Turning Tablecloths into Window Treatments

I always found purchasing drapes, especially for the very large window in our living room, to be daunting.  They cost a fortune and I love to change decor with the seasons, so choosing the right material that would work year round felt impossible.  I like to change things up way too often to invest in expensive window treatments.  Our home isn't formal by any means, so why not use tablecloths as window treatments?  The dimensions of an 84" tablecloth make them a great length for our ceiling height.  If your ceilings are higher (lucky!), then just buy a longer tablecloth.  Another plus is that tablecloths are typically very washable, so it is easy to keep these clean.

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Holiday Home Tour 2013

 Welcome to our Holiday Home Tour!!  I'm so glad you stopped by.  I know you are here for the pictures so I am just going to get to it.  If you'd like to know more about a specific room (or just see more pics of that room),  I will add a link to each room's holiday post.  

Lets's start in our Family Room, the first room you see when you enter our home and our most traditional family space...

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Christmas Master Bedroom

Since we remodeled our master bedroom this Fall, we have been spending lots more time up there so I decided to add a few Christmas touches there, too.

A fresh wreath and some greenery make the room smell great...

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Our Christmas Dining and Living Rooms

There are no formal spaces in our home anymore...now that we've knocked down every wall we possibly could.  Yesterday, I shared pictures of our kitchen.  Today, I will share what the rest of this level of our house looks like.  This level of our house is lighter and brighter than our lower level family room.

First,  I will begin with our dining area.  We had some family over for dinner this week and I enjoyed setting the table for that.  It was relaxed and casual.  I think I enjoy small gatherings even more than the actual holiday where there is so much more pressure to get everything done...

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Our Christmas Kitchen 2013

Welcome to our kitchen all decorated for Christmas.  This is where all the cookie baking, gingerbread house building and general holiday preparation happens….

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Our Christmas Family Room

Welcome to our Family Room all decorated for Christmas.  This is the coziest spot in our home this time of year….

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Painted Sign Tutorial

Yesterday, I shared some pictures of our Christmas Tree Lot Entryway and today I am going to share a bit more about how I made the sign.  I think signs like these appear much more difficult to make than they are.  At least they did to me!...

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Our Christmas Entryway

I am so excited that the Christmas season has officially arrived!  Today, I am going to begin sharing how our home is decorated for Christmas this year.  Let's start with the front entryway, shall we?  I painted the signs for our own "Christmas Tree Lot" and wrote a post about how I made them here.
    

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Our Advent Calendar 2013

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday!  Black Friday is always a favorite of mine, but not because of shopping.  Do you hit the sales on Black Friday?  I plan to hit up a few online sales, usually Old Navy and this year I am going to check out the deals at LandsEnd.  Other than that, we will be decorating for Christmas and eating leftovers and hanging out by the fire.  My kind of day!... 

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DIY Christmas Chalk Writing Pillow

 

I combined two of my favorite things, throw pillows and chalkboard art, to create this chalk writing pillow.  Come see how I did it...

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DIY 3 Tiered Kitchen Stand

I have had my eye on this galvanized stand from Pottery Barn for a while.  The $69 price tag, not including tax and shipping, kept me from pushing that "place order" button more than once...

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Stone Fireplace Details & Sources

One of my favorite things about this time of year is sitting by the fire.  When we remodeled our family room 3 years ago, the top item on our wish list for the space was a wood burning stone fireplace.  I wouldn't change a thing about it.  We use it almost daily from October through March.  It is one of the first things you see when you enter our home.  We read here.  Play games here.  Fold laundry here...

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Pallet Sign Tutorial

After spotting it on Pinterest last year, I knew I wanted to use this Emily Bronte quote on something this year.  It speaks to exactly how I feel about Fall...

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Happy November!

Lately, it feels like there is so much pressure to get Christmas started before Thanksgiving.  Problem is, Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday!  We usually go to my brother and sister in law's house.  They live in a beautiful home on a lake and it's all about the family and food rather than presents and all the general craziness that comes with Christmas.  And then, we get to listen to Christmas music on the ride home (and my boys will groan) and the Christmas season will begin for our family.

This week, I put away the Halloween things and took out a few of my favorite Thanksgiving things... 

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Repurposed Wall Unit {Take Two}

Quite a few of you were wondering where we got the book shelves that now flank the window seat in our Master Bedroom Redo.

Actually, they have been in our house for quite a while.  We first purchased them as part of a Broyhill wall unit about 15 years ago.  They started out like this...

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Kitchen and Bath Makeovers Magazine Photo Shoot!!

I still can't believe this really happened.  On Wednesday, Better Homes and Gardens Kitchen and Bath Makeovers magazine came to do a photo shoot for a feature on our DIY Master Bathroom.     

