West Elm Knock-Off Rug

I was set on a black & white rug to set down in the kids’ bathroom.  Black & white screams “gender neutral” to me and since I needed all of that I could get in this little bathroom for two girls and a boy, that’s the direction I was headed.

Enter this little thing:
IMG_8655Not black and white (even though it could argue the gender neutral case pretty well) but a great path to getting there since the other side was a blank slate.  You probably read the post about this rug and how I sewed, cut, and frayed the edges to get fringe. 

Now enter the Torres Kilim from West Elm…aka, my inspiration.
torres-wool-kilim-iron-oI saw it first on an episode of Fixer Upper and knew it would be super easy to imitate since the lines are perfectly imperfect.  Rug.  Kids’ bathroom.  Now.

Vanity Facelift

The kids’ vanity used to have no reason to harbor the homonymous vice.  I wish I had a better before but all I have is this half shot:

guest bath b4But you get the jist – the only thing the worn, brown cabinets had going for them are the fact that they are well-made, solid wood.  The cream-colored laminate countertop were (and still are) blah-zay (concrete tops coming soon!), the drain on the back of the sink was rusting and the faucet was old and worn.  The mirror was great but needed an upgrade and the lighting was a builder-grade fixture the previous seller put up.  Those 80’s posts/poles/spindles had to go and, this is completely unrelated in that it’s personal decor taste, but who puts a lamp on their bathroom countertop?! 

Anyway, the lamp and everything but the countertop is now much changed and much better and barely cost us anything considering the change.

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Kids’ Bathe-room

B-A-T-H-E room because of T-H-E hooks…you might remember.  You might not and maybe you’ll need to read this post first.  Either way, we are 90% done (until the winds of change blow usually) with the kids’ bathroom and man, for a room that’s had an upgrade coming for years now, it feels real good.  Here’s what this bathroom looked like before we moved in and were just crushing on the house, thinking about putting in an offer:
guest bath b4

Bow Whoa Whoa

Once upon Sunday, minutes before church, we were rushing to get out the door and I had the girls dressed in the cutest of outfits that would be best topped off with a pretty little bow on their pretty little heads.  The problem?  We had no bows.  I don’t know about you but you might know this about me…I work pretty well under pressure.  Actually, that’s when a lot of my out-of-the-box ideas come loose.  So, with seconds to spare, I remembered I had some scraps of felt laying on my desk.  With a little snip here, a little snip there, a twist here, and a tuck there, we had bows. 

Lemme explain in pictures…

You’ve got a little piece of felt:
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Spotted: Open Doors

There’s no non-awkward way to jump back into superficial, almost-meaningless blogging after my last post so I’m just going to go right in, head-first with…

*drumroll*

another round of Spotted – things I’ve seen at local thrift stores!

This time I pranced the secondhand corridors of quite possibly my favorite thrift store here, Open Doors Ministries Resale and Thrift Store.  Their prices are awesome (at least half that of Goodwill!) and they always have something good when I go in.  Always.

This time was no different.  I went in looking for a light fixture for the kids’ bathroom and after looking where I had seen light fixtures in this store in the past, came up short.  But, BUT, when I went up to the checkout desk to ask if they had any more light fixtures anywhere, the lady behind told me “Did you check the room in the back?”  WHAT?!  What room in the back?!  Y’all, there is a WHOLE ROOM/AREA FILLED WITH LIGHT FIXTURES in the back of the store that I had never known about!  Mind you, I’ve been scouring this thrift store for over a year now.  Crazy!!  Behold:IMG_3693I know it’s hard to make out from this angle what exactly is in there but to the right there are shelves of lights and light parts.  It was nuts.  I still didn’t find what I was looking for (I needed a two-light fixture and lucky found this one later on sale on Amazon) but you bet I will be back to hunt down something to replace the boob light in our master bathroom.

Anyway, besides all the cool chandeliers I saw that I didn’t need, I spied all of this stuff: