Blanket Ladder

   Hey everyone! Sorry I've been a little MIA lately but I wanted to share with you a little project I did back in January that I am so in love with.

 

A while back ago my mom had given me a couple quilts that my great grandmother had made. They had been sitting in a cedar chest for a long time and she asked if I would want then and I said of course. Well I knew I would want to eventually display them and what better way then a blanket ladder. This was such a simple build and a perfect way to display old blankets.

 

 

All I used was 1x3's and some 1' dowel rods.

 

 

I bought 2-1x3x8's and cut them down to 7'

Then the dowel rods are 18" and there are 6 of them total (2 aren't shown)

 

 

Then every 12' I used a 1' paddle bit and drilled holes where the rods would go. I only drilled down about .25"

 

 

For me it was easier to stain everything first then build. I put a little bit of wood glue in each hole then stuck the dowel rods in and repeated for the other side. After everything was in place I still nailed in a little finishing nail on each side of the 1x3 where the rod was just to secure it in place even more.

 

 

Then whala you now have a blanket ladder. I chose to just keep mine stained but there are many different ways you can make it look depending on what you are going for. If I get tired of just the stain I plan on painting it a white then sanding it down a lot to achieve that old look.

 

 

So simple anyone can make one!

 

 

halloween wood sign

   Hey everybody!....Sorry I've been MIA for a while. My youngest son and I went on a beach trip last week with some girlfriends and we had so much fun. He got to play with his good little friends and they had a blast playing in the sand and swimming in the pool.

 

   But now on to Halloween. I love to decorate for Halloween! Every year I try and decorate a little different and add something new. I love doing wood signs using my Cameo and that's exactly what I used for this project. I've done a couple other wood and paint projects with my Cameo but nothing to this extent. It's always been a "one word" project and this one is an entire phrase.

 

   I went on the Silhouette store and found a cute little Halloween phrase by Lori Whitlock. It was only $.99 for personal use only. I bought it and downloaded it into the software.

 

   Now there are a couple of ways to go about doing this so do what you feel best. Because I knew I wanted every other "rhyme" to be a different color I decided to go ahead and start off by painting the entire board black. I am using scrap wood so this one was already cut at 13.5" and this board was a 10" wide board (really 9.25" wide).

 

 

The next thing I did was cut out my phrase. Now I screwed this up somehow so I had to recut "tales of" and "spooky sight" so that's why it looks like this. Then I peeled off all my letters making sure to leave the centers of the O's and A's ect....

 

 

 

 

 Then I covered it in contact paper. That's what I use as my transfer paper and it works good for me for a fraction of the cost.

 

 

Then I pealed the white backing off the vinyl and applied it to my board. Sorry no before picture of that part. Then I painted two coats of each color and let it dry completely.

 

 

After that was done I peeled off the vinyl and gave the whole thing a sanding for that worn look and put it on my foyer table along with more of my Halloween décor.

 

 

 

It had a little bleeding but that doesn't bother me :)

 

 

 

 I loved making this one that I hope to do one for Thanksgiving and for Christmas.

 

 

 

 

I have started working on one for Christmas that I plan on putting in my Etsy shop Rusticology that I will share latter with y'all :) But for tonight this is all and now I am going to finish catching up on CSI:NY on Netflix

(sorry it's a little crooked) 

 

 

 

Goodnight all!

old & new

   So I've been really busy with stuff around the house lately on top of football practice, football games and just life in general. I wanted to share with you today before and after pictures of the outsides of both our old and new house. This is just one of those posts to just show you some older projects while I work on my master bath.

  The house we lived in before was a house that was given to us by my parents as our wedding gift. It used to be my grandparents home until they passed away and my parents kept it in the family renting it out over the years. They gave it to us about 5 years ago knowing we were going to sell to get our kids in a better school district on top of the fact we needed a bigger home. It was a cute little 1400 lv sf home with 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bath, den, kitchen and a sunroom. I was really sad to sell because this was also the home my dad grew up in and the house my kids started growing up in. The entire time I lived there, which was even before they gave it to us, I always wanted to paint the brick....it was PINK!! Yes PINK...so of course we put it on the market and our second relator suggested that we paint the brick...so we did. Here is a blurry pic of the before....this is actually the picture our first realtor took....

