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Royal Bread
That’s what John thought this gift represented when he unwrapped it on Christmas morning.
But by around his third guess he’d cracked the code: crown molding. And his gift finally came to fruition this week when our crafty installer returned to hang beautiful 3 inch molding in our living/dining room and three bedrooms. The finished product is polished and purty. And best of all, John didn’t have to lift a finger. He works hard enough around here as it is, so I was glad to let him sit this one out.
Here are some detail shots:
And here’s the whole living / dining room in all of its crowning glory:
It looks just as dapper in the bedrooms, so stay tuned for some more pics. In the meantime you can find John not complaining about a sore back or a nail gun injury. Life is good.
A Little Shelf Help
Ok, so we’re in the middle of finally getting that crown molding installed (that I got for John as one of his Christmas presents). But you may not realize, I certainly didn’t, that it takes a lot of prep before crown molding can go up. Everything has to come down off of the walls and all furniture has to come into the center of the room so that the ladder can easily navigate the circumference of the space. So here’s what all of our living room stuff looks like crammed into the third bedroom.
But enough about the molding. When it’s completely finished we’ll have some purty before and afters for ya. But the purpose of this post is to share the switcheroo I pulled on our best-purchase-ever-Ikea-shelves. Since I had to take everything off of them for the crown installation, it was the perfect opportunity for a little presto-chango. See, they used to house everything from frames to vases to plants to books to shells to canvases. And they had a broad range of shapes, sizes and colors on display.
I thought bringing in some kitchen items (dishes, bowl, mugs, etc) would make sense now that the side of the room that houses our shelves has semi-recently been turned into our dining area. And lo and behold, I adore the end result. It’s a lot simpler when it comes to the color palate (it’s pretty much exclusively white and green) and it just feels so fresh and new (it never hurts to change the scenery every once in a while). So without further ado, I present to you my new shelving arrangement:
Thoughts? Ideas? General musings? Haikus?
The Fairest Mirror Of Them All
At this point you all probably know three things about me: I love a good transformation, I adore a good bargain, and I’m obsessed with my dog Hamburger (that last fact is unimportant to this story, but is too obvious to ignore when stating defining facts about myself). Anyway, I recently found a big round mirror at Home Goods so hideously ugly that the deeply discounted $19 price tag didn’t surprise me. But most round mirrors of this size are around 90 to 150 bucks, so of course I had to buy it.
Since I forgot to take a “before” pic, please allow me to describe my grotesque purchase in detail. The frame around the mirror was made of that fake fiberglass stuff that plastic outdoor urns are made of, and it was faux-finished with swirly brown and bronze splotches. TERRIBLE. So bad that I almost told the cashier that I was planning to do some major surgery on the mirror before hanging it for fear that she was judging my taste. So here’s where I’m asking you to envision that tacky splotchy plastic abomination of a mirror.
And here’s what it looks like with a fresh coat of glossy white paint:
Not bad huh? It looks just like one I saw a while back in a Pottery Barn catalog for 250 beans (plus shipping). Who spends that much money on a basic round mirror anyway? The cool thing is that now you’d swear our mirror was painted wood, even when you touch it. Is there nothing that white paint can’t cure?
It looks great in the den above the tv where that big clock from Target used to hang (which has since been relocated to the sunroom where it should have lived all along).
Here’s a wider shot for the full effect:
I just love a good frog-turned-prince home improvement fairytale, don’t you? Now send us your best home makeovers. Apparently we just can’t get enough of them.
