Splash of Color on the Gallery Wall - super cheap DIY

I have dreams of a beautiful gallery wall in our upstairs office/guest room. The room itself has slanted ceilings which is a bit of a decorating dilemma to begin with - but then you add in where I want the room to go and those ceilings don't matter one bit! Part of my Home To Do List included finishing up the gallery wall, which is just what I attempted to do the other day.

It was one of the easiest projects I've done in this house and I love the color it brings to the area! With gray walls, and all white frames, it was just screaming for a splash of color!

I've been collecting the frames on the wall since before we moved. I visit a thrift store that's next to a local grocery store when I see that their frames are 50% off and I snatch up whatever I think would look good size and shape wise. Then I bring them home and spray paint them Krylon's Bright White in a satin finish (I find my spray paint at WalMart) so they all match. I've been tossing them up on the wall until I find inspiration to fill them - and recently I found just that.

It was simple. It took 30 minutes, tops. I used a couple frames I already had (one was marked $1.50, the other was $0.50 - so with the 50% sales I shop, I'm pretty sure I paid a whole dollar for these two frames), and two magazines that I was about to toss. I also gathered a sheet of white scrapbook paper, ModPodge, a paintbrush, a glue pen, scissors, and glass cleaner.

I started by cleaning the glass for the frames to get all the fingerprints off. Then I ripped into the magazines looking for any bright colors or neat patterns. When I found something I liked, I traced a raindrop shape and cut it out. I repeated that over and over until I had about 30 raindrops to choose from. From there, I just arranged them on the pre-cut white scrapbook paper that fit in the frame. It took a little bit to find an arrangement I liked, but eventually I was ready to start gluing.

You can choose to use ModPodge or a glue pen - I started with ModPodge but switched to the glue pen just because it was faster and less messy. Anyway, you'll want to glue/ModPodge your raindrops to the paper and let them dry.

Once dry, you can choose to put another coat of ModPodge on top, or just pop them in frames to hang on the wall!

Wham, bam, done!

Cost breakdown:
Frames - $1 from a local thrift store during a 50% sale (you could always hit up the Dollar Tree for two frames for $2)
Scrapbook paper - already had, just took out of my stash
ModPodge - already had, just took out of my stash
Magazines - already had, thank you Ladies Home Journal for the free subscription!
Glue pen - already had, from DIY our wedding invites years ago
Glass cleaner - already had

Total cost: $1 for me, but if you needed a couple other supplies (glue pen, scrapbook paper, frames) it could cost around $3-$7 for two completed pieces of art. What a steal!

And of course, you can do this same project with any shape. I was going to circles (and use a scrapbook punch, which would have been even easier and quicker) and then I wanted to do snowflakes and then I settled on raindrops. Mix it up and try a different shape, if you want! I bet a polka dotted version would be super cute!

The Never Ending Honey-Do List

As promised in my post from last week, I'm here to share the short version of my to-do list around the house. While our new home is structurally sound, it leaves a lot to be desired in updated features. When we moved in, we were surrounded by honey oak: floors, trim, doors, cabinets, even the walls were a honey color. We're slowly making progress a little bit at a time (read: what I can accomplish during a Saturday afternoon) but I still feel like I need a list that can hold me accountable to the updates I want to make and make me feel good when I cross things off. I'll be using this as my master list and I'll link you to any projects that I've finished!

I'd love to have all of this done in the next six months... and then work on saving our bones for residing the house (it's currently a magnificent MINT GREEN), eventually gutting the main bathroom, and buying new living room furniture. Six months might be a stretch, but I'm not one of those people who like to leave projects unfinished so hopefully if I can get a good start on some of these, we'll be good.

So, here goes nothin'!

