Here’s what my porch looked like except it didn’t even look this good.  All the paint was flaking and it just looked, well, bad.  One of my summer projects was to paint the porch:

Here’s what it looks like now:

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This is a guest post.

Clear The Clutter

Bedrooms are magnets for clutter. Since most of us tend to spend very little time awake in the room, we think nothing of throwing clothes on the floor or leaving the bed unmade as we head out the door. Yet the old saying ‘tidy house, tidy mind’ really does ring true, and a cluttered room is actually able to impact our sleep.

Yet ‘clearing the clutter’ doesn’t merely mean tidying away clothes, books and anything else that covers the surface area of the room. Anything that doesn’t assist with relaxation or romance should be removed – and this includes the television. As pleasant as it may seem to lie in bed and watch TV, save this for sick days, since research has demonstrated that not only does a television in the bedroom affect the sleep, but it also affects the sex drive.

Dress Up Old Furniture

There is no need to replace tired looking wardrobes and drawers – a lick of paint or carefully applied wallpaper can give old furniture a complete new lease of life, while simultaneously brightening and complementing the room’s décor. However, be careful not to make the room appear cluttered again by using too many patterns. If your walls are already very decorative, ensure to keep your furniture a plain colour. However, if your walls are painted in block colours, jazzing up your furniture with some bright pictures or patterns should look fantastic.

Don’t Forget About The Windows

While we take it for granted that the outside of our windows will be washed on a regular basis, we often forget to do the same to the inside. To ensure you’re able to get the maximum amount of light into your room, wash the windows regularly.

Additionally, if your windows are sporting a tired looking pair of curtains, take them down. Curtains attract dirt and dust and can start to look worn quite quickly. Roller blinds are a great alternative, and due to the simplistic nature of the product, usually very budget friendly too. Roller blinds are additionally very easy to clean, and are incredibly versatile. In fact, some stockists of roller blinds allow customers to choose whatever image they wish to be printed upon them, meaning that if you can’t find a design to fit with your décor, roller blinds may be the answer.

Bring Some Life To The Room

Plants are a fantastic and cost-effective way to make over any room, and not simply because they look good. Plants improve the air quality of a room – which is of great importance in a bedroom wherein the windows may not be opened often in order to reduce noise or maintain temperature while sleeping. What’s more, if you have children it can be great to get them involved in learning to care for something. This can benefit them in the future should any new additions to the family come along.

This article was written by Amy Fowler on behalf of Creatively Different Blinds. Amy writes on a variety of topics including roller blinds and other ways to make over a room.

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I’d love to remodel my kitchen.  However, Bill won’t let do any big money changes until the kids are older (and can’t wreck it.  Though I don’t know why he doesn’t think they can wreck it when they are older!).  Instead, I keep making cosmetic changes like adding an island kitchen cart (or was it a drop leaf kitchen cart), redoing the counters, buying new cutting boards, etc.  I’ve cleared out the garden window, so instead of holding knick knacks, I can actually put some flowers in there!  We are moving the pictures and the artwork in this room too.  I have hung some of what the kids made at school in one corner of the room.  The other items that were on the walls have just been moved around.  I am even looking at the cupboard paint that I saw on TV.  I can’t decide if painting my cabinets would be a good idea.

My cabinets stink.  They are tiny (which is why we have 20 other places in there that we store stuff).  To put plates in, you actually have to turn them!  The stain job on them is bad and did I say I hate them.  However, I can’t decided if we paint the fronts to make them look better that it won’t look dorky.  I hate to spend the time (and money!) doing it to have them look terrible or worse than they do already.

Does anybody have experience with cupboard paint?  Does it look cool?  What changes have you made in your kitchen?

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I hope everyone had a relaxing Memorial weekend. Unfortunately, I did not.  I started a project that should have taken me a day (or so I thought).  Since we moved Will to a toddler bed, I wanted to reflect that in his room decor.  At the time, it seemed like a great idea.

How hard is it to remove a wallpaper border?  Extremely hard!  Bill took the kids to his moms and five hours later I was done with just the border.  Sigh.  I still had to paint.  No problems there, right?  I wish.  I bought Behr paint with primer in it thinking it would save me time.  No such luck.  After 3 coats of paint and 3 days in that room, we still aren’t done.  It really could use a 4th coat, but I am so done painting.  Part of the problem is that Bill picked suck a dark blue to paint it.  (Sorry no pics — Will is napping right now and well, we aren’t done).  We did get some shelves up.  The other problem is that we made it Handy Manny themed (which Will loves).  There is nothing out there to decorate with, so we are winging it right now with how to decorate the walls.

It looks nice, it’s not done, and it took twice as long as it should.  Why is every project in the house a pain in the butt?

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Today was not a good day at my house. My toilet overflowed. ALL DAY LONG. No, I didn’t know that there was a turn off switch behind the toilet till about ten minutes before Bill got home from work. Yes, this was in the bathroom that we did the bathroom remodel in. I seriously could have cried the whole time. I tried plunging for over 20 minutes to no avail. Also, for some stupid reason, our toilet kicks in all the time. I don’t know why it does it nor do I know how to make it stop. What I did not realize was that every time it kicks in that it runs water. Sooo, we were leaking water all over the bathroom before I even knew it. Yes, the water made its way downstairs too. I think I ended up wrapping the toilet in something like 20 towels throughout the afternoon. I even drained some of the water using a cup. It was crazy. Bill came home and plunged the stupid thing 4 times and fixed it. I could have screamed!

Now, we installed a new tub in this bathroom. However, we did that mainly, because Bill wanted to add a whirlpool tub. The tub that was in here before we think was the original one put in the house (which would have been in the 1920s). Before we tore it out, we looked at doing a bath tub refinishing project but really couldn’t find any companies who did it. I did like my old tub and a bath tub refinishing would have been nice. However, since we did go with the whirlpool tub, we have been told we greatly improved the value of the bathroom. Seriously, if you were looking at a house, would you want a tub that was flaking paint off or one that was brand new or one that looked nice? That is a no brainer for us, so we replaced the tub as part of the basement remodel.

Now, my mom has back issues and has a hard time getting in and out of tubs. I would love to be able to buy her one of these someday:

This is one of those walk in showers. I think she would absolutely love it. Plus, if you end up selling your home to a family with kids or a senior citizen couple, they would love it too!

What kind of tub do you have in your bathroom?

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