And the winner of the 2013 saddest un-christmas christmas ornament is...

this amazing creation from West Elm.

Can you guess what animal it is?

It's the same colour as a Zeigler hot dog with the face of a pig.  Clearly it can only be one thing, a fox!  And it can be yours for only $4.  Ha, it had me laughing for hours.  I'm all for hand crafted but seriously West Elm!

How about choosing this little cutie from Etsy instead.  Ah, much better!

Kate

xxx

Holidays are coming!

Can you believe Christmas is less than 3 weeks away??!!  Time for panic buying Christmas presents - keep your gift receipts people!

For the 5th year in the row I dusted off our sad little 5ft tree.  By the time I had attached all of the branches, there were more papery pine needles on the floor than on the tree.  It had more than a little of the Charlie Browns about it!  There was only one thing for it, I hot footed it to Target and picked up a half price 7 footer.  Weirdly it didn't look that big in the shop, but in our living room it is a complete whopper!  As in, I had to move the furniture to fit it in, whopper!

When it comes to Christmas decorations I'm more of a buy rather than make.  Each year I have great intentions of crafting my ornaments from string and bits of twig (or something like that) and each year I completely run out of time.

Festooning our tree this year we have a London bus.

Some cute string ornaments that were from the Michaels dollar section last year.

And some vintage style glass ornaments from Target.

I used some glittery gift boxes to jazz up the mantle, along with some white ceramic accessories that I already had around the house.  The white window frame was only $5 from Habitat for Humanity and was the perfect height for hanging a feathery wreath.

And of course no Christmas mantle would be complete without a teeny tiny Santa.

Kate

xxx

Lime Chair

And the newest member of our household is this little beauty:

I'd been eyeing this chair on the Target website for weeks.  It went from regular price, to sale price, to clearance, to gone!!  Ugh, don't you hate it when you wait too long to buy something then it's no longer available.  I know, I know, 1st world problems! 

So when I saw a stack of them at our local Southeastern Salvage for only $50 I knew one of them had to be mine.  It was super easy to put together: plop seat on base.  And it's really comfy too.

Kate

xxx

Runner Runner!

Can it really be nearly 2 months since my last post??!!  Where does the time go!  In short it's been filled with work, a surprise trip to Vegas, a not so surprise trip to England, and finally some booth space.  The booth is only just beginning to take shape so I'll post some pics later this week.  For anyone in Birmingham it's at Urban Suburban in Crestline.

It's been a little quiet around here on the jazzing up the house front.  Sorry about that folks, but we have made a few small updates.

I nabbed this black and white striped runner from Target the other day.  I can't remember the exact price, but it was under $20, which seemed like a real steal.

It's a little Beetlejuice, humbug, Halloween-ish, but I really love it.

For a cheapo, it's surprisingly heavy duty. 

Kate

xxx

Headboard History

Happy Monday, and Happy Autumn!  Today I wanted to share the transformation of my $30 head board.  This is how it looked when I first brought it home from a local flea market.

After an allover coat of cream, this is how it has looked for the past year.

It seemed to be the perfect candidate for a chevron paint pattern given that the wood was already carved into that shape - so no measuring or taping needed, yippee!

I used the existing cream as one chevron colour, and picked a colour 2 shades darker than the wall for the second chevron.  I wanted to make sure the tone would work in the room, so using a colour on the same paint chip was the easy option.  It only took a couple of coats and it was evenly covered.

It's like a little hidden surprise when you lay the pillows down, and is a much more interesting than it being in one colour.

 

Kate

xxx

Guest Room Before and After

It's fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinished!  Ok, so the ugly black ceiling fan is still up, but everything else is D.O.N.E!  About a week later than planned, our Guest Room makeover is complete.

Sit back, because this post is pretty photo heavy.

The bedding was from Ross, lamps from JC Penney, throw from TJ Maxx, nightstands from Target and crazy cat pillow from H&M.

I've had these 2 wall shelves sitting in a cupboard for months, so it was great to finally get them on the wall.

I mixed some vintage family items with thrift shop finds and a few new pieces.

The camera was my Grandads, the print was from the Christmas Tree Shop (for only $4!) and the little bowl was from a thrift shop.

You can just about see the newly painted headboard behind the pillows.  I left 2 of the panels in the cream, and painted the rest 2 shades darker than the wall colour.

I tried to add something to read and a place to put rings or coins or watches on each nightstand.

And of course no nightstand would be complete without a felt owl.

Can you believe my mum made this?  Love him!

Every time I see this pillow it makes me laugh.

And now for a good old before and after.



And after!

Kate

xxx

Finishing up

If you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen that the curtains in the guest room are finally up.  Here's a sneak peak at the texture - can you believe they were only $6 a panel from Lowes?  I couldn't make them for that!  The curtain rod was a steal for only $10 at Ross.  Somehow I always find good deals there, despite the fact that their shelves are usually half empty.

