Let Freedom Ring

This 4th of July, I made my own flag. It's not the traditional red, white and blue but it does have stripes and a few stars...

I decided to keep some boards natural because the knots and grain of the wood was too awesome to cover up! The other boards, I simply dry brushed on some white paint...

 
I knew I wanted to go larger with this flag so I choose a pallet that had the larger planks. As soon as I saw these boards I knew I had to try and keep them intact and use every knot, nail hole and crack I could. I love the texture on these boards!

It was such a pain to pry these boards off, but well worth the effort! I love all the nail holes. I even took our grinder to the nails, grinding off just below the nail heads so I could keep them in the boards.

Because I lack any artistic skills in the drawing department, I did what any useful person would do...trace. I have this little star that I used as my outline. Once I traced the outline of my star, I cut it out with the jig saw.

Some other tools I used was wire and rusty bells to join the boards together. I layed all my boards down on the garage floor, on top of a piece of plywood so I could drill the holes for the wire. The hardest part was getting my spacing between each board just right. Once I had each piece of wire cut (6), I shoved some bells on and twisted the wire together. I have this handy little wire twister thing (no idea what it's really called), but you can use a pencil or even your finger depending on how thick your wire is.

I wish I could say I was original with this one but I did get some inspiration from The Lettered Cottage with their coastal-style flag.

There she is in all her distressed glory. I'm still deciding if I need a 5th "stripe?" Such a simple craft, go find a pallet and get started. I think she'll be hanging out all year long...

I'm linking up with Donna this week...

Hung Up...

I originally made some curtains out of drop cloths for our living room (yes, I joined the drop cloth phenomenon - don't judge me), with some inspiration from Donna. I did sew a small pocket so I can slip a pole through it, simple and easy! Once they were hung up though, they covered way too much of the door and blocked light which I HATE. Plus the kids and dog were pulling or stepping on it every time they went outside. Did I mention I also hate doing laundry?

My solution? Move them over just a little bit more, high and wide as John and Sherry always say. Tons of awesome information and helpful hints, I love them. So, down they came and into the front room they went. And I love them there...until I change my mind again :)

Our living room has been without curtains for, oh about 6 months. Shameful. It only bothers me at night when our creepy neighbor walks around late at night and makes our dog go crazy. Weirdo. Since I wanted to move the rod over another 6 inches, our original rod didn't fit. More waiting. Then I had a brilliant idea, how about a long branch? My brother-in-law Chris has one above their dining room area and it looks great...really rustic. I told Paul we should go branch hunting and he looked at me like I was crazy. What?! Doesn't everyone go hunting for fallen branches or dead trees around town? And if the tree is dead, people shouldn't care if we cut a little off? I'm just saying, I don't want to steal anything...just purposefully remove and reuse. He wasn't having it.

Luckily my brother-in-law told us half of his tree in their backyard broke off recently, and there were tons of branches for us to choose from. Gotta love FREE. Paul and Chris went searching and came back with this looong branch, full of little nubs.

I love nature but this branch was so ugly. I thought I could sand it and maybe stain it...

Hmm, maybe a little too rustic for me. You can see how far over the holes were before, with the other brackets. Plus, I want to be able to close the curtains at night and I can't imagine tugging successfully over those nubs. I lived with it up there for a week just to be sure I didn't like it. We took a trip to JoAnn's yesterday and they were having a 40% off sale on curtain rods. Of course I had to call Paul and ask him how long 120 inches was to make sure it would fit, because my measuring skills are seriously lacking. It would fit perfectly with room to spare. So for $25 I picked up a new rod.

Now I have to get making those curtains. I had some white fabric that never got used for a different project. So... my sewing skills are also seriously lacking and I have no idea what I'm doing! If I even attempt to describe this as a tutorial, you will laugh so it's more of a play by play of what I did...my way :)

First thing I did was wash the fabric. Second, I sliced off the bottom, to get rid of the fraying and make things as even as I could. I know there has to be some fabulous tips for getting things straight and making things easier, but I don't have time to search for it. I'm just winging it...

Ironing 92 inches of fabric on the floor was awesome! How embarrassing, I really need an ironing board!

I didn't even take the time to pin anything, I just folded the fabric over and ironed at the same time, making a 1/2" inseam all the way around. With a 1 and 3 year old, I have to be quick about everything.

Once all four sides were ironed, I sewed around the whole thing. For the top I choose a jute ribbon I found at JoAnn's. The cool thing about these curtains is you can use anything for your loops! Use a contrasting color like I did or white to keep it clean or any fabric to tie in other colors from your room - so simple! I played around a little bit, trying to figure out what I was doing, what was going to look good, length, spacing, etc.

A simple knot...

 Or a bow? The bow is adorable so I chose that. First thing I did was sew on the loop that would hang the curtain.

 Ignore my chippy nail polish. Just a simple stitch is all it takes, not even straight but it works. Then I tied my little bows and shoved them under my needle, which by the way, surprisingly did not break.

Very simple, took less than 2 hours and looks really sweet. Now hopefully I will be inspired to finish the rest of the room.

I'm linking up to these Fabulous blogs...

Not too Shabby....

I bought a coat rack with awesome hooks a while ago but haven't done anything with it because it might be a little too shabby or too clean looking :) My solution? Take the hooks off and slap them on some old rustic wood of course!

Here's my not so good before picture but just imagine 4 hooks on there.

Way to plain for me. Sorry all you clean loving purists :) After I took the hooks off, I went through my scrap pile of pallet boards and cut them all the same length with my chop caw.

I tried to use my Kreg Jig to attach the boards together, but they were all different widths and the screws were just popping through the front of the boards. So I just grabbed some scrap pieces of 1/4" plywood left over from our window trimming project and nailed them with 5/8" brad nails...easy.

