Baseboards in the Dinning Room

The last time Richard was in the dinning room with tools and intentions of being a handyman was way back last November when he was setting up our Snow Village table.

If you look closely at the dinning room you might notice something amiss.  An up-close look at the baseboards, or lack of them, is what we have been dealing with since we put our new wood floors in.

Why we hadn't done it was a combination of not having or making the time and a bit of fear of taking on a big project that requires skills that frankly neither of us had any experience with.

Before

After

Well, with family coming in town for Meg's graduation we finally put aside everything, borrowed a miter saw and a few tips from a friend, and got to work. The corners proved to be the trickiest.

I have to say that it can be a little tense and stressful helping someone do something that he knows little about, but somehow as a team we managed to get it done without any casualties.

Thank goodness he bought extra baseboards since there were several mistakes, on both of our parts.  We had to just learn by trial and error and I had to occasionally bite my lip!

I need to paint them next but for now I am just happy to have baseboards again.  We hope to eventually replace all our baseboards downstairs with the same ones we did in the dinning room, taller and made of actual wood!

Of course, Richard is not in any hurry to start that!

Making a Front Door Wreath

I'm all about easy so making this wreath had to be quick and simple.  I started by gathering the items needed...

flowers, a wreath, reindeer moss, wire cutters, and a glue gun.

To begin, I tucked and glued the moss around the wreath.  Then, I took my largest flowers, (hydrangeas) and glued them around the wreath.  I pictured the wreath as a clock and attached them at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock.

Next, I took the smaller flowers and glued them in between the hydrangeas until the wreath was filled. 

So when I was done, the final product looked like this...

Now it's ready for the front door...

Kitchen Valances

Yesterday I began the task of hanging the valances sewn from a McCall's pattern sometime ago.  As you can see from the picture below my kitchen eating area was less than cozy.  Long ago, I had tab curtains hanging in my kitchen but wanted a more tailored look so I took them down and my kitchen has remained as pictured since.

This is what the valances looked like before they were hung.  I needed to run an iron over them to get the wrinkles out from being stored away for too long. 

To get a custom made look I had to attach the valances to plywood boards, which I purchased from Home Depot and had covered with material using a staple gun.

This was the tricky part of this project.  I first pinned the valances to the boards, making and spacing pleats evenly apart.  Below is what an attached valance looked like.

The pleats needed ironing to stay put.  You'll notice the top of the board looks unfinished, but that's alright since it will not be seen. 

Then it was time to attach the valances to the wall. I used corner braces again purchased at Home Depot.

I measured and drilled the braces in the middle of the boards and on the ends of each.

Getting the valances attached to the boards on the wall was a little bit of a challenge, however, with help from my husband, my measuring tape and a level the job got done!

Looking better already!

The pleats are still not lying completely flat so I will probably steam them later this week.

But for now, I'm happy.  Next on my list is to make cafe curtains to hang below the valances!

Pantry Makeover

I thought I should try and get one more New Year's resolution goal accomplished before returning to work so I spent my last days of  my vacation cleaning out our pantry and reorganizing it. 

Here is what I use to see when I opened my pantry door:

As you can see I had quite a big task ahead of me.  

The first thing I did was empty the entire pantry. I put the items in three different groups; items to return to the pantry, items to find a new place for and items to get rid of.

As you can see there was a lot of stuff in our pantry to go through and sort. I tried to group items together into different categories. I also checked expiration dates and am embarrassed to say that I had to throw a bunch of stuff out.

It took forever but I finally had an empty pantry!

It needed a good scrubbing and some paint, which I did next.

  Then it was off to Target to get some items to help organize the things going back in.

I found containers made by Snapware to put dry goods in.  They range in price from $6 - $10 depending on the size.  They are airtight and stackable. 

I also bought some baskets which were only $3 for the large size and $2 for the small.  They are stackable as well.

I used the plastic three-tier can shelves I already had to organize the canned goods.  I haven't seen these around since I bought them a couple of years ago but I did find you can buy metal ones similar to mine at Target  for around $8.  I used sticky notes to help figure out what should go where.

I also bought two turntables for bottled items for about $5 each.

The last thing I had that helped organize my pantry was a spice rack that hangs on the door.

It took parting with some things, finding new places for some others, and a lot of time organizing and reorganizing but here is what I see now when I open our pantry door:

All I have left to do is label the shelves, baskets and containers so everyone knows where everything goes.

I will also be taking a trip to the grocery store soon to restock the shelves since they're a little bare now.

Next on my list to organize are my kitchen cabinets...wish me luck! 

Lampshade Makeover

One of my resolutions for this new year is to invest more time in adding some decorative touches around our house.  We have lived in our current home for eight years and it has been some time since I made any changes and I think the time has come.  So, I am taking baby steps toward doing so.  This past week I took a look at the lamps that sit on our entryway and decided to begin there.  So, I recovered the lampshades and feel like if I can do it, anyone can!  Here is what the lamp looked like before.  Not terrible but I didn't like how the base was painted (crackled with gold) and I felt like the lampshades were a little boring.

First thing I did was remove the old trim.

I then measured the old trim to know how much new trim I needed to buy.

The material I used to recover the lampshades is actually from an old pillow that I had kept because I liked the material and pattern.

I made a pattern and cut out enough panels for both lamps.

I used fabric glue to adhere the panels to the old face fabric of the lampshade.  Most sites I looked at for guidance recommended removing the old face fabric, however I couldn't due to the fact that it was sewn to the lining.  Since it was white it didn't cause a problem.

I took a quick trip to JoAnn's Fabric and purchased trim and once home began gluing the trim to the new face fabric.  The glue I used stayed sticky long enough to position and reposition trim as needed. 

Then I glued the trim with fringe to the top and bottom of the lampshade.

Tomorrow I plan to repaint the lamp bases for a whole new look.

To  see some more of my projects check out the following posts:

pantry makeover  

kitchen valances

front door wreath