One old house. Two young people. Plenty to do.
(2 votes)
Recent posts
January was one of those you-sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it months for us. It just flew by! Is it really already February? Crazyville. So before our behind-the-scenes-book-stuff threatens to completely erase our memory of this month, we like to take a moment to look back on all that we’ve done at a glance (and gather all the links in one handy place for ya). And of course we tossed in some never-before-seen stuff for kicks. This month we were all over the place as usual, but focused a lot of our time on the kitchen along with making a mini kitchen for Clara and tackling some random stuff that we’ve been hoarding in the playroom in what we affectionately like to call our “Dude, Get On That Already” Challenge....read more
Posted 1 day 23 hours ago.
When I was growing up and my parents would take us to open houses for fun, my little sister and I always picked the most interesting room as “ours”: the one with the secret compartment, the one with the biggest windows, etc. If we were to tour Kristin’s house, I’m sure the attic they transformed into their daughter Ella’s bedroom would take the cake by a landslide… and quickly turn into a big fight between my sister and I about who had “dibs.” Here’s Kristin’s letter all about it: Hi guys! I’ve been torn for a while about which project to submit, but I’m going to go with my daughter Ella’s room because a) the story involves dead pigeons – and what good renovation story doesn’t?...read more
Posted 2 days 19 hours ago.
Our ceiling was having a little hole problem after some electrical wizork last week (warning: $herdog is in full effect in this post)… So we did the normal thing and donned sunglasses and hats along with breathing masks. Why? Because we can’t find our safety glasses (book shoots = can’t really find anything). And ceiling dust is gross when it’s up your nizzle. Then we got our patch on. I’m the designated Spackle Wench in our family, but John has longer arms, so he helped me by doing step one: lightly sanding the outside of the holes we were patching. Then it was time for these guys from Home Depot. They’re basically a wire mesh patch that’s stuck to sticky paper. You stick it on the hole firmly, spackle over it, sand things down, and paint. Das it....read more
Posted 2 days 23 hours ago.
Even though I’m sure you figured we’d just grow to love the look of our crazy exposed hood (“oooh, it’s so unfinished chic”) we were ready to get this hood-covering train in motion. Oh and as for the height of the range hood, we just followed the manufacturer’s recommendations (the JennAir website offered a range and we went right in the middle of that range at 34″ above the counter). As for the hood cover, the first thing we did was use photoshop to mock up two different options to figure out what we thought would look best. This was our original thought, since it looks most like a lot of the hoods in our inspiration pictures....read more
Posted 3 days 23 hours ago.
Me. I’ve actually been hiding this $12 HomeGoods find in our playroom for… oh… five months? So it was about time I attended to him. Yup, this guy’s part of the self-imposed initiative I like to call the “Dude Get On That Already” challenge, since I’ve solemnly vowed to use it or lose it (aka: use it or craigslist/donate it) when it comes to all the things we’ve been hoarding in our full-to-the-brim playroom. At first glance you might think “he’s a fine looking roughly weathered white & tan rooster” (or “you need ceramic animal rehab” which could also be true) but I thought his distressed white finish was a little more country than my usual crisp & modern ceramic animal tastes, so I decided that giving him a coat of new color would be just the thing....read more
Posted 4 days 19 hours ago.
We’ve dropped a few mentions of working on the book lately, so we figured it was about time for another post about the process. Our post two months ago mostly covered the journey to getting the book deal and the beginning stages of writing, but now we’re really in the weeds of things so there’s definitely more to share… and we don’t have to use pics of Burger to illustrate it this time! Sorry Burger. At the time of our last book post two months back, we had turned in our 160-ish page completed outline and were beginning to coordinate the design process with our publisher. If you recall, the book is a compilation of 250-some ideas for “how to show your home some love” (everything from small art projects, little tweaks, and quick ideas to bigger makeovers involving paint & furniture)....read more
Posted 4 days 23 hours ago.
***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!*** Okay folks, random.org has selected the two lucky winners of a $50 gift code. Although anyone can take advantage of the free extra pages code – GIFT3570 – through Feb 6th. That’s how I saved nearly $80 on ours! But I digress. Our winners are… Christine (whose favorite pic of 2011 is her and her husband beside the wild boar statue that stands outside the a building at her university) and Bethany (who caught her son shirtless, wearing a cowboy hat, boots, belt & buckle, Wrangler’s while iding his John Deere tractor around their yard this summer). Congrats! Remember the Petersik Family Yearbook that we mentioned last week?...read more
Posted 5 days 19 hours ago.
That was the big question last week. Not in the “Hey, how ya doing?” sense of things, but more in the “Um, how are we gonna hang this $60 hood we found on Craigslist” kind of way. Sherry talked last week about how we planned to encase it in a DIY’d wood cover (see inspiration pics back on last week’s post). Both of us were so excited about (1) the price tag and (2) the final look that we didn’t really think through the middle part: actually installing the darn thing. So yeah… #planningfail? Here was our challenge (beyond just not having any of the installation materials or instruction): this is an under-cabinet hood and, well, we don’t have any cabinets to install it under....read more
Posted 5 days 23 hours ago.
It was fun to crack open a little bit of our personal “stuff” last Tuesday for this post about the real $herdog (yes, I’m still patiently waiting for that nickname to catch on) and John’s J-Boom version. And a funny thing happened after sharing those. Not only did they receive over 1,200 amazingly awesome and encouraging comments (note to self: apparently you’re not a social pariah if you admit that you sometimes have strawberry cream cheese on your ear and are inclined to impersonate Cindy Lou Who) but we also got dozens of emails – not even exaggerating – asking about how to deal with criticism and respond to negative comments....read more
Posted 1 week 1 day ago.
The soft spot we have for stencil projects has certainly grown since our office undertaking, but this one by Amy at The Casablanca Transformation would probably win over even the most skeptical stencil fans. And it actually sounds doable in well under fourteen hours! Score. Here’s her letter: No matter how many decorating projects I do in my lifetime this one will surely go down in history as one of my all time best! I am so happy I had the idea and even happier that I dared to try! Here is the plain white leather bar stool before: And the after! I used a stencil from cuttingedgestencils.com and the paint is from turtlefeathers.net and is called Angelus Paint. It is made especially for painting leather (it has a bit of give to it and won’t crack)....read more
Posted 1 week 2 days ago.