Grateful Heart

Finally have the stair case board and batten ready to show.  It was fairly easy to do.  I got some ideas on Pinterest.  I went between framing out the walls and board and batten.  We chose the board and batten route with the taller walls.

I also found a company on Etsy that makes vinyl lettering for your walls.  "Begin Each Day With A Grateful Heart" is one of my favorite quotes so I had the letters done up for this long wall at the top of the staircase which you will see later in this post.

Staircase Before

Staircase Before

After.

Staircase with Board and Batten applied.  Terry used inexpensive MDF boards to do this project.  We kind of figured it out as we went along.  You can find several "how to's" on Pinterest.  The board and batten is painted white.  The wall above the board and batten is a light gray.

The board and batten closed in the staircase a little bit but I am ok with that because it has a more finished feel now.

We continued the board and batten around the landing in the upstairs hall.

For the risers I found this paintable border on the clearance at Lowe's for $5 dollars a roll.  It is embossed  and I thought it would give the risers some personality!

It took 3 rolls of border to do the 15 stair risers.  Not bad for $15 dollars.

After we cut each piece we applied wallpaper border paste to the back.  Even though these were prepasted borders we felt the paste would hold up better.

This is the saying I had done up for this wall.  The letters look like they were hand painted onto the wall.  Easy peasy to hang this saying.   

Now every morning when I head down stairs to start my day I am reminded of this beautiful saying.

I had this old window from the old house.   It needed a place to be hung.  Unfortunately I am out of wall space and was excited to find out this chippy window would fit in this space above the stair case.  I hate when pretty chippy things are left in storage!!!!  This was a great place for this window to take up residency.

Tall walls are always hard to figure out what to do with them.  Decor is hard to find to fill in these awkward spaces in a house.  I do love the simplicity of the window to fill in this wall space.  I see my saying each day on my way down stairs.  The wreath brought a little texture to this space too.  I wanted this to be simple and to feel finished.

I am happy with the board and batten to fill in these tall walls and love the  lettering to make the decor feel simple and easy on the staircase.

 There you have it the stairrisers and stair walls got a little make over.  Using MDF boards made this project very inexpensive and easy to do.  Now the walls going up the stairs do not feel as tall and boring.

Before the makeover every trip up and down these steps I could feel the staircase and walls saying  make us pretty and give us some style!!!!

Hope you have a wonderful rest of this week. 

Hugs,

Kris

Parties:
Inspire Me Tuesday
Wow Us Wednesday
Thoughts of Home

Blessed Nest

Happy Labor Day Week End.

Enjoy this last fling week end of Summer.  I am a summer girl.   I am hanging on to these last few weeks of summer.  It has been beautiful here in Chicago land in the low 70's with windows open and a cool breeze coming in the windows.  Love love love it!

Summer is trying to hang on!!!! The weather man said by mid week we will be back up in the high 80's with lots of humidity.   Summer for us is not over just yet.

While I was down doing inventory in the storage room of fall items I came across this sweet little chippy bird house.

What is this precious little chippy bird house doing packed away in the storage area???!!!!!!!

That little chippy came up stairs and found a place to hang out in my dining room.

I added some flowers and this cute little blessed sign to this chippy love.

Yep this needed to be placed up on the chippy china cabinet.

We are certainly blessed with our new nest.  This new nest is feeling more and more like home every day.

This staircase and stair risers are almost done and ready to be debuted.  Bye bye boring tall plain walls!!!! I hope to have the post up tomorrow or Monday on this transformation.

Stay tuned to see the change up on the stairs.  Have a great and safe week end.
I am enjoying a lot of activities with my family this week end.  Holding tightly onto these last few days of summer.
Happy Labor Day Week End.
Enjoy.
Kris

Wooo Hooo Being Featured Over At Shabbilicious Sunday

The sweet and wonderful Kerryanne from Shabby Art Boutique blog is featuring Junk Chic Cottage Two

today.  Hop over and check out my feature and also if you have not met Kerryanne you MUST check out her fabulous blog .  Thank you Kerryanne for the feature.

Have a great start to the new week.

Hugs,

Kris

A Simple Move And A New Project

Hi Everyone.

