~ My Home

I’m giddy beyond belief that we can now do something that we haven’t been able to do since we moved into our house over a year ago – park not one but TWO cars in the garage!!!

It’s pitiful that it’s taken us this long to whip the garage into shape but, then again, this is what our garage looked like when we moved in – pretty much filled to the brim with random things left over from the renovation.  Not pretty!!

Fast forward one year, and our garage still looked like this:

I know, there’s no excuse!!  I’m blaming it partially on being a DIY-er – I hate to get rid of anything that could even possibly be used in some sort of project sometime in the future.  Everything has potential, right?  Of course, the other explanation for the disaster of a garage is that I have a serious problem when it comes to tackling large mounds of junk – I get intimidated and wind up just leaving it there for way too long.  Sad, I know.

After awhile, we kind of stopped trying and would just leave things wherever they happened to fall.

Am I the only one guilty of this?

Anyway, over the weekend I had finally had enough.  The weather was beyond gorgeous and I was suddenly filled with inspiration – I was going to tackle the garage (and luckily my hubby was more than willing to jump in and help).  Here was my plan:

1.  Make piles. We started out with 4 main piles – trash, garage sale, keep in the garage, and take in the house to go through.  The small trash went straight into the garbage can and the bigger stuff went to our side yard to wait for bulk trash pickup.  The garage sale stuff migrated to the side of the garage where it will live until we finally get around to having a garage sale, and the stuff that we needed to go through went into the house.  At that point, all that was left was the stuff that needed to stay in the garage.

As a random aside, we found a box of old wallpaper – remember the fuzzy gold stuff from our entryway and the black & white flocked wallpaper from our bordello-inspired powder room?

Yup, that’s it!  That gave us quite a giggle.

2.  Make smaller piles. The “stay in the garage” stuff was then divided and organized – moving blankets were folded and put in boxes, empty storage containers were stacked, Christmas goodies were piled together, garden hoses were rolled up, etc.

3.  Find places for stuff. We decided to put the smaller things on the shelves to keep them from getting unruly – all the bigger stuff went around the perimeter of the garage.  This might not be the approach that everybody would take, but it works for us because it leaves the middle of the garage open for cars.

4.  Whip out the broom. I was shocked by how much random debris we had in the garage – dirt, leaves, dust, you name it it was in there.  You might want to wear a bandana or something around your nose and mouth so that you don’t breathe all of that nastiness in – I was sneezing and stuffy for the rest of the day, so clearly I should have thought ahead on that one!!

After just a few hours of work, this is how our garage looks now:

You might not see a huge difference, but let me tell ya – now we can actually find things and my car gets to live in the garage instead of the driveway.  I’m a happy camper!!

Of course, there’s still a ton of things that I’d like to do to make the garage even more functional, and maybe even a little attractive.  I’m envisioning a system of wall hooks to hang our real estate stuff, a painted garage floor & a new paint job on the walls & shelving (it has a gross, speckled look now), and maybe even a little work table in that back right-hand corner next to the sink.  We’ll see if another bout of motivation strikes!

What about you guys?  Did you tackle any projects around the house?  And am I the only one that could only fit one car in her two-car garage?

Our den isn’t totally finished yet (will it ever be?), but we’ve gotten to the point now where the den definitely feels like home, and like a reflection of us.

Bringing in bold turquoise and orange through placemat pillows and glass floats added splashes of my favorite thing – color!!  But what finally made the space feel like a real home was hanging our new art series on the far wall – a wall that was formerly sooooo blank and boring.

I whipped up those babies one night after getting a little inspiration from the chalkboard in this living room by Margot Austin.

Wanna make some for yourself?  Here’s how to do it:

1.  Round up the goods. You may already have most of the necessary supplies on hand, like I did.  Here’s what you need.

~ frames w/ mats, the number and color that you want (I used 3 of this frame from Ikea)

~ paint for your background color (I used my free paint)

~ a foam brush

~ a paint pen (I used a white one with a chisel tip)

~ a ruler

~ painter’s tape

2.  Do the prep work. Remove the mats and backing from the frames, and set the frames aside.  For this project, you’re going to use the smooth side of the particle board backing as your paint surface (you could cut down art paper or cardboard to use instead, but I think it makes more sense to just use what you already have on hand).  Use your foam brush and background paint to paint the smooth side of the particle board.  You will probably need several coats of paint (I needed 2), and let the boards dry between each coat.

3.  Bust out the ruler. I wanted each line of scribbles to look uniform, so I ran a line of painter’s tape around each side of the boards and then marked out the height of each of my scribbles and the space between each line of the scribbles.  To do this, I used the width of my ruler as the height of each scribble, and the width of the painter’s tape as the distance between each line of scribbles.  (Note: don’t put painter’s tape on the mat – it will tear away little pieces of the mat and look terrible.)

