Indoor Projects
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Great White Whale
And by whale, I mean wall(s) because Brandon and I painted our living room! When I painted the accent wall in the living room, it was always my intention to paint the remaining 3 walls to coordinate. But it was such a large task (it’s the biggest room in our house) that I put it off. But we finally dove in a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I’m not too keen on it. But I’m OK with it enough to keep the color and warm up the room with colorful accents on the walls and horizontal surfaces (mantel, tables, mirrored chest, etc).
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Grouted in Place
That’s right, the fireplace hearth has been grouted. And it looks even better than before. If I do say so myself. 🙂 I wanted to keep the overall feel of the hearth very light, so I chose a light-colored grout. I thought I was getting a grayish white from the looks of the color on the label. But it turned out “Alabaster” is more off white. I don’t hate it, but it’s not quite what I thought I was getting. I think it’ll grow on me though. (**Update~It has grown on me and I love it!) While I was picking up my grout I also got a grout sealer. And…
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My Achy Breaky Hearth
At the end of my last post about adding molding to my fireplace, I teased the re-tiling of my fireplace hearth. It took a while thanks to a few starts and stops, but I finally got the old tile removed and the shiny new tile in place. And I’m loving the more modern look of it!
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Fireplace Molding Update
About the same time I was helping Sheena build her fireplace mantel for my February episode, I was also working on updating my mantel and fireplace area. I can’t remember if it was working on her mantel that inspired me to update mine or if it just happened coincidentally at the same time. Either way, great minds think alike! And with all of these fireplace projects taking place on my blog during the month of February, I’ve dubbed it Fireplace February! (Not that other things won’t take place here, there are just several fireplace-related projects happening at the moment!) While I was repairing my mantel to keep it from interfering…
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Featured on Today’s Homeowner: Lipford Family Condo
This weekend on Today’s Homeowner TV show, my family’s new condo at the beach is being featured! And by my family, I mean my parents’ condo that I’m hoping they’ll let me visit. 🙂 It will be episode 2 of a 2-part series. Aka, the episode with all of the beauty shots! But I’m giving you a sneak peek at the before and afters right here!
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Front Door Intercepted
Since the beginning of time, my front door has not been able to open all the way. It hits the side of the mantel instead. Ok maybe it hasn’t been that long. But it has been like that ever since I bought the house. Obviously it’s not a deal breaker and it’s something I’ve easily tolerated for 5 years now. It seems to me the mantel is not original to the house. It overlaps the brick surround in a way that doesn’t seem like it should. So I’m thinking they built the mantel without checking the path of the front door first.
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Now Trending: Kitchens & Baths
I just got back to Sweet Home Alabama after a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas for the annual Design + Construction Week. This huge industry event is put on by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) every year. It’s always fun to see people I see there every year and meet new people in the trade. And what better way to see the up-and-coming trends to share with you! The funny thing about trends is that they don’t just pop up and then disappear all of a sudden. The change is gradual. According to the NKBA’s annual Design Trend Report, kitchen…
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Featured on Today’s Homeowner: Energy Efficiency
This past weekend across the country, my husband and I (and Mary Helen in utero) were featured on the Today’s Homeowner with Danny Lipford TV show I co-host. I mentioned this episode, titled “Energy Efficiency for the Family”, before when I made the Roman shades for the nursery. But now the episode is online in case you missed it! Click here to watch us! I was 8 months pregnant when we got a new HVAC system. So it’s fun to re-watch the episode and relive those days full of joyful anticipation waiting for Mary Helen to arrive! You wouldn’t believe how large our old HVAC unit was unless you saw…
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Hanging Hooks on a Hollow Door
Living in a tiny house like mine really makes you get creative with storage solutions. An easy trick, though, is to hang things on the backs of doors. There are mirrors, jewelry organizers, shoe organizers, etc. made for such an application. For probably close to 2 years I’ve had our step ladder hanging on one of the laundry doors. Unfortunately the laundry doors are both hollow core doors so a normal hook would just fall out with a little pressure on it since there’s no “meat” to the door. My solution was to use my favorite adhesive Command hooks from 3M. They worked well for several months before one fell…