I think the artwork above the armoire is not working. Perhaps I’ll paint the frame of the peacock print and move it over to the left side of the bed to replace those two tiny frames. And maybe a different chair and nightstand over there would help. And I hate to say it, but I think we need a rug. I really don’t want to spend a lot of money because we don’t spend much time in here except for sleeping. But I think a little effort is worth it to have a bedroom that feels like a place I’d like to be.

This is definitely the biggest bedroom I’ve ever had. It’s a loft that was added on to our house sometime shortly after its original construction. The floors are a little different but it’s got the same four-over-one wavy glass windows (12 of them, if you include the bathroom!).

The dressing table on the right side of the bed was a major improvement, so I’m hopeful that getting a wider nightstand to replace the small, low one on the left can help things feel less like they were thrown together from the thrift store (which, um, is what actually happened). I’ll keep my eyes peeled for a secondhand chair at a great price, and maybe in a few months I could order another one of those big indoor-outdoor rugs like we have in the living room (see it here). Is it weird to have the same rug in two rooms? The price was great and the colors would work.

In the bedroom, it’s the birdcage. I feel like I’m struggling with this room overall (more on that later this week maybe), but this corner is perfection.

The item I get the most comments on when people visit in person is the book page wreath in our living room. I made it before I started my blog so sadly I cannot link to a tutorial for how I made mine, but I was inspired by this. And in case you’re a bibliophile whose heart is breaking at the thought of book destruction, perhaps it will bring you some comfort to know that it was constructed entirely from airport paperbacks. No classic literature was destroyed in the making of this wreath. Most of it is a Nicholas Sparks novel.

If I were buying it today, I might be too scared to pick chartreuse for an investment item like a stand mixer. But when I was pooling all the Target gift cards we got from our wedding to put towards one it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. I’m glad I went for it, because four years later I’m still happy (and if I do get tired of it someday I can try painting it with epoxy).

I first spotted this peacock in my friend Cassie’s apartment years ago and I wanted it instantly. When she was ready to say goodbye he came to live with me! It’s a fun touch for a very classic-looking fireplace.

The mannequin leg is another one I’ve had for a long time, but it didn’t reach its full potential until I filled it with flowers I’d made from book pages and wire (more literary destruction! I like reading, I promise!). I bought the leg from ebay when I was still in college after I’d seen a leg lamp (a la A Christmas Story) in a friend’s apartment and decided I had to have one. I never made the lamp, but the leg is fun all on its own.

Even though it’s an architectural element and not something I brought in, the original-to-the-house fireplace is maybe my favorite part of the nursery. It’s just so unexpected and, in my opinion, endlessly charming. It’s inoperable so the summer cover stays on year round.

And the most recent addition to my list of true loves is this skirted counter in the laundry room. For three and a half years that corner was the ugliest spot in our house, and now it’s quite possibly the most charming. I’m planning on adding more plants and other pretties in the coming months.

The thing about each of these elements is that none (except for the mixer) were pricey “investment” pieces. In fact, I paid very little out of pocket for each of them! I used gift cards for the mixer, built the wood counter myself and skirted it with fabric I found on sale, made the book page wreath from materials I already had. The mannequin leg was an ebay find and the peacock and bird cage were gifts (thought I think both came to the gift-givers secondhand, and in the case of the birdcage my mother-in-law found it at a thrift store). My point is that you don’t have to spend a ton of money at Anthropologie or wherever to find fun, unique decor that speaks to you. You just have to be patient and open your mind to new ideas!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend! Ours went by way too fast but was oh so wonderful. Back to real life!

The front porch. Somebody needs to sweep that floor! It’s not gonna be me. I want to paint the floor gray but I’ll probably never get it clean enough to paint.

Nick and I can be found sharing a beer out here at least a couple evenings each week. He listens to LSU baseball on the vintage radio and I read a magazine or play around on my phone. There’s a ceiling fan to combat the heat and that sweet olive planted just on the other side of the railing perfumes the whole area in late summer. I’d like to plant a whole row of them eventually to create an open screen between us and the neighbors.

The front door opens right into the living room. I created an entryway of sorts using an upholstered storage bench and a shelf with hooks.

The living room opens into the dining room, which I’ve divided into two spaces for eating and sitting. To be honest, we rarely use that seating area and I’d love to someday replace it with an upright piano and a cushy rug for Jack to play on while I work in the kitchen.

