Pinspiration.

Hi!  Can you believe that its already Wednesday?  I'm super excited for this weekend because Caleb and I are actually staying home.  I can hardly wait to get started on finishing off some last minute projects around the house before Thanksgiving...

I'm on a role with actually making the pins that I pin on Pinterest!  This pin is another that I saw a loooong time ago and have been dying to make.  Cute, right?

Funky Junk Interiors via Jodi on Pinterest

Here is my version.

I just realized that my white linen is totally caught in the door...

I found the frame at an antique shop for $5.00 and used some picture handing wire and a staple gun to finish it off.  I'm not super crazy about the wire so I may eventually switch it out for something else... any suggestions??  Twine maybe?  I also didn't have clothes pins so I punched a hole in my pictures and used some jute to attach them to the wire.  Not super crazy about that either, but I wanted to use items I already owned.  I have since purchased some clothes pins at dollar tree so I can't wait to hang up more pictures using those.

I may repost this in a couple weeks after I make some changes.  Kinda a work in progress, but I have already gotten several compliments from guests.

Oh, and guess what?!  My Pinterest project from last week was featured on Fortune Favors the Brave by Sarah!  Stop by and check it out.  Stay a while and check out the rest of her blog too.  She's a crafty, amazing cook who likes to read.  Pretty good combo!

Today I am linking this post up with Sarah, Amber, and Melissa for The Pinspiration Project.  The goal is to actually try out some of those pins that you've been drooling over!

& Michelle at The Vintage Apple for Oh, How Pinteresting!

Living Room Reveal!

Haaaappy Friday!

Before I get to my living room reveal, I want to let you all know that I am guest posting over at The Frugal Foodie Mama today as well!  Head on over to see how I created some trhifty Thanksgiving centerpieces and check out Carrie's blog while you're there... its awesome!  I promise, you'll LOVE it!

I am also so excited to be sharing another part of our home with you today!  Our living room!  This is definitely the most used part of our home and where most of our time is spent so it was important to me to make it feel cozy.  There are still a few elements that I want to add, but for the most part its complete and ready for your eyes to see!

This room has definitely come a long way.  I'll give you one guess what color the room was when we moved in...  YELLOW.  Just like all the other rooms in the house before I deyellowfied.  I couldn't find a saved before picture, but here is the post that shows the living room before paint.

I've tried to keep the room fairly simple.  I also chose to use colors {navy, gray, white} that are fairly neutral.  I can add in different accent colors later when I want a change.  Right now I've chosen to use red orange for an accent.

My favorite part of the room is this striped wall.  You can read about how I did it and see my inspiration from Pinterest here.  We also recently purchased a new couch and love seat and I am in love with the color.  Its called slate.

I purchased this oil painting at a yard sale for $2.00.  You can't beat two bucks for a piece of original artwork!  I took it out of the old grungy frame it came with and put it in this white IKEA frame to match the others in the room.

This next piece is my favorite!  Its a 1930's tobacco basket that I found at the Covered Bridge Festival with Ashlee.  I had been looking for something big that would take up quite a bit of wall space and I love this!  The only problem is that Caleb does not... he said he would live with it though... what a good hubby!

Cinderella wanted to be in on the action...

Here is the view of the room from the corner.  {Notice that Caleb was watching NASCAR.  Barf.}

I was excited to be able to showcase my collection of antique ladies' compacts.  I've tried to add little touches of color around the room to tie it all together.  I love turquoise Ball jars and the collection of items that I added on the wall near the entry.

Its so nice to feel like this space is finally our own.  No more yellow.  MUCH more relaxing!  Aaahhh!

Pinspiration.

I've been working diligently to finish decorating our living room which is a little impossible because I don't think you truly ever finish decorating something.  It always seems to be more of a work in progress.  I have found that as soon as I think I'm finished, I have grown tired of the decor I started with.  Am I the only one?  No?  Okay, good... thanks! 

I have been trying to use colors that are more on the neutral side so that I can update the look with accents.  I've also been making some of the items that are in our living room.  I've had this cute little canvas pinned for several months now and a few weeks ago I finally gathered up the supplies and made my own version.

Not on the High Street via Jodi on Pinterest

I shared this picture with you yesterday when I showed you my newly painted front door.  The canvas that looks solid black... yeah, thats my version.

