A Multi-tasking, DIY'ing Super Grandma

As usual, I’m so impressed with your DIY projects.  Sometimes I wonder if YOU all should be writing my blog.  I received this note in my inbox.  It made me smile. It made my day.  Notes like this get me every time.  
I just love your blog and it inspires me. I have done several posts of things I have done and I would like to share. Please take a look at my blog and see if there is anything you like. Thanks, Janis
Of course I clicked the link and

HOLY COW!  DIY heaven!
So, what did I do?  I did what any curious DIY’er would do.  I took a gander at her blog , went through the whole she-bang (back to the beginning of ’09 anyway) and I’m showing off a few of my favorite projects for “Grams”.  Click the links for more details. Oh – and her writing will make you “lol”.  I loved reading about her family and adorable grandchildren.
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Before:



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Beautiful After:

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Before:

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Amazing After:

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How fun is this swing?  Brings back childhood memories although the one I rode was just a plain ole’ tire.

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And speaking of tires, check out these tire planters!  
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She’s also SEW talented!  

And I love her red and white kitchen:
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Spoon Bracelets!

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She makes these awesome gifts and more too!

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Well?  What do you think?  Pretty amazing stuff, huh?
Thanks for sharing your creativity and stories, Janis!  🙂

Don’t forget to enter the Gorilla Glue Giveaway!
All you have to do is be a follower and comment!
If you love to DIY – I know you’ll LOVE this prize pack!
More details HERE as well as info on an upcoming DIY Club Inc. party!

Master Bathroom Makeover Magic

Okay, when your master bathroom has linoleum and a faux oak paper covered pressed board vanity with a broken door, there is nothing like seeing a bathroom makeover to motivate you to start planning your next DIY project!

So, when I saw this bathroom makeover by Karin at The Style Sisters, I could not wait to share it with you!

Remember when I spray painted my guest bathroom faucets (tutorial here)?  I am so happy to see that I’m not the only one!  And Karin – I did mine back in December and they’re still holding up!  So, I agree – it’s definitely worth the hard work! 

Here is her post:

Can you Spray Paint Bathroom faucets?…Oh yes you can!

Can you spray paint your bathroom faucets, lights, door handles and shower trim? Yes you can. Will it last?..
it remains to be seen.
So far so good!

We did a lot to this room. We added trim around the mirrors, painted the faucets, door knobs, cabinet knobs and shower trim black and I also made curtains for the shower area as well as the other side of the bathroom over the window.
Do you not love this little chandy!! It is candles so it is safe to put above the tub…well unless the dripping hit you while you are in the tub…but nonetheless it looks cute!

See the before pictures as you move on down…it is dramatic!


We are thrilled with the results!

Let’s take a trip down memory lane…here is the before shot of the shower area with the lovely orange and yellow wallpaper and brass trim around the shower. We used an oil base satin finish black paint for the trim. Here is the after!! We painted over the wallpaper with a delicious robin’s egg blue color and I made this toile valance from fabric that I purchased at
Wal-Mart probably 3 years ago!
It looks amazing made into a valance and then I simply whipped up a basic black curtain to go underneath. I think this just made the room pop!
I even spray painted the yellow tiered wire basket black!

Here is the other vanity on the other side of the bathroom after we painted the walls..but no knobs on the cabinets or drawers, no trim around the mirror and you can still see all the brass faucets and towel rack and the brass lights.What a difference! My amazing hubby added the trim around the mirrors, we spray painted the faucets with a textured black paint (close-ups are shown later) then we bought some silver knobs at Lowes and spray painted them black too. Again during the process..the main vanity……After with the black trim around the mirror, the black knobs, the new lighting painted black and the curtains hung.
We even took the door knobs off of all the doors and sprayed them black too.
Here is the bath tub during the process. We could not figure out how to get the bath tub fixtures off so I had to tape all around everything to be able to spray paint them. It was a pain but….