I love the dining area. We have a portable high chair that we strap onto one of the dining chairs for Jack.

The kitchen is pretty much exactly the same as the day we bought the house. I changed the window treatment and added the stemware rack under the cabinet, but that’s it.

I’d love to someday replace the tile backsplash with beadboard and install upper cabinets or open shelves on either side of the stove vent.

If I had a million dollars I’d also look into opening up that pass-through to expand up and to the right, creating a bar that we can pull up stools to on the other side. It’s hard to put into words but I can envision exactly what I want.

The laundry room is at the way back of the house behind the kitchen. There’s a door just to the right of this photo that leads to the backyard. The washer and dryer are ancient and dying but we’re making them work as long as possible.

On the other end of the laundry room, I built that skirted counter to hide the cats’ litter box and a bunch of other random crap. It’s really one of my favorite projects. The dog and cat food are in glass canisters on top of the dresser and the trashcans on the right are labeled with chalkboard paint for trash and recycling.

I didn’t bother with an updated photo of the guest bath as it really hasn’t changed much, but here’s the old one for continuity’s sake. I recently ditched the cork bathmat and am still on the hunt for the perfect replacement.

Jack’s room. The only thing I’ve changed since he was born is adding more art and accessories we received as gifts.

Our bedroom is upstairs. It’s sort of a loft setup. I think it was added after the house was built, but long enough ago to have the same style windows. It’s a large room and difficult to capture on camera without a wide-angle lens.

Back downstairs at the very front of the house is the office slash playroom. I’m trying to simplify things by just calling it a den but I can’t get my mouth to say it. I always just call it the office. This room and the laundry room are definitely the ones that have changed the most in recent months. It’s come a looooooong way from this.

This is where I sit blogging at this very moment. I use those shelves to store office and craft supplies as well as items I have listed for sale in my etsy shop.

The rug is usually covered in baby toys.

And last but not least, the backyard. The deck has become a much nicer place to spend time lately thanks to the fresh coat of paint and colorful umbrella I added to the table and chairs.

We have a vegetable garden, clothesline, two compost bins, and I’m working on putting in an herb garden (the grass is cleared, I just need to rent a tiller to get the rest of the roots and then build a raised bed. I learned from my veggie garden that just laying down some cardboard under the bed will not kill my grass.). That galvanized pail near the deck steps collects rainwater for me to water the garden with. I’d love to get chickens someday, but I’m worried about keeping them out of my veggies and herbs. And also predators. We live in a densely populated area with the standard assortment of stray cats plus a surprising number of possums, raccoons, and even a family of hawks. I’d like the chickens to be able to free range if I can figure out the logistics.

So there’s our place! Not pictured are the guest bedroom and master bath, which still leave quite a bit to be desired, but if you’re just dying to see what they look like you can check them out in this post and this post. I’ll be working on getting all these new photos up on the house tour page today, so if you click over before I’m finished you can see what’s changed (and what hasn’t!) since the last tour. I fell in love with the house the first time I saw it and it’s so cheesy but I love it a little more every time I do something else to make it more beautiful, functional, and livable. And if you’ve made it to the end of this super long post then I love you too! Thanks for reading!

I’ve been looking for something more substantial since last summer–I even made mention of it in this post after I almost bought a low, wide chest of drawers at Ikea. I’m glad I waited because I finally found something perfect at a thrift store earlier this month–a wooden desk that I planned on revamping as a dressing table. And at only $16 it was $64 cheaper than the Ikea chest. Winning.

After painting it, drilling a hole in the back to create a charging station, hanging a mirror, reupholstering a chair, and framing some free “art”, voila–this section of wall is now full of form and function.

It’s pretty much invisible in the photo above, but I’ve actually made some backwards progress on this whole situation. I rearranged some things to take a picture of this bird print I made for my shop…

And when I was putting everything back I accidentally dropped the mirror. I was so upset when I saw that it had cracked! Now I’m going to have to keep my eyes peeled for a similar one at thrift stores and estate sales. And I’d better keep an eye out for a four-leaf clover, any and all pennies available to be picked up, and throw some salt over my shoulder while I’m at it because if superstitious lore holds any merit I’ve got some serious bad luck headed my way.