      And here is the after...don't mind the plywood backboard on the basketball goal....

 

 

   I was so happy with the outcome that I almost didn't want to move...also I just notice that the front door wasn't painted all the way when I took this picture. We painted the shutters and doors a light sage green and the brick is actually kind of like an antique white, it has a hint of light cream in it.

 

  Now on to our new home.....it's 2500 lv sf with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, kitchen w/ breakfast area, dinning room (that we use as a study/office) den and a big bonus room for the boys. Here is a before when we first moved in..... 

 

 

  

 

  I knew I would want to eventually paint the shutters, front door and garage door. It finally happened about a year ago and I could not be happier. We also ripped out all those bushes and got a new roof. I am now so much happier with the outside! And now the updated exterior....

 

 

 

 



It doesn't feel so dark anymore. Eventually we plan on planting some more stuff in the flower bed but right now it's fine the way it is. Now on to do some more painting in the bathroom...come back to see the end result.

 



 

Master Bath Sneak peak

     So I've been a little busy lately finishing up our master bedroom and bathroom for the second time. Nothing structural is changing, just new paint. When we bought our house I knew I was not going to be keeping our bathroom cabinets with the stain look. This is part of our bathroom after we painted it a light blue/grey but before we painted the cabinets black (except the side, I had to test it out). Very plain Jane to me.



  I had been seeing framed mirrors all over Pinterest and knew that I wanted to do it. We bought 5" baseboard and put it up and instantly fell in love. Sorry for the horrible picture. By this time I had started painting it and had taken all the doors and drawer fronts off to paint.

  Framing the mirror made it go from builder grade to a custom look. This really was an easy project and we ended up doing it in all of our bathrooms. This is what the frame looked like after it was painted.

 


  And here it was all done

  I was so proud of myself with how it turned out....now fast forward to today and it looks nothing like this anymore. I got tired of all the blue/grey downstairs so I started repainting it all a light cream. I knew once I started painting everything I was not going to keep the black on the cabinets or frame so I have always liked the sage color and wanted to try it out. So here is a sneak peak of what it will look like. This new sage color is also what I'm painting my kitchen cabinets in.

 Again, not the greatest picture but it will work. I can't wait until it's all done and can share the end result!

bathtub makeover

    So in a couple of days I will have a teenager! I don't know what to do with myself.....I'm honestly in shock. But I wanted to share my little bathtub makeover I did a while back. I didn't really have any plans for this when we moved in but after a while I started thinking to myself I wanted to spruce up the tub a bit. After we did the kitchen we had enough bead board for me to do this project. This isn't a tutorial because once again like the kitchen, you just do it how you want based on your tub. Before, we had that fake plastic marble looking stuff...I wish I had a full before picture with it all still up but here it is with the front and back wall still attached.

 

 

   All I did was tear it down.

 

 

 

 

   Then I attached the cut bead board with liquid nail. On the top and sides I attached a piece of molding that I think is made for stuff that's thin...it's like it sits on top of the bead board so then is flush with the wall and with the front of the bead board.

 

 

 

 

  After that I built a frame for the front and attached the bead board from behind then liquid nailed it to the studs of the tub. After everything was in place I caulked EVERYTHING with a caulk that is made for tubs so it is water and mold resistant. And sorry for the horrible pictures, it was extremely bright the day I finished and I have no clue how to really edit pictures.

 

 

 

 

 But I love the finished results and how it transformed the space.

 

Bead board backsplash

   When we bought our house I always knew I wanted to do something to the kitchen to lighten it up. It's so dark in there with the cabinets and the darker tile, plus the light they have in the kitchen part should have been the other way so it went parallel with the cabinets. In that back corner where my mixer is, it's so dark. My husband would not let me paint the cabinets right now so doing a lighter backsplash was an alternative.

