Hang Up the Holidays!

Decorating for the holidays is so much fun, but with my porch newly remodeled, I didn’t want to pop nails into my freshly built and painted surfaces. I teamed up with Home Depot to create a holiday porch transformation using some amazing damage free hanging products and I’m so thrilled with how it turned out! 

I used a variety of different Command products for hanging all my decor, as well as some Velcro and Hillman products to secure things like power cords and attaching garlands together, and I’m definitely a convert. 

In the past I’ve usually hung my holiday decor using picture wire nails and staples since they’re small, but even small nails leave holes, and putting holes in brand new trim just felt, well, wrong. I was nervous that the Command hooks wouldn’t hold because some of my garlands and wreaths are pretty heavy, but they held up great!  I doubled up Command hooks in a few areas where there were extra heavy elements and everything was solid. 

Hanging Product Links: 

Outdoor Medium Clear Window Hooks  |  Outdoor Rope Light Clips (to attach garlands)  |   Clear Small Outdoor Light Clips (to attach lights)  |  Velcro Reusable Ties  |  Hillman 24-Guage Green Floral Wire 

Decor Links: 

4ft Flocked Trees  |  Door Garland  |  Door Wreath  |  Window Wreaths  |  Porch Garland  |  Lanterns  |  C9 Lights 

The other awesome thing was having Command Strips that allowed me to secure my power cords so they weren’t just dangling or laying around everywhere, plus my VELCRO®Brand ONE-WRAP® Ties secured any excess extension cord so everything stayed neat and tidy behind the scenes. The adjustable straps could be fastened and unfastened as needed, saving me trips back to the store for one-use twine or plastic zip ties. 

I’m always wanting a really full and lush look for my garlands, so I twisted two garland strands together for the garland hanging from the front of my porch. I used some Hillman 24-gauge Green Floral Wire to secure them together, and to create a loop for hanging the middle swag from so I could easily attach it to the Command hooks.  I also used two garland strands to surround my door, so they could go all the way from the top of the door to the floor, which meant I used the same green floral wire to attach them together in the middle, at the top of the door. The Hillman wire gave the extra confidence that my garland arrangements would stay put and secure for the remainder of the holiday season. 

Another cool thing is that there are Command hooks that stick to windows, which was perfect for me to attach the wreaths on my two big front windows!  I had always wanted to do that, but I wasn’t sure the best way to go about it. These turned out to work great! 

All the Command hooks I used were clear plastic, which made them very unnoticeable and low profile, keeping the focus on my decor instead of what’s holding it up. 

The best part about using Command hangers is that they don’t damage the surface when you remove them. Since I just recently painted the new trim on my porch, I was definitely wanting something that wouldn’t damage my brand new paint, and these hangers came off quickly, easily, and without damaging any of my surfaces. 

Here’s to getting the holidays hung up and starting this season of celebration off right! 

Season of the Witch

Y’all, I’m unreasonably proud of this little halloween porch. Gah! I don’t usually go full out on Halloween decor, I typically stick to more fall themed stuff— pumpkins and the like. But for some reason this year I felt like getting SPOOKY.

Last year’s monster door was super fun, especially with the door being pink, but after painting it chartreusey yellow, it felt like it wanted to be a spooky witch potion this year! With the door being a potion bottle, I kind of took that idea and ran with it for the rest of the porch, leaning heavy into the witch theme. So we hung some witch hats from the ceiling of the porch, made a witchy cauldron, and then a bunch of bottles filled with “potion” to finish things off.

The door was made with sheets of craft foam and foam core poster board. The eyes are cut out of white craft foam, then painted with the iris and the blood vessels, then I hot glued the pupils on, which are made of black craft foam. I used about five sheets of the white 6mm craft foam, one sheet of the 2mm black craft foam, one 20x30 white foam core board, and one 20x30 black foam core board.

The top where the bottle top shape is, was made out of foam core poster board, cut to form the negative space that make the door look like a bottle. Then I added the “witches brew” labels and attached everything with Command Strips.

