Update: You can find another (very thorough) blog and video tutorial in this post! Throughout the life of this blog you’ve witnessed many DIY door transformations, like my salvaged wood look… My frosted and decaled laundry room door… Or this budget-friendly plain to paneled door: But when it came time to update the garage door, I wanted to […]
In deze blog geef ik je mijn tips voor als je dit mooie eiland voor het eerst bezoekt. Wat moet je echt gezien hebben? En hoe zit het met...
Hello and happy Wednesday! Today I’m happy to be sharing a little update on my Village house quilt! I’m making very scrappy houses using all of our fabric collections: Bright Sun, Valley, Desert Bloom, Creekside, The Front Porch, and Clover Hollow! I’ve actually had some of these houses finished for quite a little bit now […]
This post is part of a paid collaboration with Lowe’s Home Improvement. All opinions are my own. When was the last time you thought about updating your doors, door/trim color and hardware? With so much of our focus on décor, doors tend to be an often overlooked part of the renovation process. They may not […]
Don't be intimidated by cracked and broken tile grout. Follow this quick and easy step by step guide to repair your tile floor to its former glory.
You guys have been patiently waiting for updates on a few rooms in our house & honestly, that's the reality of living in a fixer-upper. Nothing is ever complete ... We have so many projects started & can't complete them all at once. But I really wanted to give you guys an update on our mudroom. This is one area of our home I wanted to update for so long & I'm so excited to share the progress with you guys! Here is a little glimpse at our back hallway before. So dark & not our style at all: We
6 ways to update your home for less than $500. These small and inexpensive home improvements make a big impact!
I will never be over these before and after photos! What a difference!
This tutorial on Shower and Tub Refinishing: How I Painted My Old 1970's Shower was sponsored by Bathworks. When we moved into this old 1973 home six years ago, shower and tub refinishing was the
Update content: work with the werewolves patch; old skin overlays are transferred to the new version of the texture; new colors added to skins; new overlay swatсhes; updated sequence. Installat…
Update: You can find another (very thorough) blog and video tutorial in this post! Throughout the life of this blog you’ve witnessed many DIY door transformations, like my salvaged wood look… My frosted and decaled laundry room door… Or this budget-friendly plain to paneled door: But when it came time to update the garage door, I wanted to […]
Whether you have a small or a large budget…you’ve got options!
We analyze different wainscoting ideas and styles, pick the best one, & show you the update on our bathroom renovation's wainscoting!
Hey Friends! I’m swinging by the blog today to share another goodie that can be found in my free resource library! My newsletter subscribers have exclusive access to this library. If you’re interested in receiving weekly emails from me about blog updates, sales, new resources, ideas, and more then you can sign up by clicking ... Read More about Free Camping Themed Dot Pages!
Italian designer and illustrator Jonathan Calugi recently updated his portfolio with a series of new projects. It’s well worth a visit if you’re a fan of his signature black and white l…
With the new year looming around the corner it's time to once again recap what's coming, whats going and what is here to stay in the interior design trends world. I wrote an article on 2023 trends that went viral last year! You can read it here. Colour Trends We are seeing a shift from
I have a big blog post for your today! 27 Kitchen Makeovers! Before and afters. Majority are from YOU in our Facebook group. And I was so inspired going thru all of them. It is proof that something you might call a SCARY kitchen can be a space you love. Remember my friend's home with the Fireplace Makeover I recently decorated for Fall and at Christmas? Well today we get to see her kitchen. She is one of the 27 kitchens. I went and styled it and took photos. Below is here BEFORE…. And there are so much more too! See it all HERE
Hello friends! Today I'm sharing all the details on how we built our kitchen island countertop out of hardwood flooring. You've asked and now I'm showing you the entire process of what went into us building this countertop. I'm sharing all about how we built it, to how we installed it over our existing countertop, to how I finished it.
Zentangle Still Lifes What a successful project! We used Sharpie for our Zentangle backgrounds and chalk pastel for our still lifes. Focus was on variety of pattern as well as varied line thickness and value blending. At the beginning of the lesson, the still life image was projected on screen to allow for large classes to view it in detail. We also saved the image on our Edmodo class page for easy access anytime!
