Five New Things

This isn't a real "in-depth" post, but I figured I should probably try to keep my momentum of posting at least once a week.  We don't want to go through another "Tawnya doesn't post for an entire year" fiasco again.

So here are five new things for this week.

1.  School started again.  Yes, I'm back in that saddle.  Another round of classes has begun and even though I was able to start them two days early, I'm still feeling the stress that comes along with a new quarter.  So please be patient with me.  I'll try to keep the postings coming as house things happen, but it might be difficult as I adjust to another quarter of "I have no life".  Work and school full time are tough to manage, but once I get through the first few weeks and have a routine down all should return to normal.

2. Art for the Dining Room.  I was able to get one of the blank pieces of canvas covered with something last week.  Whoo hoo! Inspiration came from the inverted arrow art Dana with House Tweaking has for her master bedroom (here), so I created my own miniature version using painters tape and gold leaf.  I know, I know...last time I used gold leaf it was a disaster, but this project was pretty simple and I just vacuumed up the mess when I was done.  It's one of my favorite pieces in the house thus far. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the process, but if you want to make your own, just draw it out, tape off sections you don't want gold and then leaf away.

Easy Front Door Decor

A serious eye-sore for our outdoor decor has been the front door.  Actually who am I kidding, the entire outside area (aside from some hanging baskets and flowers) is an eye-sore.

We moved in this last April and since then this is what has been hanging on our front door: 

Cha Cha Cha Changes!

I would first like to start off by saying that coming up with a clever blog post title is one of the hardest parts about starting off a post.  I know, my life is rough, but seriously.  So I apologize in advance for any cheesy blog titles.  Please bear with me. :)

I mentioned that over Labor Day weekend we did some (somewhat) major updating in the dining room.  No, I still haven't removed the popcorn ceiling, that task is something I am dreading.  The dining room however looks nothing like it did before.

Let's begin.

The last time the dining room was discussed, it looked like this:

Curtain Queen

The dining room got some major (unexpected) updating over Labor Day weekend.

There was something about the room that I just didn't like.  Even with the addition of the big chalkboard, it just felt...wrong.

The best part about interior design is watching a room evolve over time, at least that's the best part for me.  One thing you can be certain about in our house is that NOTHING has a permanent place.  Vern is constantly whining that once he gets where things go figured out, I pull a change-up on him and he's back to not knowing where anything goes.  Boo hoo.

Maybe it's the completion of the cabinets (finally), but it's starting to feel like areas of our house are coming together.  The dining room being one of those rooms - I'm getting ahead of myself though.

Rewind

Labor Day weekend had me perplexed over what to do/add/remove from the dining room.  I took a quick trip to Hobby Lobby as I waited for the cabinets to dry and stumbled upon this fabric.

Inspiration struck and snatched up 7 yards.  It was time for some curtain making. :)

Friday Special - Projects I Suck At (Gold Edition)

Like I said before, over Labor Day weekend we got a lot of projects crossed off the list.  It felt good.  In fact, it felt so good that I think I might have become a little over confident in my abilities.

We made a lot of changes to the dining room and the amazing result (which I will share next week) left me wanting to create a new centerpiece for the table.  Can you see where this is going?

One of the latest trends for home decor is gold.  Seriously, gold is making a huge comeback.  Fixtures, decor, hardware, you name it and it probably looks better in gold.

I've been seeing a lot of Pinterest projects with gold leafing and thought to myself, "How hard could this be?" I'm pretty crafty.  It's pretty much like paper maché right?

No.

No it is not like paper maché.

Not even close.

Seriously...NOT PAPER MACHE.

Kitchen Progress!

A few weeks (or months) ago our kitchen looked like this: 

The laundry list of things to do was long and daunting, but I am proud to say that after the long holiday weekend our kitchen currently looks like this: