I SPY Family Room DIYs

Every room in my house is full of DIYs and the Family Room is no exception.  My kids all say that this is their favorite room in the house.  Could it be the ginormous television?  Possibly, or maybe it is just that we spend a lot of vegging out time on this couch in particular.  Most times the kids are fighting for the perfect L spot on the sectional.  Here is that favorite vegging out couch with a gallery of art above.

The fish picture is actually wrapping paper that I got from Paper Source and mode podged onto a canvas.  It had the perfect colors for my family room and was such an easy project. For about ten dollars I was able to get a pretty high impact piece of "art" for that wall.

I made this piece below and it is all of the important dates in our family.  It is above the fish picture in the gallery.  I modge podged newspaper on canvas and then placed stickers with the dates on the newspaper.  I then painted over the newspaper and peeled the stickers off.  I like this little personal piece of "art."  It is especially useful when I am having my memory issues.  I seriously can never remember my husband's birthday or our anniversary--very strange----

On the other wall above the couch I made this picture holder.   I made it with old wood from a fence that I helped take down at my parent's lake house.  They were just going to dump it, but it was such nice looking old wood.  I jumped at the chance to take it.  I made this, three raised vegetable beds, a shelving unit in my sons bedroom, and there is still a lot of wood left!

These little guys my husband and I make in the summer and give as presents.  Very easy....just cut up a pretty substantial branch and then drill holes in it.  Succulents live pretty easily in here with not much maintenance.

The curtains in the background I made with the help of a tutorial by Carmel at Our Fifth House.

In this next picture I made the picture frames on the wall with the help of a tutorial from Dear Lillie.

Just some pictures from around the room and some with the cutest but lately the naughtiest chiweenie around.

Keeping it Real......

Just so we are all on the same page.....

This is my house on most days....

Boots by the door-usually right when you walk in from the garage-

Since Christmas my dining room table has looked like a combination of Lego Friends being attacked by Barbies on ponies.

My mud room looks like twenty people live in our house.

My art project of painting a canvas is giving permission for the family room to become a disaster zone all the time.

My husband actually told me that yesterday he ate the dog food for lunch.  I have been making all of my dog's food since we found out she has cancer. Seriously?????? How could anyone eat this??? 

This is what keeps life interesting right?  

I have to admit this mess in my house is making me a little twitchy as well- We need to get a little clean up going on around here or I may have a little freak out.....Anyone else get this way????

Me.......

I always enjoy knowing a little about the people I read about, so here are some tidbits about me and my life.....

I have three great kids: a boy who is 13 and two girls..... 10 and 9.

I used to be a middle school English teacher and went back to school to be a school counselor.  On most days I love my job.

My husband is the high school principal in our town-My son will be going to this high school next year.....this will be interesting.....

We have two rescue dogs...They are sweethearts.  The older one has cancer, and I am currently treating her homeopathically....things are going well.

For some reason I am anti-Facebook, but now I am blogging.  A little bit of a contradiction, I know.

I love Ebay.  If there is something I want, I often try to find it on Ebay for a better price.

I am very freaked out by bed bugs.

My favorite coffee is French Roast made in a Bialetti coffee maker.

Fuzzy socks are a necessity.

I love to play practical jokes on people.  I wish I could work for a show like Impractical Jokers or Candid Camera---does that show even exist anymore?

My best friend died from cancer three years ago.  I still think about her every day and miss her terribly.

In the summer we go to my parent's lake house or my in-law's lake house a lot.  We are so lucky to have those options.  I will be redoing my in-law's lake house kitchen this winter.  That will be a good before and after!

We have wonderful families.....so blessed.

My sister is the only person outside my immediate family that knows I started this blog.

I get terrible migraines and have since high school.

I lived in Costa Rica for a year with my husband and son---that was an experience!

My goal is to post at least two times a week.

I am a quarter Asian.  My mom is from the Philippines.

Have a Happy MLK Day!

Skipping to the Kitchen

I have a love-hate relationship with my kitchen.  I think many of us do.



When we bought this house, we had to basically clear out our savings to get rid of our other house because we were so under water.  It was an adorable house too-so unfortunate.  But for various reasons, we had to make the move.

When we picked this house, it was neutral enough that I could live with some of its neutral/ugliness-like tile floors and neutral berber carpet---oohh, how I would love hardwood again though---- but that is going to be awhile because one of the good things about this house is the size.  The listing for the house said it was just over 3,000 square feet which gives a family of five a nice amount of space but it also means it will cost a lot of money to put in hardwood floors,

The kitchen had older already painted white cabinets-so neutral enough- It had really bad laminate counters-which we took care of by doing the Encore Concrete Countertop kit in Onyx.  This was a great three hundred dollar fix for really bad looking counter tops.  I have had absolutely no issues with them and have had them for about two years now.

