Fall Bucket List

Can you believe that we nearing the end of summer already?  It is hard to believe that Fall is anywhere in our near future in the south right now.  It was 95 degrees outside when I got in my car this afternoon!  Crazy right?  I am ready for the leaves to start turning beautiful shades of red and orange.  I’m ready for pumpkins and mums and hot apple cider.  I love Fall!  You know what is also great about Fall?!  Being able to pull out your favorite pair of jeans,  those worn in boots and cozy sweaters!  There is also so many fun things to do during the Fall that I was inspired by several other awesome bloggers out there to create my very own Fall Bucket List.  It is a great way to make sure you make the most of the season, spend time with the family and make lots of great memories!

Print your own copy of my Fall Bucket List!

5×7     8×10     16×20

So don’t worry I will keep you up to date as we cross off each thing on the list.  I’m so excited!  What activities would you put on your Fall Bucket List?  Do you have fun family traditions?  I would love to hear about them!

Happy Soon To Be Fall Y’all!

Bringing Chalkboards Out of the Classroom and Into The Home :: Inspiration Wednesday

Right now there is a chalkboard crazy sweeping the DIY world and I just think the idea is so much fun.  There are chalkboard walls going into kitchens, playrooms and I’ve even seen them in nurseries!  The more projects I came across the more and more I wanted one in our home!  Jeremy and I have talked about putting one in our kitchen for the longest time but we couldn’t figure out exactly where to put it.  I love this full wall but we don’t a full wall in the kitchen and for our space I think it would be too much.

High Street Market via The Wight House on Pintrest

A half wall with beautiful lights to highlight the space makes the trend a little more formal.

The Urban Electric Company Blog via Jennifer O. on Pintrest

By adding moulding to the chalkboard you could almost make it into a piece of artwork!

Canadian House and Home via Amie K. on Pintrest

I’m loving the idea of writing out meal plans for the week.  No more “What are we having for dinner?” before we even eat breakfast!

Whipper Berry via Lauren L. on Pintrest

Even the smallest spaces have room for chalkboard!

Desire To Inspire via Allison on Pintrest

What about putting the chalkboard in reach of the kiddos to show off their artwork?

The New York Times on Pintrest

Emily A. Clark via Katrina A. on Pintrest

Have you jumped on the chalkboard craze?  It’s official we have found the perfect space in our kitchen and I’ll have pictures to share soon!

Custom Modern Nursery Side Table :: Nursery Tuesday

First I want to thank all everyone for the overwhelming number of compliments on Emma Grace’s dresser update that I featured last week! You guys are the best!  So this week I thought I would share another furniture piece that we made for the nursery.  In the corner of the nursery by the rocker I knew I wanted some sort of side table that I could at least put her baby monitor on and maybe a glass of water to keep me going through those midnight feedings.  Jeremy volunteerd his amazing wood working skills and said that he would make me something so I would finally stop trolling Craigslist!  So, I turned over all control to him (which by the way never happens 🙂 ) and let him do his thing and I got one fun and funky little side table!

I love how it turned out.  It is funky and modern but works great with the traditional style of the dresser all at the same time!  Jeremy even rounded the edges of the table top to mimic the details of the dresser.

My favorite part?  Guess how much the entire project cost us?  ZERO…ZILCH…NADDA!  He used all scrap wood he had lying around and paint we had on hand.  Now granted we do have quite a bit of scrap wood because of how much woodworking he does but still even if we had bought the wood the cost would have been minimal.  Another one of favorite features of the table is the legs.

Funky right?  They remind me of giraffe legs which is too funny because guess what one of the accent fabrics we used in her nursery was?

Oh little fun baby giraffes!  Aren’t they cute?  Okay another fun fact about this side table.  Take a look at the photo below again and see if you can see anything that might “match up” to the table.

Do you see it?  Check out the back of the changing tray on the top of the dresser.  Now look at the legs of the table.  Do you see it yet?  Jeremy actually used the scrap piece of wood that he cut out from the top of the back of the changing table for the legs!  Before Emma Grace was born I worked at a an awesome baby boutique and when we lost our vendor who made changing table trays my very talented hubby stepped in to help.  So, the top of four changing tray backs were turned into side table legs.  Pretty cool huh?

Alright stay tuned because next week I’m going to show you an update to her crib and how we have changed things up over the past year.  We are getting so close to a final reveal!  Are you ready?!?!?!

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• Custom Painted French Provencal Dresser :: Nursery Tuesday (jroxdesigns.wordpress.com)

DIY Painted Placemat Kitchen Rug Tutorial

Remember back a couple of weeks ago to the Inspiration Wednesday post about painted kitchen rugs?  Well meet the newest addition to our kitchen!

Isn’t she a beauty?  I’m so in love!  I knew it was a long shot that it would actually work but I crossed my fingers and it turned out great!  So this is the before…

Wow!  I know a real looker right?  I swear it looked a lot better 4 years ago when I bought it and when it actually matched the red kitchen.  The rug was a soft fabric on top and a really cushy foam underneath.  It is so nice to stand on while I do dishes so I didn’t want to get rid of it but it had seen better days.  The down side?  That fabric had started to pill…REALLY bad!  So I threw a coat of primer (same as I used for Emma Grace’s dresser – Zinsser’s Bulls Eye 1-2-3 water based primer) and hoped for the best.  The pilled fabric pieces soaked the primer right up and I took some sand paper to it and they actually started to come off!  So I put on another coat of primer to see if I could get them all off.

What a difference one extra coat of primer can cover huh?  So after I sanded the heck out of the thing again I had a great smooth surface to work with!

You can still see the original print underneath but I just wanted to get a good base and cover most of it.  I then took the same orange that we used as an accent wall in our adjoining family room and gave the rug another two full coats of paint.

Wow looking good already!  I then drew up a little sketch of what I wanted and used our projector to trace the image in pencil on the rug.  I then hand painted the inside the lines (I was always good at coloring inside the lines).  After two coats of white I sat back an enjoyed a job well done!  In order to seal it up I applied three coats of Minwax’s Polycrylic.  Yes three coats is a little excessive but the rug has some natural dips in it from the fabric and I was trying to fill the dips to get a smoother finish.  I started off with gloss polycrylic but after it completely dried it was WAY too much sheen.  So I put one more coat of the polycrylic in satin and it was perfect!

I love how it turned out!  It is clean and fun and funky all at the same time.  Now every time I don’t want to do dishes I can jump up and down on my plate to get my frustrations out!  Haha nah I’m kidding but Jake thought it was funny!

So go grab some paint and add a little fun to your kitchen too!

I’ve been featured on Finding Fabulous!

I just wanted to stop in to let you know that Emma Grace’s dresser has been featured on Finding Fabulous today!  Jane is a fellow North Carolina girl who started her own company Finding Fabulous by designas a way to offer affordable design consultation to give her clients the latest in stylish and up to date design ideas.  She features so many great projects and make sure to stop by on Fridays for her Frugalicious Friday link up party!