I didn't want to wait for my husband to use his superhero measuring skills so I just eye balled it. I grabbed a blue marker that was on the work bench and colored the little knobs on the back of each hook so I could see where I needed to drill the holes.

Notice one is just a nub and the other is the actual hole for the screw to go through. That was easy enough, I just had to move my bit around to make the holes a bit larger to fit properly. Here's where a countersink bit would have been nice.

All layed out and almost done! I love how it looks and it's so much more unique and really makes me wonder what else I can re-purpose. I love wood but the one thing I absolutely hate is this...

I hate splinters!!! And you know what it doesn't matter how many splinters I get, I continue to skip wearing gloves. This was a big splinter...ouch. I took one for the team.

Once I pulled that massive log splinter out, my hooks were ready to hang. I did not want to have to put any obvious holes through the front to hang it. I thought about drilling the little nub hole all the way through and using that hole for my screws but, oh yeah, how will I get the hook back on. I'm so blonde sometimes. So I just nailed a piece of board to the wall, on the stud, using 2" nails. Using the nails will make it more difficult to remove I think, but nail holes are way smaller than screw holes so nails it is.

Then I just nailed my hooks to the smaller board. I wasn't able to use 2 studs so I hope that the 4 or so nails I put in are going to hold up.

I love it! Now the girls have somewhere to hang their towels instead of the floor.

My Bath House sign was super simple too but I won't bore you with details on that - Go check out Donna over at Funky Junk Interiors for a great tutorial on how to make signs.

Speaking of Donna, I'm linking up to Her Saturday Nite Special this week... just in case anyone else has some hooks laying around.

Making a House a Home - Painting

photo credit

This October will be exactly two years since we moved to Idaho. Two years to learn how to decorate, paint, knock down walls and make small renovations and attempt yard work and actually have a lawn to mow and TONS of weeds to pull. We have been really blessed to be able to stay in my Mother in laws home for a few years before she moves up here. Because we're not "regular" renters, we got the green light to do anything we wanted...

First thing we did was paint. No offense to the previous renter but the colors in the entire front living areas were CAAARRAAAZZZYY. I know everyone has their own taste and I know she loved them but I couldn't hang. Here are some before pictures. They are not the best quality but you get the idea. Ignore the dirty house. They were plain white walls with a painted brown chair rail and a blue on the bottom.

Gotta love all the different swatches everywhere.

I spent a long time thinking about colors and bringing home swatches and every time I went to Home Depot or Lowes, I always stopped in the paint section. I knew I wanted either yellow, beige...maybe green. Oh but I like grey too. I had tons of swatches lying around and even bought some sample pots to paint on the walls. Even though we were given free reign, I still worried what my Mother in law would think and constantly changed my mind. Besides my Mother in law (Molly), I also have a Brother in Law and his wife (Chris & Clara) living right across the street. I worry waaaaaayyy to much what people think so it took me forever. Finally, after three or more swatches were up on the walls I gave up and decided not to think of what Molly would want and went with what I have always wanted...beige for the front room. Here are the only pictures I took, It's hard to remember to take photos along the way! As you can see, we have vaulted ceilings so the ladder was used a lot. Pain! Looking so much better though and the nice thing about wanting wainscoting is not having to go all the way down the walls. ;)



The color I chose was Water Chestnut by Glidden. I love it! It's a light sandy color and looks awesome! I really like Glidden paint, the only thing I would do differently is get the paint+primer in one which I heard Wal-Mart now carries. I was able to get away with one coat of primer and 2 coats of paint but if you could skip a step, all the better.

The living room and kitchen were almost as fun. I used Behr paint, Provence Cream...so pretty. I was so worried about getting something too bright but this turned out so good. It's amazing how many different shades of each color are out there. No wonder it took me so long to pick. Again, I didn't get any good before pictures so here's the best look of what it looked like before.

The living room, gotta love the sponge effect. It was like a putty color. So weird...next era please.

The kitchen was a little darker but still had the same sponged technique.

This lovely sponged color was on one entire wall and the rest was the darkest color you see in there. Ew. And not the best choice for the back of the house where there isn't a lot of natural light. Okay so back to the living room where I first started. This room was a nightmare! I've never really painted before so I had no ideas what I was doing and HGTV makes it look so easy. They just roll it on right? Wrong. Here's what happened first. We have a couple of missionaries that wanted to do some service work and they volunteered to help out. Despite my initial control freak thoughts, I told them yes. Besides Paul sleeps most of the day and with these guys helping out, it'll get it done in no time right?

Well...these guys are like 19 and 20 and have NO experience whatsoever in DIY as I came to find out. First thing we did was paint the ceiling because everything I read about painting said to work your way down. I picked up a huge bucket labeled "Ceiling Paint" at Home Depot and went to town. Now because the ceiling was already white it didn't even occur to me to put primer first. Yeah so three coats later it still looks like crap. The walls went a tad smoother cause these lovely young men were helping out but one broke the extension rod and I had to go back over everything a third time anyway because when they rinsed out their roller it was waaaayyyy to wet and basically "washed" the walls. Our neighbor girl was begging to "help" too but there was no way! This was turning out to be a nightmare. Are some things just easier to just do yourself?

Even Rylee got in on the action. It was definitely a learning experience!! The kitchen went smoother because I basically did it by myself over a few days time. I knew we wanted to add crown molding so it did make it a little faster not having to cut in along the ceiling. And the windows will all be framed in so I skipped those too.

When we pulled out the stove to paint back there, this huge gap was behind the counter. Talk about a waste of space. If we had more money, I would definitely put in some new cabinets. But a fresh coat of paint will make them look good at least.