Month one... house diy projects have begun

Slowly but surely we are making little changes around this house. This is not a major renovation, just small diy projects that will make us feel more like it's ours.

First thing to do was to paint, freshen it up and bring in some color. I love color. I chose a neutral palette but still with those colors that I am drawn to. My palette includes colors by Valspar. They look wonderful as you look from one room to the next.

The first photo above is my husband painting the entry room... it is called Honeysuckle Beige (a very pretty yellow). The kitchen is also this same yellow. My bedroom and the guest bedroom are now a cozy Canyon Earth (brown). The office is a grey green called Lead Cast. The hallway is a good feng shui color called Tomato Bisque (a pretty sunset orange). The little hallway wall is Canyon Earth and now has my bird/branch painting on it. The photo does not actually show the true color of the wall. The bird/branch painting is a combination of a stencil and my freehand painting.

The bathrooms remain a pretty spa like white. It's hard to imagine all of these colors, but it sure made a wonderful difference in this house that was all beige. Then I added new curtain rods and put up 'no sew' curtains using drop cloths. Later on if I want to I can dye them or stencil them or add trim or add tulle as an overlay or many other options that would add to them.

This is a built in bookcase in my living room. I glued book pages to the back wall and organized the books by color. I added some of my treasures, like my collection of clay pots and my husband's grandmother's painting.

We took two cabinet doors off of the kitchen cabinets to open it up. This is our drink station...glasses, coffee cups etc. I added baskets and put rarely used kitchen items in them.

One of the cabinet doors was recycled into a chalk board (I used spray on chalk board paint). The chalk is in the black cup like handle turned upside down. Then I added a bottle opener on the side. The door was attached to the outside of a corner cabinet in the kitchen. It made this space more useful.

We took this 1940's cabinet that was in the garage and.....

...made it into a kitchen island. We cleaned it, sanded it, put three coats of poly on it, painted the inside glossy white, added a new stained top and new feet to bring it up to counter height.

I bought an old kitchen light fixture. My husband had to do some wiring changes. It had the tea cups added already, but again I wanted to add my touch so I added the silverware to it. The light hangs above the island.

I had a floor lamp that was falling apart, it was made out of plastic and the heat from the light made it dry rot. So I decided to cover it with twine to reinforce the light cover. I did the same with the top.

Now I can still use this lamp for reading etc. You don't have to spend a lot of money or do major redo's to make some big changes. Sometimes the little things add up to make a big change. I will be sharing many more little diy projects with you each month as we finish them. Savor the Day! Yvonne