It's Great To Be Home

February Blog Party: If I won a free makeover for one room in my home, I would…

February 10, 2011 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 26 Comments

This is a harder challenge than I thought!! Even though I absolutely love our home, I’m one of those people that constantly wants to change something (there are just too many cool ideas and projects out there!). Are you like that?

My thoughts kept bouncing from room to room, and I finally settled on our entryway (remember when we talked about it here?) – it’s really the only room in our house that has been virtually untouched since the day we moved in over two years ago. That’s crazy, right?

The bottom line is that I just can’t figure out what to do with it. Each of the four walls has a ginormous doorway in it so I’m left without any real wall space to work with. See what I mean?

( Looking in from the den – Jason’s office is on the left. )

( Looking in from the den – the dining room is on the right. )

But since I’m now the lucky recipient of this imaginary makeover, I’m going to solve that problem!

Here’s the plan:

Give myself a wall to work with. See that doorway to the dining room in the photo above? Consider it gone. We have another access point through the kitchen, so my plan is to pop off the trim around the doorway, frame out a wall, add some drywall and new baseboards and call it a day. Then I’ll have a wall and we can always easily take it down if we need to because the floors won’t have been damaged.
Add some wallpaper. I don’t know why but I have been obsessed with the idea of adding wallpaper somewhere in our home (but the realtor in me screams, “Noooo, don’t do it!!). Some days I want to add grasscloth to the vaulted ceiling in the den, other days I’m itching for something patterned down the hallway. I think it’s the texture that I’m longing for.
Switch out the light fixture. This has been on the “someday I’d like to” list for quite awhile. We added the fixtures in the entryway and dining room when we renovated, but I’m not a fan of them – I want something with more pizazz!
Finish things off with a fabulous dresser and goodies on the wall. I think that one’s pretty self-explanatory. :)

With those criteria in mind, if I won a free room makeover for one room in my home, I would . . .

Make my entryway look like this:

Or this:

Or maybe this!

Which would you choose?

And I can’t wait to see all of your posts, I’m dying with curiosity!

Here’s all you need to do to join the party:

(1) Just click on the button below that looks like this and then type in the permalink to your specific blog post (like www.itsgreattobehome.net/blog-party), instead of just your blog address. You may have to copy and paste your url using your keyboard instead of your mouse, or you can type it in.

(2) I’d love it if you’d include the blog party button (below) and a link back to this post somewhere in your post so that your readers can get in on the fun!

(3) Visit the other peeps’ links to check out their posts!

* If you have trouble linking up, let me know and I’ll link up your post for you!

The party will be open for a week, so don’t worry if you don’t have a post ready today – you can link up later. And if there’s a topic you’d like to suggest for upcoming “Finish this sentence” blog parties, let me know in the comments!

Fabulous Finds: Holiday Edition

December 3, 2010 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 2 Comments

Happy Friday, everyone!!

There must be something in the air this holiday season, because everywhere I look bloggers are coming up with crazy awesome ideas for decorating, entertaining, and generally being festive. Want a peek at what I’ve found?

Snuggle up with your loved ones in front of the fire, wrapped in a handmade throw like the one Janell made. Or even better, sew one up as a thoughtful gift!
I can’t wait to try out these Spicy Holiday Oatmeal cookies that Christy made – the girls at the gift exchange I’m going to next week will love them, I’m sure.
Place settings never looked so dapper – at your holiday party, whip out a tried and true Martha special – the napkin gift bow – that I spied on Apartment Therapy.
Want a festive look without a lot of fuss? I think Paula hit the nail on the head with her holiday decor.
What could be a more perfect gift than one from the heart? Linds B’s framed love note is just the ticket (and it’s practically a free gift!).
Black, silver, white and green are colors that don’t scream Christmas, and I think that’s why they look so fab on Julie’s tree.
Hosting an impromptu gathering at your house? How about a sugar-sweet cookie decorating party like the one thrown by Kate for her kiddos?
Need a festive wreath in a hurry? Grab some paper and crank one out with this tutorial from Design*Sponge.
These darling pom-poms found on Full House would make a fab garland on a kids’ tree (and would be a fun family project).

What’s getting you in the holiday spirit this season? For me, it’s snuggling in front of the fire – I look forward to that all year long!

P.S. Even though I’m on the Internet for a ridiculous amount of time each day, I’m sure there are tons of great things out there in blogland that I haven’t found yet! If there’s a project that you think should be featured on the next installment of *Fabulous Finds*, please send me an email to give me a heads up!

Grownup Doodles

February 26, 2010 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 36 Comments

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.