We finally caught a break in the weather last week for a few days, and I was able to spray paint the little wicker basket on a stand I picked up for free at a yard sale a few weeks ago.
I just love before-and-afters, so here's the before again:
And the after:
How I love cheap projects! I want to get one or two more small plants to put in it, and maybe some different garden-type odds and ends. This is just a random collection of stuff I grabbed from the house to dress it up.
On the Fourth of July, the weather went back to insanely hot and humid after several wonderful cool days. We have so many projects we want to do on the front of the house, but there's no way to do any kind of sustained work outside in 100-degree heat. So I started thinking about what I could work on inside, and the kitchen cabinets sprang to mind.
I've been pondering what to do with the cabinets ever since we moved in four years ago...they are a nice quality oak finish, but the doors and lower edges are in bad shape. We decided long ago to do the same thing we did with our bathroom vanities: keep the cabinet, but paint it, and make new doors and paint those, too, plus add new hardware. It's worked out really well in the bathrooms.
However kitchen cabinets get much more use and abuse, so the process is a little longer and a little scarier. But since it will be probably two months before the weather is fit to work outside, this seems like a good way to accomplish something despite the weather.Right now I'm trying to figure out what type of doors I want, and what color to paint them. I know they will be white, but I can't decide whether to go with the same white as the trim in the rest of the house, or whether to use a slightly warmer, creamier white. This all feels slightly terrifying! Nobody really looks at bathroom vanitites (At least I don't) but kitchen cabinets are right out there for all the world to see. Gotta get it right!
So think good thoughts for me as I research and buy my materials and unscrew that first cabinet door!
I am really making an effort to stay on top of the flowerbeds this summer, and try to keep them from getting so messy. (Last summer was particularly bad because we traveled to Ohio for over a week, and then I had my breast-reduction surgery at the end of July and couldn't do anything strenuous with my arms, like pull giant weeds!) It's early days yet, but so far, so good. We're not going anywhere this summer, which should help...it's always during our week-long Fourth of July trip home that the chaos starts to snowball.
Over Memorial Day weekend, Todd and I (but mostly Todd) took on an area that badly needed attention: our front flowerbed.
As you can see, this was a sad spot. We put some work into it last year, adding some rock "walls" and lots of plants, but coming into this spring it was weedy and overgrown, and the landscaping timbers around the edges were disintegrating. With some new timbers and fresh mulch, everything looked much happier:
Then Todd took on the mailbox post and devised a new design for it, plus a coat of paint, and a solar light for the top. Oh, and some new house numbers:
I want to add some brightly-colored annuals in with the perennials, but I think we have definitely accomplished something here. What a good feeling that is!
Jen at Sanctuary Arts is hosting a trash-to-treasure party today, so I'm showing off my most recent trash-to-treasure project. Allow me to re-cap for any new visitors...we are sprucing up our guest bath by taking down the old wallpaper border with ducks on it, painting it green, replacing the medicine cabinet, vanity top, and floor. We had already replaced the towel rack, toilet paper holder, and light fixtures some time ago because they were so ugly, they needed emergency treatment. I still shudder at the memory of the cracked, mildewed, wooden towel bar. Yuck.
We were going to replace the vanity, too, but I couldn't really find any I liked at Lowe's or Home Depot, and neither of us wanted to pay a lot of money for something custom. So I looked around at some bloggers' bathrooms online and saw that although I hate to paint, I could paint the old vanity and save us a lot of money.
Since I forgot to take a picture before I started yanking off doors, here's a shot of our master bath vanity, which looks exactly like our guest vanity did, only even dingier. (It's due for the same treatment soon.)
I painted the whole thing white and Todd made brand-new doors and door fronts for it, which also got painted white. 
When it gets a countertop put on it (on order and arriving soon), it will look even better, of course, but I think it looks much better, don't you? And with a new floor put in (also on order and arriving soon), it will be quite breathtaking!
So instead of paying $450 for a new Home Depot vanity I wasn't even that crazy about and which had much less storage, I used paint and primer I already had, and Todd used pine boards he already had, and we made it look like a different vanity for $0. All we had to buy were the new hinges and handles, and we would have had to buy those anyway, since I doubt the stock vanities come with hardware.
A question--do you think the top middle panel would look nice with one of those wooden carved applique things on it (also painted white)? The bathroom is going to be feminine and vintage, with a toile shower curtain, old sepia pictures of women and girls, china, etc. I think one might look nice, I just haven't been able to find one I like. What do you think?
Thanks for looking at my makeover!
