2011 February

Déjavu – February in Review

February 2011 was the month of love! The month that I challenged you to Fall in Love with Your Home. These are the highlights from February:

Intro: A brief little story about how we fell in love with our home before we lived in it.

Painted Smooth Ceilings
Why your ceilings should be scraped smooth or at least painted an ultra-bright white. More Light Reflected = Better Mood (Amoré)

Removing the Blinds
Reclaim up to 25% of your natural light by strategically hanging blinds and curtains or removing them altogether.

Making an Entrance – Spruce Up Your Entryway for You!
Why not create an entryway you are glad to come home to. This is the door you use more frequently to enter your home. Make your home welcome you with open arms.

1,000 Followers! Woo Hoo!
Hard to believe that I have over 1,000 followers. But, it’s true!

Love Your Home, Not The Stuff! Taming the Clutter
Those small piles, knick knacks and items left out can create visual clutter. It is distracting to your eyes and you mind. Some quick de-cluttering tips.

I LOVE Decorating with Books – Guest Post with Honey We’re Home
Love your books, but worried they are cluttering your home? Megan is here to save the day! I love her rainbow bookshelf.

Creating Seasonal Vignettes
Learn how to create attractive vignettes on your mantle, table tops and more.

Isn’t It Amazing What a Little Paint Can Do?
How to choose paint colors to evoke a mood and how to preview them in your room or on your home without lifting a paint brush!

1,000 Follower Giveaway Details!
Enter to win Pretty Handy Girl in a Box. A celebration of reaching 1,000 followers.

New Light Fixtures to Light Up Your House Love
I’m sharing with you my secret to finding affordable lighting for my home. And then sharing a tutorial for installation.

Creating an Outdoor Oasis – Guest Post from Jess at Frugal with a Flourish
Create an outside paradise with these easy to build trellis planter boxes.

Adding Moulding to Your Staircase – Guest Post from Emily the Decor Chick
You have to see this fabulous staircase makeover. Emily show us how she installed picture frame moulding on her staircase.

Storage and Organization in Your Mudroom – Guest Post from High Heels and a Hammer
A mudroom makeover and ideas for building your own bench and shelf for storage. Plus, a linen covered message board.

Faux Granite Countertops – Guest Post by Creative Kristi
Have ugly laminate counterops? Check out how Kristi transformed hers to look like granite for only $30!

Changing Out Your Pillows and Throws for a New Look
You can create a new look you’ll love in 5 minutes or less just by changing out your pillows, throws or other “soft” accessories in your room.

Covering an Unsightly View – Guest Post by Sandra from Sawdust and Paper Scraps
Have an ugly view out your window? Sandra shows us how to disguise the view and still let light in.

Decorating with Plants – Guest Post by Sand & Sisal
Who knew that plants could improve your mood? But, it’s true, these potted friends breathe life into our homes.

Creating a Focal Point – Guest Post by Two Story Cottage
Sometimes it isn’t your decor that pulls a room together, it is creating a focal point.

A special thank you to all my guest bloggers this month! I couldn’t have provided you with all these resources without their help!

Megan – Honey We’re Home

Jess – Frugal with a Flourish

Emily – Decor Chick

Kristen – High Heels and a Hammer

Kristi – Creative Kristi

Sandra – Sawdust and Paper Scraps

Kim – Sand & Sisal

Erin – Two Story Cottage

Coming up next month: More DIY tutorials, A special pass to view the Space Shuttle Launch Discovery, and more!

2 Comments
Filed Under: Month in Review

Creating a Focal Point – Guest Post by Two Story Cottage

28 Feb posted by Brittany Bailey

As we say goodbye to February, I have one final guest blogger for you. It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Erin from Two Story Cottage.

If you haven’t been in Erin’s Two Story Cottage, she gives her readers a warm open invitation to view her beautiful home.

Two Story Cottage Dining Room

Reading her blog is like leafing through the pages of a home design magazine! And she shares her decorating secrets with you! Her home can be described in one word, GORGEOUS! Be sure to accept her invitation to view her home today.

Please welcome Erin from Two Story Cottage.

Dear Friends of Pretty Handy Girl,

Hi! I’m Erin @ Two Story Cottage. I’m a catalogaholic who enjoys art and all things cheerful in decor. As a Mom of two little ones I’m working to achieve balance between my creative side and my responsibilities at home. I’m a DIY newbie so I’m a total work in progress!

Today is the last day of “Falling in Love with your Home” so I’m hoping that by now you are smitten. If not maybe creating a focal point will tip you over the edge. The goal of a focal point from a design perspective is to draw the viewer’s eye to a central point. Do you have a room in your home that needs some “umph”? Or maybe you are looking to focus attention away from something else? Creating a focal point may be your answer.

There are many great ways to accomplish this! I’ll show you some ways I have created focal points in my home.

