It's Great To Be Home

Last Chance!!

August 20, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 2 Comments

Thanks to all you peeps out there that have a hankering to spruce up your homes a room at a time, I’ve been a busy bee these days whipping up custom design plans every spare second. Whether it’s quickies (no pun intended) or full-on consults, you guys sure do like your decor! Not that I’m complaining – talk about a fun way to spend my time!!

Here’s just a taste of what I’ve gotten to create for you guys over the past few months:

Like what you see? If so, it’s time to put the pedal to the metal and order your design quickie or design consult because starting Monday (August 24th) prices are going up! Every order received before Monday will be honored at the original rates, so there’s still time to slip your order in before it’s too late!

Here’s all you need to do to get the wheels turning on your design plan:

1. Pick the room (or rooms) in your house that’s begging for a little TLC.

2. Decide whether you need a design consult or a design quickie – here’s a short cheat sheet to help you figure out which plan is best for you.

3. Scroll down to the bottom of this page and place your order – you’ll see an image that looks like this:

4. Once I receive your order I’ll email you with just a few questions (and a request for pictures), and then we’ll get this party started!

Sound good? Alrighty, click on over and take advantage of those cheapo rates while you can! And feel free to shoot me an email at itsgreattobehome@yahoo.com with any questions.

And don’t forget! Today is your last day to enter the Gnarly Giveaway for a chance to win that beautiful rug from CSN Rugs!!! Enter and read all about it here.

Make A Storage Unit From Salvaged Materials. Step 4: Customize!!

June 5, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 13 Comments

Okay, I promise, this is the last time I will talk about this gnarly storage unit . . . for at least a week. I pinkie promise. Maybe.

Here it is, one last time:

I’ve yammered on for long enough about painting the cabinets, creating the countertop and assembling the whole shebang, so let’s get on to the fun stuff!! The colorful patchwork countertop is clearly the star of this show – full of personality and visual interest, it takes this storage unit from ho-hum to fun and funky. And the best part? Making this colorful creation is totally easy – if you can conquer this post, you’ve got this new project in the bag.

This whole custom countertop project began with a tonof inspiration from this post on Addicted 2 Decorating. I instantly swooned when I saw Kristy’s unique and cheerful table top, and I knew I had to make one of my very own. Here’s how you can get in on the action:

1. Chop it up. The key to this whole project is the patchwork effect, so take some time and pick out some fab craft paper that you absolutely love. I’ve always been a sucker for bright, cheerful colors (especially for a craft room), and I picked out a whole slew of papers that I found totally inspiring and that worked well together. Make sure that you have enough paper to cover your countertop from the very beginning – this will ensure that you get a great mix of patterns throughout the whole countertop, instead of running out of paper and having a section at the end that doesn’t match the rest.

Once you have all of your papers assembled, go to town chopping down your papers into the size and shape that you want. I love the look of long strips, so I cut each of my papers into 6 x 2 inch strips (this worked perfectly, since all of my craft paper came in 12 x 12 inch sheets). You can either tackle this task with scissors or a chopper – I chose to use my handy-dandy chopper (see below), which made cutting the strips an absolute breeze.

2. Glue it down. Armed with your slew of paper strips, it’s time to get gluing! All you need to do is paint sections of the countertop with Elmer’s glue and then lay your strips down in a staggered pattern. Once you have a few strips down, smooth each of the strips to get out the bubbles – I used a ruler for this task and it worked like a charm. Some of the glue will ooze out, but just smooth out any extra glue with your paintbrush and it will dry clear. Keep up the placing and smoothing routine until you’ve laid paper over the entire countertop.

3. Seal’er up. Now that you’ve created this masterpiece, you’ll want to protect it! A few coats of satin finish polyurethane are just the ticket. If you want a little extra protection, think about having a piece of glass cut for the top – Home Depot will do it for a few bucks, and our Ace Hardware only charges you for the glass - cutting it is free!

4. Admire your handiwork. It looks awesome, doesn’t it?? Perfect for any room that needs a little extra color and fun – and this same technique would be great to create a little custom artwork for a bare wall.

So there you have it! An awesome, customized storage unit made from salvaged materials with your own two hands. It doesn’t get much more satisfying than that!! (I’ve already got mine stocked with paint brushes, paint, fun papers . . . I’m so excited!!). Now it’s your turn – fill us in about something that you’ve made with your own two hands!!

This post is shared with Hooked on Houses.

Make A Storage Unit From Salvaged Materials. Step 2: Bust Out The Hand Saw

June 2, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 5 Comments

Hold on to your paint brushes – I’m back with another step in my tutorial for creating a custom storage unit out of salvaged cabinetry!

This step involves a hand saw, so get excited!

So far, we’ve painted our salvaged cabinetry and now we’re ready to create a countertop for our storage unit. The hubby and I salvaged a bunch of hollow core doors from our house during our remodel - I’ve had big plans for them for awhile, and I was super excited to finally get to put one of those babies into action with this storage unit project.

Here’s what you’ll need to turn a hollow core door into the perfect countertop for your storage unit:

~ 1 hollow core door

~ hand saw

~ painter’s tape or masking tape

~ Sharpie

~ screwdriver

~ measuring tape

~ sawhorses or something you can rest the door on

1. Measure up. Unless you have freakishly deep lower cabinets, you’ll need to cut down your door so that you only have a small lip for your countertop. Just place the door on top of the cabinets and play around with the amount of overhang that you have until it looks right – I went with about a 3 inch lip on mine (for a total counter depth of about 16 inches) so that I would have room on top of my cabinets to actually work on projects, display larger items, etc.

2. Tape it up. Once you know how large your countertop is going to be, use painter’s tape or masking tape to mark your “cut line.” Make sure to tape around both sides of the door, and draw a center line down the tape with your Sharpie (you can draw the line on one side only). There are two reasons for taping the door – first, it clearly marks the line that you’re going to cut with your hand saw and, second, it helps keep the wood from splintering while you’re cutting. It’s not a perfect fix for splintering, but it definitely helps.

3. Remove the excess. Since this hollow core door was actually hung in our house, it had a door knob and hinges that needed to be removed. However, if you’re only using part of the door you can get away with only removing the door knob or the hinges – just use your screwdriver to take off whichever hardware is on the side of the door that you’re using. In my case, I just had to remove the hinges.

4. Go to town. Bust out that handsaw!! In a perfect, responsible world, you’ll place your door on two saw horses so that everything is stable and safe while you’re making your cut with the handsaw. I didn’t have saw horses – while I definitely do not recommend trying this at home (safety first!!), I just propped my door up against a wheelbarrow that we had in our garage and started sawing away.

At this point, you’ll definitely be glad that you have a hollow core door rather than a solid core door. As you can see from the picture above, the majority of the hollow core door is just a wood veneer and cardboard spacers – the only real wood are two pieces of 2 x 4 at the top and bottom of the door. I had a tough time cutting through the wood at the top and bottom of the door, but the middle part of the door was relatively easy to cut through – but don’t get me wrong, my wimpy bicep was definitely screaming the next day!

5. Paint’er up. Your door is almost ready! Now just prime and paint the areas that will be exposed, like the sides and underside of the lip. You don’t need to paint the whole underside or the top, since the cabinets will be covering most of the underside and our awesome custom treatment will be covering the top.

Stay tuned to see how this salvaged storage unit all comes together!!