Keeping up with the Joneses | Love My DIY Home

Keeping Up With the Joneses – The Kitchen Before

Welcome to a new series: Keeping Up With the Joneses Join us as we follow the first time homebuyers Jones family as they take a foreclosed house and turn it into a warm and inviting home in just 30 days! Their goal is to have it not only livable for their family of five in just 30 days, but have a 5 year plan to bring it to perfection – to flip it and move on. Not only is this a huge job, but they have a very tight budget as well. The Kitchen Before I’ll let the pictures do the talking here – it’s pretty obvious they have their work cut out for them! Occasionally I’ll photo bomb since I’ll be out there helping from time to time. You can play the Where’s Val game (Where’s Waldo?) with me. We will show you step by step, and occasionally insert … Read more

Mason jar shelf redo | Love My DIY Home

Accidental Artist Strikes Again… DIY Mason Jar Shelf Redo

I’ve mentioned this before…sometimes my best ideas come from mistakes or accidents. This is the case of the redo. A couple of years ago our daughter, Jillian, said she wanted a shelving unit for her nail polishes – we’re talkin’ 100 bottles. Since one of my kids wanted something, of course I would spend the next few months looking for just the right shelving unit. While at an auction, the auctioneer grabbed a little wall shelf unit that from across the room looked perfect for her project. I only paid a buck! Imagine my surprise when I went to get my little nail polish shelf and it was 4X bigger what I thought it would be. Needless to say it went in the garage for two years, abandoned by this overzealous mother… Until one day the light bulb went on. I would paint it and use it to hold my … Read more

Messy porch after a long winter

Antique Chair – Better than a Hobby Lobby Hack

The front porch needed some serious help after our long winter, so the first step was to fix my antique chair, one of my first projects from last year. Welcome to my life… (no pretending to be perfect here) See it tucked in the corner behind all the big pots next to my grandson’s worm collection? We got this and two other chairs as part of an auction bundle, spray painted it and have had it on my front porch for a year. I wondered if it would survive the winter – yep, I was too lazy to take it in and just kept brushing the snow off as I passed by. The seat only had a few scratches on it, so that is easy enough to fix.  It’s hiding a couple of ugly electrical boxes. I thought to just go ahead and paint the chair again before putting together … Read more

Got Work to Do - Bulletin Board upcycle

Got Work To Do, Got Work To Do…

Years ago my DH and I watched a sit com about two writers. I have no idea who they were or what the show was called, but there was one funny scene that we never forgot. The guys (I think they were brothers) were trying to work and had writer’s block. One of the men tapped his head with his notebook and said, “Got work to do, got work to do.” From that moment on whenever we had a long list of stuff to accomplish, we’d say, “Got work to do, got work to do.” I know. Cheesy. But it’s our “inside” mantra…kinda like an inside joke, but not. So, when I wanted to redo our office and put up a bulletin board in front of his desk, I decided to “decorate” it. Not  girly decorating-ish, but MANLY! I rifled through my scrapbook stickers and found some stick on letters … Read more

Restored Photo

DIY Photo Restoration

I have a friend … Truth be told, she's more of a seester, and this seester is also my top commentor on Love My DIY Home. Linda and her (my other) sister, Pam, are my adopted sisters – and I even have have a certificate to prove it! Years ago one of them photoshopped my picture into their family photo and made it official.   ⇔ my sisters by choice ⇔ Now that you know who I'm talking about – a while back Linda sent me an old photo that she hoped I could fix. She knew I worked with Photoshop and she had done as much as she could using her little jenky program. Ha! If you know anyone who uses Adobe products, you know we are snobby when it comes to design programs.   I started out using Publisher years ago and would die before going back to … Read more

Pantry Organization DIY

Updated DIY Pantry Reveal

To have an organized pantry makes things so much easier… It wasn’t a terrible mess, but it certainly desperately needed to be organized and pretty. Pretty doesn’t hurt. Seriously. Isn’t it nice to have something that you visit every day look inviting? Here is a “before” picture, Not bad. Functional. It was OK. But OK isn’t good enough for me. This is my Hobbit Hole. I want more than just “OK.” So now you have it. My messy pantry. I did have a door on it, so I could close it off and not think about it. Do you do that? Well, I’m done with it. I’m tired of messy and “unpretty.” I started by taking the door off – I’ve always hated the bifold door. It took up too much of the opening. I plan to get a regular door, though my mom says I will hate that even … Read more

My Master Bath Before and After DIY Project

My daughter sent me some pictures of a candle stand she bought at Goodwill and had spray painted with Rust-Oleum Multi-Color Textured Spray, Autumn Brown. When she arrived for Christmas she asked me if I’d done a post on her project. I hadn’t, because she never sent me a picture of the candle stand in her living room, finished. The subject was dropped until she brought it in to me and said, “Merry Christmas.” It was so unique – I L.O.V.E. unique! It was the perfect piece to finish my master bath re-do. Here is the before picture of our master bath. Wait, it gets worse… The former owners of our house took the adventurous avenue and used the master bath as an experimental canvas. Not my style… We called it the Under-the-Sea bathroom. It was a fairly easy DIY project, but the wallpaper WAS a bugger to get off. … Read more

Easy DIY Rescue of a Damaged Side Table

A Simple Solution for a Damaged Side Table What do you do with a side table that has a damaged surface? Years ago I bought this blonde side table at a garage sale for a few dollars and put it beside our bed when we moved to Wausau, on my husband’s side. It was in a hallway for years, but I thought it would be nice from my DH to have it since I gave away his Aunt Emily’s table to my daughter to refinish. See her project here. Guess what? The top of the table developed some mysterious white rings and most of the top was water damaged. Don’t worry my DH, I won’t tell anyone it was you. Besides, you did me a favor! Read on… I had thought for a year that I would have to sand it down and restain it, but really didn’t like the … Read more

Before and After Kitchen

Our Kitchen Before and After

We vacated our tiny rental house in old people’s land, downtown Wausau, and began our much sought after fairy tale a year ago. Our new Hobbit House was a foreclosure that had been vacated for a year – Hobbitless, you might say. There is something to be said for the hominess of a Hobbit Hole. I wanted my home to be cozy and homey like Bilbo’s. source Fortunately the structure the house was decent – it just needed a little TLC and I had to get my vision. (No, the picture above isn’t my house – it’s a Hobbit-Hole.) Here are before pictures. Not bad, but not what I call home. And certainly not fit for a Hobbit. NOTHING short of fairy tale is good enough. My home is where my grandkids and I were going to snuggle and read stories and have adventures. This is where my family and … Read more

DIY Chalkboard Cabinet Doors {Love My DiY Home}

DIY Kitchen Cabinet Makeover – Chalkboard Paint!

This kitchen is just so adorable. While sitting in church I had a thought…Brad and Jen just re-did their kitchen, maybe they would like it featured. Now, now, it wasn’t during preaching, so don’t think I was playing mental hookey! Grass certainly doesn’t grow under their feet. As I’m printing church tri-folds after church, the pictures are rolling in… I’ve not seen this in person, so just I’m lovin’ what they’ve done. Their space isn’t big, but their ideas certianly are. This just makes me want to grab a cup of coffee and sit down at their table – well, it’s after five p.m., so I suppose it had better be decaffeinated… Enjoy your tour – I sure am! Can you tell Brad and Jen like coffee? They attached rope lights around the window above the sink.    Here is a DIY canvas art that Brad created. I explain the … Read more

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