Haven (no place like it!)

Hello all! Hope you’re having a beautiful day so far!

My fellow team members and I are getting SO excited for the upcoming Haven Conference this summer:

Last year was our first year for this DIY/design conference and it was a huge success – we are pumped for another year! This year Haven will be held at the beautiful Buckhead Grand Hyatt in Atlanta, Georgia from Thursday, August 1 to Saturday, August 3.

Just in case you don’t know the Haven team, here we are:

It includes myself, Beth from Home Stories A to Z, Chris from Just a Girl, Rhoda from Southern Hospitality and Traci from Beneath My Heart. Oh, and we can’t forget rock star Kristin who is a BIG part of making the details of the location and logistics happen.

First and foremost, we need to give a BIG shout out to our awesome sponsors – The Home Depot, Frogtape, Rustoleum and GMC just to name a few:

 

We’re busy finalizing the sessions for the conference and we have an incredible group of designers, bloggers and business people who will be sharing their knowledge with attendees. Go here to see who will be joining us (we are still adding them so check back often!).

The conference is sold out but we will be offering five ticket giveaways on our blogs over the next few weeks:

May 13th:  Just a Girl
May 20th:  Home Stories A to Z
May 27th:  Beneath My Heart
June 3rd:  Southern Hospitality
June 10th:  Thrifty Decor Chick

If you’d like to join us and don’t have a ticket keep an eye out for each of those! And if you aren’t already following us on Facebook here than please do so – many have to sell their tickets as we get closer to the conference and will announce it there. (Just a reminder to ticket holders – there will be no transfers honored after July 1st!)

If you already have your ticket you should have received an invite to the Haven Mavens Facebook (private) page – if you didn’t email one of us {thriftydecorchick (at) gmail (dot) com} to let us know so we can get you added on. It’s a great place to chat and “meet” each other before the conference! We’ve also created a Haven Conference Instagram account – you can follow it at “havenconf”.

We’ve also started up a linky party over at the Haven Conference site (for attendees) – if you are joining us please link up your blog and visit those who will be attending as well!

And of course, feel free to add the Haven Maven button to your blog to let everyone know you’ll be there!Are you attending the conference this year? It’s only three months away – I can hardly believe it! Can’t wait to see you there!

No. 5

Well today is the day…five years of blogging as of May 20th. Absolutely CRAZY!!

This is the longest I’ve stayed at one job – which is hilarious to me. I mean, back in the day I was at one company for longer than five years, but I moved around to different locations.

For the first time in my adult life, I am perfectly, completely happy where I’m at and have no desire to do anything else.

Contentedness in a career is a wonderful feeling and so highly underrated.

It all started with this post back on May 20th, 2008:

I started this DIY blog back in the day of (mostly) only family blogs, as far as I knew. Many of my friends were starting them up to keep friends and family up-to-date on their kids. One day I got a wild idea – why not make a blog showing my friends and family how I do what I do?

That’s what it was for initially, just friends and family. I had NO clue there were other DIY/decorating blogs out there. I’d even get an occasional comment from a blogger but still didn’t really put it together.

Smarty, I am. I still marvel that I’m able to write a blog, seriously.

Funny that five years seems SOOOO much longer than that. When you’re documenting so very much of what you do it seems more like ten years. Five years sounds like yesterday!

In honor of my anniversary I figured I’d to a top five post – a few of my favorites and my best advice of course, after doing it this long.

My house has changed SO MUCH in five years. More than the average house I’m sure, but as I say, this is my gig folks. The best gig ever, so change is kind of expected up in here.

Here are my five all time favorite projects we’ve done to our house, in no particular order:

1. The stairs:

I recapped that project recently here – and you can see how they’ve transformed bit by bit over the years here. BIG impact for very little money!

2. The Book Nook:

I still absolutely adore it!! We have plenty of storage space so making what had become an unused closet into something fun and quirky just makes me happy.

You can see more pics here and the how-to here.