Here is a before picture

   There isn't really a tutorial on this since everyone's kitchen is different. You just kind of have to cut the bead board as you need to fit your space. But I can tell you how I had to do it because there is one part that you might have to do the same in your space.

   On the sink side we had to remove all the tile on the wall. The reason being is, after you put your bead board up you still have to put a baseboard (if you want) to give it that finished look in my opinion. Well the thickness of the bead board and the baseboard together will most likely not fit in between your wall and the back of your sink. On the other side of the kitchen we just left the tile up.

  All we did was cut our bead board with a jig saw and attached it with liquid nail. I actually pushed cinder blocks against it so it would adhere better.

 

 

After it dries in place I put the base board on, also with liquid nails. After all that I caulk the seams, the top where the bead board meets the underside of the upper cabinets, all the ends and the top of the base board. When that dries you just have to put a couple coats of paint. Tada then it'd done....don't mind the horrible pictures.

 

 

 

   I am in love with how it came out. Eventually I will also paint the cabinets. I'm thinking white on the uppers and a light sage on the lowers :)

Leaning Chalkboard

   Well my oldest three boys start back to school tomorrow and can not believe summer is over. I know they are excited to go back and see all their friends again! I have one who is starting his last year in Jr. High, one who is starting his first year in Jr. High and one that is starting his last year in Elementary. But next year our youngest will start Kindergarten and that will be a bucket full of emotions :(

   Now on to the leaning chalkboard....We used to have a big chalkboard wall upstairs when we moved in that I spruced up a bit from the previous owners by framing it with wood (picture below), but last year that all came down and was painted over. Since then I have been wanting to incorporate another one but knew I did not want it painted on the wall again. Well two good friends of mine came over the other night and one of them brought a chalkboard to do for her daughters first day at dance and it came out so cute! It got me thinking that I wanted something similar. So I went to Hobby Lobby and didn't like anything they had so I came up with the idea that I would make my own. I knew what I wanted, big and stained, but wanted to check out Pinterest anyway....There I found several other people who had already done one in the vision that I was going for. When you walk in my front door that wall is one of the first things you see. Before this there was my youngest sons table and chairs with the school stuff I have been teaching him. I didn't like how that was one of the first things you saw so all of that went in his bedroom.

 

 



I am very pleased with how it came out and you can make one too!

Supplies I used:

chalkboard paint
3 - 1x6x6
Kreg jig
1.25" pocket hole screws
4x8 sheet of lauan
stain
paint brush or roller
miter saw
small finishing nails
hammer

The completed size of this is 34"x79.75". Don't forget to take all precautions and build carefully.

For the lauan I had Lowes cut it at 70"x24"
2 - 1x6 @ 34"
2 - 1x6 @ 69"

Next you want to drill your pocket holes. For this frame I drilled them into the two short pieces. I did 3 on each end as pictured below.

Next you want to build your frame.

I forgot to take a picture of it stained before I started painting the chalkboard on the lauan but I'm sure you know what it would look like. Also because this was going to be leaning, I stained both sides of the frame. Now in this picture it's the backside of the frame that I have the lauan on to paint. It was way to hot outside to paint so this was the only way to do it. I put two coats of chalkboard paint on to insure you could not see the wood. Now, I used a paintbrush but would highly recommend using a small roller, you can see brush marks on mine.

Now what you want to do when it's dry is flip over the lauan and tack it in to place. I put a lot, like every 3 inches to make sure when I flipped it over there were no gaps between the 1x6 and lauan. Also since I have mine leaning I used regular black paint to paint the backside of the lauan. And there you go, a big leaning chalkboard! I plan on writing quotes and cute sayings on mine, also things to go with the different seasons or other events :)

Now I'm going to get things ready for the boys for their first day back to school!