A Focal Point Using Color
We have a TV over the fireplace in our family room which I like to draw attention away from. To do that I hung a large, bold painting on the perpendicular wall. It draws your eye away from the TV wall for sure!

A Focal Point to Ground the Room
We have a living room/ dining room combination that felt like a bowling alley. To help define the living room I created a large focal point by adding a fireplace ( an ambitious project for a DIY beginner like me). The addition of the fireplace served two purposes. It took attention away from the looong space but also served as a central point to arrange furniture around. I painted it white and used glaze to antique it for contrast so that it would stand out a little more while staying within my neutral palette.
A Focal point to distract from the obvious

My desk in the breakfast room is large and seemed to stick out like a sore thumb in our very open home. An unintended focal point! However, I did NOT want to get rid of my workspace so I decided to take attention away from its’ purpose. I took away all of my obvious office supplies and utilized the shelves to decorate it as if it were a buffet. I also mounted the hutch to the wall and added Ikea cabinets
underneath to store all my clutter.

A Focal Point to Create Interest
My dining room is very neutral and I love it but it needed something to jazz it up a little. Enter my accent wall. A few stripes and decoupaged plates took it from barely noticeable to “wow”.

Thanks for letting me guest post, Brittany. You have definitely empowered me to find my inner DIY skills!

Thank you Erin! I hope you enjoyed her post on Focal Points. I realize I have some work to do in a few of my rooms now. How about you?

This concludes the “Falling in Love with Your Home” series at Pretty Handy Girl.

This is also your last chance to enter my 1,000 follower giveaway. Be sure to enter HERE,
because I will be choosing a winner on March 1st!

3 Comments
Filed Under: Falling in Love with Your Home, Guests

Decorating with Plants – Guest Post from Sand & Sisal

26 Feb posted by Brittany Bailey

Today, I have another special guest for you. Kim from Sand & Sisal is here to share with us some tips for using plants to decorate and improve our homes.

And the best news is that you don’t need a green thumb to care for many of these. She breaks down each plant’s water and light needs.

If you haven’t been to Kim’s blog, you need to surf on over there right now (get it? Sand & Sisal, Surf?! Ha, ha, I’m so witty. One of my favorite projects she has tackled was renovating her 1949 Bathroom.

Bathroom Before

Bathroom After

Amazing transformation isn’t it?! Okay, now everyone kick back, and enjoy a guest post from my friend Kim at Sand & Sisal.

Hello everyone! I’m Kim from Sand & Sisal, and I’m so glad to be guest posting for Brittany’s “Fall in Love with Your Home” series today. Brittany and I are southern girls and actually live only a few hours away from each other, but we met through blogging and were Twitter friends. I was thrilled to meet her face to face at the Blissdom 2011 Conference held at Opryland in Nashville, TN.

The Opryland Hotel has 9 acres of lush indoor gardens and even though there was snow outside the tropical foliage and flowers brought a touch of paradise that melted any vacationer’s wintery chill. Below are some pictures I took in their gorgeous Conservatory.

Springtime (thankfully) is approaching fast here in the South, but you can have a taste of spring by bringing a bit of the tropics indoors! One of my favorite plants to have around the house, and had also covered Opryland’s gardens, is the Peace Lily. Its lush green foliage, beautiful white blooms, and low maintenance make the Peace Lily a household favorite.

The Peace Lily requires low light and should be watered to keep soil moist but allow the soil to dry out between watering. The Peace Lily is one of the top 10 plants that clean the air in your home. They are known to reduce formaldehyde and carbon monoxide levels.

Do you have an empty corner that just needs something? I have several! The Majesty Palm, another “clean air plant” is what you need!

Majesty palms thrive on bright light and minimal water but I have found they do quite well in moderate light. I have several that are all on the north side of my home. Water these palms once a week but make sure they are not sitting in water or they will yellow and drop dead quickly.

Need a pop of color? The Flamingo Flower comes in red, pink, white, or lavender. It blooms year round and requires medium light with moist soil. I have found the Flamingo Flower to be an easy plant with a showy blooming performance.

Another plant with bright, bold color is the Croton. Croton’s start out dark green but will develop bold color as they mature and are allowed to have bright light and cooler temperatures. So if your Croton is lacking in color, then move it to a bright window but don’t let it get overheated. It loves to be moist so this one requires watering at least once a week. The Croton is another top “clean air plant”.

Plants not only help clean the oxygen in our homes but add a sense of tranquility and comfort to our indoor spaces. Choose an empty corner or a lonely tabletop and add lush plant, and I promise, you’ll smile, and maybe just breathe a bit better!

Kim

Thank you Kim! I love decorating with plants! They offer such life and texture to my vignettes.

After reading Kim’s post, I’m ready to try my thumb at a bigger species. So, I’m off to the nursery to buy one of those gorgeous majesty palms. I had not idea I could grow one of them in my home.

How about you? Do you have any plants you love to decorate with?

9 Comments
Filed Under: Falling in Love with Your Home, Guests, Plants, vignettes

Covering Unsightly Window Views – Guest Post from Sawdust and Paper Scraps

25 Feb posted by Brittany Bailey

I hope you’ve enjoyed the posts on “Falling in Love with Your Home” in February. We’re in the home stretch (yes, pun intended) now. Today I have my roomie from Blissdom, Sandra from Sawdust and Paper Scraps. She and I love our power tools, and LOVE to build things. I think it would be a blast to work on a collaborative project one day. She’s definitely my soul sister.

Please welcome the lovely Sandra from Sawdust and Paper Scraps who is going to show you how to disguise an ugly view!

Good morning Pretty Handy Girl fans! I’m Sandra from Sawdust and Paper Scraps, here to share an easy and inexpensive project to transform and beautify a window with a less-than-stellar-view!

(Or a window where you want privacy without blinds or drapes like a bathroom or shower.)

We have a basement and even after I added casing, trim and paint to the inside of my window… it was still really unattractive- outside!

So I went to Lowe’s and bought a $14 roll of frosted glass vinyl window cling!
Before installing, I made sure my window was as clean as possible. I had to clean AND scrape off some paint because SOMEONE was a little sloppy! (uhem-me)

I installed it on one window by myself and it was something like a scene from an I Love Lucy rerun. Vinyl flopping down over my head, sliding off one side while I was trying to smooth out the other…
Definitely easier to install with 2 people. But do-able with only one!

The instructions for the stuff I bought said to spray the window and the sticky side of the vinyl (with a liquid that you can purchase separately. But, you can also use a soapy water mixture in a spray bottle). You have to peel off the backing which I did just a little at a time while person 2 sprayed and then stick it to the window.

After you put the vinyl on the window, use a utility knife to trim off the excess and a credit card or little squeegie to smooth out the wrinkles and push the extra liquid out from under the vinyl. While it’s wet, you can pull it off and reposition it- so keep it all wet until you have it placed just right. Then let it dry. That’s it!

Easy.

I think it’s a big improvement for relatively little cost or effort.

This particular room is my daughter’s playroom so I also built some shutters,

a wall of storage,

and a playhouse. If you’re looking for another project to whip up!

But it all started with the window-well.

And a little vinyl cling!

Thanks for having me Brittany! And thanks for letting me share with you all one thing I did to help me “Fall in Love with My HOME!”

Thank you Sandra! Great tutorial. I love how easy and quick that solution was. If you haven’t been to Sandra’s blog, you need to zoom over there now. She is the Queen of built-ins and decorative mouldings. Plus, she has just enough crafts to keep you creative!

9 Comments
Filed Under: DIY, Falling in Love with Your Home, Guests

Changing Out Your Pillows for a New Look

24 Feb posted by Brittany Bailey

Winter is almost over, and not a moment too soon! I have been hanging onto my Christmas cards and warm fuzzy pillows and throw (from Pier One). But, I have been feeling the Winter blues. So, I decided to make a quick change to the line up in our living room. (Hey, Pretty Handsome Guy, did you like how I used a football term?! ha, ha.)

By the way, speaking of Pretty Handsome Guy, today is his birthday! He’s the big 4-0! Woohoo! I have four months to tease him about being 40 until my counter ticks over too. Then I’ll have to shut up about it.

Okay, sorry for the diversion, back to the topic at hand, falling in love with your room by changing out pillows.

Couch Before - Christmas Pillows and Throw

Sometimes falling in love with a room again is simply a matter of changing out your fabrics or pillows, throws, place mats, runners, a rug, etc. (Especially if you have an old couch that you are hiding under a slipcover.)

I had a few minutes without the kids the other day and suddenly found myself at the back of Steinmart in the pillow section. Within 15 minutes I had grabbed several discounted pillows and was running for the register before I had to pick up Pretty Handsome Boy #2. (Anyone else been in that mad dash to the register using up EVERY single minute before it is time to reclaim your children? Yeah, I figured I was the only one.)

When I got home, I performed transformation magic on the two chairs and sofa in our living room.

Wingback Chair Before

Wing Back Chair After

Club Chair Before

Oh – you eagle eye you – Yes, I know you just saw that pillow in the wingback chair above. I just moved it. FREE transformation Baby!

Club Chair After

Couch Before

Couch After (Throw from Club Chair Before)

Couch After - Close Up Pillows

As you can see in the above picture, I FINALLY put away all my Christmas cards that were displayed on the shutters in the background. So, how about your home? Do you have a room that could benefit from just a few new fabrics? Try it, this is the quickest way to transform a room.

I hope you will check out some other ways to “Fall in Love with Your Home Series”. in February!

6 Comments
Filed Under: accessories, decor, Falling in Love with Your Home, Pillows, Pretty Handsome Guy