3. My office:

You have to see the before and afters to get the full effect here. What’s funny is when I finished the room I wasn’t using it a ton – and then the Bub went off to kindergarten this year and now I use it every day. (Before I blogged at night and would sit on the couch.) I love being in this bright, happy room. LOVE. It is so calming, so me and I am surrounded by so many faces and things I love.

4. The basement:

It’s been about a year now since the basement was (mostly) finished. It took about six months to take it from all cement to a really livable space because we hired out most of it and did it with cash, so we just did what we could as we could afford it.

At least once a week my husband and I will look at each other while we’re down there, sigh and say, “I love our basement.” Still…a year after being done. We spend so much time down there and truly enjoy it.

You can see more about those cubbies here and the whole basement transformation here. (And how we used to use it before it was finished!)

5. The patio: 

It was our first real, BIG project and yes, we hired out. (Lordy!) This is another one of those things that we’ve done that we are truly humbled by. Every night we are out there we talk about how blessed we are to have been able to do something like this. Our backyard is an oasis for us and it’s because of this addition.

You can see more of this area and our deck here and other outdoor spaces here.

Every few months I’ll freak out a little because I wonder if I’ll have enough “content” in this house. Like, is there enough to do to keep blogging about it? What I if I run out of projects? What will I do??

And then I LAUGH.

Blogging has been a blessing, and I don’t say that lightly. TRULY. I have met some of my closest friends through blogging, been on some amazing trips, met so many cool people – it is overwhelming and makes me emotional when I think about it.

Here are the top five COOLEST things that have happened since I’ve started blogging, again in no order cause they’re all just that cool:

1. Being on the Nate Berkus Show:

OK, I never actually got on the show in person (I did get a chance to go see him live!), but he did highlight my blog. I know many of you found me that way. :) He did such a great service to so many bloggers, it was such a thrill.

I was supposed to be on the show numerous times – I think I was contacted about ten times. Once I got everything ready, they got my travel booked, and then Nate had appendicitis and it was cancelled.

It was fine with me though – it was an honor to just be highlighted. :) You can see the segment here.

2. Paying off our debt:

Other than the kids, this is the best thing, hands down, that we’ve done in our lives. My husband and I paid off $125,000 worth of debt years ago and haven’t looked back once.

I’ve been completely and totally thrilled to have worked with the Dave Ramsey folks a few times since then, it’s been an honor.

You can read more about our debt story here.

3. Being published:

I didn’t talk about it much (I mentioned it here), but it was SO cool! One of my outdoor projects was in the April issue of Cottages and Bungalows this year.

Thing is, I didn’t think my stuff would ever be in a magazine, and I’m not being aloof or just saying that. I know mags are including bloggers more and more and I am SO happy about that. I just think my house is too “normal” for a magazine. Does that make any sense? I mean, I think it’s beautiful and I’m so proud of it, but I don’t see it being different enough to be in one.

So that’s why that spread was really special to me – so exciting!

4. The Haven Conference:

I partner with some lovely, amazing ladies to put on this conference (coming up in August). It is a lot of work but being there last year was one of the highlights of my life – overwhelming and humbling and so. much. fun. It was hard to put into words and still is. :)

5. Working with dream brands:

The first time a “big” name contacted me I thought it was a joke, or spam, or anything other than them being serious. ME? Part of me still feels that way every time I get an email.

I often think about what my resume would look like now, after blogging for five years. If I put it down on paper it would be pretty awesome, you know? Like all, yeah, I’ve worked with Home Depot and Target and cutie Nate kind of liked my projects and blah blah…holy CATS.

WEIRD people. Totally weird!!

And finally, I’ve covered lots of blogging advice before, but as a little recap, here’s my top five nuggets of blogging tips – take them or leave them:

1. Don’t do things for free.

Unless you’re just starting out. Early on, do it for free and show how well you can represent. After that, if you are established, you blog regularly, you work every day at it – it becomes a job (a fun job, no doubt). You are representing a brand and should be paid for it.