Upstairs:
Photo wall up the stairs
Put up curtain rods
Paint curtain rods
Cut curtains
Hem curtains

Fill gallery wall frames

Hallway:

Paint hall ceiling

Paint hallway walls
Refinish hardwood floors
Buy and install quarter round

Buy new light

Install new light

Hang art

Bedroom:
Put up curtain rods
Paint curtain rods
Cut curtains
Hem curtains
Paint trim in bedroom
Refinish hardwood floors
Buy and install quarter round

Downstairs guest room:
Paint trim
Paint walls
Put up curtain rods
Paint curtain rods
Cut curtains
Hem curtains
Refinish hardwood floors
Buy and install quarter round

Kitchen:

Stain kitchen cabinets
Board and batten wall

New countertops

Paint walls

Buy new light

Install new light

Living room:

Paint trim in living room

Patch living room ceiling

Paint living room walls
Put up curtain rods
Paint curtain rods
Cut curtains
Hem curtains
Refinish hardwood floors
Buy and install quarter round

Dining room:

New windows in dining room
Put up curtain rods
Paint curtain rods
Cut curtains
Hem curtains

Bathroom:

Paint bathroom walls

Peel and stick tiles in bathroom (for short term use)
Stain bathroom mirror

Two floating shelves above toilet

Side entry:

Paint trim

Paint ceiling

Paint walls

Paint steps

Install new light

Am I a glutton asking for punishment by trying to do all of this in a small amount of time? Only time will tell!

Welcome to 2014

Hey there and happy new year! It's been a little over 2 months since I last checked in because nursing school is keeping me so busy. By the time I'm done with my 12 hours of studying for the day, the last thing I want to do is type out a blog post... plus, my life doesn't change much day-to-day. Boring!

I realize I haven't shared any photos of our new house so I'll make a point to do so in the future. However, I have a few pictures I can share today that show the intermediate steps of our home improvement projects so you'll get a little peek into the money-pit we call home!

Just recently, Trevor and I adopted a 4 year old pup from our local humane association - we named her Maggie. She's as sweet as pie and is the perfect dog for us. Talk about unexpected, though! We just went to put in a general application to be approved for future adoptions and saw her sweet face. We met her and had submitted an application to take her home before we left. The day after Christmas, they called and told her she was all ours! She's from Mississippi and is slowly adjusting to the -30 degree windchill days we have around this time of year but her favorite thing to do is to cuddle with us under a heating blanket. We are so blessed to have a happy, healthy pup like Maggie!

We've also been staying busy with fixing things around the house. Before we even bought the house, we knew that we'd need to work on some landscaping before winter hit because the soil around our house was sloping towards the foundation which was basically sending the water down the footings and making our sump pumps (yes, two!) work overtime. We had about 5 different basement people look at the house while we were in escrow to make sure it wasn't an expensive issue... and thank goodness it wasn't: all we had to do was hire a landscaping company to come take out our walkways, truck in two dump trucks full of soil, spread it out, and regrade everything so the water flows away from our house. After being stood up by a company earlier this fall, we found a local place that agreed to do the work within our budget if we would take out the walkways. So we rented a jackhammer (uh, yeah, check that off the bucket list!).

And then found out that 1) our neighbors are incredibly tolerant of jackhammering noise. Nobody complained, not once! and 2) idiots lived here some time before us and decided it would be really cool to layer concrete over concrete over concrete. This meant, there were areas of the jackhammer project that required us to get through over a foot of concrete - which we had to do in layers. It's funny to think about now but it was FAR from hilarious when it happened.

We've also done a lot of painting around here! We painted our bedroom less than a week after we moved in (because Trevor wasn't enjoying sleeping in a pink bedroom) and I've been slowly - SLOWLY - working on painting all of the trim in the house white since then. Here's a look at our bedroom with grey-blue walls and white trim...

...and the built-ins in the hallway.

During Christmas break, I had a chance to sit back and gather my thoughts about where I want this house to go, updates wise, and I made out a "short" list that I'll be sharing with you soon. It's the list of things I'd like to get done in the next six months, which makes me believe that I am crazy. You'll understand when you see just how long the list is!

School starts up again this Sunday, the 5th and our clinicals start on the 7th. I'm really excited to get back into the hospital and work with patients but I'm also incredibly nervous that I'll be partly responsible for the care of my patients in a capacity I've never had before. Butterflies in my tummy doesn't even begin to describe it!

At the same time, I'm also so excited to see my nursing school friends again! We've all only met in person once - during orientation last September - but we've been working so closely online through discussions, projects, readings, and exams that I feel so much closer to these 29 people than I do to some of my friends who are local! Some of my classmates are arriving on Saturday, some on Monday, and we have a couple of dinners already planned for us to just catch up on life. It's corny, but these people have kept me going through the content that I couldn't wrap my head around (hello, nephrons and acid/base balances!) so it's going to be great seeing them all in person again.

