Monday, August 15, 2016

Weekend Warriors: Two Weeks of DIY

I don't know what's gotten into me, but I've got some serious DIY fever.  Actually I do know what's up: my grandparents are coming to visit! The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of spontaneous activity. 

My DIY fever kicked off when I decided I could not stand the wallpaper in the kitchen for one more night and — luckily — the glue was so old and worn, the wallpaper came off easily in sheets with just little tugs. I removed all the wallpaper in the kitchen and the scraps of backing paper in probably the equivalent of 1.5 hours after work while Sean made dinner. It's shockingly satisfying.


I also removed the cafe curtain on the hall window and now the room is insanely bright. 


Next up: a renovation (no, seriously!).


Meanwhile, I've been on the hunt for a while for the perfect lilac pillows for the living room to pull out some of the purple color in our painting. I looked EVERYWHERE, both at brick-and-mortar stores and online, and found only a few options. Then I happened to walk into World Market and they literally had a display right in the front of lilac velvet pillows in exactly the size I wanted, on sale. I don't ignore fate, so I brought home three pillows and seeing them every day has been delightful.


I had so much weeding to do but there was no way I was even attempting it before 5 p.m. when it got cooler, so I decided to tackle a long-delayed project indoors: hanging my beloved silhouette collection in the guest room. I did a practice layout first in the living room, and took a picture so I'd remember the arrangement. 


I also replaced our side table lamps with these modern brass beauties. I'm kinda in love. 


One of my favorite silhouettes: a watercolor painted silhouette of Oprah by my friend Sarah, who embroidered a pretty silver earring on top.


Another favorite: this custom Bill Murray silhouette gifted by my friend Bret.

And since I had all the hammers, drills and nails handy, I decided it was time to make our entry functional. When we moved in, there were already some screws in the wall in random places, and I basically plopped a mirror and my "mail box" up and left them in the same spot for almost two years. Now, we finally have a functional layout, with this cool zinc mirror from Target that my husband says looks like armor. 

All of this is just practice for our next big project: a kitchen reno. Not planning to actually DIY very much of that, but I have spent the summer pinning inspiration and fine-tuning my design ideas, which hopefully I'll share soon here. 

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