2. Don’t take every paid offer that comes to you.

Write your blog as you like to read others – you don’t have to take every opportunity if it’s not a good fit. (If you need the money to make ends meet, this does not apply to you.) I turn down partnerships often because I don’t think it works for my blog or my readers.

3. Make friends.

I covered this more in depth here. I would not be where I am today without blog friends to go to for advice, partnering with bloggers and sharing the love. You can’t blog in a vacuum peeps.

Well you can, but it would get awfully lonely in there. And dirty.

4. Keep some of your life for you.

I’ve talked about this a few times too but I am SO passionate about this. It’s OK if you don’t share every aspect of your life on your blog. Keep some stuff just for you and your family. Otherwise it’s easy to live your life as you would blog about it. Does that make sense? Early on in blogging I’d be doing random things with my family and the “this would make a great post” thought would come into my head ALL the time. I was obsessed.

Share your family, of course!! Your trips, your big events, your proud moments. It’s just OK if you keep some of it just for you. Really! It is!

5. Turn it off.

Four and half years ago if someone said that to me I would have looked them with crazy bloggy eyes and cackled at them all freaky-like.

Take a break. The more you blog, the more you take on, the more it will feel like work. And it is. So now I turn off emails on the weekends, I shut down the computer Friday afternoon. (I still surf and do fun stuff on it on the weekends.)

The longer I do this the more I’ve realized I HAVE to disconnect. It’s good for the soul. At least mine. ;)

Well there you go. Now here I am getting all teary eyed. And I said I wouldn’t cry. ;)

It’s been an amazing journey and I have all of you to thank. Some of you have been here for years, some for just a few days. I’m so grateful you come back. :) I’m looking forward to the future to find out what else is in store and so hope you will come along for the ride!

From the bottom of my heart – THANK YOU!!

Our kitchen, then and now

Hey all! I’ve mentioned a few times lately that this time of year makes me nostalgic about our house. We moved in (after having it built) almost exactly nine years ago and my blogging anniversary was in May, so it’s been fun to see our house transform in real life and on the blog throughout the years. :)

One of my favorite transformations in our house is in our kitchen. Years ago I did a few projects that really made a big difference in there, and none of them were hard or expensive. Of course more has changed since then -- it looks SO different to me now!

I thought it would be fun to go back in time and then take a look at how it looks now too. I LOVE before and afters, oh yes!!

I hand picked everything in this room (well, every room) when we built – I stressed about every aspect of the room, and years later I still like the basics. The problem was it was just SO dark and heavy feeling:

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it was bad – my tastes just changed. I needed to brighten things up in there! The biggest culprit when it came to the dark feeling was the black tiled backsplash.

I tried taking it off, but that was a MESS. So I went to plan B and just covered it all with beadboard. ;)

I think it was maybe $60 or something like that? I just glued it on top and it made SUCH a huge difference in there!:

The walls are the same color, obviously the cabinets are too – but that white backsplash really makes a big impact!

Here’s another shot of the old backsplash on the other side of the room:

By the way, yes the afters are taken with a better camera and the operator (me)knows a little more about photography now, but still – check it out!:

Years ago when I did the backsplash we also changed out the faucet and sink. Little things when you think about a whole kitchen for sure, but they made a big impact.

I love my sink area. It’s nothing fancy, but I have a window and lots of natural light and it makes me happy:

You can read about installing the sink (it was a REALLY FUN TIME) and the name of the sink and faucet in this post.

Here’s another before shot from about three years ago – and seriously, it feels like it’s been ten since the room looked like this. For real, crazy:

Excuse my notes, I was explaining my changes. ;)

Now that same view looks like this:

Have I mentioned I luuuurve my new table? Maybe.

Another little project that made a big impact was the kitchen island. OK, well it wasn’t little – I think it got four redos? Five? Here it is in its builder basic glory:

Awww yeah. Everything matched.

