Family Room Makeover AFTER

I finally uploaded all of my family room makeover AFTER photos, and here they are! Remember, my mom asked for warm & cozy in this bland, windowless space. You can see the before photos here. The budget was $500-ish. I ended up spending about $520. The money was spent on paint, accessories, slipcovers & one piece of furniture. Everything else was already in the room or shopped from other rooms in the house (and the barn!).


My mom was SO surprised with the results. It wasn't anything like she expected. She was at Tuesday Morning when I picked out the throw pillows, so she knew the palette. She also had an idea of the wall color, but didn't realize how bold it would be. We picked out the slipcovers together. She had originally wanted red but I talked her out of that. :) My reasoning: if she had neutral slipcovers, she could change the rest of the color scheme & style for a small amount of money. They are from SureFit, but we ordered them from overstock.com because the price was cheaper & the shipping was only $2.99. They don't fit as well as the photos on the packages, but they're better than the befores!

The biggest, most dramatic change is the wall color. It is Behr Mulling Spice. I did two coats of Behr's Flat Enamel. Being a flat paint, it has a velvety texture & hides flaws in the wall better than a more shiny surface. And unlike other flat paints, it's scrubable. I'll definitely use it in my own house!

The second biggest change is the furniture arrangement. Before, the sofa & love seat faced each other with a narrow glass table in between. The tv was in an old entertainment center that was sitting on top of another old coffee table. I moved the entertainment center onto the floor where it belongs, but kept it on the same wall. The sofa & love seat are now in an L-shape. This opened up the tv area & allows people to watch tv sitting front-ways on the couch instead of sideways.


I moved the cedar chest to serve as a sofa table. All of the accessories on the chest were found in the house.


I found a box of old books in storage & stacked them throught the room. I picked them for their color!


These two old windows are from my mom's high school. My dad has lots & lots of these stored in his barn. They have been up there for years, and they were NASTY. I hosed them off & cleaned them up before hanging them on the longest uninterrupted wall. Now the room has windows! That thing in the middle has some utility stuff inside. I decided to make it a pedistal for a sculptural element I got at Hobby Lobby 80% off. Score!


The big pillow on the sofa is what I used to create the color pallete. I took it to Home Depot to find a wall color to match.


I painted the old entertainment center with some leftover wall paint from a different room in the house. There was more than enough to paint three pieces of furniture.


I purchased the big artichoke looking thing, also 80% off at Hobby Lobby, and spray painted it white. The white ironstone bowl is from Goodwill.


More books, and the paintings were already in the room, done by my grandpa.


Love this rug. I think it's too small for the space, but it was the one that went best with our color pallette. It is also from Tuesday Morning, and was the most expensive item in the room at $199.


I found the ottoman/coffee table at Savers, another thrift store. It was not very pretty - dark green with tan pleather upholsery. I painted it & re-upholstered with brown burlap.


I love this vingette! The furniture piece is an old radio/record player. I don't think it works, but it looks great! The plates & the lamp are from Goodwill. The lamp was hideous before I spray painted it white. It was the giant burlap drum shade that called to me from the thrift store shelf.


Here's a little reading nook right at the bottom of the stairs. The wingback chair has an unappealing floral brocade fabric under the slipcover. The lamp was only $8.99 at Walmart!


This is the old coffee table that was originally under the entertainment center. It looks SO much different painted! I pried off the 70's wood detail on the doors & replaced them with lattice strips to give it a shaker style. I should have spent a little more money on a cushion for the table turned bench. As it is now, it's just a body pillow cover stuffed with two bed pillow. Very ghetto. I'm not proud of that detail. :)


This corner didn't show up in the before photos. I moved the bookshelf here from the other side of the room, but basically everything else is the same as it was before. It just looks better with the warm wall color and a little lamp!


I love this collection of photos, medals & certificates from my grandpa Irl's time serving in the army during WWII. The flag over the desk is from his funeral. He's the same grandpa who painted the pictures over the entertainment center.

