Play House Makeover: Fixer Upper Mini Edition

Here's a bit of a throw back post!

A few years ago, when my son was just about to turn 1, our neighbor dropped of a Little Tikes playhouse that his grandkids had outgrown.

So... Like I do with just about anything, I decided to give it a little makeover!

I scrubbed it up and used Rustoleum spray paint to paint the door, shutters, and roof.

I also spray painted an old door mat dark blue and put that out front of the door.

Just wasn't feeling the bright orange. Thankfully a little spray paint does the trick.

On the back side I spray painted the orange "fire place" with a dark brown textured spray paint to make it feel a bit more like brick.

I found the cute little fencing pieces at Dollar Tree.

And of course I had to add some "decor" with a garage sale watering can and side-of-the-road free shepherd's hook. The tiny hanging basket is also from Dollar Tree.

And here's my little love enjoying it! 

When he was this little he mostly just wanted to open and close the door.

Now he and his sister use it to "cook". It also makes a great place to store balls and other outdoor toys.

Hope you're having a great spring and getting lots of little outdoor projects done!

Thanks for stopping by.

Blessings,

Olivia

A Look Back: Barn Door Headboard {A Guest Bedroom Tour}

Here is a look at the barn door in its first home: the guest bedroom.

This room is also where the nursery currently is.

I love my barn door in the living room, and I love my baby's nursery, but I do miss this room!

It had a very serene feel with the monochromatic color scheme and lots of natural elements.

The comforter had a small leafy vine pattern.

Here's a look back so you can remember the dark, dated, smelly cave...

Don't miss that ceiling fan that you could literally walk right into!

This room get's a lot of natural light in the evening, 

and once I added all of my whites and light colors it felt even more bright and happy.

The plant in the window is a "lipstick plant" ...a baby from one that my mom had. It gets bright red blooms that look like a tube of lipstick.

As I look back now, I see that I may be killing this plant a bit! 

Uh-oh... it's definitely not this big anymore...

My sister did the painting on the nightstand. 

It is from a real photo of her and I sitting on a little bridge over a creek.

It looks exactly like the photo!

I love meaningful decor.

Maddie is on the left, and I'm on the right.

She also got me the piece of rock sitting on the mirror.

The rock has a story behind it about how it looks like Lake Superior. 

This wall display has some poetry that my best friend's mom wrote.

These pieces are now split up all over the house.

But I do love how you can bring a bunch of small items together to make a bigger impact on a wall.

The paper behind this verse was almost the exact same as the wall color in this room.

It wasn't planned, but it's nice when things like that happen!

The wall color is called "Sheltering Winter's Pine".

It doesn't get much more rustic than that... That's why I was sure to have my husband hang the door high enough so that even the pillows wouldn't be touching it.

I have no idea what the plant in the corner was called... 

it was a hand-me-down that we unfortunately killed.

This is the smallest of our 3 bedrooms, but it was still perfect for a couple of  guests to come for a cozy stay. And it did get quite a bit of use too!

Maybe someday I will get our current guest bedroom whipped into shape and can give you a tour of that. It also has a very serene feel with a monochromatic color scheme... but none of these colors.

It's currently the dumping grounds for all the things that need to be worked on around the fixer upper and all the things that need to be kept hidden from the baby! So...it will be a while before you see it probably. 

My few readers are pretty patient people thought. ;)

Thanks for taking the tour!

Blessings,

Olivia

The Living Room Tour

It's been a while, I know.

My new "mom life" kinda took over for a bit...

But my babe is just a couple months shy of his first birthday, so I thought it would be safe to give the blog some attention. 

And, I wanted to make sure I show ya'll the living room before it doesn't look like this anymore! There have already been several changes since I took these photos, but now that I have a new couch it is really starting to reflect my true style better.

I took a while (3 years) but I've finally got all of my hand-me-down, garage sale, and thrift store items working harmoniously in the living room - after lots of painting of course.

Let me remind you of the BEFORE picture.

When we moved in this room had gross, stinky carpet, a granny valance in the bow window, and lots of other problems. 

Like those beautiful baseboard heaters...all the pipes were burst. 

A true Fixer Upper.

This room wasn't too expensive or hard to fix up...basically just new flooring and paint did the trick. 

New windows will come shortly, and then it will be 100% complete.

I know, it's hard to make a gigantic black TV look pretty. 

There is now a sign above it, which helps ever so slightly.

Definitely not the best angle of the living room, but I want you to get a feel of the lay out.

The console table in the entry way is always changing. 

It's one of the few places I have to actually display decor.

My beloved church pew (a gift from my MIL and from the church my husband went to as a child) fits absolutely perfectly on this wall and is a great landing place for bags when coming in the door.

Still on the hunt for the perfect wreath to hang on my barn door, but until then I'm just enjoying it as is. The major rustic element in the room to help balance all the romantic pieces. 

My corner hutch doesn't fit in the dining area. 

When we first moved it in to the home I thought it would be so weird to have it in the living room, but I have grown to love it in here. It makes a statement and adds height.