So worth it don’t you think?Okay here is the one mishap…see these lovely brass lights…well we went to Lowes to find something to replace them….we did…the lights were gorgeous and seriously marked down…..Here are the new lights…they were silver so I spray painted them black…they have white bell shaped covers that hang off of where the blue tape is…. I was so excited to get them hung up…they were going to be perfect! Well….

As fate would have it..once we took off the old ones..we discovered that there were 3 separate holes cut in the mirror and the new fixtures (the ones that I had just spray painted ) only have one small base to cover it with! We tried all kinds of different ideas…cutting a piece of wood for a new base, we thought about adding more mirror to cover the holes…after running all over town trying to come up with a simple solution…. we ended up having to buy another new set of simple lights and spray painting them black and my sweet amazing hubby hung them up to cover the holes. (why didn’t we just spray paint the old ones you may be asking? because my hubby chucked them and they were gone) So I gave two sets to my sister for her new bathroom and I still have one that I hope to use somewhere else. Sink faucets before…

Sink faucets after! We took them off and lightly sanded them and then spray painted them with a textured flat black spray paint…I will get the name later. The paint can is in the garage. They look like Iron now and seem to be holding up quite well. I still have to figure out how to get rid of the cracks in the sinks. For anyone thinking of doing this….I would probably use a primer of some sort on the faucets underneath to help the paint adhere even better.
To clean them..I would use a clorox wipe…. nothing that would scratch it.
WE love love love how it all turned out !
 

Isn’t it pretty? I know how she feels (except I want to use the guest bath instead of the master bath) – every time a room is completed with our own two hands, it’s our favorite room in the house.  I could sit in there all day.   I love the black fixtures against the white and matching black mirror frame with the white vanity and soothing blue walls! Another DIY success!

A fellow serial DIY'er…

I want to thank Brandi for sending over her DIY projects.  They are awesome!  This is a long post, but I can’t leave out any details.  I love all of her creativity, DIY talent and her beautiful home.  I think you will too.  Make sure you click the links to visit Brandi’s blog for all of the details and even more DIY eye candy.

Kitchen Before/Afters:
When we looked into buying the home, I was HATING the kitchen.  It was screaming BUILDER GRADE. The kitchen had never been painted and the countertops looked horrible.  And it was begging for a backsplash.
We chose to paint the kitchen orange and do the “antique glazed” look.  We painstakingly painted the cabinets a linen color and then glazed each one of them. We added some crown moulding to the top to give it a more “high end” look.  Then we added hardware to the doors and drawers.  Finally we changed out the countertop and put in a Travertine backsplash on the diagonal.  I couldn’t be happier… well, now that’s not entirely true – I want to change out the white appliances for stainless steel ones – but that will come later on down the road.

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Fireplace Before & After:
The night we closed on the house, I immediately started pulling up carpet and smashing the tile surround on the fireplace. 
The hubs built the mantle and we used slate tiles as the surround.  Total cost for the transformation?  $36.00!!!
  As you can also see, we replaced the carpet for hardwood – a steal we found discount supply store for $1.50 sq ft… I am still convinced they had this priced incorrectly! HA!

Beautiful Bathroom vanity Before & After:
This is still a work in progress (its never ending).  But when we bought the home – there was carpet in the master bath.  GROSS!  We hated the vanity… okay we pretty much hated everything about the bathroom. 
We decided to take out the original vanity and put in an antique dresser with a sink on top in its place. 
After months of searching for the PERFECT one, we found this small dresser at Goodwill for $60.00.  We sanded it down, painted the body black and stained the drawers a mahogany color.  We also stained the side insets the same.  We added glass knobs and kept the beautiful brass locks. 
We found the sink and faucet on Overst
ock.com for $120.  Can’t beat that! 
The hubs had to modify the drawers to fit the plumbing, but I am extremely happy with the way it turned out! 
We also ripped out the carpet and put in black and white tile.  Now it has an antique feel to the bathroom.  I am loving how it turned out!!

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Thank you for sharing all of your beautiful DIY projects, Brandi. Everything you touch turns to gold! lol I love the barnwood shelves, the kitchen is amazing, the bathroom might still be a work in progress to you but it’s gorgeous! Congratulations on doing fantastic work!