After picking up the pieces of my broken heart, I got down to business sorting through all my stuff and organizing it into the drawers. In the top drawer I have my makeup bag, a small bag of travel toiletries, a book I’ve been reading (and by “reading” I mean thinking about reading and then checking Facebook again instead), and stuff like lotion, perfume, nail polish, and dry shampoo (my hero).

In the next drawer down I organized all my jewelry. More traditional stuff (which is what I reach for the most) is in the front while more casual or contemporary necklaces are in the back. Bracelets, rings, earrings, and brooches are chilling in that little dish on the right. A place for everything and everything in its place. It makes my heart sing.

Lowest on the totem pole in the very bottom drawer is the stuff I rarely use. A diffuser, straightener, some kind of hair cream I use once a year, etc.

And last but not least, we have the shallow drawer to the right. Here we have the charging station I DIY’d, some hair doodads, and a hand mirror (for checking my ‘do from the back.

A silver trinket box on the desktop hold the stuff that realistically goes in my hair most often–ponytail holders and bobby pins.

If I’m being honest, my makeup bag lives in my diaper bag most of the time and I slap on some concealer and mascara at stoplights. About once a week or so I actually have time to sit and fix myself up before leaving the house. But it’s so very nice to have all this stuff out of our tiny bathroom and organized so I can find what I’m looking for on the rare occasion that I am actually trying to look nice. And what I’m most excited about is having such a pretty little nook tucked into a spot that used to look so sad. Now I’m trying to come up with something pretty and functional to do on the other side of the bed! And I can’t wait to show y’all our bathroom now that it’s so much less cluttered. Isn’t it funny how one little project can inspire so many more?

I wasn’t in the mood to scour the Internet for cool stuff to print, so I looked around my office instead. I found this pretty notecard I got from a friend a few months ago and have been saving because I loved the print.

I opened it up, laid it flat, and popped it into the frame. Bam. Art.

For the other frame, I just pulled a page from the same vintage Reader’s Digest I’ve used for several projects now and cut it into a cloud shape. Seemed fitting, since it is apparently monsoon season here in south Louisiana. Plus the cloud was easy to freehand.

Popped it in the frame with a piece of white paper behind it. More art.

Here they are on the wall. From a few feet away the crease in the center of the notecard pretty much disappears.

Maybe later this week I’ll find some cool stuff for the larger frames. Spoiler: it ain’t gonna happen today.

This posting five days a week thing is gonna take some practice, y’all. I am actually at work as I finish up this post, and it’s sheer luck that I had a moment to do so because my job doesn’t allow a lot of downtime. What will I post about tomorrow? It’s a mystery! Maybe I’ll think of something after work today, or maybe you’ll be treated to a couple hundred words of random ramblings. Only time will tell!

Yesterday I brought this chair upstairs from our guest room. It goes with the vintage bedroom set in there (inherited from my grandmother on my dad’s side), but was just sitting in a corner unused.

My sister is actually the rightful owner of the bedroom set (I got Nanny’s diamond engagement ring, Shannon got the furniture), but she doesn’t have any space for it at her house and I am happy to babysit it indefinitely. A few years ago she reupholstered the seat with this purple fabric. I love me some purple but this just wasn’t doing it for me. Happily, Shannon said she didn’t mind if I replaced it. So I flipped the chair over and got to work.

Four screws later I had the seat removed. The staples were easy to pull out with a flat head screwdriver.

I was really encouraged by the pinkish-coral velvet I could see as I worked. I couldn’t remember what the chair looked like before she recovered it, but this velvet was promising.

Unfortunately, once I flipped it over I could see why she’d covered it up. No longer pink and not at all velvety, this fabric had seen better days.

I was really, really tempted to run out to the fabric store and look for some pink velvet, but it was raining cats and dogs all day yesterday and I really didn’t want to spend the money anyway. So I went through my fabric stash and found this yellow twill.

I’m not sure whether I’ll keep the yellow and I didn’t want to make any more holes in the old wood than necessary, so I just taped it on there for now. The tape was not particularly easy to work with, but it’s good enough.

Here it is screwed back onto the chair base. Pistachio observed for quality assurance.

I think the pop of color is kind of fun, but I’m not totally convinced that its here to stay. I’m also totally cringing at the sight of that window unit. I really, really need to make some curtains to cover it up.