DecayClownSims
Review Whistler Peak to Peak - we took a trip on the peak to peak over the Summer months and this is what we thought of the experience
Grrrrrasses... I am writing this basically for the MyGardenSchool students, for whom i wanted to clarify a point which I clearly had failed to do in the material, given how many ask about this - but this is an important issue so I putting it up as a blog post. The point I want to make is about how grasses grow and what this means for us as designers of plantings and as gardeners who have to manage them long into the future. The Achnatherum brachytrichum (Calamagrostis brachytricha) is a good example of a cespitose grass, one that forms a distinct tight tussock. Actually there are many which are a lot tighter, and of course like everything else in nature this is not a hard and fast category. Diversion - it is much easier to think of gradients rather than categories very often when trying to classify natural phenomena: the infinite shades of grey between black and white (joke for workshops - there many more than fifty shades of grey). We love cespitose grasses, we like the visual appeal of that neat bunchy habit, and they stay where they are put, unlike many of the older generation of ornamental grasses, that ran all over the place and gave them all a bad name. However, they may seed all over the place - and I am going to come on to that. The one on the left above is an Eragrostis sp. (old pic, lost name - sorreee!). The other is Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' raised by the great man himself and pretty much one of the best ornamental grasses we have. Notice how different in habit they are - the Eragrostis stems can all be followed in the mind's eye back to a tight base, so it is clearly cespitose, while the Calamagrostis stems go straight down - that tells you that this is going to be more of a mat former, and it is going to continually spread, in theory, ad infinitum. Cespitose grasses on the other hand, get to a certain size and more or less stay that way, forming a dense tussock. They do grow outwards after this point, but so slowly it can be virtually disregarded. A cespitose grass, drawing thanks to Ye Hang. The bunch - get the point! In the wild, this being Brechfa Bog in Radnorshire. Deschampsia cespitosa on the right is clearly, well yes, cespitose. The rest of the green stuff is a mix of the various turf grasses that are far more typical of our north-west European grass flora. This is how they spread, running through stolons. These turf grasses are at the opposite end of the spectrum to the cespitose grasses. Turf btw, for the Americans = sod. Many grasses are somewhere in-between, and can be called mat-formers, as they spread out at an appreciable rate, but do not charge out like turf-formers. Turf grasses can be mown, which is why are great for football pitches, sunbathing, picnics, croquet, open air theatre, making love on etc and all the other things we do on them. Couldn't do much of this recreational stuff on cespitose grasses. Molinia caerulea - an old clump at Hummelo. See how tight it is, and that very clear edge. Go up to a really old cespitose grass and if you give it a kick, you will appreciate how hard and solid that base is. In contrast, Miscanthus sinensis is a mat-former, slowly spreading, and in this case, leaving behind some dead patches. What applies to grasses, applies to sedges too - this is a strongly-spreading Carex glauca (C. flacca). C. muskingumensis is intermediate, forming tight but distinctly spreading clumps. But many sedges are truly cespitose. Nice tidy little chaps these, very decorative. The leading edge of a Calamagrostis and below a Miscanthus, an ill-defined edge, in contrast to the clear end of a cespitose tussock. It is possible to see even at this time of year some new shoots. Stipa gigantea, a good example of a cespitose grass. Ones in older gardens can be decades old, forming great tussocks. Many cespitose grasses are very long-lived. The ruler is measuring out 30cms. Nasella tenuissima, formerly Stipa tenuissima, an example of a cespitose species which is very short-lived, and as you might guess, these are seedlings. It can seed around very freely, but not enough in my garden! Species like these are clearly pioneer plants, the longer-lived cespitose stress-tolerant. Turf grasses are basically competitors. Globally there are more cespitose than turf grasses - but we in northern Europe get a very distorted view of grasses, as our turf grasses are the exception. And of course now they have spread everywhere. What about seeding more generally? Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' is sterile, so that is ideal. Nor does it spread strongly. I grew one of its parents, once, C. epigejos, a mistake, very aggressive runner, especially on our moist and fertile soil. Had to get the Roundup out - fast. Miscanthus have gotten a reputation as invasive in some US states. I worry about others, like the Achnatherum I started with here. This Asian species has begun to take over the High Line, so the question will be, how will it compete with the other plants there? Will it establish a balance? Or will it lower diversity? In the garden at home Molinia and Deschampsia are in their element , as they are locally native plants, and do they seed? A lot! To the point where I am beginning to wonder whether I really want them. Or what should we say to clients about long-term management? Or could we end up with relatively stable forb-cespitose grass combinations? Warm-season American or Asian species which do not seed in our summers, even if they are very slow to get going, have huge advantages in this respect. Unlike many forbs, when grasses seed, they often do so in massive quantities. There are lots of questions. I feel we are only just beginning to learn some answers. SUPPORT THIS BLOG I write this blog unpaid (of course) and try to do two postings a month, to try to provide the garden, wildflower and plant-loving community with information, inspiration and ideas. Keeping it coming is not always easy to fit into a busy working life. I would very much appreciate it if readers would 'chip in' (as we say in England) and provide a little financial support. After all, you pay for magazines and books, and it is only for historical reasons that the internet is free. Some money coming in will help me to improve quality and frequency, and to start to provide more coherent access to hard information, which I know is what a lot of you really want. So – please donate now!! You can do this through PayPal using email address: [email protected] Thank you! And thank you too to the folk who have contributed so far. ******** If you like this blog, why not check out my e-books, which are round-ups of some writing I did for Hortus magazine back in the early 2000s, along with an interview with the amazing Beth Chatto. You can read them on Kindle, or Kindle packages for smartphones or the computer. You can find them on my Amazon page here. You will also find my soap opera for gardeners - currently running at eight episodes.