By the way, so many of you ask me about my granite countertops. They’re actually laminate. ;) I may write a whole blog post just about them because I love them that much.

Yes. You heard me.

I love laminate.

Ours is a granite look – you can find similar counters at the Wilsonart site here. Now they make them in a high definition version too and those look even more like granite than ours do. We got an edge on ours that makes them look more like a solid surface too.

But back to the island – as I said, it got a few redos, but after the last one, this is how it ended up and has stayed:

Butcher block on top, beadboard and board and batten on the sides and a lighter color made a huge difference! I love our island and I’ve promised to leave it alone for a while. :)

A few months ago I decided to change up a weird little wall we have in the kitchen and I think it adds a bit of fun and whimsy to the room:

I always say most rooms should have something in black – I think it just grounds a space. A chalkboard wall is the perfect way to accomplish that!

My most recent change in here is in the nook area – here’s how it looked a few years ago:

Again, I’m not going to dog my “old” look and act like I didn’t love it – I did. But it changed with time like the rest of the room (and we took the big blow up pool off the deck too, gah).

Just noticed the high chair too. Sniff. ;)

Here it is now with the new light fixture and the DIY farmhouse table:

Oh yeah, and the chairs I had been drooling over for months (just a less expensive version):

 

So there it is in a nutshell – years of changes in one compact little blog post. ;)

I have been planning BIG changes in here for about two years now, but have wanted to get other projects done first. (Ahem, cough, bathrooms.) I could easily see this kitchen becoming my dream kitchen -- I just need to get a final word on some of the ideas I have (if they are possible), and then I’ll be diving in. I’m still not sure if it will be this year though.

Have you been along for the changes in here all these years? Have your tastes changed a lot over the past five years or so? Blogging kind of encourages mine to happen more than the average person I’m sure, but I do love watching the transformation!

If you have any questions on anything I didn’t mention, ask in the comments! Have a lovely weekend!

Festive outdoor decor

Hola! How was your holiday weekend? Great I hope! Ours was lovely – got plenty of time in with the family, did some holiday decorating (still tons to do), saw a GREAT movie (Rise of the Guardians – amazing) and just enjoyed being home. (Thanks so much for your wonderful comments on last week’s post by the way. They meant a lot to me.)

I actually started the outdoor decor last weekend when it was nice and warm, but I finished it up on Saturday by getting more lights up and filling in the window boxes.

I do pretty much the same decor outside every year because I found something that works (and that I LOVE) years ago and I just keep going back. There’s a few tweaks year to year, but not much. 

Since I do the same thing every year, I’ve got it down to a science. It takes me very little time to get everything up and festive. And perhaps more importantly – it’s easy to take down! :)

The window boxes were filled with greenery from the grocery store – a bundle was $4. Instead of just sticking them in as they came (which wouldn’t fill up much), I cut them down into smaller pieces and stuck them in the soil:

There’s fir, white pine, boxwood (and one more, I can’t remember the name of it! The droopy stuff.) in each bundle. I grabbed some red sticks from the hardware store (later found them for even cheaper at a nursery!) and cut each one in two to make them go further.

I used to hang wreaths on our front windows, but a few years ago I started hanging them on our shutters instead. This is the part that takes longer than anything else but I love the look so it’s worth it! And it was super cheap too – I got the four wreaths years ago for I think $2 each at Joann’s, then the ribbon is just the cheapy red stuff you can get anywhere:

I had extra upholstery tacks from this project so I just used those to put them up this year. Sometimes it’s thumbtacks, sometimes it’s nails. Whatever is handy. ;)

I love how the red ribbon and green looks against the brown shutters! (Yes, they are a gray/brown, not blue. They always photograph blue.):

We have a teensy tiny front porch but I do it up BIG this time of year. I frame out the front part and the door with greenery, then just stick the lights in:

I used to wrap the lights around the greenery, but the first time a strand of lights went out I realized that was for the BIRDS. I just smoosh them in there now, using the greenery to hold the strands where I need support.

