Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!! I’m not going to lie, this time of year makes me a little itchy. I mean, there is nothing like opening your inbox and seeing an email from every company you’ve ever bought something from shouting at you to HURRY AND BUY SOMETHING RIGHT NOW!
It might be the rebel in me that just wants to buck the system, but today instead of sharing the same Black Friday deals that everyone else is, I thought it would be a little more meaningful to share some of my favorite small shops. Shops run by people just like you and me that are doing it. Taking care of their families, letting their creativity rule, and making my life a little happier.
I am absolutely in love with this DIY Geometric Wreath. It’s a tutorial that I pull out every time the holidays come around because it works with any style of decor! You can hang this wreath on your wall or on your front door. It is a quick and fun project that you can do in under an hour!
If you are a VR lifer, you may remember back in the early days when I did a few room makeover giveaways. It was SO MUCH FUN and also so much work. Since then, I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to present itself again and a few months ago it did!! I teamed up with Sherwin-Williams® as my sponsor to give a room makeover to one lucky reader!
Let The Giveaway Begin!
Sherwin-Williams challenged me to find someone who could use some help with making their dream space happen. You guys saw my call for submissions on Instagram and after pouring over all of the #SWSAVEME submissions I chose the sweetest girl named Amy. Her situation is the same that so many of us find ourselves in. We buy our first house with all of the best intentions bubbling at the surface. When we move in and find that there is more work than we anticipated, it’s more expensive than we thought, and unlike everything you see on a room makeover show, it doesn’t happen in 27 minutes.
Can anyone relate?
When they moved into their 1937 house, things like updating bathrooms and dealing with the quirks of an old house took precedence (as they should). Things like repainting a functional albeit boring living room were wayyyy down on the project list. And I could not wait to get my hands on it!
If you’re into modern, simplistic, and minimalist decor this project is for you!! This easy DIY wooden dowel Christmas tree is a little bit of Christmas decor for those that maybe don’t want their house to look like the North Pole 2.0. All of the supplies can be purchased at your local hardware store and it can be put together in just a few hours!
We’ve talked long and hard about doors. The doors in your house set the tone and style, but they are so often overlooked unless you’re doing a complete gut job. They aren’t easy to replace, and you usually need lots of them. Today’s post is all about giving outdated doors a budget friendly upgrade and a HUGE level up in the style department.
One of the immediate hurdles that we came to when we were updating my parents bathroom was the question of what to do with the doors. They are basic faux wood hollow core flat panel doors that are in most houses built in the early eighties. Of course we would love to swap them all out with something new and fresh but that just wasn’t in our budget. That being said we couldn’t just leave them as is. It would be like getting a full face Kardashian style makeover and leaving your hair in a mullet with side hair combs.
It’s just not going to work.
We came to the conclusion that we were going to embrace the situation and change the interiors of the doors while leaving the outside the same. So I guess we ARE embracing the mullet style! THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED IN MY LIFE!!
Interior Door Makeover
Sand The Doors
The first thing that we did was haul the doors down to our house and gave them a light sanding. One thing to keep in mind when you are sanding something like this is that you just want to really lightly remove the surface. If you dig too deep you’ll break through the surface of it and expose the grainy particle board underneath. This will give you spots of texture and a sheen difference on your finish. If you happen to sand it a little too deep (don’t worry, we did it in some spots too! just use a little bit of wall putty and cover it. It will even it out and look like it never happened!
Cut Your Molding
The molding that we used is basic in stock Base Cap molding from Home Depot. When you are cutting molding you want to cut it at a 45 degree angle. This will ensure that the edges fit nice and tight and make a perfect 90 degree angle.
Our doors were different sizes, so to make sure that everything was uniform Court used a piece of scrap wood that was 4″ wide. He lined the scrap piece up with the edge of the door and clamped it in place. This made it so that he could attach the base cap as it was sitting on the inside of it. This isn’t a necessary step (you could mark a pencil line with a measuring tape and level if you want) but it made the attaching quick and pretty perfect.
Glue and Nail Your Molding
We used wood glue and our finish nailer to attach the molding to the doors. Make sure to wipe off any excess glue that may have seeped out from underneath.
Caulk Your Molding
Don’t skip this step!! There is nothing like weird gaps along the seams to expose your DIY secret. It’s like wearing spanx underneath a sheer dress. Like…just don’t do it. Fill in your nail holes with putty and sand them smooth.
Use this tip when you are caulking your molding and you’ll get a perfect finish every time!!
Prime!
If you’re painting older doors, especially ones that arent white, give them a coat of primer. This will help with your paint coverage and prevent any discoloration from previous finishes. You spray or roll primer on just like regular paint. Make sure that you get nice even coverage with your primer coat. One of the reasons that primer is so important is because it creates this situation where you dont have to use as much paint. Paint is usually significantly more expensive than primer, so you’ll save money and get a better finish.
Paint
We’ve talk A LOT about using the right kind of paint for interior doors. Read all about it here: The color of paint that I used is Sherwin-Williams Gambol Gold. Court sprayed it with our Graco x7. It leaves a perfect finish. If you dont have access to a sprayer, you can use this tutorial for painting furniture. Everything in it is exactly what you need to do step by step!!
Oh my gosh I can’t believe that today is finally here!! Over the last month we’ve worked our tails off completely renovating my parents 36 year old bathroom. When I say 36 years old I mean, NOTHING has changed in 36 years.
Before we moved into the Merc, the only smart lighting we’d ever used was a motion sensor switch in our garage (sort of saved our marriage). When we were working on the Merc, I knew that we wanted to use simple upgrades to make our home work better for us. The smart home feature that we use the very most is our Caséta by Lutron Smart light Switches. The great thing about smart lighting is that it works on any aged home (yes mom, it would work in your house too!) The switches are the magic component. You can transform any lightbulb into a smart light that dims and is controlled by your phone or home assistant (like Alexa!) just by replacing your switches.