7 small home updates that make a big impact. For less than $1,000 you can tackle these impressive home improvement projects!
Did you know using a whole house paint color will help you create a cohesive flow throughout your entire home? Learn about my favorite colors!
Our old wardrobes are gone and our new Ikea Pax are built, fitted and finally have their new doors. Come and see my Ikea Pax Hack on today's blog.
But there are so many shortcuts out there! How do you keep track? With our 99designs Shortcut Cheat Sheet of course.
My goal has always been to add character to my bland builders grade home. This corner in my kitchen was next on the list! I decided I wanted to add bead board to this nook to create texture and personality. I also was really drawn to the idea of a shelf with pegs underneath. Here […]
Oh my... I can't believe how far we have come in our upstairs part of our farmhouse since moving in here. In the past few months we have made the majority of our progress with big renovations like window replacement, new flooring, new wall treatments, lots of paint, & even some new lighting. In case you forget what our upstairs looked like before, here is what we were working with just over a year ago... I honestly Can't believe how much progress we have made... Sometimes it's hard to just see the to-do list when you are living in a
How to Mortar Wash a Brick Fireplace || Brick Fireplace Makeover || Mortar Wash Tutorial || Dimples and Tangles
Hey guys!!! So, I haven't blogged in nearly 4 months. It's crazy. I barely even know where to begin! There's so much to say and so much to share, so let's just jump right in and pick up where we left off. Our little Ava is now 5 months old and doing really great. We survived 4 months of colic/milk allergy/reflux and between that and a pretty difficult pregnancy, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of my sails. But, little by little, things are getting so much better and I'm slowly starting to feel like my old self again. Thank you guys so much for being patient with me and understanding that I needed some time off to focus on Ava. I'm so grateful for this precious girl, and I'm sure one day I'll look back and laugh about the past year. But, like, not yet. Ava on Halloween...finally giving us all sorts of sweet smiles. So, let's get down to business. In the final few months before I had Ava, I was able to share with you guys the finished basement renovation, our upstairs flooring redo, and the nursery. But I kinda ran out of time (duty called) before I could share the finished living room. So, a quick 5 months after I finished it, today I can finally show it to you. Many of you guys have been following my blog for awhile now and have already seen the before pictures of the upstairs living area, but I'll share them again, as it's always a nice reminder of how outdated our house was when we first moved in. So, here are the before pics. This is the living room in May of 2010 when we first moved in...wall to wall carpet, outdated light fixtures, dark wood trim, and windows so old that you could feel the wind in your hair when you stood next to them. This was what the entryway looked like. Outdated light fixture, parquet flooring and carpeted stairs, rickety old stair rail, and dark wood trim and door. This was what the dining room looked like. There was a wall between the kitchen and dining room that made the room almost too tiny to use. There was an old glass sliding door that barely opened, dark wood trim and wainscotting, outdated light fixtures, and a tile/carpet combo. This is what it looked standing in the dining room and looking into the living room. This house sat on the market for a really long time before we bought it, as it was obviously totally outdated. I was a little scared, as it was our first house and I had never renovated anything in my life. But, ultimately I decided to just go for it and I'm so glad I did. Renovating it took me almost 5 years to complete. Sometimes it was totally stressful, sometimes I wanted to quit, but ultimately it's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. And I learned a lot. Which is great because we won't live here forever, and the next time I renovate a house, I'll be much better equipped. So, that being said, here are the pics of what this upstairs area looks like today. Let's start with a little recap of the dining room and entryway and then we'll move into the living room. One of the things that made the biggest difference was knocking down the wall between the dining room and kitchen. We also built a new stair rail, painted all of the trim and wainscoting white, added new light fixtures, and installed white washed hardwood flooring. I painted our kitchen cabinets and updated the hardware when we first moved in the house, and although in an ideal world I would have been able to fully renovate the kitchen, I decided that I could really stretch our budget by just painting the cabinetry and working with what we already had. In the dining room, I added a bold rug that I found for $60 (I know it's not for everyone, and that's okay.). I found the dining room table at a salvage shop, and the white leather chairs with metallic legs I found on