I worked for several days on this project, most of it painting! I did spend a lot of time shopping trying to decide what I should & shouldn't get. I did a lot of projects that I will detail on another day, hopefully soon.

Do you like it? Have you done a makeover lately? Do share!

Family Room Makeover BEFORE

My mom has good taste. Her house is very homey, clean & restful. However, even though she enjoys decorating herself, she has asked my sister & I to re-do three of her rooms. She give us her preferences & a budget, and then she doesn't see the room until we're finished. First was the main bathroom, which I re-did in a cool, bright spa theme. Then was the upstairs guest room, which my sister & I re-did in a warm, British colonial style. Well, that was our starting point at least. It turned out warm & cozy. She loved both rooms!

The most recent makeover was the basement family room. For years it was a hodgepodge of leftover furniture pieces from days gone by. She wanted another warm, inviting, cozy room. The challenge: it's huge! LOTS of wall space. $500-ish budget. She also requested SureFit slipcovers for the couch & loveseat. Here are the before pictures!



And here's a sneak peak at some of the things I bought for the room, pre-transformation:


Another sneak peak - wall color! It's BOLD, and I worried a bit if my parents would like it. The rest of the walls in the house are very pale. Risky!!

I will post the AFTER photos soon & talk about the projects I did & how I saved as much money as possible. I love how it turned out!

My Foray into Senior Photos

This week I agreed to take senior photos for my niece & nephew. I wasn't sure how they would turn out, since I have no idea what I'm doing with my camera. But I'm actually pretty happy with the results. All of the photos were taken on their farm. They both compete in horse shows, so their horses had to be included!


This is my favorite shot of Keisha with her horse, Twister.

I was very happy with the angle of these shots.



I was experimenting with back lighting. Don't know if I was completely successful or not. Again, not quite sure how to use my camera!


I LOVE the photos with the grain bin. I'm really drawn to the horizontal lines. AND, the shape of the bin gives the illusion that I have a wide angle lens. :)


This is our tongue in cheek version of the senior portrait with the fancy car. Keisha was recently in a roll-over accident in her Jeep and was VERY blessed to come out of it with only minor injuries. I told her mom that this is her miracle shot!


I studied the sites of two photographers I know. I love their styles & used their photos as inspiration. Becky Novacek Photography in Omaha, NE & Khara Plicanic @ Kabloom Studios in Lincoln, NE.


This shot was a direct rip-off of Khara's shot in this blog post, although hers is much more dynamic!


I had so much fun, even though I was nervous that nothing was going to turn out right. Thanks for giving me a chance to take your photos, Randy & Keisha! Check out the rest of my favorites from this photo shoot here. What do you all think? Suggestions for what to do better next time? Comments? Let me know!

Welcome, new life!

I had an amazing opportunity a couple of weeks ago. I witnessed life. And I got to cut the cord. On July 25th, late morning, Mateo Asher Rodriguez, coming in at 7 lbs. 5 oz., made his big entrance. He's my nephew. His mom, Teliza, is Vino's sister. When she asked me a couple of months ago if I would be in the delivery room with her, I had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Having struggled with infertility for six years, I thought that I may never have the chance to be a part of the experience of the miracle of birth. Let me just tell you, it was incredible. Teliza was amazing - she showed much grace in a difficult circumstance. After 2 hours & 30 minutes of pushing, when it seemed like the only option would be a C-section, we gathered around & prayed that this little one would come quickly, and he did, just 15 minutes later. It was a messy, beautiful moment!


He has a FULL head of black hair. Lots of it. It's silky soft. He's a sweet boy, not very fussy. Very snuggly. So tiny.


That first day his hands & feet were so wrinkly, almost like paper. His hands looked like he was wearing gloves. Look at those long toes!


For the past several days I've been staying with Teliza to help her out with Mateo. When I hold him I pray that God will protect this sweet baby boy. That he will grow up to be a good man. That he will love Jesus with all his heart, and that he will have a kind, humble & gentle spirit.