You can see it much better here:

This project was really simple and perfect for this wall.  It was as simple as picking up a few wooden letter at hobby lobby, gluing them to a canvas, and spray painting it.  I already had the canvas so the total cost was about $4.00 which means there will be no guilt when I'm sick of it and want something new!  :)

Easy!

Sometimes the simple things are the best things.

Today I'm linking up with Michelle at The Vintage Apple

& Sarah at Fortune Favors the Brave, Melissa at Lulu & Sweet Pea, and Amber at My Three Bittles!

Paint. And Paint.

I'm determined that I am going to have everything in my home (upstairs) painted before we have company for Thanksgiving.  The more I think about this task the longer my list of items to paint becomes.  So far my list includes: 

1. The sunroom

2. Bookshelf in the office

3. Two chairs

4. Front Door

5. Back door

6. Cabinet to go in the sunroom

7. Wicker chair to go in the sunroom

Yikes!

Yesterday I decided that I better get started.  I had every intention of knocking out the front door and the sunroom.  I decided that those two were the most important on my list.

I started with the front door because I decided that this would be the quickest and easiest project.  I was wrong.  It turned out to be a little bit more work than I had planned.  I wasn't taking into consideration that I had to wash the door and remove all the hardware.  I also didn't realize that the previous owners had put all the hardware on the door while the paint was still wet so it was stuck.  I had to pry everything off and it was not easy.  

Here are the before pictures.  It was a red color.  I didn't hate it, but it was pretty dark and I wanted something a little bit brighter.  The inside of the door was white which I thought was a little plain so I knew I wanted to paint the inside of the door as well as the outside.

After:

I think the after is much better!  It's amazing how much something little like painting your door can make your home feel.  My favorite is the view from the inside!

What do you think?  I also painted all the hardware with stainless steal spray paint.  I'm not sure how long the spray paint will stay without wearing off, but I couldn't stand to leave the brass.  I LOVE how it looks!

I'm super excited to show you all the rest of my living room on Friday!

What great projects have you been working on lately?

I'm also linking up with Lakota for Ta-da! Tuesday!

&

Oh, How Pinteresting

Happy Halloween!

This picture is actually from last year, but the cuteness kills me!  We also attempted to put this costume on Cinderella this year and I think she hates it even more than Splinter...

In addition to it being Halloween, it is also Wednesday!  So, I'm linking up with The Vintage Apple for:

Yesterday I hosted a small get-together and knew that I wanted to have a Halloween themed food table.  There is so much great inspiration out there that I knew that I would have no trouble coming up with something.  I did however have one big restriction... I didn't want to spend any extra money making this happen. My first step was firing up Pinterest for some great ideas...

College Life DIY via Jodi on Pinterest

Good Housekeeping via Jodi on Pinterest

Candace Stringham Photography via Jodi  on Pinterest

Inspiring Pretty via Jodi on Pinterest

Digs Digs via Jodi on Pinterest

After looking through all these pictures, and visiting the websites, I felt pretty confident that I could come up with something, so I set to work.  I was pretty pleased with the end result... especially since I set it up an hour before the party started!

The first set of pictures are pre-food and the lighting is a little better.  The latter pictures are once I put all the food out...

I can't wait to hit some sales snatch up some cheap Halloween supplies for next year!

Progress?

I know, I know... its been a bit since I have given an update on the status of my house.  I'll be the first to admit that I have gotten pretty lazy and things have pretty much been at a stand-still.  I did finally finish my striped wall {sneak peak here} and our new couches were delivered yesterday, but I'm not quite ready to show you the living area.

The main splinter in my finger has been our office/craft room.  Do you have that one closet/space/whole room that tends to become the dumping ground for everything else that doesn't seem to have a space?

Say, for your childhood dollhouse, picture frames you have good intentions to use but never have, or 25 boxes that you didn't unpack when you moved in three months ago?  Well, that was the situation in which this room found itself...  Full. Of. Crap.

And this was after I put away the air mattress that sat in here blown up for the past several months and started throwing away obvious junk...

It took me several hours and two glasses of wine to finally go through everything and clear out most of the junk that I didn't really want and to put the things that I did want to keep in their rightful place.

Its still a work in progress and we need a few more pieces of furniture in here to make the room complete, but I think that it is coming along nicely.  

Any advice for staying organized in places that serve dual purposes like this one?  I could use all the help I can get!

Aaaaand... just because they are so darn cute....

Happy Thursday!!!