I decided I wanted some witchy steam billowing out of the top of the bottle so I bought a few yards of white tulle, stapled half of it to the wall above the door, and then threaded some battery powered green twinkly lights through the tulle!

With the other half of the tulle, I put green Christmas lights in the bottom of the cauldron, then stuffed the tulle on top of it so it illuminates and looks like a frothing witch cauldron. On the opposite side of the door I salvaged some potion-y looking bottles from our recycling bin, and filled the clear ones with water mixed with green food coloring. Then I grabbed some of the crusty old squash vines that were left in our garden and wove them around everything.

Witch Hats | White Craft Foam | Black Craft Foam | White Foam Core Board | Black Foam Core Board | Witch Cauldron | Brown Bottles | Spooky fabric
Wood Lanterns | Green Christmas Lights | Battery Powered Green Fairy Lights

Kitchen Mural Reveal | Tacoma Mural Artist

After I built out this laundry room in the awkward corner of our kitchen, I knew the wall wanted to have some kind of statement on it. But dang did it take forever to figure out what that statement was going to be. This design was actually inspired by a tile design where each square tile had a quarter circle on it, when meant you could completely customize the design. So I pulled a pic of this spot into photoshop and played around with quarter circles until I landed on something that felt good.

But my favorite element came later. I had been seeing this orange color around and I knew I wanted to incorporate it into the house. My original plan was for the french doors to be painted black, but then a bell went off in my head and I knew they had to be orange. I grabbed a paint chip (which ended up being the exact same color as Home Depot’s signature orange, haha) and bought a little paint sample (a paint sample size is usually enough to paint a door— and they’re only a couple bucks!). A few hours later the doors were orange and it MADE the space.

It’s so wild to look at the before pic and see that sad corner with the laundry closet. The space planning in this house by whoever built it is down right bananas, folks. Like… was that supposed to be a breakfast nook? It didn’t feel big enough for a table there, but it’s still a lot of square feet of wasted space. Now we have a laundry room with added cabinetry for storage, a more defined rear entry area for dropping keys, coats, etc, and they functionality and flow through the space isn’t impacted whatsoever.

Now… I just have to finish the final details on the inside of the laundry room…

DIY Fireside Cooler Table Tutorial

There’s not much I love more than enjoying a cold beverage while sitting beside a campfire. We’ve been needing a side table for our fire pit area for a while now, so instead of building a regular table, I made one that houses our little cooler! Now we can have ice cold bevs on hand while we’re enjoying the backyard!

Want to build your own cooler table? Just follow the tutorial below!

You’ll need:

A cooler
Drill
18 gauge brad nailer
Cedar 1x4s
1x2s
Cedar fence boards (lumber quantities will depend on the size of the cooler you’re building the table around)
2in exterior screws
1 1/4 in exterior screws
3/4 in screws
Flat metal plates
Small hinges

Step 1:

Make the corner uprights

Cut your cedar 1x4s into eight 22in lengths (or longer if you want your table higher). These will be the corners of your table. Drill pilot holes and then screw them together in an “L” at a right angle using 2 in exterior screws. I put 3 screws in each.

Step 2:

Make the basic structure

Attach 1x2s to the corner pieces to connect them all together. This will be what the platform for your cooler sits on, so you’ll want to measure the height of your cooler, and then add a half inch— that’s how far down from the top of the corner pieces you’ll attach these 1x2s. The length and depth of your table will depend on the size of your cooler. I’d measure the short side 1x2s to be about an inch larger than your cooler’s depth. If you want to have a table section that doesn’t open (like mine), measure the width of your cooler and add about 10-12inches. This will how long you want your long side 1x2’s to be. Drill pilot holes in the 1x2s before screwing them to the corner pieces and then attach wth 1 1/4 in exterior screws.

Step 3:

Create the platform for the cooler

Cut cedar fence board that span across and rest on top of the 1x2s. This will be the platform that your cooler sits on. Use an 18 guage brad nailer to attach the boards to the 1x2’s

(image is viewing from the top down)

Step 4:

Create an interior wall to secure the cooler

This step is probably unnecessary, but I wanted to create a little barrier so the cooler didn’t scoot over under where the table top doesn’t hinge open. This just keeps the cooler snug in it’s spot. I did this by framing a barrier using 1x2s (which is what I had on hand), but you could also just add another cedar 1x4 to the outside of the platform base 1x2s and then do a cedar fence board across the top from front to back.

