How to Tile a Laundry Room Floor

After we demoed the laundry room, we got to work on tiling. For both of us, this was the first time we had tiled a floor. It was a learning experience to say the least! We love a good DIY project though, so we dove in head first. Hopefully you might get a few take aways from this post, but at the least you can enjoy some before and after pictures! :)

Let's back up and talk about how we picked our tile, or even decided to go with tile in the first place. The existing floor was a laminate/vinyl that was probably as old as the house (circa 1991!), so you can imagine it was well worn, faded, and out dated.

How To Reupholster An Heirloom Bench

Hello there!!! I'm baaaaaaack! :) First off, it's April 15th and I'm not working crazy hours because it's tax season (can I get a HALLELUJAH!?). Second, this is my first blog post in almost a YEAR! I've been away for a while because life has been crazy the past year and half! But we survived! I'll do a big ol' blog post with a little personal update soon, but for now I'll leave you with a super easy DIY tutorial!

I'm definitely easing back into that DIY life! To be honest, I have a little bit of DIY A.D.D. lately. Since we moved into our house back in June, my brain has been on overload with everything I want to update/renovate/paint/fix/etc! I want to do ALL THE THINGS NOW! But you know, there's that whole part where things cost money or something... oh, and take time (#3Kids4AndUnder). And the number of my children that take naps is slowly diminishing (one out of three still take naps). I think I have at least five projects right now where I have most or all of the supplies, and I just need to carve out the time to get them done!

OK, on to the bench! A few years back when my parents downsized, my Mama passed down some of a furniture set from her grandmother. It's this rich wood with intricate design and I love it. I use the stand up dresser for craft storage and the desk/vanity is in Emerson's room. The bench has been hanging out in our Master Bedroom with this lovely original gold fabric. I had some of this black and white striped fabric (from IKEA) leftover from a pouf project (tutorial to come!), and I thought it would work well on the bench.

DIY Deep Diamond Tufted Headboard

Remember a couple months back when I shared my headboard inspiration with you guys? Well the time has finally come to share the finished product! A while ago I shared our gray tufted headboard that we DIY'd last fall to go with our queen bed. But since we got our new Cal King bed (as you can see it fits just right in our master bedroom...) we needed to come up with a headboard that wouldn't break the bank. The size and style we wanted would have probably cost over $1,000 if we were to buy the headboard. After DIY'ing the gray headboard, we knew we could make another one, so we made some plans. 

DIY Latch Board for Emerson

I'm back with a quick and fun little DIY project for all the little ones out there! I first saw this idea a couple years back on my favorite blog, Young House Love. At first when I saw it, I had no idea what it was - a bunch of hinges and latches on a board? Huh? Well, that was before I had a kid. And now that Emerson is here, I will do anything and everything to keep her occupied. New things are always welcome since she has the attention span of about 1.5 minutes (please share any other cool ideas you have for 11+ month olds)!

DIY Tufted Headboard

Before we got our new king bed I wanted to update our queen headboard. A few years back, my mother in law and husband DIY'd a tufted headboard for our master bedroom. It was awesome! Here's a reminder on what it looked like...

DIY: Instagram Collage Prints

Hey guys! Wow it has been a crazy month in the Kane household! We crammed all our travel for the year into the past four weeks before Zach starts residency TOMORROW!! We had such a great time on our travels - camping on Lake Cushman, medical school graduation in Arizona, family reunion in Bend - but let me just say that this Mama is exhausted. With a capital E.

I just wanted to share a little project that is one of my favorites and is so easy to make (and cheap too!) 

Upholstered Gray Chair... Finally Done!

Well, almost two years after I purchased this chair, it's finally finished. Stick-a-fork-in-it finished. Wait, you say. Didn't you already finish this chair (ala this post)? Well, yes. Yes, I did. Almost... We finished everything but the detail on the front of the arms and around the back along the edge. 

I finally got my act together and decided to go with some nail head trim. The original had some wood detailing on the front of the arms, but it was damaged and irreparable. The arms are too curved and unique in shape to try and recreate the wood piece myself, so nail heads it was! I'd done nail head trim before on our Queen Headboard (post forthcoming) with individual brads I got from Lowe's. I had seen this nailhead trim at JoAnn's which looked much easier to use since all the brads were connected. Um, no brainer! And with a 50% off coupon on my JoAnn's app (it is my goal to never pay full price for anything at JoAnn's or Michaels!) it was a great deal. 

DIY: Teacher Appreciation Gift

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week! This year was the first year (obviously) that Emerson has had a teacher. We love Em's daycare and her teachers are so great. They love her so much (and we love them)! They are the most caring teachers and take such good care of Em and the other kiddos. 

To show our appreciation, I whipped up these quick and easy little gifts for them. They probably cost around $3 each and are pretty darn cute.

Supplies:

- Patterned metal buckets ($1 from Target)

- Hershey's Kisses and Hugs (I used two packs for all three)

- Scrapbook paper

- Tape

- Stick of some kind (I used shish kabob skewers that I had on hand)

- Pack of flower seeds

I just traced Emerson's hand on some colored patterned paper and cut out about five of each color. I taped the hands together with double sided tape. I then cut a circle out of coordinating paper and taped that on, as well as the skewer. After pouring in the kisses and hugs, I just popped in the skewers. The candy held the flowers upright. And that's it! 

The teachers thought they were great (I mean, who wouldn't want a bucket full of chocolate???) and they are such a quick and easy way to show some love!

Did you make anything fun for Teacher Appreciation Week? I'd love to hear!

Herringbone Quilt for Emerson

It's only been over a year since I worked on this project... sheesh! Last year towards the end of tax season I got the major nesting bug. Like whoa. I hadn't done anything for the nursery yet besides gather my overall inspiration. I really wanted to make a quilt for Emerson and I loved the quilt from my inspiration nursery (see it here). I also wanted to do something really easy - those are my favorite kind of quilts. I like having something creative to do that isn't overly complicated. That I can still work on while I watch my "stories." 

DIY Rustic Console Table

Hi guys! I'm back with an awesome DIY for you today! I've been slowly wanting to update our IKEA furniture to more "grown up" and non-IKEA looking furniture. I mean, there comes a point in your life where you start to do that, right? IKEA is great and affordable with modern and minimalistic design, but their furniture definitely doesn't last forever - at least not in my experience. To be fair, we have moved four times in six years... which can be pretty rough on furniture. Anyways, it's time, and the first piece to get changed out (and by changed out, I mean got moved to the dining room and is now being used as our buffet) was the Kallax shelving unit. 

Headboard Ideas & Inspiration

Hi guys! I'm back before busy season is over? Shocking, right? In my last post you might remember me mentioning our new Cal King bed! It's been a few weeks now and it's still amazing. I would triple underline that if I could. Why did we ever wait so long before investing in a really comfortable mattress??? Never again! Totally worth the money. Since then I have slept so well every night (just not long enough). My back and neck are in less pain and I sleep so deeply. I'm in love. If you don't know me, one of my favorite things in the world is a crawling into a super comfy bed with crisp clean sheets on. Best. Thing. Evaaaaaaaaa. 

OK, enough on my obsession with clean sheets and comfy beds. On to the headboard. I've literally been dreaming about it lately. I loved our previous head board so much and I was kind of sad to see it go (it only moved to our guest bedroom along with our old queen sized bed). With the new bed, our room just feels empty without having a substantial headboard to ground everything and bring some style. 

The sad part is I don't think I even shared my old headboard with you guys! Oops... blogger fail. It's on my list for after April 15th though, so fear not! We actually re-upholstered our old old headboard and used Sarah's plans to update it to a charcoal gray with arms headboard. It turned out great and I love it. I'll share pics soon!

As for our new headboard, I want to go similar - I'm still loving the tufted upholstered headboards these days. This time, I want to go with some deeper, diamond tufting and a bright pop of color. I'm thinking something like this but with side arms. I'm actually kind of obsessed with this color fabric and the tufting. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Quick and Easy Cross Baby Quilt

I recently got bitten by the bug. The quilting bug. I actually made a quilt back in April for Emerson (I'll post that one later) that was so easy and fun to make that I wanted to make another one for a friend for her baby shower (more on that one later too). But today I'll share another baby quilt that I just made for Em. 

Scrapbook Paper Letters for the Nursery

I'm back with yet another nursery project! I couldn't share this one with the rest of the nursery reveal since we didn't reveal Emerson's name until she was born. But, I definitely had this project done ahead of time! I'm pretty sure I accidentally left the letters out when my mom stopped by one day so she found out the name ahead of time... oh well. :) 

The Nursery Reveal!

The day is finally here! I know you've all been waiting and I'm so excited to share with you the big nursery reveal! I had so much fun putting the room together (check out my original inspiration) - so many DIY projects and colorful accents. I LOVE it so much! The only thing it's missing is our Little BK (hopefully she'll be here in TWO days! EEEEEK!)!!!

DIY: Ruffled Crib Skirt

Well, this is the second time I am writing this post... stupid computer! Another DIY nursery project for you today. When my mom was over a couple weeks ago, she helped me with this ruffled crib skirt. We used this tutorial and it was pretty helpful.  At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to do a straight crib skirt or a ruffled one (I'm not a ruffles person), but decided to go for the ruffles to make the room a little more feminine and add some texture. 

This project only cost $10 too - it was the IKEA Vivan curtains to the rescue again! It's such a cheap way to get some plain white fabric. The fabric is thin, but worked for the crib skirts since we were doing the ruffles anyways.

Two Nursery IKEA Hacks - Pom Pom Curtains and Rocking Chair Cushion

My mom came over last weekend to help me out with my last nursery sewing projects. We ended up sewing almost all day long! It was a lot of work, but I am so in love with the end results!

DIY: Anthopologie Inspired Book Covers

We've all seen and loved the colorfully patterned Anthropologie Penguin Classic books like Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Alice in Wonderland, etc. The style has changed recently to more bright and colorful patterned book covers and I always thought they would look great in a nursery. Instead of dropping $18 a pop on the whole collection, I figured I could recreate a similar look by wrapping some of my vintage books with some fun scrapbook paper. 

DIY: Coral Dresser Drawer Liner

Remember the coral dresser I redid for the nursery? Here's a little sneak peak of it set up in the nursery... or at least how it was the other day. :)

DIY: Chevron Pouf Ottoman

I'm back with another nursery DIY project! I feel like I haven't jumped too far onto the chevron bandwagon yet, until I realized the two main areas I've used it in the nursery - the rug and this chevron pouf! It's so bright and playful for a nursery, how could I not? 

Reupholstering a Chair... in Photos

Remember when I told you guys about this awesome chair I found at a thrift shop in Centralia about 9 months ago??? No? Well, I don't blame you because yeah, it was 9 months ago. But, it's finally finished! Well, almost finished. I still need to work on some finishing touches (the arm details, side panel stitching, and the back finishing along the curved detail - more on that below).