Adding Character to your Home {Lighting} Part 1

Last week I introduced you to my builder grade home and let you in on a few molding secrets that added a little character to my once blah home.

Today we are talking about lighting. I am very excited about this topic because I have a slight obsession with chandeliers and pendants! I would buy out whole stores if I had enough rooms to put them in.

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By now most of you know about the infamous "boob" lights that are in like every newer built home. I still have a few hanging around mine as well, but have really tried to phase them out. They are a good staple if you are staying in your home for a short period of time or in our case, they are cheap enough to help save money on our flip homes. BUT if you are planning on staying in your home for the long hall or just need to add some class to your home, you need to get rid of those "boob" lights sweet hearts! OR disquise them just like my friend Beth did HERE.

Depending on what your entryway is like, that is where I would start. Do you have tall ceilings or a two-story entryway..how about a show stopper when your guests walk in?

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Pottery Barn

Maybe you don't have a very large entryway or foyer but still want that big impact. Apartment Therapy put a list of some fabulous flush mount or semi-flush mount lights that will give you that "bling" you might be looking for.

I love that they mixed some modern lights with traditional and industrial. Each decorating style is pretty well represented. If you want to know the sources you can click here. These lights would also be great in a upstairs hallway or guest bedroom.

Another place in your home where you can make a big impact with lighting is your kitchen. The kitchen seems to be the heart of the home doesn't it? I always think guests will hang out in our dining room or family room, but everyone seems to congregate in the kitchen. Why not make a statement in there as well!

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We took down our boring builder grade pendants and added these West Elm Pendants to give our home a little industrial feel. We also added this drum pendant from West Elm above the eating area in the kitchen. I love the texture it brings to the space.

Sorry for the stinky phone pic!

Lighting can be expensive, but you can also find some great deals on craigslist or your local habitat store. Experiment with adding some spray paint, changing out the frosted glass for clear glass or adding some new shades.

Have you thought about changing out your light fixtures to add a little character around your home?

Next week we will talk about adding character with lighting in the dining room and bedrooms.

Happy Thursday All!

A Touch of Color in an Unexpected Place

A few months ago I did a post on things I was diggin at the time. One specific DIY project kept coming back to me and I knew the perfect spot on where to try it out.

When you walk in our front door there isn't much of an entryway. The stairs are to the right, dining room to the left and straight ahead is the hallway that takes you to the kitchen and family room area. There are two doors down this hallway. One is the half bathroom door and the other is the kitty's room. Ya know...it's kind of like the kitty's half bathroom. I have never been happy with this idea..but...here is honestly no other place for it in our house and I am NOT having a litter box in my bathroom. So...it will do for now. (back on topic..please!) Because both of these little rooms are used multiple times a day, the doors always seem to be open.

That has drove me nuts....that is until I figured out what to do! Using my inspiration picture from this post, I decided I was going to paint a pop of color on the edge of the doors. So when you walked into the house, if the doors were open, you would get a surprise. I had in my mind that this would make me happy rather then seeing those plain old doors open!

There are many colors in our main living area, but I decided to pull out a fun yellow to try. The color is called Bee by Sherwin Williams.  It is a bright yellow with a hint of brown undertones making it a light mustard color...well so I thought. But once it went on I knew it was the WRONG color.

Do you agree? It was just a little too yellow for my liking. It might look cute in a kids room or a fun back mudroom, but this color would be front and center when you walked in = no good.

I couldn't figure out what fun color to use that wouldn't be too crazy for the eye, so I settled on a darker color that would bring out that charcoal in the eat-in kitchen area rug. The color....Urbane Bronze by Sherwin Williams. (I had this color on hand because I think I might paint the Hubs Desk this color.)

It isn't like WHAM BAM once you enter, but the subtle interest does surprise the guests and makes me one happy lady to see some color instead of an all white edge. (I'm a little nuts..I know!)