4.  The fun part! Here’s where you get to channel your inner child and start scribbling.  You might want to try out a few practice scribbles before you actually start painting on your “canvas” – you want to try to keep each scribble the same size and height so that everything looks very graphic instead of messy.

5.  Enjoy! This has to be the easiest art projects ever, but it’s also one of my favorites.  It was a lot of fun to do, and I think the finished product looks so awesome – fun and graphic and a bit whimsical.

So now that you’ve seen what we’re rockin’ out at our house, what’s hanging on your walls?  Are you photograph-type people, or do you prefer framed art?  Or maybe it’s a collection of your kid’s cutest doodles?  Spill the beans!

FYI – I hung these art panels on the wood paneling the same way I did here.

This post is shared with The DIY Show Off, Thrifty Decor Chick, Between Naps on the Porch, Cottage Instincts, Making the World Cuter, Twice Remembered, The Girl Creative, and A Soft Place to Land.

A year ago, I sent an email to about 40 friends and family members announcing that I was starting a renovation/interior design blog, It’s Great To Be Home.  I didn’t know what to expect, but no matter how things turned out I knew that I would have a great time sprucing up my house, trying new projects, and sharing all of it with anyone that might be interested.  I’ve been so thrilled for this little ol’ blog to grow from 40 visitors to tens of thousands each month – how cool is that?

During the past year, tons of things have changed.  I left my job as an attorney, started a new career in real estate, flipped my first house, started working from home instead of driving 45 minutes to an office, began sprucing up the homes of strangers over the web . . . and it has been such a delight to get to share all of these changes with you, even the little ones like making our backyard a little less ugly and sewing some new pillows for the den.  Who new that there was a whole community of awesome people that are into the same things that I am?  Let me tell you, it’s been awesome to get to hang out with you guys.

Since it’s IGTBH’s first blogiversary, I thought it was only appropriate to share a video with you guys that we shot the day we bought our house – the house that started it all, way before this blog was even a twinkle in my eye.  Want to take a tour of our home and see how it looked before we renovated the heck out of it?

It’s Great To Be Home – Our Home Before The Renovation from It’s Great To Be Home on Vimeo.

If you weren’t busy getting seasick from Jason’s camera skills (sorry babe!!), here are some things you may  have picked up on from the video:

~ This was during my brief stint as a blonde – so weird to see myself like that!!

~ Our house had the most hideous collection of drapes ever known to mankind.

~ We pretty much stuck to our entire renovation plan!!

~ I say “Alright” at least 30 times.

~ Our breakfast room used to look like a circus tent.

~ I really think that was a gun cabinet in the laundry room – it had locks and everything!

~ I clearly had no idea that the “craft room” would ultimately turn into my office.

~ I’m hoping you weren’t blinded by the original fireplace – sorry about that.

~ Can you believe how dark our den used to be?  And that was with all the lights on!

~ Did you recognize those bookcases in the den that turned into my salvaged craft cabinet?

~ I’m pretty sure Jason’s closet is bigger than mine – don’t know how that happened!

~ Burglar bars were apparently “in” in 1968 when our house was built.

~ After watching this video, I’m going to burn those pants I was wearing.

Anyhoo, thanks for hanging in there with me this past year – I’ve loved every minute of it!!  Here’s to another great year!

If you want to see how our house turned out after the big renovation, be sure to check out the Home Tour page of IGTBH.

I had high hopes of finishing a project from this list while watching the Lost season premiere last night but . . . that didn’t happen.  Shocking, I know!

So, instead of a little DIY project I thought I’d share with you some of the bar stools I’ve been lusting after for my future kitchen.

Move me right on into this one.  A bubble chandelier and limed, exposed brick?  Yes please!!  The industrial LEM precision stools are the perfect touch, in my opinion.

I also love them in this cottage-inspired kitchen with their little slipcovers – and you’ve gotta love those painted, striped floors and schoolhouse light fixtures.

Even though these chrome and black leather stools may be just a little too modern for my own kitchen, I do love them – don’t you?

I love everything about this kitchen, and the understated Emeco aluminum bar stools are the perfect touch.

The little pop of green added to these Bertoia wire mesh bar stools adds so much life to this space and plays off the trees through the window.  Yummy!!

And these lucite bar stools had me at hello – aren’t they so elegant?

If you’d like to add some similar bar stools to your space, you might want to check out these fab options that I dug up on Overstock (just click on the images to be taken to the source):

Could you see any of them in your kitchen?  I’ve always wondered if a backless bar stool would drive me crazy – do any of you have backless bar stools and, if so, have you been driven batty?  I hope not, I think I’d like to give it a whirl in my next kitchen!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed (I’m kinda hoping you haven’t), but I’ve been in a bit of a motivational slump lately.