Step 5:

Wrap the top of the table

Measure the short side of the table from corner to corner, then cut two cedar 1x4’s at that length. Attach to the top of the corner uprights using 1 1/4 in exterior screws or 18guage brad nails (if you don’t want to see the screws). Do this on both short sides. Now measure the long sides, including the pieces you just attached. Cut two lengths of 1x4 at that measurement and attach those to the long sides of the table.

Step 6:

Sheath the outside of the table

Using cedar fence boards (I used both 5.5in wide and 3in wide fence boards) repeat the process you just did for attaching the 1x4s to the top. Use an 18 gauge brad nailer to put two nails in each side of each board to attach them to the corner uprights. I put a small gap between each board (the width of a carpenter’s pencil).

Step 7:

Create the table top

The table top is made out of cedar 1x4s. I had my table top over hang about a half inch on either side, so my 1x4s were cut 1 inch longer than the depth of the table. For the side that isn’t hinged, you just attach the 1x4s to the base. You can do this with brad nails from the top, or if you don’t want any fasteners showing on the top (which I didn’t), you can use pocket screws to screw the table top boards on from below.

I used flat brackets and 3x4in screws to attach all the hinged table top boards together, which is a bit inelegant, but works great. You could also use pocket screws to screw the boards together side by side.

Once your hinged table section is created all you have to do is attach it to the base using a couple small hinges!

Botanical Kitchen Revival: A Rental Kitchen Makeover on a Budget

Transforming any space is fun, but transforming your lifelong BFF’s space is a special kind of fun. When Frogtape reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in being a designer for their annual Paintover Challenge, it came at the perfect time. My friend, Kristina, had been talking about wanting to update her kitchen in the rental home where she lives with her husband and son, and I instantly pitched her the idea of doing the paintover challenge in HER kitchen. We talked to her landlord, who gave us the greenlight for the proposed changes and we got to work!

This makeover was primarily achieved with paint, with some honorable mentions from a few other design elements. I traded out the old overhead track lighting for a pretty new light that not only looked gorgeous, but offered way more illumination (which is a godsend come those dim PNW winter months). In lieu of taking out the meager tile backsplash and doing new tile (which probably would’ve required some drywall repairs, and a significant budget bump) I opted to keep the existing strip of tile, and add beadboard on top to fill the blank space between there and the bottom of the wall cabinets. Then, we painted it the same color as the cabinets and the walls, for a delicious tone-on-tone vibe. This basil color is super pretty, it feels lush and sophisticated.

The big, unexpected showstopper ended up being her basic old fridge, transformed with a bit of removable stick-on wallpaper! Since we kept the existing cabinet hardware and painted it brass to match the light fixture, we did the same with the fridge handle to tie everything together. I used Rustoleum Vintage Gold spraypaint to paint both the cabinet door pulls and the fridge handle.

Another thing we did was add a whole wall of open shelving to give her a ton more storage. We painted those shelves the same green as the rest of the kitchen, but kept that wall white to give some contrast. Now she has a bunch of space to store all her pretty jars of dry goods, cute mugs and, of course, more plants.

And one more fun little detail: we put a chalkboard area in for her toddler to use! That panel is access for the water heater, so it was just an unfinished wood panel before, so we framed it out to match the shaker style of the cabinets and did the center panel in chalkboard paint so he could draw and have fun!

Projects like this have all the elements of what makes me most excited about design and remodels. Making a huge impact for not a huge amount of money, coming up with creative solutions, and doing really fun and out of the box elements (I’ll never get over that fridge).

I’m so thrilled that Frogtape brought me in on their Paintover Challenge this year so I could do this amazing project!

\\ Sources //

Paint
Spraypaint
Light fixture
Removable wallpaper
Rug

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: