• Home Makeover,  Kitchen Remodel,  The Home

    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…

  • Home Makeover,  The Home

    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…

  • Home Makeover,  Home Tour,  The Home

    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…

  • Home Makeover,  Home Tour,  The Home

    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.”…

  • Kitchen Remodel,  The Home

    My Budget-Friendly Custom Kitchen Cabinets

    My Custom Cabinets Cost Less and Are Non-Toxic (and NOT made in China) What? How is this even possible?? I had 4 criteria in selecting a new cabinet system for my kitchen: Non-Toxic.Did you know that most cabinets have MDF with fillers like Formaldehyde? These highly toxic chemicals outgas for ages potentially contaminating everything that touches your food (and the food itself). So it goes without saying that if it’s going to touch your food ware and your dry foods, spices, etc, then it should be 100% food safe, right? Not Made in China. It’s not just about keeping jobs here in America. There is a pattern of conduct in China…

  • Home Makeover,  The Home

    My Hand Painted Checkered Floors

    I can hardly believe I painted my own floors. Crazy, right? With Annie Sloan Chalk Paint actually. It was surprisingly easy once we wrapped our wits around it. This is the traditional way that most DIYers will share on how to paint checkered floors, but I have to confess that my husband had a quicker way that we ended up using when we painted checkered squares in the kitchen which actually took 4 hours from taping the floor to the first coat of polyurethane.  But this post doesn’t cover that method. You can find that one here. The main difference between these two methods is the taping process.  Supplies & Materials:…

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