I usually like to make my bed before letting it appear in photographs, but I slipped on our porch steps yesterday and hurt my back pretty bad. I’m still sore today. No way was I exerting myself to fluff the pillows and pull up the covers. Plus there was a baby in there, haha.

There’s no more procrastinating at this point–the only thing left to do is sort through all my stuff and organize it in the new drawers. I guess I’ll put that on my to do list for the weekend! Along with some much-needed yard work if the weather cooperates. It’s been raining practically all week so the weeds should come up easy! I hope y’all have a more exciting weekend planned, haha. I’d much rather spend my weekend lounging around with my boys and some Netflix, but the yard has reached a breaking point.

I’m toying with the idea of keeping jewelry in the birdcage. It’s a good place to let my favorite stuff sit out where I can see it without being vulnerable to feline shenanigans. I might just put it in a drawer, though. Only time will tell.

Nick and I have been cleaning out our closets (in an effort to stick with my New Year’s resolution to rid the house of clutter) and I found this little mirror in the guest room with the Goodwill price tags still attached. I think I must have bought it over a year ago and have actually been meaning to take it BACK to the Goodwill because I didn’t have a place for it. Well, little mirror, your time has come.

I picked up some hanging hardware at Hobby Lobby. You just hook the ends onto the edge of your plate, mirror, whatever, and then stick it on the wall.

It was stretched really tight and I had a hard time getting it to “catch” the nail in my wall, so I jammed some crumpled up paper underneath to make it stick out a little.

And voila. I love it. Those other frames were looking kind of dinky and oddly placed, though.

Whenever I visit Ikea I like to stock up on these 5×7 Ribba frames. They’re so inexpensive and easy to hang. I dug two of them out of my stash and rearranged everything kind of impulsively. Looking at them in the photo below one of them looks a little crooked. I’ll have to fix that later.

I still don’t know what I’ll put in them. Maybe photos or some free printable art or maybe I’ll DIY something. I’m totally putting form before function in this little dressing table project because I know that as soon as all my stuff is over here I’ll just start using it every day and stop trying to make it look pretty (just like the bathroom you’ve never seen on the blog because it is seven kinds of ugly). Once I get some pretty stuff in those frames, and a cute chair to sit in (I’ve got one one mind) I’ll sort through all my health and beauty accouterments to see what is worthy of a spot in the new digs. And I’ll be knocking out two birds with one stone by dealing with the clutter issue in the bathroom! Holla.

Can y’all believe that just, like, a week ago this corner looked like this? Boring and not particularly functional.

My eye is totally starting to wander to the matching empty corner on Nick’s side of the bed, wondering what kind of useful little nook I can whip up over there. This old house was not really designed for the way we live today, but the longer we’re here the more ways I find to make it work (like turning the front room into an office/playroom and, more recently, using some odd storage nooks upstairs more like how regular people use their attics–details on that to come).

ps If you’re just reading this post and wondering where I got the stuff above, you can read about the desk here, here, and here and the birdcage here. 

I did away with the duck decals and painted it pale gray.

Now that we’re all caught up, I was totally inspired by this Martha Stewart how-to to make the top drawer of my new dressing table a convenient spot for charging my cell phone and other devices. She made it sound so easy. Just drill a hole in the back and feed the wires through. Any ol’ housewife can do it. The big thing is that Martha just drilled a hole large enough to poke the small end of a charging cord through. My cell phone charger isn’t long enough to reach all the way through the back of the drawer and to the wall outlet. I decided to use a surge protector to bridge the gap, meaning I needed to drill a hole large enough for the surge protector plug. Oy.

I don’t have a drill bit that big, so I came up with the brilliant idea to drill several small holes and somehow merge them together into one mega-hole.

It ended up looking like something done by a rodent. And it still wasn’t big enough.

After more drilling and some chipping away with a screwdriver, bada bing bada bang, charging drawer is a go.

I’m actually making it sound much easier than it was. It was a major, major pain. And to top it all off, all that drilling made quite a mess. Do you think this is how Martha operates?

Next, I fed the plug of the power strip through the back of the drawer. It took some finagling, but I figured out how to adjust the cord so that it didn’t jam when the drawer opened and closed.

All that was left to do then was plug in my essential devices. I may add my blow dryer and (rarely used) flat-iron when I move over all my stuff from the bathroom. Haven’t decided.

