Raise the Living

I’ve been trying to add more plants to our house…I’ve probably mentioned that before.  Luckily, they melt right in as easy decor so you really can’t go wrong with placement or type or anything like that.  I don’t know if it’s just in the past few years or if it’s always been this way and I’ve just never noticed, but I don’t think there’s a picture in any popular home decor mag or blog these days that doesn’t have a plant in it.  Aka, it’s super popular to have plants growing in your casa in the twenty teens.  But, that’s not the main reason why I’m sneaking them in to our house.  Anthony, who has always been against plants in the house (because he thinks they attract bugs…is he right?  idk) all of a sudden changed his mind when he read an article about how they filter and clean the air in your home.  I love the natural look plants bring to a space so you can bet your booty I grabbed a few to bring home as quick as I could after his change of heart.  Certain plants clean your air more than others so I’ve been trying to be very intentional about the plants I buy – I really only want those that clean the air the most.  The big Peace Lily we have is one of those plants.  In the past few months, it’s been playing musical room, going from the kitchen to the laundry room and now to our bedroom – all rooms that get a good amount of natural light.  I think it’s parked in our room for good though and I’m popping in today to show you exactly what it’s parked in.

Several months ago, I came across a couple of big planters at Goodwill.  You could tell they were pretty old and had been well loved by the plants that had once inhabited them but, well, they were stuck together.  Like, one was nestled tightly and seemingly-permanently into the other.  But, they were both marked at $1.99.  I didn’t feel like paying for two planters (even if they were cheap) if I coudn’t get them apart though.  So, I pulled and wiggled and wiggled and pulled and even had a strong male employee try for me but the planters looked like they were stuck for good.  Thankfully, Goodwill let me pay for one even though I got two, since we both figured I’d have to break one to end up with one.  And then, I got home and my amazing, incredible, fantastic, what-a-guy husband separated the two planters without breakage!  Huzzah! 

You can kind of see one of the planters in this Instagram shot and here is the other:    IMG_2957


This is after I cleaned it – it had some sort of grainy film on it that I had to painstakingly scrub off – but before I used up some old spray paint to liven it up a little.  I thought I took pictures of the process but they are nowhere to be found.  Basically, I painted everything but that little indented part on the bottom navy blue (Krylon), taped off the bottom of that big top part, and then painted that indented part on the bottom gold (Rust Oleum).  You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

Laundry Chandi

After our last project, I’m thinking chandeliers are synonymous with glam.  I mean, there’s pretty:
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And then there’s glamorous:
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Wall Gone

Last weekend, that there half-wallIMG_7717


Going Deeper

Updating the hardware on cabinetry makes the biggest difference in the world.  It’s kind of amazing how something so seemingly small can make such a big impact but the truth is, it does.  We learned that when we recently swapped out the drawer pulls in our kitchen for some more modern ones and we learned it again with those in our bathroom a couple of weeks ago.   
 
The existing drawer pulls had 1973 stamped on the back of them so, vintage.  Good vintage?  I don’t think so.  Back when we painted our vanity, I gave them and the door hinges a coat of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint to hide the dirty bronze they were. 

Here’s an  old picture with a better view of the vintage things:
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The Budgetiest Bathroom

There are a couple of rooms in this casa over here that I haven’t visited via the blog in many moons.  One of those rooms is the master bathroom.  I’ve tweaked a few things here and there since the last you heard about it and I guess none of them seemed newsworthy (not like anything on this blog is though) until last week.  I added a few little somethings that made a world of a difference and it only cost me $16.  I’ll get to that in a minute.  First, let’s get up to speed by starting at the very beginning.

Here’s what the room looked like when we were touring as potential buyers:
Random 470Too much plain and too much brown, if you ask me.