I opened up some of my cabinets and added the same fabric to the backs of the cabinet that is on the seats of my banquette to add a little interest.  To be honest I don't know that I love the look.  It is a little too busy for me.  Sometimes when I look in that direction, I feel a little overwhelmed.  There is a little too much going on.  I may end up putting the cabinet doors back up.  When people come over, they always compliment it.  I think it probably is cozy looking or charming, but living with it is a little different.

I made some valances based on Leslie from My Old Country House's tutorial.  They have held up great and have had no issues.  People that come over think they are wooden or professionally done and are floored when I tell them that I made them out of foam board.   When I receive a compliment and then basically say how cheap something was or what a joke it was to make, people laugh at me.  But that is just me, I am not one to act like something more than it was.

The office/computer area-I need to/want to repaint this desk...thinking of going red....like the kitchen doors but not sure, maybe it is too much red in this room, maybe I will get sick of it.....I like my kids' current art work here.....it makes me happy......

Chalkboard wall and red door leading to the garage-enough said----I do have a framed sign on this door, It's  a reminder for us to take out the garbage every time we leave the house----our dogs like to eat garbage-don't they all?

My banquette!!!!! Oh how I wish I had a before shot of this bad girl!  People love this and think I had it custom made.  In every house we have lived in, it has fit perfectly.  I bought it for maybe $250 and it was UGLY! Seriously UGLY.....and then I gave it some LOVE.....I have recovered her twice so far and am thinking of recovering and repainting her soon.  I just sanded her down, painted her black, and covered her up.  Last year I switched out the table to a bigger one from Pier One.  I don't love this table.  It is a little wobbly which is annoying, but I am not buying another one at this point.  I am currently in the process of reupholstering this wingback chair-I have been on pause for about one month-for no reason-But I love having this chair at the table---so comfy- a cup of coffee, a doggie on your lap, reading blogs--it does not get much better than that.

What don't I like about this kitchen?...fridge, floors, cabinets, sink, layout, microwave, the lighting a LOT!!!!  But I have tried to make it aesthetically pleasing while we save money to do the floors and the kitchen.  I am also trying to be more positive, optimistic, thankful etc.  So it is cozy, comfy, has some good space, and I have a kitchen!

P Squared

P Squared stands for projects/pastimes.  This is how I spend all of my spare time.  I love to do projects.  I see something on a blog, pinterest, or magazine, and I try to replicate it in my spare time.  It can be a DIY home project, copying a painting that an artist has done, surfing the web and finding awesome stuff on Ebay, or trolling through a thrift shop and finding a gem of a goodie.  This is where I would like to start sharing these things.  The last four years or so I have religiously woken up at the crack of dawn -4 am- to read people's blogs- Why 4 am? you may be thinking....to get all my other stuff done in the morning like make kid's lunches, get myself organized, pick up the house, etc.  This year I am going to put myself out there and attempt to start one myself.  While doing all of this I am creating a home that my family feels comfortable in, raising three kids, and working a full-time job as a school counselor.  That's where this blog is coming from and a little bit about myself.  

One of my absolute favorite parts of blog reading is looking at other people's homes.  So that is the first thing I will do is start showing you my house and some of the projects I have done in each room.  

My house is a standard colonial that I have lived in for about three years.  I am trying to give it personality and charm on that dreaded word a.... budget, but hey that's reality.  The first room you walk in is the living room.  When we were house shopping I really wanted a more open-concept house, but we could not find one in the specific town we needed to buy in and at our price point.  So we have a more closed up traditional house.  We do use this room a lot, and I am starting to appreciate having separate rooms!

So here are some pictures of the living room.

In the first picture the project that I struggled through was doing wallpaper panels.  I really needed to add something interesting to a very bland room.  I thought about stenciling the wall and really loved Design Megillah's entrance wall, but she clearly stated that she would have done wallpaper over stenciling if she did it again.  The wallpaper was a piece of cake but putting the molding up was really tough.  I do not have the patience for tiny details.  From afar the panels look great, but don't look too closely or you will see all my mistakes.  I won't shoot any close-ups.

The second picture did not require me to do any projects.  It is an old, antique fridge that I inherited from when I was in college being a nanny to a family that had really cool antiques.  The mirror is something that I pined for after seeing it on Jenny Komenda's blog years ago.  I waited for it to be on sale at Pier One and used a coupon.  I think I saved like $150.  Score.  You can barely see it but there is this awesome branch in the vase that I found walking my dogs- It is all curly and crazy and I love it!

Third picture...I made my own chalk paint with the color graphite and painted the piano.  Somehow the paint color turned out this crazy dark grayish blue.  I painted my mud room the same color and it is more like black.  I cannot figure it out!  Disco ball...I followed along with everyone else in blog land and got a disco ball for Christmas last year.  My in-laws think I am so weird....a disco ball....Why????  Because it is awesome!!! and it is.  The reflections in the morning are the best!

Jumping to the last picture...Heart rocks....My parents have a house right off Lake Michigan and my mom and daughters always look for heart-shaped rocks.  They are sweet.  Sometimes we paint them.  A few are on the table.....

LK