Archive for March, 2009
Reader Redesign: Nice Niche
This amazing niche makeover sent by Mike and McGee is proof that looking carefully at every nook and cranny in your house can result in added function and eye candy. Here’s their letter:
We wanted to share a recent renovation we did in our Austin, Texas home. We ripped out an ugly and awkwardly shaped art niche and recessed light fixture and replaced it with a custom built-in bookcase and new wall sconce. Total cost: about $50. The only downside to this project is that we realized once it was finished that we had more books than shelves. I had originally planned to artfully arrange some books on the shelves, adding a few interesting items here and there. However, once we started loading books onto the shelves, we realized that we needed all of that space just for books. With the addition of some Ikea expedit bookcases in our breakfast room (recently re-purposed as my office – I work from home), we finally have all the books off the floor. Yay! – Mike & McGee
Isn’t that a great transformation? I love the crisp white trim and the clean-lined sconce… and the fact that they did it with their own four hands! You can check out their blog for more details and information. Thanks so much for sending along your amazing transformation Mike & McGee! Sherry is seriously poking around the house for a place to add a bookcase at this very moment.
Sometimes We’re The Last To Know…
Yesterday started off like any other day. John went off to work, I published the morning post and started working on a design dilemma, Burger chased a few bugs on the back patio. Then John called me to say that we were just on CNN.
WHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAA?????
It turns out that they liked our bench makeover so much that not only was it featured on the top of CNN’s homepage, but our names and website were actually mentioned in a live broadcast on CNN along with the before & after bench pictures. Needless to say it was no longer a normal day.
One of the kind folks over at CNN had actually contacted us on Tuesday to ask a few follow up questions about the project, so we had an inkling that we might get a random mention on their website in the coming week, but little did we know it would be a shout out on live TV less than 24 hours later. How crazy is that??!! And John wasn’t calling me because he’d seen it (contrary to popular belief, people in advertising do more than play pool, drink brandy, and watch TV). He actually found out about it because one of his coworker’s husbands had called his wife to tell her he’d seen it. We heard it through the grapevine. Insane! Anyway, here’s the link to our little CNN appearance (that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write).
So a huge wet smooch goes out to the bench-makeover-loving peeps at CNN! Thanks so much for the mention. And thanks for making just another ordinary day… not so ordinary at all. We’re still pinching ourselves.
Lucky Seven
In the spirit of listing our favorite shelter magazines and our favorite home decorating shows, we thought we’d put together a quick rundown of our favorite decorating books. We have over thirty design tomes around the house, but we have seven runaway favorites, so without further ado…
1. The Design Idea Book – Gorgeous rooms that we could totally live in. Love the colors, floor plans, and proportions. Majorly inspiring across the board!
2. Nate Berkus Home Rules – Nate’s my imaginary designer boyfriend and his book doesn’t fail to disappoint. He uses inspiring pieces with soul (many of them thrifted or picked up in his travels) to cobble together warm and inviting spaces with drama and elegance to spare.
3. Thom Filicia Style – One of the best books out there for foolproof paint colors and gorgeously luxe spaces to emulate. A must read!
4. Candace Olson On Design – Candice Olson is my imaginary designer girlfriend. Her style is impeccable, and her ability to transform any room (even a dark, dingy basement) into a serene and soothing sanctuary is nothing short of magic. We especially love her use of mirrors, pale blue, capiz and many other materials that we’re crazy about as well.
5. Houses: Inside And Out – This book is a classic. And it’s certainly the most diverse when it comes to the styles of homes that it depicts. While some rooms might be a bit too formal for you, we could totally live on pages 180-183. Heavenly.
6. House Beautiful: The Home Book – This book is like the decorating bible. It’s packed with paint color suggestions and it breaks down everything from renovating a bathroom to mixing and matching patterns in easy to understand steps. This is a great reference book for anyone decorating a new home.
7. Domino: The Book Of Decorating – Full of the greatest hits from the much-loved magazine, this tome is full of memorable rooms and unexpected ideas that anyone can emulate for a super stunning look that’s anything but cookie cutter.