So, Mateo, from your Auntie Erin, whom I am sure will be your favorite, welcome to the family. We've been waiting for you. You're even better than we hoped for.

Cheap Dork

(photo by PACOBP)

I'm a dork. A cheap dork. We went to El Rastro this weekend. It's said to be Europe's largest flea market. It started in the middle ages and has over 3500 stalls.

(photo by subcomandanta)

It's open year round every Sunday morning. You can buy just about anything there. Lots of imported stuff from India & Africa. Cheaply made tourist crap-ola. Second-hand junque. The old stuff is what catches my eye.

(photo by ma vie en rouge)

Here comes the part where I'm a cheap dork. I was Specifically looking for a vintage seltzer bottle because I'd seen them there before, and I've seen them all over blogland in photos of Paris flea markets that people drool over. AND I think they look cool.

(photo from Buenos Aires San Telmo flea market by fakeamerica)

So I find a guy in one of the side plazas that is selling a bunch of old stuff. While Vino is asking him about some really old Italian daggers (expensive, but cool!) I spy a crate of 6 seltzer bottles, one of them blue with 8 sides. It looked almost exactly like this one from Ruby Lane except that the writing was in Spanish. I would post the photo, but it's copyrighted. If the link is no longer active when you read this, just know that it is VERY COOL, and originally $125, on sale for $95. Our friend who brought a camera with her had no battery left, so I don't even have proof of the one I found. None of these are even my photos that I'm posting. Loser.

So we ask the guy how much and he says 15 Euros, which is around $21. I was prepared to pay 10 Euros, but the guy wouldn't budge. So we walked away. Apparently he wasn't desperate to sell that day because he couldn't have cared less. And we kept walking. Now I'm wishing I hadn't been so cheap.

(photo by mazingerin)

We're moving back to the States for a couple of years - this week. That was my last chance for a while. One of these days I'm going to learn some type of lesson from this...

Create...Breathe

I have this friend, Miss Lynn. She is ridiculously creative. When I was home for Christmas, I told her that the world (well, me for sure) needed her to start a blog or an etsy shop or something. She said that she's not a computer person and would rather just make stuff with paper, notions & junque. But, happy day! I don't think she's started a shop, but I just found out today that she has a blog! Her blog name is Create...Breathe, which is the name of her crafty business.


She sells at craft shows and stuff like that, but not online yet (that I know of). Check out her blog and leave her a comment. She's a sweetie pie. I can't wait to see her this summer!

My Handy Man

I'm one of those girls who is lucky enough to have a multi-talented fella. It seems like he's pretty good at most of the things he tries. He cooks & cleans, makes videos, cycles, runs, trains people to do stuff, re-mixes benign music & voice-overs into cool hip-hop beats, and he can throw a pretty good punch, whether it be wii boxing or real-life martial arts. Oh, and he can break up fights in Madrid & subdue the drunken aggressor. But that's for another story.

Recently he disappeared for a few hours into the workshop to make something that would make organizing the equipment for the ministry we work with MUCH easier. He had already organized & labeled the entire equipment storage room, but still had to contend with heavy & awkwardly shaped "C-Stands". They're the things used on a video shoot that hold reflectors & pretty much else you would need to hold in one place. Using a router & some scrap wood, this is what he came up with:


He routed out the shape of the handles...


so that each stand would fit perfectly.


He also used some big nails to hang other pieces of the stands.


I, for one, think it's an ingenious solution. Before, the C-Stands lived in a corner on the floor. Difficult to get to, messy, unorganized. Now with one glance, you know how many we have, where they are, and where they go when you're finished with them.

People, you don't always need to make things difficult or expensive. He didn't go out and buy anything special for this project. Scrap wood. That's what he used. Granted, this is not a public place, so it's not painted pretty or anything, but that doesn't matter. Effective storage can be cheap or free if you use your noggin. What do you have lurking in your garage/shop that can be made or re-purposed into useful storage or organization? Be creative!