Since we have been on the subject of kitchen cabinets lately, I thought perhaps y’all would appreciate an update on the ones I painted five years ago. Truth be told they aren’t holding up that well, so if I can keep someone from making the same mistakes I did that would be great.
So five years ago Adam and I took this dated, boring, builder grade kitchen...
and turned it into this...
The total price on the kitchen renovation was about $3,800 ($2,200 on new appliances + …
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Double bypass sliding barn door system – A DIY FAIL
Last week in my guest room reveal I mentioned the closet doors and how they were one of my biggest DIY fails to date. So let's talk about that.
I was really excited about these and planned to write this great tutorial, because really...who wouldn't want an awesome DIY double bypass sliding barn door system (say that five times fast)? No one, that's who... it sounds amazing.
But alas, it wasn't meant to be.
You're probably thinking that it doesn't look that bad (besides the …
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How (not) to make saloon doors
Sometimes DIY projects around here turn out great.
Sometimes they are giant failures.
And sometimes they look great and are a failure at the same time. This is one of those projects.
About five years ago I removed the closet door from my boy's room. Most people love doors on closets because you can hide the mess... I like closets not to have doors for the same reason. I know myself...hiding the mess is not a good thing. When I can hide a mess I HIDE A MESS. Things get crazy. It's …
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Ten home improvement projects I won’t be repeating
So today is my official due date. This baby is fully cooked, I'm horribly uncomfortable, and the doctor said at my appointment on Tuesday that it doesn't look like this kid is planning to come anytime soon. Darn my comfortable uterus! I was really hoping to have this kid a few days before the due date (like my last pregnancy), but it looks like this pregnancy might be more like my first, when I went until 42 weeks. My oldest's fifth birthday is on Sunday though and I REALLY don't want them to …
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Guest Room Paper Flooring (and why I’m disappointed with it)
This summer I started redoing my guest room, and the first step was new flooring. I wanted to do paper bag floors, mostly because they're cheap and beautiful, but also because I wanted the flooring to match in my boy's room and the guest room (they're right next to each other).
CLICK HERE TO READ MY ORIGINAL POST ABOUT INSTALLING PAPER BAG FLOORS
(If you aren't familiar with paper bag flooring process then please read the original tutorial first. Links to the follow-up posts can be found …
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Nursery Sign Semi Fail
I mentioned in a previous post that my sister-in-law recently had a baby, little Chandler.
Less than two years ago his older sister was born, and I made her this name sign out of an old section of fence and lots and lots of buttons. (tutorial here)
I can't very well make Mallory a sign and not Chandler, so I did a little brainstorming on how I could make one without spending days gluing buttons. Buttons would be fine if his name was Bob or TJ or something, but "Chandler" in buttons …
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The Ninety Percent Problem
Around here we have a problem. And I'm guessing - if you're a DIYer - you are likely to have this problem too.
We call it the "ninety percent problem", which is basically this.... You start a project. You are dedicated to getting it done. You work really hard at it for a day/week/month - as long as it takes to get it ALMOST finished. You get it to look and function at nearly 100%, but it isn't actually done. It's 90%. You never get to cross it off your list, but you never finish it …
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A Different Kind of Before and After
This post brought to you by Miracle-Gro. All opinions are 100% mine.
I love spring. I love the sunshine and warmth, rain showers and wildflowers, and rivers that are warm enough to tube. I love that my kids have started waking up every morning, running to the window and proclaiming "Mom! It's a beautiful day outside!" I love going to the nursery all energized for planting and having it be crowded as stink because everyone else is just as excited as I am. Granted, winters here in Texas aren't …
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The Most Embarrassing Post I’ve Ever Written
Three years ago today I started Domestic Imperfection. For the first two blogiversaries I put together giveaways as a thank you to my readers for all the support. This year I didn't plan anything though, mostly because it's a whole lot of work and only one or two people win things. So instead I'm going to do something better...I'm going to completely embarrass myself for your entertainment. If that doesn't show my gratitude then I don't know what does.
So here it goes.
Sometimes get …
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Why You Should Always Listen to Pottery Barn (a bench story)
In my last post I told you about how I bought the galvanized metal chairs I have been lusting after for years. Today we're talking about the other side of the table...the farmhouse benches.
These are the complete opposite of my metal chairs... their homemade, cheap, and NOT sturdy. And even though I spent ridiculous amounts of time stalking my metal chair prey....these were way more of a pain. What I'm trying to say is that this is not a tutorial. More like a story of failure, failure...and …
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Sometimes I Give Terrible Advice – A Plate Wall Update
I mess up a lot of DIY projects. In fact, I mess up nearly every single one, though usually I am able to fix my mistakes before I blog about it and give y'all terrible advice. That was not the case with my plate wall though (original post HERE).
After hanging the plate wall I waited a couple of weeks to blog about it to make sure all was well. Then about a month after that, things went south. Quite literally. (That is if you are assuming the sky is north and the ground is south, which I know …
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Don’t Spill Motor Oil On Your Carpet
Yes, that is correct...I spilled used motor oil in my kids bedroom. Who does that? Does this kinda of stuff happen to other people, or just me? Wait, don't answer.
I know I'm not going to get away with skipping that part about how it happened, so here we go. Adam was outside changing the oil on one of our cars. When he was done he came to the door with the used filter in a bag and asked me to put it in a trash can that was almost full. The diaper pail in the boy's room was way past the point of …
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DIY Chalk Paint Fail & The Bed That Almost Killed Me
So unless you've been living under a rock, you know that chalk paint is all the rage here in crafty blogland. As a member of crafty blogland, I felt as if I was my duty to give chalk paint a whirl. Annie Sloan makes the stuff everyone raves about, so I went online to order some....that's when I saw that it is crazy expensive. Like over $40 a quart expensive. Now I might have ponied up and paid it if I wasn't going to catch a ton of flack about it from the hubs, who already thinks my paint …
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Polycrylic – The New Polyurethane
When I redid my crappy $5 table late last year I finished it with polyurethane. I wanted a solid finish that would hold up to kids and water rings, and that's just what you use, right? Well, about a week after I finished it started to turn yellow. Now four months later the table looks terrible....it seriously looks like my toddler didn't drink water for a week and then peed all over it. That's a nasty description, I know, but that's what I thought everytime I walked by.
I sanded off …
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Slipcover Fail
My newly built farmhouse table has been begging me for some new slipcovers. The greenish ones were never my favorite and they don't fit well at all - the backs are too tight and the bottoms are too loose. Most of the time they look like this....
I bought the chairs on Craigslist, I want to say it was $80 for five of them. One turned out to be broken beyond repair, which was okay because I only needed four. The other four I ripped apart, pulled off the broken springs, added plywood, foam and …
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