So there you have it. Seven sizzling shelter reads full of decadent eye candy as far as the eye can see. Now tell us, what are your favorite home decorating reads? Are any of ours on your list too? Did we forget anything major (apologies in advance if we did!)? Spill the design book beans…
Check out more decorating book reviews over at It’s The Little Things and Layers Of Meaning.
How To Make A Rain Barrel
Ever since we spotted a rain barrel in action on our visit to Matt & Kristin’s house last fall, Sherry and I have been itching to harness the power of our own otherwise wasted rainwater. So we participated in a recent rain barrel making workshop offered locally and we’re here to pass along the play by play.
First things first – why rain barrels? Well, placed under one of your downspouts, rain barrels conveniently collect rainwater that you can use to water gardens and lawns, wash cars or even fill birdbaths and ponds. A 1000 square foot roof yields about 600 gallons per inch of rainfall, so that’s a lot of water (and money) to be saved. We’ve even seen ‘em hooked up to a soaker hose for easy and free garden watering. Novel idea, eh?
Rain barrels are relatively easy to make, but finding the barrel can be a challenge. Which is why many people will purchase them already assembled for upwards of $120. Needless to say, we were thrilled to find a local workshop that provided the tools, equipment and instruction for only $40. They provided everyone with a 50 gallon food grade plastic barrel… that just happened to have a previous life as an olive shipping vessel. Funny, huh? Sherry said it made her mouth water.
The first step was drilling the hole for the faucet. You’ll want to drill it as low as possible (since the water below the hole won’t flow out) but not too low that you can’t attach a hose or place a watering can under it (which obviously would be no good). Here’s Sherry sitting on our barrel to keep it from rolling while one of the volunteers operated the hole saw (a regular drill with a hole-cutting attachment). In less than 20 seconds, we had a hole for our faucet.
You’ll want to keep the barrel on its side and then use your faucet (or “hose bibb”) to thread the plastic edges of the hole. You’ll do this by screwing it all the way into and back out of your newly made hole once. It may take a little bit of force to get the faucet threads to catch, but be careful not to push it so hard that you damage the plastic threads you’re creating. In under a minute we had made our threads and removed the faucet for the next step…
Once you’ve unscrewed the faucet, you’ll want to apply a thin line of caulk around the edge of the hole:
Then you’ll place a reducing washer over the hole, with the caulk acting as the adhesive. Reducing washers have a raised lip on the inner rim, and that raised portion should go against the barrel.
With the reducing washer firmly in place, you can screw your faucet back into place for good (this will be a lot easier since you’ve already created threads by screwing the faucet into the hole and removing it a few steps back). When it’s firmly in place, it should look something like this:
Now that you’ve created a watertight seal on the outside – here comes the fun part – you’ve gotta do the same on the INSIDE. Yep, time to crawl inside the barrel. You’d think this would be the perfect job for a petite person like my 5’2″ wife. Nope, somehow I got that assignment (and Sherry kept her job as barrel sitter to keep me from rolling away).
Inside the barrel, you’ll be repeating the process with the caulk and reducing washer – so remember to bring those with you when you go in. You’ll also want to bring a flashlight, because it’s dark in there (and it may smell like olives). Once you’ve got your washer caulked in place, you’ll screw on a locknut to secure the faucet. You’ll probably need the help of some pliers to ensure you’ve got the locknut on there nice and tight.
Your partner should stay sitting on the barrel to keep it from rolling away throughout the process. Or if you’re Sherry, you could use the opportunity to snap photos of your husband looking like, and I quote, a “California Raisin.” All I needed were some oversized gloves and a saxophone.
That completes the process of attaching the faucet. We did have the option of repeating the process at the top of the barrel with a “rigid nipple.” Basically, it’s an overflow spout that you could use to connect multiple barrels together. Since we’ll be a one barrel family for now, we’ve just opted for the overflow to come out the top (meaning when the barrel fills up with water, the excess spillover will do just that- spill over the top).