Happily, my new life as a self-employed Realtor/flipper has kind of vaporized a lot of the deadlines and time crunches that used to rule my life back when I practiced law – however, I’ve always been someone who’s motivated by due dates and deadlines, and who cranks it out under pressure.  I think the absence of the feeling of “I have to get it done now or it’s never going to get done” has kind of made my productivity on the home improvement front slow to a snail’s pace.  Well, enough of that!!  We have things to get done around here, people!  (That’s me trying to crack the whip – laughable, right?)

So, here goes – I’m going to lay it all on the line and show you just how big of a procrastinator I’ve been.  Here’s my mind-bogglingly large to-do list:

1. Finally finish this project.
2. Make a curtain for the guest bathroom to replace the boring shade.
3. Hang artwork in the guest bathroom.
4. Hang artwork in the powder room, opposite these guys.
5. Hang photos in the hallway.
6. Hang artwork on the blank wall in the den.  (Do I sense a pattern here?)
7. Buy a ginormous indoor tree (that I hopefully won’t kill) for the corner of the den by the fireplace.
8. Finally get you guys some decent pictures of the fun stuff going on in our den.
9. Paint the desk in my office (probably . . . still deciding).
10. Finish painting the trim on 2 bulletin boards for my office.
11. Fix the picture frame that this one broke.
12. Add some green ribbon to the leading edge of the curtains in my office.
13. Add molding around the edge of the countertop on my craft cabinet.
14. Finally get my act together and donate all of the random stuff in our house (that is piled in my office) to Goodwill.  Find a place for everything else because this is getting ridiculous!!
15. Do something to make the laundry room a little cuter.  Think more on this.
16. Hang a pendant with a drum shade (probably) over the breakfast room table.
17. Style the mantle so it doesn’t look so sad.
18. Get a pillow insert for that fab pillow cover I got for Christmas.
19. Finish organizing the other bookcase in the front guest room.
20. Hang artwork (that has been sitting on the floor) above the dresser in the guest room.
21. Decide whether to switch the dressers in the 2 guest rooms.
22. Decide how to paint/stain/otherwise alter the dressers in the 2 guest rooms, and finally get it done.
23. Keep an eye out for cheap but cute bedding for the back guest room.
24. Refinish this headboard and use it in the back guest room.
25. Figure out the lamp situation in the back guest room.
26. Put a piece of artwork in the jack ‘n jill bath.
27. Figure out what to do with the storage bench that I got from Home Goods – probably put it at the foot of the bed in the master bedroom.
28. Put some photos in the picture frames I’ve had hanging in the master bedroom for the past 6 months.
29. Hang that decorative piece of salvaged molding in the master bedroom.
30. Fix the weather stripping on the front door.
31. Spray paint the mailbox.
32. Spray paint the metal part around the doorbell.
33. Do SOMETHING to the front flower beds – they are pitiful.
34. Kill all the weeds in the flower bed by the driveway.
35. Finish what we started in the backyard.
36. Paint or stain the concrete floor of the patio.

Oh goodness.  And I guarantee there are projects I totally forgot about!  Hopefully I can get everything done by the start of summer?  Actually, I know it’s possible, the real question is just whether or not I will.  I’m going to give you guys status updates on Twitter that will hopefully keep me on track . . . fingers crossed!

Does anybody else have a to-do list that looks this crazy?  What’s the number one thing that you’ve been procrastinating on?  Or maybe I’m the only one that’s a huge procrastinator?

This post is shared with Tip Junkie.

My grandmother had amazing collections from her travels, everything ranging from beautiful seashells to thousands of arrowheads.  She was a cool lady that had an eye for interesting and unique artifacts.

I’m lucky to now have bits and pieces of a few of her collections, including her assortment of antique glass floats.

These floats were tied into nets by fishermen in Japan and Norway to keep their nets afloat.

I tried to wipe them down before placing them in the vase, not realizing that the sand was ground into the glass after years of floating at sea.  Now that I’ve realized that, I’m really appreciating the journey these little guys have taken.

A few of the floats even have some seawater inside of them, trapped after seeping through microscopic holes in the glass!

I like that they give our guests a cheerful greeting at the front door.

I only wish that more of them would fit through the mouth of that vase!

This post is shared with Fireflies & Jellybeans, Tales from Bloggeritaville, Remodelahics, Poppies at Play, Finding Fabulous and My Romantic Home.

I bet you guys thought I forgot, right?

Without further adieu, here are our newly recovered dining room chairs!