What do you all think? Would you ever try this in your own home? The inspiration picture below is certainly one of my favorites! 

I might have to try a pop of color in another room, it just didn't quite work out in the entry. 

Ah..well! On to another DIY!

{Readers Space} Organized Laundry Room

After last weeks post on my two reader's spaces, I received lots of great feedback. It seems that you all like to see real life, not just pretty magazine pictures! I totally agree!

Today one of my reader's, Karen, is totally keeping it real with all of us. Wait till you see the transformation of her basement laundry room. 

Hi Amy,

Saw your before and after laundry room pics and thought I'd send mine along to you. The decluttering and organizing was long overdue! I got rid of tons of unnecessary products and donated them to a local shelter. The fabric bins are from HomeGoods, the wire shelving was a freebie from a friend that was getting rid of them, and the bright canary yellow paint was used to pick up on the colors from a print given to me from a friend who visited Belize. The flea market duck holds my stain removal products. The glass jar is quickly filling up from all the coins found in the bottom of the washer! Hmmm someone didn't check their pockets!

-Karen

Are you ready? Here are a couple before pics:

Seriously...how many of us throw whatever in the laundry room and shut the door before guests arrive!? Well I did too until I organized my laundry closet. 

Now wait until you see the after pics:

Um...hello! Or should I say Yellow!! Doesn't the color really brighten up the space and make it feel like a wonderful place to do laundry? I really love how you can freshen up a space with paint. The wire shelves are pretty great too!

I keep telling you all that baskets and bins are a girls best friend! These are so functional and Karen even followed my lead and created labels so she doesn't have to pull each bin down to find out what is inside! Love it!

Her adorable little window ledge holds her necessities and also the painting from where she grabbed some paint inspiration! Artwork is always a great jumping off point for any space. 

Well I am impressed...aren't you? She did all of this on a small budget with only small expenses like bins and paint! What are you all going to organize this weekend?

And of course....a BEFORE & AFTER!

Thanks Karen for sharing your progress! I am sure you have just inspired someone else to run to HomeGoods!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! It is suppose to be 70 degrees here Sunday...time to play outside!

Out with the Old...

....In with the NEW!!

I am very excited to share my new design with you on the blog today. If you are reading this from your reader or mobile device, you might want to come on over and view the full web version for fun!

I needed a little "bling" in my life, so that is where the gold glitz banner comes in! My wonderful Web designer, House 09, also added a honeycomb background for some visual interest while you scroll through the page.

We also added some fun widgets for you to following along with. This twitter widget shows my latest tweets and retweets and changes throughout the day.

My favorite widget has to be the Pinterest one. I can't really show you on here, but if you hover over each picture on my side screen, the whole picture will appear. You can then click on it and it will take you right to pinterest where you can pin it for your own board. These also change on a regular basis as I pin new items to my boards!

I am hoping to make just a couple more changes in the near future. One being an updated picture of myself. That should be interesting!!

Hope you all are having a wonderful Thursday! Thanks for following along!!

P.S. If you are a blogger looking to update your site in anyway, I highly recommend House 09 unless you already have someone you like. She is great to work with and gets back with you quickly!

Adding Character to your home {Molding}

Today starts a new series here at Eat.Sleep.Decorate! One day every week I am going to talk about how you can add character to your home. We bought a builder grade home 5 years ago and I am still trying to make it feel homey. Do you know what I mean by homey?

{Can you believe this is the only pic of the outside of my house that I have!? Before Painted Door}

Track builders build homes fast just to get them on the market and get them sold for their company. They will do minor upgrades here and there, but they don't take the effort to make a home stand out from the rest. That is where a little DIY or help from a local contractor can help add some character to blah and lifeless homes. I am very lucky to have a brother that is a contractor. I throw out an idea and he rolls with it.

