jars and a vintage galvanized bucket and cute little wooden boxes that I can hardly stand the thought of getting it all dirty. I know I must actually put it to good use (you know that whole form meets function thing) and that it is very handy for doing actual potting. But, sometimes I wish it could just stay like this forever! ~Vanessa #MayGarden

transforming a sweet and simple mirror into a coastal beach beauty!

With the addition of rope and seashells this mirror makeover couldn't be easier! The most difficult part is sitting for a few hours gluing rope around and around in circles. The key is to keep your rope tight and even, trimming it off at the end and then looping back around with a new row.

After rope is applied, attach starfish using hot glue. Heavily coat shelf ledge with mod podge and layer with sea shell filler. Allow to dry. Visit me over on the blog for even more photos of this "mirror Cinderella story!"

attempting to keep things light and bright. Much needed new carpet makes the biggest impact and with other new touches here and there I'm ready to put a fork in this room and call it done! ~Vanessa #BeforeandAfter

(had to get at least one chicken pun in here). Totally not my very own original idea, but still a fun one.

On a side note, I washed it out thoroughly before I planted in it.

#BeforeandAfter

#summerstyle

The oak cabinets were ugly and basically non-functional: narrow, hard to get access to the back of the corner cabs, and the doors were hung backward by the original builder! In record time, they were replaced with open shelving.

We removed the cabinets from the wall, then removed the doors from them.

Those doors became the shelves, and the cabinet walls were ripped into strips to create the brackets to hold the shelves on the wall. Painted white, they were ready to go up within a day - AFTER the walls were painted!

A fresh tan paint color on the entire kitchen (walls AND ceiling) unified the spaces that had been split by the overhead beam and 'bay' area on the window side. (Unseen in the photos, a new track light was installed on the backside of the beam to brighten up the area). White paint on the window trim made it seem much larger and more open than the previous wood tone. [BTW, the rest of the plan was to paint the lower cabinets white, unifying the whole kitchen. I never got that far before we had to move.]

The wood shelf brackets were screwed into the studs, the shelves screwed onto the brackets, and the project was done.

Then I filled up those shelves and the counter space below them with functional and beautiful elements - and those shelves held over TWICE the amount of kitchenware than the cabinets ever had!!

Best part? This project cost us nothing but time:

We had the paint (our whole house was painted that color), we had the screws and sand paper and tools, and we used the old cabinet wood for the new shelves. It turned out so well, we ended up doing exactly the same thing in the laundry room, too!

#MyKitchen #Before&After