For weeks before, I was a nervous wreck.  A professional stylist and photographer coming to our humble home??  It didn't seem possible!  We rushed to complete our Master Bedroom redo because I couldn't imagine bringing those professionals upstairs to that 80s shag carpet.  I kept expecting to get a call saying they were sorry for the mistake, wrong blog, nope, not coming to your house.  We deep cleaned every room in our home.  3 kids and 2 dogs make messes.  I kept telling myself it needed the cleaning anyway, so even if they didn't show up, it was worth it.  But the day arrived and they actually came.  

We scrubbed and polished every inch of our bathroom.  It looked naked the morning they arrived.  All of our accessories were put away.  I was excited to see what a professional stylist would do with this space...

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Full Circle

Yesterday, a national magazine came to take pictures of our Master Bathroom...

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Remodelaholic Feature

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I am so excited that our Master Bath is being featured over at Remodelaholic today.  I am sharing some more information about that project there.  Click on over to check out the post.  Have a great day!

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Master Bedroom Before & After and Sources

Today I am back to list some of the sources for our Master Bedroom Redo...

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Master Bedroom

We recently completed our Master Bedroom and it is so nice to have a bedroom that reflects us.  Goodbye 80's shag carpet!  While we were painting, we kept wondering why we didn't paint years ago.  It really is incredible how much change a coat of a paint brings.  We painted our headboard with oil rubbed bronze spray paint and it's like a whole new piece of furniture....

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Weekly Wrap Up

We have been feverishly preparing our house for something that is (hopefully) happening this week.  I have not written about it on the blog yet for fear that it will not actually happen.  When it does, I can't wait to share it here!! 

 I am just about finished taking and editing pictures of our Master Bedroom and I will be posting that early this week.

In the meantime, here are some of my phone pics from the week.  Matty got his Halloween costume.  Are you a Duck Dynasty fan?  My boys are crazy about that show.  Matty has been wearing his Si costume every chance he gets.  When he wears it, he only answers to "Si".  It is disturbing how much he resembles him.... 

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Adirondacks Fall 2013

  I am sharing a few more pictures from Columbus Day Weekend.  Are you tired of all of these fall foliage pics?  I promise to be back to reveal our finished Master Bedroom soon.

The first few pictures were taken in Schroon Lake, NY....

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Fall in Vermont 2013

We are just back from a beautiful weekend of leaf peeping in Upstate NY and Vermont.  Every year, I am amazed at the beauty of the fall foliage up there.  This year, especially, the colors are so incredibly bright.  The weather was gorgeous.  We had 3 picture perfect days.  As usual, I took plenty of pictures.  The following pictures were taken in Vermont in and around Middlebury....

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Chicken Pot Pie

We are finally getting some fall like temperatures here.  Yay!  It's not quite cool enough to light a fire in the evenings, but I did make one of my family's favorite comfort foods, chicken pot pie.  This recipe is loosely based on Ina Garten's Chicken Pot Pie recipe, but I have made some changes to suit my family.  Mainly, I have lightened it up a bit and changed the vegetables.  Also, although I have previously made her crust and it is yummy, the store bought puff pastry I normally use makes this meal so much easier...

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Our Fall Home Tour {Part Two}

Welcome to part two of our Fall Home Tour.  If you want to see the first post with pictures of our family room, you can do that here.  Today, I am sharing pictures of the kitchen, dining and living room all decorated for Autumn.  This is the space that we just recently painted and I am just loving the new greige color (Behr's Castle Path)...   

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Fall Mantel

This year, I made a pallet sign to hang above our mantel.  Isn't that a fabulous quote by Emily Bronte?  It's exactly how I feel about Fall!  I transferred the letters (printed from Picmonkey) onto the pallet wood using chalk, and then filled them in using a paint pen.  It was so easy.  I have no idea why I waited this long to make a sign.  I then stenciled some leaves on.  Our stone fireplace is the focal point when you step into the front door of our home so I love how it is screaming "Happy Fall!"...

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Our Fall Home {Part One}

I LOVE decorating our home for Fall. I think it is my favorite season because the colors of Autumn blend so well with the colors in our house. Come on in!...

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Easy No Sew Monogrammed Pillow

When my middle and youngest boys decided this summer that they would prefer to each have their own room rather than share a room, I tried to come up with some affordable ways to personalize each of their spaces.  I made this pillow from some burlap and a stencil.  Here's how I did it....

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Ready for a Fresh New Start {With New Paint}

I love the time I get to spend with my boys in the summer.  And I also love when it's time for school to start and I can focus more time on projects around the house (and this blog!).  When we returned home last week from spending a good chunk of time away this summer, I was itching to get started on some projects.  Our main project for this Fall is going to be (finally) finishing our master bedroom.  I wrote a post about our plans and I can't wait to get started on that.

