Living Room Makeover....Phase 1

Our living room has been on my to-do list for a while now. Two day's ago my friend and I painted her family room in 3 hours so for payback (and personal motivation) I got her to come help me paint my living room today.

I saw a blog recently where someone did a board and batten look in their bathroom and I fell in love. Gorgeous!

And one day I would simply LOVE to have a playroom like this:

I've been a lover of wainscot for a long time but board and batten is so much cheaper. I decided on a dark tan on the top and white board and batten on the bottom. My board and batten isn't going to be as tall as the board and batten in the pictures, but it's still 4 1/2 feet. Had to get DH to help with the top

I am so excited to hang this above the fireplace:

Or something very similar. I'll be taking a class at Hobby Lobby for Roberts. I told DH it will be my birthday gift to myself.

Halloween Potions

For the first time since I was a little kid, I am excited for Halloween. I never understood the desire to be scared or act silly. But that has changed. Maybe it's because DD is almost 2 and I can dress her up or maybe my in-law's love for the holiday has rubbed off on me, but I'm totally into it this year.

I went downstairs to find my Halloween decorations and was shocked at my lack of decor. I have a scary tree that glows and 2 pumpkins which are of Mickey & Winnie the Pooh. And all 3 of those items were bought by MIL. So I started blog surfing for ideas and found one that I LOVED! Substantially Chic Designs had the cutest potions display! So I decided to copy her ;)

I raided my fridge and transferred a bunch of stuff to Tupperware so I could use the glass and I spray painted the lids matte black.
I printed out a bunch of labels that she linked to. The only problem was that I was printing them at my in-law's house and didn't have my bottles with me to size them correctly.
I set made a list of things to buy at the dollar store but only found about 1/2 the things on my list so I came home and improvised.
I saw another blog that did Harry Potter potions and made labels out of brown paper bags so I decided to add a few of those.





I love the Vampire blood. I had this awesome bottle in the fridge which had some acai berry drink in it. I was happy to have an excuse to dump it. The label is from Love Manor and the liquid is water with a few drops of red food coloring.

The corrosive sublimate label from Spook Show and I just filled it with maple syrup.

The polyjuice potion is simply dirt and water. DH made the label.
The skeleton was supposed to have a label but I didn't print it. DH and I decided to leave it alone.





Living Death is another Potter reference and contains water with red & blue food coloring. The Danger: Unknown Specimen was a toy snake from the dollar store that I cut up. That one grosses me out.





I had this cool bottle that DH's grandpa gave us containing his homemade plum syrup. The syrup was almost gone and I thought it would be perfect for the Life Renewal Potion, which is water & green food coloring.

The Human Flesh label comes from Love manor and inside is a toy liver from the dollar store and water.




I was excited for the eye of newt. Like Substantially Chic, I got hydrating balls from the dollar store and added green food coloring. I didn't have a label so DH made one.
The petrified butterflies bottle is empty (shameful, I know). I've been trying to find butterflies at the dollar store but haven't had any luck. But I love the label, so I kept it.
The eyeball label comes from Spook show and just has chocolate balls with eyeball wrappers from the dollar store in it.


Now, this potions collection is on a floating shelf above the TV and I thought it needed a little more. MIL just bought a Cricut for us girls to share!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and we got an awesome Halloween cartridge, but it'll be a few days before I'm at her house to cut something cute so I came up with something else.




Running off the Harry Potter theme, I made a warning sign on "parchment." I haven't decided it I love it yet, but it'll work for now.





I had made a potions sign with the cricut, but after adding the Harry potter stuff, it just didn't look right so I took it down.






I also made a trick or treat banner, but I wish I had made it bigger. I was really just playing with our new toy and that's what I came up with.


It's amazing the crafting possibilities a Cricut provides. DD is obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She's turning 2 in a week and we got a Mickey cartridge (of course) so I'm going to spend my lonely weekend while DH works making decorations for her birthday! So excited!


Linked up to Tea Rose Home

Bathroom Makeover

We've been working on our bathroom for 3 days now. It's almost done. I'm just waiting for DH to get home from with some tools and a ladder off his work truck so we can reach the top of the walls and fix a few things.

The before bathroom is so ugly that I feel it deserves an explanation.
Before we moved 6 months ago, the maintenance guy for the mortuary (did I ever mention that we live at a mortuary? Well, not IN the mortuary, in a duplex next door owned my the mortuary.) ripped off the wallpaper that was ALL OVER the house. Then he painted the entire house white. I had been in the house before they did any of this and believe me, I'd rather live in an all-white asylum then in a house with 70's wallpaper on every wall.

Anyway, the only room he didn't have time to get to was the bathroom. They installed a new toilet and a new vanity, which was slightly smaller than the previous one and left a hole in my wall for 3 months.

The bathroom wouldn't have been too bad if someone hadn't painted these hideous daisy's with neon yellow accents all over the walls.

So, in this picture you can see the neon flowers and in the bottom right corner you can see the raw drywall piece of wall that was finally installed to patch the big hole in the wall.

The bathroom (which I think is more like a closet) currently looks like this (sorry my camera takes such crappy pictures, when we're all done I'll get my MIL's fancy Nikon and take some pictures)

And I love it! Stay tuned...

Project in the works...door frames

Our house is at least 60 years old. Probably more. That comes with a lot of down sides i.e. lath and plaster instead of drywall, aluminum ducts with asbestos tape....But, it also has some cool old woodwork. Unfortunately the original wood has been painted over. So, instead of stripping the paint we decided to paint the door frames so they stand out. We've only put the first coat on so far, but it looks amazing.

This is in my "black room." All the furniture is black and the couch is soon to be recovered in black. I was hesitant when DH suggested painting the door frames black, but I'm glad I went along with it.

Our little helper monkey

I also made new curtains recently but I wasn't going to post pictures until the couch was recovered. Oh well, here are the curtains:
I decided to hang them down like this rather than off to the side so they hide the ugly swamp cooler. I also made fabric flowers and put them on the tiebacks.

More pictures to come when the room in finished.