Archive for April, 2009
Reader Redesign: Lighten Up
Julie’s kitchen makeover is nothing short of miraculous. Here’s her letter:
I found your blog through a Real Simple blog I subscribe to and look forward to the evenings after I put my one & two year old toddlers to bed so I can soak up some of your swank. We just sold our house and had some great photos of our kitchen and I realized we’d done a lot to improve it over the last few years so I thought I’d share the before & afters. We had a grease fire so we replaced the counters, microwave and oven. We also discovered a leak in our dishwasher so we replaced the floors & dishwasher. We got the counters from Home Depot- they’re formica that looks like granite (called Jamocha Granite, sparkle finish, waterfall edge). The tile backsplash is also from Home Depot (one of the less expensive porcelain tiles they sell). The wall color is Sand Dollar and the cabinet color is Antique Lace (Porter Paint). We bought Mohawk wide plank floors and did the kitchen, dining room, 2 bathrooms and the foyer for $2000. BTW we sold our house within 48 hours after we put it on the market and had four offers! Yipee! I’m saving my money so I can contact you all after we’re in our new house. I’d love to have you help us spice up the new pad! – Julie
Here’s the budget breakdown:
- Cabinet and wall painting $700
- Kitchen Floors $500
- Counters $2000
- Appliances $2000
- Backsplash $300
- Curtains $50
- Faucet $80
- New pulls $100
- Grand total = $5730
Isn’t that an insane transformation? We love that some paint on the cabinets along with a new counter, backsplash and appliances took this room to a whole new level. Thanks a million for the fabulous eye candy Julie! So inspiring.
Lindsey’s Design Dilemma
Lindsey’s living room is bursting with posh potential. Here’s her letter:
We need help with our living room. It has ten foot ceilings and lots of light, but we need help just making it all come together. The style that appeals most to us is a more casual with a modern (clean lines) beachy twist. Most of all I want our living room to be a grown up cozy style. For colors, I like the softer earth tones and blues. My whole house is pretty much lighter shades of blues and different shades of browns and creams. I don’t likes reds, burgundy or bright orange. You can replace the coffee table, the demilune table and the shedding shag rug. I love the two side tables and the items that need to stay in the room are the curtains and the two matching chairs. I hate this sofa and wanted the Keaton sofa from Mitchell Gold, but we don’t want to spend that kind of money right now so I’d love to slipcover it (I’d like a darker color because my yellow lab sleeps on our sofa and has ruined the lighter colored one). Two other things that I have been having a hard time finding is something for the mantle and the hearth. I have such high ceilings and with the TV over the fireplace it just looks out of wack! I really appreciate your help! -Lindsey
This space is primed for a major makeover. Here’s the plan:
And now for the mood board breakdown.
Read the rest of this entry »
Fab Freebie: Stain Master
***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries***
Lately we’ve been doing lots of thinking about how to bring our dull front porch back to life for the BHG 48-Hour Challenge. We did a rough stain and seal job a couple years back, but its vibrancy was long gone and we knew there had to be a few more interesting options. Cue (with perfect timing) an e-mail from Olympic Paint reminding us about their great line of exterior stains. And, since we love sharing the love, we asked “how about giving away some exterior stain to some of our readers?” I think you can guess what their answer was…
Yup, we scored THREE gallons of Oympic Exterior Stain to give away to a trio of randomly selected readers. If you’ve got a deck or porch that needs a fresh face, they’ve got toners and semi-transparent stains a plenty. If you’re looking to inject some color into some outdoor furniture or fencing, they’ve got over 110 solid tones to pick from. And if you’re ready to update your cedar siding… well, you’ll probably need a few extra gallons for that project, but a free one will certainly get you started. And might we suggest one of these cool blue hues?
To enter to win, just comment on this post with the words “I’M A STAIN MASTER” by Wednesday, April 15th at 8pm EST. And if you haven’t quite mastered staining yet, why not tell us something you do consider yourself to be a master at. Gardening? Business administration? The Stair Master? Whatever it is, we’ll choose three random winners using random.org and announce them on Thursday. These prizes can be shipped to the US and Canada; please limit one entry per e-mail address. Good luck…
Learn more about how our freebies work at our Giveaway FAQs. Images courtesy of Olympic Paint.
Our Nest Made The Nest Magazine!
And not only did we make the mag, we actually made the cover. I know! There may or may not have been some excited screaming for a few hours after we found out.
Needless to say we’ve been beyond excited about this little write up (which was shot back in November when they also filmed our video house tour). It was a pretty busy day… and Burger got to meet a crew of ten people for the occasion (a hair & make-up lady, a wardrobe stylist, an assistant to the wardrobe stylist, the photographer of course, his two assistants, the creative director, the prop stylist, his assistant, and a videographer).
Yeah, that’s right. They dressed us up (no those aren’t our clothes, but it is our dog!), powdered our faces (well, not Burger’s) and told us to smile pretty for the camera. We were both super self conscious (so many eyes- and lenses- on us) but we tried to keep our cool and act like it was just another ordinary day at Casa Petersik.
A bunch of you guys have actually seen the spread already since you opened your mailboxes and saw our smiling faces! The hilarious part of the story is that we actually never got a copy of our own (they said it would arrive around March 30th but it has yet to find its way to our house) so we finally got to see the story this weekend thanks to a friend who got the mag and met up with us to pass it along! The Nest magazine is a subscription only publication (they send it out to over 200,000 newlyweds, but it can’t be picked up in stores), so of course we were beyond thrilled when our friend called us to say that she had a copy in her hot little hands.
And now that we’ve seen it, we couldn’t be more enamored (and relieved- our nerdy self-consciousness isn’t nearly as obvious in the pictures as we thought it was). Of course the photographer, David A. Land, captured our house beautifully, and the staff over at The Nest did such an amazing job putting it all together. Oh and could our little fur baby have looked any cuter? Did you see that pooch eye contact on the cover? Is Burger not destined to be a star?!
Now we’ll wrap things up with a JPEG of each page of the article at a readable size (here’s spread 1, spread 2, spread 3, and spread 4 – just click on each one to zoom in). And we’ll be back with another post full of behind the scenes details later in the week. So… as we say so often around here… stay tuned!
Psst: here’s that post full of behind the scenes details so you can see how a national magazine really captures all those glossy shots.
The Porch Project Continues…
Since spilling the super exciting challenge beans last week, we’ve been moving right along with our porch makeover for Better Homes & Garden’s 48-Hour Challenge with Home Depot. And you can check out our latest project update over on BHG.com. There you’ll learn exactly what we’re painting (with subtle stripes!!), and what we’re building (Burger gets his own zone and we’re turning a planter into a side table). We also have a few more crafty ideas up our sleeves (like some twine mobiles that we’re going to whip up). Here’s a little sneak peek:
For more of the porch plan, just head on over to BHG.com and scroll down a bit to find our blurb. And stay tuned for another update next week…