Christmas and New Years were pretty low-key around these parts, so I don't have much to share... however, I want to know how yours went! Did you get to spend time with family from far away? Did you get some great gifts? Did you fall asleep before midnight like we did?

I'm not apologizing for being so absent the past couple of months because I am working so hard at school getting to a point of reaching my dream, but I am letting you know that I've thought about this little blog and all of you, my readers, often during my break. I can't promise that you'll be seeing a lot more of me around here, but I can promise that if you follow me on Instagram @YouAndMeAreWe that you'll get more real-time updates and none of this two-month-catch-up stuff! I'm notorious for sharing pictures of house projects, school stuff, and sleeping dogs - come join me!

Break!

Hi there!

It's been three weeks since I've had a chance to come up for air and I'm so glad I'm finally able to update you with our new house and how school's been going.

So, last time I checked in, I was just about to start my first class of the Accel Nursing BSN program. Well, that class has come and gone! We covered 36 chapters in 14 days, including 500+ PowerPoint slides, 4 quizzes, and 4 exams. In the hours leading up to our final on Friday, I was nervous and knew what grade I needed to get to get an A- in the class (my goal). Turns out, I totally blew my expectations out of the water and ROCKED the exam!

Here's what my first week of school looked like:

And my second week:

And just last week:

So, yes, basically I sit in front of my computer chugging away at my homework, writing papers, discussing topics with classmates, and going over PowerPoints.

But the house, oh, the house!

So we moved in on a Sunday less than 12 hours before school started and literally unpacked all evening, every evening for what seemed like weeks and weeks. In full disclosure, we still haven't unpacked in our guest room/office/craft room.

The Wednesday after moving, we finally closed on the house so it's officially, 100% ALL OURS!

But the night before we closed, the rods in our closets came tumbling down which left Trevor to break out the power tools at 9:30pm.

After painting our bedroom, I switched to a much quicker project of painting an unfinished piece of wood in our guest bathroom. It only took two coats with four hours of dry time between, but it really pulls the whole room together!

And we've made sure to make time for each other and take a few walks around our new neighborhood to scope it out. We found this gorgeous tree less than a block away!

So, what have I missed around here?! Update me! Link me to your favorite posts! Tell me everything!

And of course, don't forget to follow me on Twitter & IG @YouAndMeAreWe to stay up to date on my adventures as a new homeowner and a nursing student!

things are looking up

Good morning, lovelies!

Notice things are a little less cluttered around here? How about that new blog design?!? We're still polishing everything {like trying to find the perfect font that's easier to read than this skinny mini} but it should be good to go within the next day.

I'm inviting you to take a look around and give me some feedback. If something is hard to navigate, I want to know. If links aren't working, I want to know!.If you can't find something, I want to know. I want to know {all of} your thoughts!

I wanted to tell you all about my trip to Chicago with Whit last weekend but I think I'll save that for next week. If you want a little sneak peek, head over to Black Little Button and get ready for picture overload!

So, the real reason I'm here today?!

The house is ours.

The seller agreed to the amendment we proposed and our lender is working her butt off trying to get everything set for closing in just TWO. WEEKS.

Trevor and I are going to be homeowners in 14 days. Oh my goodness!

Spruce Up Your Bookcases!

Disclaimer: This post contains an affiliate link.

This is Part 2 of a tutorial on how to upgrade your laminate furniture. For the first part - how to paint your laminate furniture - you can visit yesterday's post.

Today, though, you're gonna learn how to bring your bookcases up a notch!

This can be used for any existing bookcases you have that need a little help, though it's much easier to give this treatment to cheap laminate shelves versus a solidly built one.

Here's where your shelves are going to end up after all this.

It's worth it, right?!

At this point in the tutorial, my bookcase has already been painted and didn't have a back nailed back on quite yet. If you're working with an existing bookcase that has a back on it, take it off first.

It'll look something like this:

That's the original color of the bookcase... and you can tell I used the backing to protect my garage floor from paint when I was painting the shelves. All that ugliness got covered up!

Then, head to a nearby fabric store and grab a yard of a coordinating fabric. I went to JoAnn's and happened to find this stuff for 60% off of it's regular price of $19.99/yard. I also picked up a spray adhesive - my favorite is made by Elmer's.