Q: How many candles is too many candles in a vignette?? ;)

This room gets really nice natural light in the early afternoon.

All of my whites really help make it that much brighter. 

Light and bright is what makes me happy!

~~~

I got the rocking chair for $10 at a garage sale. It needed a bit of work, but it is an antique that used to be in an old school house in my town. I know I got a killer deal on it.

We purchased this couch from Wayfair.com once I discovered how much I hated our old couch when I started breastfeeding. It was so low and deep and there was no support for my back or arms.

This one is perfect! The exact opposite.

I will admit, we were a little nervous about buying a couch that we couldn't try out. We had no idea if it would be comfortable, and it was hard to get a sense of the color from the pictures and comments. I was looking at the pictures daily and starting to feel like I may have made a big mistake. 

Then it showed up, and I ended up loving it even more than when I first saw it in the pictures!

Wayfair win.

I do love having a church pew... it is also great during parties for extra seating.

My Calla girl striking a pose...

I sometimes look at this barn door (that I pulled right off of a barn that was about to be tore down) and laugh because I know the person that built it had no idea it would end up hanging on some lady's wall one day as decor. There are nails all over it that were pounded through and then back down. 

It adds a lot of "character", that's for sure.

It works out well that my dog matches my decor...

Mostly white with some brown spots :) 

She knows neutral is in!

I would like to find a beautiful dried floral wreath for the door. 

If I can't find what I'm looking for I may attempt to make it. 

Or I may settle for the overly trendy cotton stem style wreath, we will see.

It is fun looking at the living room now that things are coming together. 

I have been collecting things from garage sales and thrift stores since I was in high school, not really knowing how it would all work out together. 

I think it...mostly...does. Right?

I chose the stain for the TV stand my husband built before I totally knew my style. ;) 

Someday it will probably get refinished...maybe white washed if he will let me.

But I also dream of a big armoire with old doors that will just hide the TV. 

Thanks for taking the living room tour!

Things are always improving around here...little changes being made, but it is finally in a place where it's actually presentable and not embarrassing anymore. 

I hope you all have a beautiful and blessed spring (yes, I am signing off using a "season" because who knows when I'll be back with another post!).

Blessings,

Olivia

DIY Drop Cloth Curtains with Birch Tree Rods

We finally have curtains up in the living room!

Homemade from drop cloths...and hanging from skinny little birch tree rods.

It took a while to get these done...mostly because I am still scared of my sewing machine - even though it wasn't really that much sewing - but my mom really has to coach me. 

Or just let me watch her ;) 

As you can probably tell, on our gigantic bow window they are still pretty much just decorative. 

They do cover almost the whole thing when closed, but we've never really needed to close them. 

The beauty of living in the country. 

The only people that probably see us are neighbors driving by at night.

After quite a while of trying to figure out how I wanted to hang them, we decided on grommets and some extra thick jute. Which was nice, because it added some needed extra length as well as another texture. It also helped bring a rustic element onto the curtains themselves, so they work better with the very "rustic rods". 

The bow window took an entire birch tree, which was a little tricky to find, but the smaller window only needed a section of one, so it is quite a bit straighter.

BUT, guess what? One of the things I really love most is that the tree above the big window isn't perfectly straight. It adds a bit of whimsy. 

I like the perfectly imperfect look of nature.

So this picture shows the ugly, gigantic, black hole that is the TV, but now you can get an idea of just how big the window is, and see how the rod dips down a little.

For the record, it does really bother me that the TV is currently half way blocking the window. 

In a perfect world there would be enough room for the corner hutch in the dining area. 

In the real world, the solution will be to move it to the other corner and slide the TV fully over. 

However, that is kind of a big project because I have to take my millions of breakables that are crammed in there out, and well, it's just not high on the priority list when there will be a little baby joining the family in less than a month!

Maybe it will be a summer project if my baby is a really good napper and my husband feels like using his muscles. ;)

Another reason it took us so long to get the curtains up was that we had to wait until we could get to IKEA to get the rod hooks. Which requires a trip to the cities for us.

The bow window display is forever changing - although I kinda like how this collection of random things came together, so it will probably stay for a while...especially since I'll be busy learning how to do mom things and not sure how much time I will have for decorating for a while.

I'm a lover of natural light and getting as much sun into the house as possible, so all of my curtains are light and filter the sun. Actually I usually just use sheers... :)

I think I forgot to mention the other obvious reason I love my curtain rods and decorating with nature...

Because it's FREE!! 

This really is a very frugal way to do curtains.

Drop cloths are not at all expensive, rods were free, and the IKEA hooks were under $5 I'm pretty sure. Grommets and jute are also pretty cheap.

When you add it all up, wayyy less than the cost of curtain panels from just about any store.

Plus, they are custom.

Thanks for stopping by to check out my curtains! 

They add another texture to my neutral world - which is so important when decorating with neutrals.

And, they just make the living room feel quite a bit cozier and homier I think.

I hope you are all having a wonderful start to spring! 

Blessings, 

Olivia

Sharing at: Feathered Nest Fridays, Create, Bake, Grow & Gather