Speaking of the top – the barrels we were provided already had 6″ holes drilled in their lids. So all we had to do was screw the lid on over a tight mesh mosquito screen to keep any standing-water-lovin’ bugs out of our barrel. Here’s Sherry with our finished product:
That would’ve been the end of our workshop adventure, but I guess some other people working near us took note of my locknut-tightening skills. Before I knew it I was climbing into not one, not two, but three other barrels to help other barrel-makers ensure that their faucets were secure. And should we be surprised that Sherry seized the opportunity to take more photos of me in those barrels?
Once I finished barrel diving, we got the thing crammed into the backseat of our car and took it home for placement in our backyard. We picked a downspout at the edge of our driveway that was completely hidden from the front of the house, and mostly hidden from the side (let’s be honest, rain barrels don’t scream curb appeal). Luckily the placement will be super convenient for Sherry’s new back garden (stay tuned to see what sorts of edible goodies and purty bloomers she’s planning to grow).
Then we just had to adjust the height of our downspout so it would spill into the top of the barrel. We detached the elbow at the bottom of the spout and dug out the underground plastic tubing that had been in place (and because we didn’t have any fancy metal snips with us, we broke out a box cutter once we figured out our desired height). Here’s Sherry making the cut while I stood by and watched. She’s hardcore. Maybe she was trying to make up for all the barrel-crawling I did?
It did the trick, and with the gutter cut to the right height we just reattached the existing end spout and slid the barrel into place underneath it. Voila. Bring on the rain.
We should note that it’s extremely important that the barrel sits on level ground (you may want to use a shovel to level the ground and even lay some sand to be sure). A full barrel can weight up to 450lbs so you don’t want it tipping over on you. Of course we’re going to have to do a few more rain dances before ours will get that heavy. Bring it on Mother Nature.
Do any of you guys already use rain barrels? Any advice or tips for us newbies?
If you’re in Richmond and are looking to make a barrel of your own, check out upcoming workshops through Chesterfield County ($40) and Tricycle Gardens ($75).
Curb Your Enthusiasm
With a lot of renovating and redecorating complete inside our brick rancher, curb appeal is the name of the game this spring. We’re all about adding charm, color, and classic style to take our humble home’s exterior from blah to booyah. And we started with the front porch where we were set one goal: spend a little, get a lot. Here’s a glorious after shot, but let’s rewind and explain what we did to get there…
We had our hearts set on two big square black planters for either side of the porch after finding a few gorgeous options like this one from Smith & Hawken- but two large planters for $300? Not really in our budget! So we went to Home Depot and came home with these large 18×18″ planters for just $30 each- a super good deal for their generous size and sturdy construction (it’s hard to find anything that’s not plastic for that price- score!):
And although the wood tone didn’t really match our desired color scheme, it was nothing some exterior semi-gloss paint couldn’t solve. Even the random metal branch pattern looks chic in black on black- almost like an abstract sea coral. And you know we love anything natural…
We also jumped at the opportunity to use some of our free homemade compost (thanks to our super simple backyard compost bin) along with some potting soil for a yummy little mix for our $6 boxwoods- who will slowly grow into their new homes on either side of the porch. We’re also planning to add some cheerful annuals around them to fill things out until the boxwoods bulk up a bit.
Oh and we took a tip from our horticulturist friend and broke a few chipped old terra cotta pots with a hammer and tossed them into the bottom of each planter before adding soil (which helps to facilitate drainage without allowing dirt to slowly slip out of the drainage holes on the bottom of the planter):
We also picked up a few inexpensive outdoor pillows while at Home Depot. For just $12 each we came home with two colorful accents that tie in with our punchy red front door:
We paired the pillows with our old inexpensive Target porch chairs (which used to be yellow before we spray painted them last summer). Gotta love two old chairs spruced up with some classic paint and some happy stripes. Note: You might notice the wooden chair on the porch in our blog header- but we actually borrowed that guy from the sunroom (and a pillow from the bedroom) so we needed something that could really weather the elements full-time on the porch… which is where the spray painted outdoor chairs and pillows came in.
Of course we’d still love a long outdoor runner and a side table to stick between our chairs to cozy up the little front porch seating area. But until then we’re happy to save our pennies and wait for our boxwoods to grow. May you live long and prosper little guys.
What about you? Any curb appeal projects on the agenda for spring? Tell us all about it.
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