Concrete Floating Shelves
I have a friend who is a general contractor, and has mad concrete skills, so… He built these: Yep. No need to check your vision, those are bona fide, 100% awesome, true-blue floating concrete shelves. Pinch me! B-b-b-but, where are the brackets? I know. Seriously genius. They’re in the walls. And they’re in the shelves. Man, oh man. Once I decided on concrete kitchen counter tops, I wanted matching concrete floating shelves. Without brackets. I wanted that clean, unified look of a shelf just floating on the wall. Turns out, that’s quite a feat if you have concrete shelves. I don’t know, something about concrete being heavy… But, like I…
Concrete Kitchen Countertops
My counter tops used to give me the heebie-jeebies. No lie. When we bought this house, the counter tops were made of 4” tumbled marble tiles with the occasional hand-painted Nemoesque fish. Sounds cute, but it wasn’t really. For the record, tumbled marble is pretty porous as a surface. Yes, you can seal it. Of course you can. I’m pretty sure you can seal any surface. But whoever sealed these counter tops, didn’t do a fantastic job. And I don’t know if they used a food-grade quality sealer either. Anyway, the sealant had peeled away in places, and worn away in others. This led to moisture getting locked in the tile…
Hand Painted With Annie Sloan Chalk Paint
What do you do when you have a house that’s filled with furniture that feels…meh? Why, you just start painting the crap out of it. That’s what! I started compiling a post of things I’ve painted in my home using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (ASCP). That’s when I realized that I may come across as a little bit obsessed because there’s a LOT. This whole craze started when I researched non-toxic options for painting my kitchen cabinets. But I ended up painting my floors first, then a couple furniture pieces with the help of my best friend and fellow paint enthusiast, Sitka. She painted some of these pieces herself,…
Functional Art for The Home
Mmmm. Yes, please. You know what functional art is? It’s art that is not only lovely to behold, but it also serves a function; a utilitarian purpose. It’s useful. And I am all about functional art in my home. I have a rule, it’s actually #129 on my list of 365 Ways to Be Awesome: Put nothing in your home that isn’t useful to your life, or meaningful to you. I’m lucky, because wherever possible, I try to do both. At the same time. And, why not? Why not have a light fixture which adds beauty to a room? Or a bit of decorative storage that stores things you need regularly?…
My Whole House Makeover
I never meant to give my whole downstairs a makeover. It just sort of snuck up on me. After I tore up my water damaged hardwood floors and then painted them, other things popped up that needed to be sorted. Like, my kitchen. It was literally falling apart and made food prep a nightmare. You can see a glimpse of it below. So, I gutted my kitchen, and created this instead: Yep. Those are concrete floating shelves and a concrete counter top. You can read about my kitchen remodel and reveal and see more photos here, but you get the idea. So, now I loved my kitchen and I loved my floors. But I…
Breakfast Nook Makeover
I have no idea why we never created a use for this space in the 7 years or so that we lived here, but we didn’t. Actually, that’s not true. I do know why; it’s because I never really considered how I use spaces in my home before. We just moved in, unpacked, and started living here. Sure, I hung pictures up and I painted walls, but that was it. Well, that was all about to change. I wanted a cozy, yummy breakfast nook so that I could enjoy a more intimate breakfast with my husband. First, I needed a dining set. I figured out what I wanted (a 30″ round…
My Comfy & Cozy Sitting Nook
This room has gone through a few evolutions since we first moved in. First, it was just a space that I had no clear idea what to do with. I did know that I wanted it to be a place to socialize; maybe have a cup of tea with a friend, or a glass of wine with my love. I’m a writer, and I wanted a space that felt inspired. As it turned out, this was my first truly inspired space in this home. We got a couple chairs from IKEA, a little end table, a foot stool, and this lovely desk. My husband had this awesome folding screen made for me…
My Cozy Reading Nook
After I painted my floors, and we were putting the living room back together, I had a conversation with my husband that went like this: G: “What are you planning on doing with this alcove? You’re not going to put that crappy armoire back there again, are you?” Me: “Crappy?” G: (Looking abashed) “Well, no. It’s not really crappy. But the floors are so beautiful and I feel like you should do something amazing with that space instead of just putting a boring old piece of furniture in it.” Me: “I see. Like what did you have in mind?” G: “I don’t know. You’re the creative one. Make something beautiful.”…
New Kitchen Makeover and Reveal
Here it is!! My brand new kitchen! I can hardly believe it’s mine. If you saw my earlier post when we returned from our trip to Germany to find my kitchen falling apart. Then you know what a big deal this has been. When we bought this house, the kitchen was literally the cheapest construction part of the house. The cabinets were bottom of the line formica, and there was even a book shelf shoved into a slot where perhaps a wine fridge once stood. We repainted it when we moved in, but that was the extent of what we did really. So, a few years later, and after 2…
My Organized Kitchen
This post should really be called: How I rethunk my kitchen and made it easy to use and AWESOME. I used to think I was doomed to be a slob. Turns out I was just hopelessly disorganized. When I returned from a two month trip to Germany, I had a chance to look at my kitchen with a brand new set of eyes: it was a mess, disorganized, falling apart, and I hated doing anything in it. Out of necessity, I needed to eat healthy, home-cooked foods. My life literally depended on it. But I didn’t want to cook, and I definitely didn’t want to cook anything in THAT kitchen. That’s…
Be awesome. Every. Single. Day.