Do you notice the baby monitor charging next to my cell phone? It’s getting a lot more use these days because, drumroll please, Jack is sleeping in his own room at night! We were planning to keep him in a pack n play in our room for the first year because it’s supposed to help prevent SIDS, but when I mentioned his frequent night wakings at his six month checkup his doctor said that being able to see, hear, and smell us was likely making it more difficult for him to sleep at night, especially since he’s breastfed (what can I say, I smell delicious). He has never done well with taking naps in his crib so I braced for the worst, but he went down that first night without a peep and has been sleeping longer and longer stretches between feedings every night. I don’t even mind walking all the way downstairs to feed him when I look at the clock and realize he’s slept half an hour longer than he did the night before. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, people.

Now that the pack n play has been packed away I am getting even more excited about this little mini update to the bedroom. I really didn’t see the point in beautifying a room with such a huge piece of baby gear out and about, so I let things slip a bit. Surfaces got cluttered and the bed went unmade. But now it’s all grown-up furniture and it’s fun to work on a little corner that’s just for me.

Priority numero uno: eliminate duck stickers.

They actually seemed to be more like decals than stickers. There was no distinct edge that I could peel up or chip away at. I ended up using a combination of sandpaper, magic eraser, my thumbnail, and a flat head screwdriver (to scrape).

It’s a good thing I was planning on painting it because I really did some damage to the finish.

Next step: roll on a thin coat of primer. I don’t always use primer, but since this was some sort of shiny veneer-like wood finish I worried the paint wouldn’t stick well. Plus the color I had in mind was really light and I only had a little bit of it leftover from another project so I couldn’t afford to be slapping on multiple coats.

Once the primer was dry, I gave it two coats of Benjamin Moore’s Classic Gray (leftover from Jack’s nursery).

I waited a day before putting the hardware on and the drawers back in, at which point I realized I hadn’t painted far enough inside the edges. Oops! Luckily it didn’t take too long to fix and I didn’t wait a whole day before putting the drawers back again.

Ta-da! I’m kind of undecided about the hardware. The metal plates behind the drawer pulls are kind of a bit much, but I’m going to live with them a while before taking them off. They’re growing on me a little already.

The color looks much paler than it does on Jack’s walls. It definitely appears white at first glance, but when you compare it to something that is truly white you can see the difference. It’s a lovely pale gray.

I’ve still got some stuff to do before it’s fully functional, like actually moving all my stuff into it, haha. I’d also like to drill a hole in the back for my cell phone charger, find a pretty mirror to sit on top (or maybe hang on the wall behind it?), and of course bring in a chair. Even simple projects like this get stretched waaaaay out with a tiny human monopolizing my time, but I think I’ll probably have it all done by the end of this week.

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! Yesterday was the official start of the Carnival season and if you’re friends with me on facebook you might have seen the photo I posted of Jack’s Mardi Gras ensemble and our first king cake of the year. Don’t worry, I did not feed sugar-coated-cake to my baby. He’ll have to wait until at least next year to get hopped up on Mardi Gras spirit. We’re going to be getting a lot of wear out of that outfit over the next month so don’t worry if we’re not facebook friends, I’m sure a photo will make it onto the blog before Fat Tuesday.

I was hoping to pick up a low dresser on craigslist for about fifty bucks, but when I saw this desk at the thrift store for only $16 my wheels started turning. The proportions were perfect and I was really excited about the price.

The duck stickers really sold me on this piece. Just kidding. It was the hardware. Isn’t it cool?

See how much more nicely it fills the space? Ignore the naked windows and air conditioner. This particular corner has been neglected in my decorating efforts.

I definitely don’t need (or want) a desk in here–I’m a big believer that bedrooms are for relaxation. But what I could actually really use is a dressing table. Our bathroom is tiny and cluttered (there’s a reason it’s never been pictured on the blog). A dressing table could provide valuable storage for various accoutrements that are too big for the medicine cabinet. Here are some photos I’ll be taking inspiration from.

the decorista

I’m thinking I’ll clean it up, paint it, and fill the top and drawers with makeup, jewelry, etc., as well as a few happy, pretty things just to make me smile first thing in the morning and last thing before bed at night. I already smiled just waking up this morning and seeing the unpainted, unstyled desk. I’m so excited to have found something so perfect for under twenty bucks. Hopefully I can get it all fixed up this weekend and have an update for y’all on Monday.