When we moved into our home 5 years ago, I thought it was such an amazing blank canvas from which I could start making it "my home". We have added a little character here and there without breaking the bank or losing our minds. Because it was a brand new home, I didn't HAVE to make any changes, but who wants to live in a blank canvas forever? Not me!

Today we are talking about Molding or Moulding (however you want to spell and say it)...Yep! Crown, wainscoting, chair rail, planked, coffered, board & batten, boxed...whatever! Molding is what gives a home so much life by adding some texture and architectural charm!

One place where you can make a statement is on your ceilings. Adding Crown Molding can make the room look taller and more grand. I think the bigger the better when it comes to adding crown molding. It will then make the room stand out!

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Another great type of molding that could be added to an office space or dining room is a coffered ceiling. Coffered ceilings are usually boxed and give the ceiling a 3-D effect. We installed a coffered ceiling in our dining room so we could add a chandelier without going through the mess of tearing into the walls to run the electrical wires.  It has become one of my favorite rooms in the house because of its charm!                                     

A great way to make a statement with guests is to make a show stopper with boxed, board & batten or wainscoting in your entryway. 

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We also added some wainscoting to our entryway and what a difference it has made.

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Stairways are always the place that gets the most wear and tear and damage. How about adding some molding up the stairway that is pleasing to the eye and easy on the scrubbing!?

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Have short baseboards that really don't make an impact? Stack some molding on top to add some height and class without breaking your budget.

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My friend Brenda made her baseboards pop by adding casing to the top and shoe molding to the bottom of her existing molding.

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House of Smiths had a similar idea, but extended a new piece of molding above the existing molding then painted in between to make it look a lot chunkier than it was. Genius!

There are so many fabulous molding and trim ideas that you can add to your home to really give it that character that it deserves. During this series we will be talking about a few other places in your home where molding can be added. 

Are you inspired? What areas of your home could use a little molding to add that extra charm?

Linked up: Liz Marie Blog

A Place to hang my bags...

Happy Monday all! I sure hope that you got a little relaxation mixed into the crazy schedules that most of you have. I enjoyed a weekend at home by myself while the Hubs was traveling. I did get a few DIY projects done around the home, but also spent time relaxing.

In January I gave you a list of my New Years Goals for our home. There is a lot on my list and if I continuously look at it, I get a little overwhelmed. But, if I take it a room at a time or small project at a time, it seems doable.

My first project was a little DIY in the master bedroom closet. As you have seen before, our closet is very small with barely any room for our clothes let alone my collection of purses and bags. There is however a blank wall behind the door that needed to be used.

That is where these nifty flush mount hangers come in....

I saw these on another DIY project on pinterest and couldn't get over how great these would be for hanging heavy items on the wall. Just gliding them into each other to make a perfect fit. I found them at Lowe's in the picture hanging area of hardware. They come in different sizes depending on how heavy your object is. 

My sister-in-law made me one of her reclaimed wood hook boards which I mounted two of the flush mounts on to the back of the board 20" apart. 

I then measured how far apart these mounts were on the board, then took my measurements to the wall and drilled 4 holes for each mount. I also added the plastic reinforcements just so theses puppies were not going anywhere!!

Then came the easy part....screwing the mounts in place.

Once both mounts were screwed on the wall, I slid the other mounts on the back of the wood hooks board into the mounts on the wall and....

Pretty great huh?

The last step was to collect all of my bags from the floor of the closet....literally! And give them a new home!

I am very happy with how it turned out. I have another little DIY to place above these hooks coming very soon! You might have saw a sneak peek on my Instagram (@eatsleepdecor) 

Hooks, bins & baskets are truly a girls best friend when it comes to organizing! If you are interested in the above reclaimed wood hooks, I am sure my sister-in law would love to make you one! Go to her Etsy Site here. This reclaimed wood is torn out of an old pub right here in Raleigh, NC! Love the texture it would bring to any entryway or room!

Have a fabulous day my friends!

Linked up to: Thrifty Decor Chick & Liz Marie Blog