We decided to paint the kitchen level of our split level house.  It has been on our to-do list for about a year now and I wasn't looking forward to it.  I wanted to get rid of the gold-ish color and have more neutral walls.  Plus, the walls were in sad shape from scuffs and the usual wear and tear.  Here's the color (Camel by Behr) before...

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Easy Stenciled Memo Board

This summer, my two youngest boys decided that they no longer wanted to share a bedroom.  As I squelched my own disappointment at losing the extra room I had hoped to make into a craft room/home office, I realized that my youngest guy needed some wall art to make this room his own.  Enter this amazing box of Americana mixed media stencils and multi surface paints that I was so excited to receive.  I got busy making him a monogrammed message board...

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DIY Autumn Centerpiece

My kids still have two weeks left of summer vacation, but I can't seem to get Fall off my mind.  Almost all of the things I have been pinning have been related to Fall.  One of my favorite Autumn decorations from last year was a centerpiece we made from some scrap wood.  I can't wait to take it out of storage in our basement, but I am forcing myself to wait a few more weeks... 

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Pet Food Storage

How do you store your pets food?  With 2 big Golden Retrievers that eat twice a day in our house, we needed a place to store their food that wasn't an eyesore, yet was convenient.  We previously kept their food in an old Rubbermaid bin in our basement, but we got tired of schlepping up and down to feed them.  I shouldn't say we, it's our middle guy, Kyle's, responsibility to feed the dogs and he does a great job.  Now, we keep a bin inside a hamper that we purchased at Ikea.  It sits right in our kitchen...

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No Sew Bench Cushion

Somehow, I never quite got around to making a cushion for the bench in our eating nook in our kitchen.  One year later, I finally completed this project a few weeks ago.  I love how it finishes off the space, not to mention that the seat is much more comfortable...

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Summer Home Tour

Welcome to our home!   

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Bookshelves Turned Kitchen Island Ikea Hack (more details)

Wow!  There are many of you who love a good Ikea hack as much as I do!!  I am thrilled with how many of you have been inspired by our Billy bookcase kitchen project.  I was not yet blogging about our DIY projects when we completed this a couple of years ago so I didn't take any pictures of the process.  I know, I know, big mistake!!  I now take pics of everything...lesson learned!  Many of you have e-mailed and commented asking for more details about this project.  I will do my best to explain the process we used....

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Summer Reading

Have you read any great books this summer?  I am trying to be frugal and only read books that I borrow from the library this year.  Before our last trip to the mountains, I got an e-mail from the library that Elin Hilderbrand's new novel was ready for me (I was on the waiting list).  Perfect timing!  It was an enjoyable read.  Not my favorite by her (that would be The Blue Bistro), but it was good. ..

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Master Bedroom Planning

We have been planning/dreaming of what to do in our Master Bedroom since we bought this house 6 years ago.  We love that our master bedroom and bathroom are completely set apart from the rest of the house.  It feels like an escape when we get up there.  However, because it is so separated from the rest of the house, we have left it neglected for way too long.   Now that the bathroom is done (click here to see our new master bathroom!), it is time to move on to the bedroom.  Finally!

This is what it looks like now.  Since we moved in, we have basically added our furniture, hung a ceiling fan, and haphazardly hung a few pictures.  We plan on keeping our bed (but painting the frame) and dressers (they are pine and high quality construction and I still love them)...

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Covered Patio

We've continued to make progress on our covered patio.  This is what we started with...

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Our Pool is Finally Opened!

It was a very long early summer for our boys while they waited for our pool to be finished.  We needed some structural work done in addition to a new liner.  We also decided to add some built in stairs to a corner.  They couldn't wait to jump in when we finally got the go ahead from our pool guy.

Here's what our pool looked like until 2 weeks ago....

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Bookshelves Updated with Scrapbook Paper

I wanted to lighten up the look of our family room bookshelves.  They are currently a dark wood that I have considered painting white.  I love all the white bookshelves on Pinterest and I may still go in the direction of painting these in the future.  I love the look of these.

Pinterest

But, at the same time, I love how our family room has a library feel to it and white bookshelves might take away from that.  Even one of the signs on our gallery wall says library.  So, for now, I am sticking with the dark wood.

I originally set out to cover some foam board with wallpaper or wrapping paper, but ended up using plain old scrapbook paper.  It was affordable and easy and I love how it lightens up the look but can easily be changed.

Here were the bookshelves before:

And now after with the lightened shelf backs:

Bookshelves are one of my favorite things to decorate and I have a whole pin board dedicated just to that.  Check it out here.   I change my mind all the time, so these shelves just might will probably end up painted in the near future.  But for now, I love how the lighter backs have updated them.

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