We've also had a new queen mattress delivered for the master (thank you Macys Labour day sale).  Look at how ridiculously tall the bed is now, ha!  You can't even see the nightstand because it's so high.  Poor Murph man needs a pole vault to get on there.  Seriously though, we'll be removing the box spring this weekend to take it back down to a normal height. 

We moved the old mattress from the master into the guest room (which is sooooo close to being done).  I have professional supervision arriving this weekend (ie my father in law) for the great 2013 fan switcheroo, one more coat on the headboard and I'm calling it.  Pics to follow on Monday.

Have a great weekend - and if you live in Birmingham check out the annual Art Walk downtown.

Kate

xxx

Living it up!

So how was your Labor Day?  I'm officially starting the campaign for a 3 day weekend at least once a month - who's with me?

Our Labour Day weekend meant having friends over for the first college football game of the season.  And that also meant we had a massive tidy - so I quickly whizzed round and snapped some shots while the place was looking halfway decent.  I've shown you bits and pieces of this room recently, so I thought it was about time we had a look at how everything has come together.

So here is where it all started - our hot dog family room (mustard and ketchup!) we inherited from the previous owners:

And here it is now.

My favorite piece in the whole room is the DIY Union Jack coffee table.  See more of it's journey from $30 craigslist find HERE.  Here's a little snap shot of the before/after:

And here it is front and center in our family room.  I bought two big baskets from HomeGoods to go underneath and it's worked out great for storing magazines.

My triangle paint chip art is going strong.  More on that freebie art HERE.  We're still rocking the hand me down sofas, but maybe next year we'll upgrade and pick something more our style.  Until then, I'm disguising the 80's style lumps and bumps with pillows and a strategic throw.  Sometimes you just have to work with what ya got!

Our crafty desk (made from wire shelving, cardboard and contact paper) is nestled next to the french doors.  Taking thrifty to whole new level!  Find more details on that transformation HERE.

Our mantle is a springy little treat, and I just love the pops of pink against the teal walls.  I really don't change it much from season to season so it'll probably stay like this until Christmas.  It's a mixture of high street and flea mall and thrift shop. 

The little 'love' is a Christmas decoration and the glass owl is vintage Blenko.

I'm still loving our JC Penney floor lamp.  I'm telling you, JC Penney wins every time for budget friendly modern lamps.

And there you have it :-)  I finally feel like it's starting to come together and is a room we love to spend time in - which is really all you can ask for.

Kate

xxx

Chevron-and-on

My latest creation for the Apartment Therapy Style Cure guest room makeover is a chevron frame.  I picked up a large square frame with a huge plain mat (on sale for $5 at Michaels).  It's usually used for people to sign at weddings.

I love a good chevron, it came a very close second in the coffee table pattern stakes, so it was a easy choice when I was contemplating how to decorate the mat.  Plus, I thought if it looked really bad I could always cover it with a fun fabric.

It looked a bit dodgy halfway through, but I reasoned that I was going for a hand drawn look and not perfectly symmetrical lines. 

Here's a closer look at my not-so-straight straight lines!

I went back and filled in some of the thinner chevrons, and added vertical lines to the wider chevrons to help break up the pattern.

Left on the to do list is to:

Paint the headboard
Change the hideous ceiling fan
Hang the curtains
Hang a couple of shelves
Add accessories
Finish and reupholster the chair

So, as you can tell, progress is slow.  The aim was to have the room finished by the end of this week - but I'm thinking it's looking more like the end of next week.  Mainly because I need some serious adult supervision before monkeying around with the ceiling fan!

Kate

xxx

The Style Cure

Apartment Therapy has been running the Style Cure in August, and I'm all over it.

They send out daily emails throughout this month with tips and motivation to make over one room in your house (spoiler alert - I chose the guest room).  Up until now there has been a lot of listing and planning, but this weekend I began implementing my grand plans.  I'm still not entirely sure how everything will come together, but I'm keeping the faith.

Here's a look at the guest room from the MLS listing.

And here it is after we moved in.  All we really did was get a few key pieces of furniture and called it a day.  You'll notice the bed looks suspiciously low.  Well, that's because we don't actually have a mattress for that room (yet!).  It's not terrible, but it's hardly a show stopper either.

Sadly it didn't stay quite so tidy for long.  All of our unwanted furniture seemed to end up in there.  And the clothes for donating.  And the ironing board.  And the random artwork.  And it quickly became a hodgepodge mess.  Now you can see why it was an easy choice for the Style Cure.

This weekend it was time to paint.  I knew I wanted something light and fresh and decided on Pearl Ash by Olympic from Lowes.

Unfortunately, whoever last painted the room did a really shoddy job and the existing beige paint was all over the baseboards and ceiling.  I decided to go over the baseboards with white first, then I could cut in with the Pearl Ash and get a nice crisp line.  It took a little extra time, but was totally worth it.

I did 2 coats and it turned out great.

I'm just starting to collect some accessories.  So far I have 2 of these amazing lamps from JCPenney.  They were marked down to half price, and I had a $50 giftcard, so they only cost me about $20 for the pair.  Bargain!

Stay tuned to see how it all comes together!

Kate

xxx