Happy Fall!

I know it's still technically the summer, but fall is my favorite season and once Labor Day is over, the fall decorations come out. I love living in New England because it's great to experience all of the seasons, but I love fall the most. I love the cool weather, apple picking, the beautiful foliage, the tastes and smells of fall and it also starts off the holiday season.

It's also when the fall baking starts. Jim's happy for fall to arrive, too. Labor Day signals the end of his busy season. To celebrate the end of the summer/beginning of fall, I made these cookies over the weekend for him and his co-workers to help them get through their busiest day of the year.

What's your favorite season? Why is it your favorite?

Bar Cart Reno

We've been looking for ways to add more color to our open living/dining area. We've been adding lots of green in small ways, but we wanted to add something a little more bold. We came across an old bar cart and decided its just what we need to make the room a little more lively.

We found it for a pretty awesome price. I think it was around $15/$20 at an antique mall. We found almost the same cart and a few other re-finished ones at another antique shop for around $75. We had thought about buying one until we saw the price tags, so this seemed like a great deal.

Jim took the bar cart apart and cleaned it completely. We decided to keep the structure the same and only paint the shelves. Once it was apart, it was easy to spray the shelves and not worry about getting paint on the silver area. After two or three coats of the green paint, he sprayed it with a clear protective coat. Jim put it back together and added new wheels and it looks good as new!

It's just what we needed to add a pop of color in the dining area. It's also fun to use it to style a bit and make the room look a little more interesting and put together. It creates a really fun vignette. We're planning to add an art piece over it to finish off this little nook.

Any advice on where to find good art work for a dining area? I love shopping on Etsy, so if you know of any great shops, please send them our way!

Black Bookshelves

Last weekend we started our first project of 2013. It was a smallupdate, but something we've been wanting to do for awehile. We painted our built in bookshelves black. I love the contrast.

It helps tie the dining area and living room together. I like how the chalkboard wall gallery looks near the bookshelves.

We really want to paint the living room, but haven't found the time, so this is holding us over for now. Have you done any little projects with big impact lately?

Chalkboard Gallery Wall- Final Reveal

 This weekend, Jim added the fifth and final diy chalkboard to our gallery wall. He also fixed the others, which were really crooked. He used self adhesive rubber bumpers, which can be found at your local hardware store, to straighten out the chalkboard which were crooked.

They are super easy to use, you just apply them to the back of the frame on the corners. Then straighten them to where you would like. The bumpers are also helpful to protect furniture, we have similar ones on our bedroom furniture, which hold the glass tops onto our dresser and nightstands. I'm not actually sure they are supposed to be used for straightening wall hangings, but Jim thought they would work and they did, which is helpful since a few of the frames were looking too crooked to me.

Before:

After:

Are there any products you use for something other than their intended use? 

DIY Chalkboard Gallery Wall

Last month, I shared Jim's DIY mirror to chalkboard makeover. It ended up being the first of five chalkboards. Four of which now hang in our dining area. I've seen tons of photos on Pinterest that have a chalkboard included in a wall gallery, but I thought it would be fun to do all chalkboards.

The plan has always been to do neutrals in our living spaces, so I can mix up the decor for holidays. I think the chalkboards will be a fun and cheap way to get more festive. All we'll have to do is write something like "Merry Christmas" and it instantly makes the room a little more holiday ready.

 We still want to add one more chalkboard in the top right hand corner, but I was getting to impatient to share the project. Jim has literally been working on this for months. It started back in the summer, when we went thrifting for the first time. I found a mirror and Jim transformed it into a chalkboard, you can find details here.

Over time we've slowly been collecting the next few to add to the wall gallery. We wanted to get a couple interesting frames and some that were less ornate. We ended up finding everything we needed at our two local shops, it just took some time. We used 2 mirrors and the rest were empty frames.

 It's been fun collecting the frames together. It's my favorite project so far.

We still have a ways to go though. We need to add the last frame and we need to get some thing to make the frames centered. They are looking a little crooked right now, but Jim said it's nbd, he can get something form the local hardware store to fix that. Once it's complete, I'll do a final reveal!

Are you working on any exciting projects you want to share?