Putting up the stuff takes not time at all anymore – I reuse my big cup hooks every year and screw them into the same spots:

Then I just hook the greenery in and they stay put!

The porch makes the biggest impact and takes no time at all. I even keep the little swags of ornaments attached so I just put them up and I’m done:

A couple years ago I wound red ribbon through the greenery, which was beautiful -- but more time than I wanted to take on it this year.

The wreath is two put together – a flatter, white pine kind of wreath and a red one from Target clearance years ago on top. I have an idea in mind for a different kind of door decor, we’ll see if I can get it done this year.

Of course I love it best all lit up at night:

I plug everything into a outdoor timer so I don’t have to think about it again till the week after Christmas. That is, unless a strand goes out. Knock on wood…

I always plan on doing luminaries or lanterns down the steps, but I never seem to get to it. So much left to do, like our big honkin’ tree inside!

I love that the greenery and wreaths still make it look festive during the day and when the lights aren’t on:

And I love how the landscaping lights highlight our cool shutters. (I love our shutters!):

Of course I have to add some fun for the kiddo too – the red lights on the bushes are big round balls that look like Rudolph’s nose. :) (From Target two years ago I think?)

And we still have to get the big lawn inflatable out too…yes, we are one of those houses. But the Bub LOVES it, so as long as he’s into it, we’ll put it out every year.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, can you believe it’s that time already?? I’m starting to feel the mushy, gushiness I feel every year when we pull out the decor. I love it! I’m a traditional girl at heart, especially at Christmas, and the front of our house reflects that:

When do you put your decor out, if you do anything outside? Are you inflatable people like us? ;) Or do you put a wreath on the door and call it done?

Your Beautiful Bedrooms!

Well hello there and welcome to the weekend! :)

I’m bragging on a few of you today – I went through the latest Show Us Your House linky and could not believe all of the beautiful bedrooms! I seriously had to stop adding pics – it was so hard to narrow this down!

SO many pretty spaces and great ideas – let’s take a look at a few!

I think I caught my mouth hanging open when I saw Kristin’s beautiful space:

She did such a great job at making this a cozy space, even with the cooler, lighter colors.

And I LOVED how she worked her TV into the decor so I had to share that too:

Brillz. The layered look behind the TV is awesome. So doing this.

I think I may have shared Mary’s awesome drapes before, but take a look at them in this room!:

So pretty! That mirror and the lamps paired with the beautiful hydrangeas are all gorgeous. You can see more of her space here.

I love this teen room Julie created for her son:

And I LOVE that chalkboard knock off they made! I think boy’s rooms are especially hard, so I love sharing boy room ideas. :)

I am so into deep, rich blue lately – and when I saw Carmel’s bedroom I was swooning! This little “Mom’s nook” really had me:

So lovely! That chair is gorgeous!

Vel had a big wall behind her bed to contend with, so she used painters tape and some paint to create some interest:

This gives me an idea for the big wall in our bedroom! I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make it less BIG and more cozy.

Kelly’s bedroom is so serene and pretty and I loved her DIY touches:

The painted furniture, the pallet art – it’s all so well done! The window above the bed is so pretty too.

The stenciled wall in Kate’s room makes a beautiful statement:

Love how the bedding works with the wall too.

I was digging Joanne’s more contemporary bedroom as well:

The ornate mirror combined with the simple lines of the nightstand – beautifully done! I REALLY like the graphic black and white pillows too.

And finally, I love color in a kid’s room and this nursery over at Megan’s had me smiling big time:

So sweet, so vibrant, but not over the top. The chalkboard is fun too!

Well, again, you all did not disappoint! I’m so thrilled that you all share your talents with us every month. If you missed this party, you can see 200+ rooms linked up here.

Have a GREAT weekend! Can you believe how close we are to November??