I took my fabric and backing board outside and cut the fabric so it would be able to wrap around the back of the backing board by about an inch.

Then, while kneeling on the fabric to keep it in place, I lifted small sections of the fabric {starting from the middle} and sprayed the adhesive on - following the directions with dry times. I made sure to rub the fabric firmly from the middle out so that any trapped bubbles could get out.

Eventually, the entire front was stuck down so I flipped it over and did the same to the two short ends first followed by the two long sides.

I let the fabric board dry in the sun for a couple hours. It was also good because it allowed everything to air out - boy, that adhesive is potent!

The next day, Trevor nailed the backing board right back where it was before I painted everything - and TA DA!

Let's look again at the finished project.

The fabric and adhesive set me back about $11. Not bad for a significant upcycle, right?

What do you think? Do you have any furniture you want to do this to? Have you done this already?

check this out!

Painting Laminate Furniture {and other lengthy tales}

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

I've been wanting to paint two pieces of laminate furniture for a long time. They both lived in our guest room and were mismatched. The dresser was a medium Oak color while the bookcase was a light Birch color. Neither color looked attractive and both had a little wear.

I figured if they were only being used here and there for guests and "decoration", why not try a little paint to bring some life back into them?

So I dragged both into the garage, gathered my supplies, and went to town. After two coats of primer, three coats of paint, and two coats of polycrylic I've refreshed a dresser and a bookcase {that now match!} I couldn't be happier!

Here's how you can do it, too. And don't be intimidated by the number of steps involved. I broke things down pretty darn simply because I wanted to add photos of some of the in-between steps.

 - Go shopping: buy medium to fine grit sandpaper, a primer that can be used on laminate furniture {I did lots of research and ended up with this Zinsser BIN Shellac base one}, a crappy brush for the primer that can be tossed out afterwards, a quart of paint in the color and finish you desire, a nicer brush and/or roller that will be washed and reused, and a polycrylic for the top layer.

- Prep your area. You're going to be painting for a few days, so make sure there's space around you and you don't need to use the area you're painting in while everything is drying. {See the blue in the corner in the photo above? That's an ugly old blanket that protected our garage floor from paint drips.}

- Lightly sand your furniture with your sandpaper. You don't have to go crazy - just a quick once over will do. Then wipe off all the dust and grime with a moist towel. Let air dry.

Yes, I realize this isn't the bookcase... this is a laminate table that I also redid at the same time. It just so happened these pictures turned out about sixteen times better than the photos of the process of the bookcase. Be on the lookout for the table makeover and office reveal in the upcoming weeks!

- Bust out your primer and crappy brush. Paint a light layer on your pieces. It's going to look streaky and horrible and bad... and you're going to curse yourself for even starting such an ugly project. But it gets better, I promise you.

- Let the first coat of primer dry {according to package directions, mine was 45 minutes} and apply a second coat.

Remember that comment about looking streaky after one coat? Yeahhh...

- Let the second coat of primer dry and apply a light layer of your color using your nicer paintbrush. There's going to be a longer dry time on this coat so I suggest tossing your good paintbrush into a zippered plastic bag so you don't have to wash it and it doesn't dry out and ruin the brush..

While this may look gray, it's actually the table after two coats of white primer.  That's what I get for shooting photos in a garage. Lesson learned!

- Let the first coat of color dry according to the package directions and apply a light layer of color again. By now, you should start seeing how lovely your furniture will look when it's not the laminate or a streaky primed piece. It's all coming together - I told you! Note: this was the end of Day 1 for me

- Let the second coat of color dry and apply your last coat of color.

- Let your final coat of color dry {I gave it some extra time between coats just to ensure the paint was dry all the way through} and then apply the first coat of poly with your nice paintbrush that has been washed.

- I waited a couple days between poly coats because the can said to wait at least 24 hours... so I doubled that and called it good. After the two days passed, I applied my final coat of poly.

- I waited three days before even touching the furniture after the final coat of poly was applied. So far, even with moving it around and bumping it into every wall between our guest room and the garage, it's held up just fine. no chips or paint tears here!


This is how the bookcase looks today - nice, right? At the very least it's definitely an improvement over the laminate from before!

Come back tomorrow to see how I transformed the back of the bookcase. Spoiler: it's cheap and easy!

check this out!

Blues and Greens

It's been a long time coming, but a new design is soon coming to YAMAW!

And that's where you come in! I've made a few (...ok, six...) color combination boards that I'm considering and I hope you'll vote for which one is your favorite! Leave a comment below letting me know which one you like the best and {fingers crossed} you'll get to see it live, in action, here on the blog.

Option 1: 

Option 2:

Option 3:

Option 4:

Option 5:

Option 6:

And while we're discussing redesigning and colors and all that jazz, you need to check out the inspiration board Veronica created for my kitchen! I asked for an airy room - something that would complement my all-white dinnerware - and she definitely delivered!

I mean, really, check out those accent colors! And the placemats?! I need them.

What do you think of the kitchen Veronica designed? And what about the next color scheme here at YAMAW? 
What's it going to be? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6?

check this out!

Home Tour: The Kitchen

Trevor and I are renters who found ourselves moving into a horribly outdated eat-in kitchen. I tried and tried as hard as I could {well, without removing wallpaper because let's face it: we are not about to do our landlord's grunt work!} to brighten up the space and to leave the 80s in the past...

So, we brought in a solid wood table that fits two chairs but can pop open to fit at least six around it. Then, I bought brightly colored placemats, set out some plates, and added a bit of fruit.

The color of these lemons really does bring a touch of summer inside!

Considering our countertops look tannish, {but photograph a bright yellow color - it's so perplexing!}, I knew I had to brighten them up a bit. This monogrammed plate does the trick!

Our eat-in kitchen is the entry point to our back patio via a sliding glass door. It's the perfect spot to keep plants during the cold winter and makes it pretty easy to transfer them outside when it warms up. This hibiscus tree blooms all year long!

I'm trying not to complain about our horrid kitchen too much because there isn't a whole lot else I can do to it to bring it up to 2013 standards. It's pretty much a lost cause, actually! Now, if the landlord would paint the cabinets white, buy a new countertop, and take down the outdated wallpaper, he'd have a pretty darn nice looking kitchen to rent out! Seeing as how that's not going to happen as long as we live here, we're focusing instead on the positives - the little things I've brought in to add a little extra cheer to the room.

What do you think? How do you deal with a horribly ugly kitchen?

Linking up with Designer in Teal

Home Tour: The Living Room

A couple weeks ago, my Little (Samantha!) designed a new living room based on a conversation we had and a few pictures I sent her.

I was so sick of our living room because it was the least "adult" room in our home. We haven't stepped foot in a living room furniture store - ever - so our couch was a (basically never used) hand me down from my grandparents and was so busy that it made me feel anxious just looking at it.

Ugly right? Yeah, you're tellin' me!

This is the inspiration board that Samantha (who is an interior designer, so she knows what she's doing!) created with our needs in mind. How great does it look?!

So I started my search for the perfect slipcover - and found this one at Kohls! I love the chevron that's in the weave of the material... I think it's a great little touch to modernize an otherwise blah-gray cover.

And the curtains? Found them at Kohl's too... on clearance... as bath shower curtains...

But they were the perfect color - even if they don't look like it in these photos, the color works perfectly with the other teal touches in the room from the pillows and accent accessories - so I had to buy a few and give them a try.

They were the perfectly length! They were an even better width! We have a GIANT picture window in the front of our home that needed to be covered. In the past, I had to use three or four curtains to cover it... but with the cloth shower curtains, I only needed two!

So I bought enough for the room, busted out my sewing machine, and got to work. What you see on the windows are the final product and in total, cost less than $25 for the whole room!

And, for good measure, here are a few detail shots of some of my favorite areas in the living room.

This photo was taken when we were in Colorado visiting a friend a few years ago. The color of the sky matches the color of the frame matches the teal accent color in the rest of the room. It's fantastic!

A couple pillows that grace the couch.

A couple more pillows and a better shot at the pattern on the slipcover.

And no living room in a newlywed's house is complete without the oversized wedding photo! This is one of our favorites from our big day and has been given it's own wall above a chair. You can see it through the front picture window out front because it's so big - it makes me smile!

Apart from the horrible quality photos, what do you think about our newly redone living room?


Samantha can create a mood board/inspiration board for you, too! She offers incredibly reasonable pricing (especially compared to what other bloggers are offering them for, sheesh!) - you can find details here. 

check this out!