Overstock. The original post about the dining room with sources can be found here. Also, we've talked about my orchid sabotage many times, so...that's a fake orchid. I've got a child to raise. Here's a quick view from the landing at the top of the stairs. You can see where we also knocked down the wall and widened the old doorway into the hallway. Here's a look around the corner. You can see how we painted the old outdated wainscoting white. We also replaced the old sliding glass door in the dining room with nice french doors. In the entryway, we replaced the light fixture, and installed double doors on the coat closet. We replaced the carpet on the stairs with hardwood treads and painted white risers, and we also built a new stairrail. I painted the existing front door Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze (favorite!), and added a little silver coat hook from HomeGoods. One of the deer heads broke off after I brought it home. And now this little coat hook reminds me of Jesse tinkering in the garage for an hour, determined to fix it for me. I think there was some ametuer welding going on in the garage, but I was too pregnant to waddle out there and watch. And now, let's move on to the finished living room. I don't expect this room to blow anyone's mind. But, it's come such a long way, and it's where we spend most of our time, so it definitely deserves at least a little time on the blog. We replaced the light fixtures, added some inexpensive tufted couches and a giant comfy ottoman, the rug is from awhile back, and then I thrifted the TV console. Here's a pic of the TV console I found at the thrift store. It's obviously nothing special, but it was the right size and $20, so...sold! I painted it (using the only furniture paint I ever use anymore) and changed out the hardware. It has a super glossy lacquer finish and looks really great up close. I'll eventually mount the TV on the wall, too. Here's a closeup of the hardware. Some little polished nickel pulls from Home Depot. I haven't decided on what kinda curtains I want to hang yet, so for now the windows are just bare. It took us 5 years to finally replace those old windows, so I don't mind looking at the new ones in the meantime. I added some Etsy pillows to the sofas. Here's a view of the living room looking back into the dining room, one of my favorite views. We built the mantel and made the stacked log insert for the fireplace (both were done awhile ago) and then I freshened up the mantle with some things I had around the house. The little framed floral art is a print I found on Etsy. And then, I made some art of my own...some black and white abstract art for above the sofa. I had Jesse build me a basic wooden frame. And I spray painted it with this Krylon Foil Metallic silver spray paint (affiliate link). It's good, ya'll. I think I'll be using it as my go-to silver spray paint from now on. It made my little frame look like actual metal or like it was silver leafed. Either way, good stuff. For the painting itself, I just used some Sherwin Williams Simply White paint (the same color that's on the walls), mixed it with a little gray, and then sketched out a doodle and filled it in with some Sherwin Williams Urbane Bronze (the same black paint I used on the front door). It's probably not gonna end up at a museum, but it took me an hour and only cost me a few bucks, so homemade art for the win. And that, you guys, is the finished upstairs living area! I'm sure it will continue to evolve and change, but it feels great to at least have it furnished and not under construction. We lived in the basement throughout most of my pregnancy, so it's nice to no longer be a cave dweller. And I'll leave you with this picture of how the living room looks in real life, filled with baby stuff. Because it would be ridiculous to pretend like my house always looks like the above pictures....it took me at least twenty minutes to clean out all the baby apparatus before I could take some blog pics. Let's be honest. :) As for the blog, a lot of you have asked what my plans are. I plan to slowly get back into the swing of things, as time allows, and as quickly as my brain starts functioning like normal again. Thank you guys for all of your sweet comments and messages. I appreciate it so much. I know I'll eventually find my groove again, but right now I'm still doing a lot of this. And I wouldn't have it any other way. 'Til next time! Follow my blog with Subscribe to LiveLoveDIY with email! Enter your email address:
This is a front porch makeover for fall. Learn how to give your front porch and door and facelift for the season with this step-by-step Hometalk tutorial.
A couple years ago I saw a DIY painted stairs makeover that I bookmarked in a tiny space in the back of my mind and thought, "Whenever I get a free moment, I'm going to do my
Blog written by Bakir Contracting Corp. in Edmonton Exterior painting season is soon arriving, and it’s time to start planning for your next project. Exterior painting/staining is an important aspect of home maintenance for curb appeal, but also to protect your surfaces. Regular exterior painting will preserve wood, stucco, siding, etc., and prevent damage that can […]
