We did a simple board and batten treatment on one of the walls in my daughter’s room. It is a super easy way to add a little dimension and character to a room, especially one that’s painted white! Here’s how we did it:


Go to Home Depot and picked up 12 of the 11/16” X 1 1/2” primed mdf (we only used 10 but it’s good to have extra) Figure about one per foot.


And then three of the the 4” craftsman baseboard for the sides and top of the wall – we already had the same size for the baseboard on our bottom.



1. Paint the wall – we used Sherwin-Williams Alabaster. It’s a great white!

2. Cut and attach the baseboard to the top, bottom (if needed), and sides. We use a simple nail gun that we’ve had forever. Measure twice, cut once! I had to make another trip back when I cut a board (or maybe 2!) too short.

3. Then calculate how far apart you want your vertical boards to be, taking in account electrical outlets. Ours are about a foot apart. We used my daughter’s music theory book held horizontally, she was glad we could get some use out of it. Getting the cuts just right so they fit snugly without much of a gap is tricky.

4. Fill in gaps, edges,  spaces, and nail holes with latex caulk (we used 2 tubes)

5. Paint over everything with the same color you used to paint the wall.



Her room is coming along, (UPDATE: See the finished room here!) I’m having a hard time finding curtains that work! We also are going through everything that we’ve been stashing in the closet and getting rid of ALOT. It feels so good! Hopefully we’ll be able to share it with you soon --

I told you that I went through all my treasures for our youth yard sale and only kept the things I knew I would realistically get to. This was one thing I kept: do you remember this $9 cart from the thrift store??

Hello! I have always loved the Pottery Barn American flag – I actually made one back in 2014, but the stars always kind of bugged me so I wanted to give it another try, making it the same size as the PB one but not pay the $159 price.

 

I have been wanting to put up something to block the setting sun on our back porch since we moved in. It’s hard to have conversation and enjoy your meal when the sun is glaring in your eyes, right?  And we have lived here for 2 years and we’re just getting around to it which is right on Melissa schedule. :)

 

My son and I were trying to figure out what we wanted to put over his bed. I loved this idea of a basketball hoop mounted on weather wood that I saw on Fixer Upper:

Ok. Mudroom and laundry room are checked off, it’s time to head downstairs and start on my oldest boy’s room. We began last spring and painted his desk and hung the map, but then we were trying to decide on how to finish everything and it kind of got pushed to the back burner. So now we’re back!! He wanted some shelves to display some of his favorite things so this is what we came up with:

Decide how many shelves and how long you want them to be. Go to your local home store (we went to Home Depot) and pick up a 12 ft pine board for $16. We were going to do 3 shelves, so we had them cut them (they will do it for free, but I find going in on a weekday is best since the weekend tend to be very busy) into 3 equal pieces.

Sand the corners if you want to, and then apply stain.

Hello! Today I want to share a favorite tool that I’ve been using for the past couple of years that helps me choose a font for quotes, signs, graphics, etc.

It’s called WordMark.It and it shows you all the fonts on your computer typed in the phrase you choose so that you can quickly choose your favorite for the occassion. I think I first heard about it from the wonderful Chris at Just a Girl and it has been one of my most used bookmarks ever since! I use it all of the time for Courage for the Week quotes, handouts for church youth group, invitations, basically anything I want to find the right font for!

How does it work? Go to WordMark.It and simply type your phrase in the bar at the top, hit enter and all of your fonts will begin to appear:

My NEXT project is to tackle the laundry room. It’s simple and small but I’m not a person that folds laundry in the laundry room. My kids bring it to their rooms to fold, and for ours  I bring it out to the kitchen table. :)

On the one side is a soaking sink and then a counter over where the washer and dryer go. This is looking in from the mudroom:

Supplies:
* unpasted wallpaper
* new, sharp razor blade
* level
* wallpaper paste
* foam roller
* large surface to spread out on with a covering
* measuring tape/stick
* wallpaper smoothing tool (see below)
* a clean wall with nails removed, and a (mostly) smooth surface


I used our dining room table covered with an old sheet: First measure how much you’ll need from top to bottom, adding 3 to 4 extra inches for error and trimming. Make a straight line with a level and cut.

 Here is the long, drawn out story on the upstairs bathroom:
 

 
I wanted a fun, graphic design on the wall and I have wanted to stencil for a long time. Stenciling is by far the most economical bang for your buck on an accent wall.
I bought the stencil, I bought the paint, watched some how-to videos and was excited to begin.

We needed book solutions for the boys’ room! I adore children’s books and they are really hard for me to get rid of, maybe because they bring so many happy, comforting memories of my parents and teachers reading to me and also reading at night with my own kids.