waterproof. No glue or underlayment necessary. It was pretty easy- I did it all myself. D wanted to help but I found once I got in a rhythm it was easier for one person. He helped me move the fridge though.

Here's our floor before:

So ugly right? There was hope though! We looked at flooring swatches at Home depot, then looked at Menards. Our goal was to find something that was a similar type of wood (Oak I think?) in the rest of the house with a similar tone. We ended up polling on Facebook and deciding between the light and the dark in the below picture (ignore my toes) :

We ultimately decided on the light because we thought it would look best with our lighter wood cabinets and white cabinets. Of course the animals were around for the whole installation process (check out my big furry fat guy in the sink)

I started to lay down the flooring to see how it would look and honestly, I wasn't so sure at first. It was such a big difference. But D reassured me so I carried on. I started the night before installation by removing all of the shoe molding and cabinet trim and cleaning the floor well to remove dust. I let the floors dry overnight so I could start the next morning.

The next day, I started to  lay down the flooring. I started in the left hand corner, which was our entryway. This way, any oddly shaped areas at the end would be against the wall and behind the refrigerator. All done with the entryway and it was looking awesome!

These were literally the only tools I needed. Installing this stuff was pretty easy. 

Just to show a difference between the old floor and new floor. Daaaang.

And the final pictures!

Final transition between kitchen & dining room. I restained the trim strip to match. 

The project was one of the best yet and gave us the biggest bag for our buck. All in all, I think we spent around $250 for our new floor and we love it! Next step, crown moulding :)

New Portfolio!

I have a new portfolio that I have created for work! It was pretty easy to put together and includes a few of my Target projects that have hit stores.

Check it out!

Portfolio