As you can see, I went with the turquoise peacock and I am in love!  (And I bought the last yardage they had – yikes!!)

I think it’s a pretty good upgrade from the seat cushions that came along with the antique dining set (wink wink):

Weren’t those lovely?

I have to give a shout out to my new best friend, the PowerShot Pro – it doesn’t have the best reviews, but for under 30 buckeroos I’m not complaining!  It certainly made the job of stapling in the new fabric about ten thousand times faster than doing it by hand.

I’m really loving the combo of turquoise, chocolate brown and olive-y green.  I’m hoping to bring out a bit more of the turquoise through accessories like lamps and maybe some DIY artwork.  I’m excited to see how it (eventually) turns out!  (P.S.  Aren’t those candlesticks awesome?!?)

And I’m not the only one that’s loving the new chairs – here’s my fat kitty, Riley, giving the fabric a little snuggle before I recovered the chairs.

What do you guys think?  Did I pick the right fabric?  Got any suggestions for drawing in some new turquoise accents?

This post is shared with A Soft Place to Land, Reinvented, A Silly Little Sparrow, Today’s Creative Blog, Between Naps on the Porch, Cottage Instincts, Making the World Cuter, It’s So Very Cheri, Twice Remembered, The Girl Creative, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, The Persimmon Perch, and The DIY Show Off.

It’s starting to look like I might have a thing for stars – first they made an appearance in our master bedroom, and now they’re cropping up in the hall bath!

Before I show you guys the full enchilada, I think it’s only appropriate that we take a quick trip down memory lane – remember how the hall bath looked when we first bought our house?

To say that it wasn’t pretty is quite an understatement!

Things got a bit better after the renovation, but there’s a reason that you’ve only seen the right half of the hall bath so far:

You see, the left half has been a little . . . naked.  For almost a year now.  For shame!!

Luckily, it only took a few mirrored stars and nails and about 5 minutes (plus 11 months) to remedy that embarrassing situation.

What do you guys think?  And while we’re at it, has anybody else had a hard time deciding how to decorate a bathroom?  Better yet – can anybody beat my record of almost a full year of naked bathroom walls?

Isn’t it crazy how just a little dose of Christmas decor can really get you into the holiday spirit?  We were a little late in festooning our house this year (we try to aim for the day after Thanksgiving), but I’m pleased to report that after a night of Christmas music, tree lighting, a flickering fire and some wine, we are now feeling thoroughly jolly.

Here’s a little taste of how we’re decking the halls this year:

How about you guys?  Go ahead and link to your holiday decor in the Comments, we’d love to see it!

P.S.  Here’s a HUGE thank you to all of you that chimed in with your thoughts about the fabrics I was considering for the dining room chairs – you guys were a big help, and the fabric has been ordered!!  I’m super excited – hopefully it will arrive in a jiffy so I can show you how it all turns out!!

Now that our fab new rug is in its new home, I’m atwitter with the excitement of choosing a new fabric to recover the antique dining room chairs.  But picking fabric is both a blessing and a curse – there are so many amazing options out there, so how is a girl to choose?!?

It’s been tough, but I’ve narrowed the field to 6 finalists, and I think I may have even decided on a winner.  My criteria is pretty simple – the fabric has to introduce a new color into the mix (not just olive and chocolate), it has to be patterned (spills are a doozie in the dining room), and it has to be fun.

Here’s a rundown of the finalists:

1. Turquoise Peacock.  What’s not to love about a peacock print?  The turquoise is a fresh and welcome addition to the existing color palette, but I’m a little worried about introducing yet another animal-inspired print into the room.

2. Fuschia Ikat.  Love ikat, love fuschia.  Love that it adds in a bit of turquoise, too.  But is fuschia in a dining room too much?

3. Confetti Squiggles.  I’m smitten with the fact that this fabric introduces a plethora of colors to play with, but I think the pattern is a little too distracting when paired with the rug.

4. Confetti Damask.  I think this pattern is gorgeous, and I’m particularly drawn to the traditional design with an updated color palette.  But unfortunately, I’ve learned that money doesn’t grow on trees (darn!) and this fabric is wayyy out of my price range.

5. Olive Trellis.  The trellis pattern has been a fave of mine for awhile, but for some reason it falls flat for me in this dining room, probably because it doesn’t introduce that all-important third color.

6. Eggplant Ikat.  This one is the winner for me – it’s fun and funky, but maybe not as wild as the fuschia ikat.  And while I typically don’t like colors in the purple family, I’m really digging the deep eggplant of this fabric.

So now that you’ve checked out the fabrics for yourself, what do you think?  Is there a clear winner for you, or do you think I’ve gone off the deep end and need to keep looking?