Sweet and Simple Storage Solution

Our garage houses many things, except our cars. Most of our “stuff” is stored in large bins, but as always, it is the little things that are always bouncing from place to place, unless they have a permanent home.

We recently inherited, among other things, a few bins from Steve’s parents, who closed their catering business after thirty years. Given the unused space next to Steve’s desk and the new-to-us bins, he decided to build something to store small things like cables, computer parts, etc.


This idea is similar to Ana White’s Laundry Basket Dresser.

The area before:

Measuring (twice) and cutting (once)

The finished – and oh so useful! – storage area with bins in place.

As always, I have to thank my sweet husband for always looking for ways to make our lives more efficient. Less time spent spent searching for things means more time spent having fun. Yesterday I sat at his desk, while he measured and cut, working on a little project of my own, while our boys had fun in the front yard. But for now we are loving the orderly look and more streamlined area. Woot!!

Redwood flower frames


We love our backyard, no question about it. It is a pretty decent size, it allows our boys to play hard and it allows us to entertain and grow fruits and veggies for our family.

THAT said . . .

Sometimes things out back get kind of, well, boring.

True, we will have lots of lavender and tomatoes bringing in the reds and purples of summer, and there will be fresh corn and plums, too, but we wanted some instant gratification and my husband decided to put together some frames for nature’s works of art.

The frames are made from redwood planks – we painted them using leftover spray paint and some mistints that cost $5/gallon.

I love looking outside the playroom/office window and seeing these bright pops of color!




We are very happy with how this project turned out, and it has been featured at:
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Frame Jewelry Display

You know how sometimes the glass that comes with a photo frame breaks? And you don’t want to throw that frame away so you stash it for months in various places, until your husband is all “hmmm, are you going to do something with this thing?” And then a friend gifts you their old coffee table but one of the ten knobs is missing and you’re all “Whoa! Frame + knobs? Can I say jewelry display?”

Okay, so maybe you haven’t thought this, but I did, and here are the results.
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I took the frame and painted it in Oil Rubbed Bronze, then covered the backing with gold dust vellum paper from my favorite paper store.

The backing was a piece of laminate that my husband had leftover from a project and he cut it to size for me. Once the laminate and vellum were adhered, I marked a grid of nine spots on the back – three across, three up and down. My awesome husband drilled the laminate and paper and we bought some new screws because the ones that came with the knobs were too long.

I now have a place to display some of my bracelets and necklaces:
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The total cost of this project was solidly under ten dollars. The paper was $2.75 (plus tax) and the new screws/washers were under $5. I had the frame, we had the piece of laminate and we had the nine knobs from my craft table project.

I hope you have enjoyed my repurposed photo frame craft!

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Our new mantel

The living room mantel is the focal point of our main living area. You see it as soon as you come in the front door – here it is decked out for spring back in March:

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The problem is, the “wall” above the mantel was just a sheet of foam over the brick, which goes from floor to ceiling. We discovered this when we tried to hang a picture and made a huge hole instead.

We decided to tear down the foam and put up some sheetrock instead – at the same time, I really hated the current mantel, so my husband graciously built me a new one 😀

Below is the 2×4 that is nailed to the brick wall – the mantel is attached to this and it serves as support.

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Checking to make sure the fit is perfect.

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Applying wood putty to the rough edges and nail holes:

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Our oldest was a very big help!

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Painting the sheetrock to match the rest of the walls – we chose to paint the new mantel and frame in a dark chocolate brown:

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The rich brown is a very close match to our TV console, coordinates with the large IKEA picture above, and is a good addition to our warm-toned living room.

Here is our new mantel area dressed up with some vintage Paris pictures and pretty flowers:

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I LOVE this area, it looks brighter, cleaner and so much nicer – hope you enjoyed our little project!

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