Sometimes just moving something from one place to another in your decor can make a difference.

A Simple Change.

I had put the Vintage Garden Sign back up at the top of the new re loved door.  I liked it but then thought maybe that is too much and not letting the door shine on it's own.  So I just took it down and moved it.  Easy Peasy!

Just moving the sign off the door lets this door keep her character. 

The vintage garden sign looks so much better in the entry way.

Now this beautiful door can shine on her own.

In Other Crazy........

Now that we have gotten the big stuff done since we moved in I am finding time to start to tweak things a little bit.  We have this stair case that has really tall walls.  I think about 12 feet up.  That makes the stairs feel open but very boring.

So Terry and I are embarking on a project to solve the tall boring wall problem.

Hope to have the post up soon on the changes to this stair case and the entry way.

Have a great Friday and beautiful week end.
Hugs,
Kris

Vintage Door Re Love

Hi Everyone.

Here is that lovely vintage door I found at  Vintage a shop in Morris re loved into my home.

I am not sure what it is with me and doors but this one grabbed my attention as it sat lonely in the corner of the shop.
It was screaming I need some love!!!!

This was the first thing to go in her re love.  Just a basic old door knob and let me tell you was well attached!! We (meaning Terry)  actually had to saw the door knob off to get at the inside to remove this.  It had years of rust to keep itself attached to this door!!!

Once we had the old door knob off I was able to attach this old cast iron knob in its place.  Much better look for this old girl.

Ok I really had no business bringing this home since wall space in the new place was full.  It was like going into a puppy store and not coming out with a puppy feeling when I saw this door.  I knew I had to have it.  Plus the price was right!!! So with no place to put her I started the search  what  wall and vignette could be switched up to accommodate this beauty?

Ta da found the perfect spot!  Yep, behind this new re loved Habitat cabinet would be a perfect place for a re love door right??!!!

This door has found a new place in my decor.  It is hard to see in the pictures but the glass in this door is beveled and gorgeous.

She is a keeper!

I still kept my garden vignettes on top of the cabinet.  The lovely door blended right in.

Now this vintage door has a new spot in Junk Chic Cottage II.  I love to rescue and re love pieces that have lots of history and charm to them.

Have a great rest of the week and week end.
Hugs,
Kris

Powder Room Reveal

Bathroom with old counter tops before removal.

We removed the old counter top and back splash.  As you can see it did a lot of damage to take off the back splash.

It took lots of filler, spackle and sanding to these walls to get them smooth again.

It took some time but we finally got the walls smooth.

I was not real thrilled about the lighter counter tops without stain.  The floors in the powder room are a dark wood.  So I taped off the walls and the sink area to prepare before applying a darker stain.

I got out the darker color of stain we used on the kitchen counter tops.  

Sorry this picture is so grainy.  It is so hard to get pictures in this small powder room.  There is no natural light.  I like that counter top now matches closely to the floor in this room.

I put the light on to get a less grainy picture but you will just have to take my word that this room came out nice with the new counter top.

I got these cute little chippy barn wood pieces at one of my fave shops in Morris.  The Feathered Nest.  I used one under the old church window and another one to hold a towel by the sink.

Sorry I did not have nicer pics of the powder room but I am loving it now with the new counter top.

I wanted to show you this sweet chippy love I got in Morris too.
Vintage is another shop I love in Morris and this little sweet thing was hiding in the corner of the shop.  It was a steal for an old vintage door like this.  The shop owner had it marked down because of repair needed to it.  No issue with that for me!!!!
Stay tuned to see what I do to transform this beautiful piece of history and re loved it in my home.

I will have that post up soon.
Have a great start to the new week.
Kris

Powder Room Spruce Up

Hi Everyone.  Hope your week is going well.

I got home from my mom's in Florida and the treatment she will begin with the Cancer Center  sounds very encouraging.  Thank you for all your powerful prayers and good wishes.  So appreciated.

As you know we had a whirlwind moving into this place and getting almost every room painted and updated in less than a month.  So we quickly went through a lot of the rooms.  I have my powder room on the first level and we painted and hung some of my chippy pieces, but I still was not real happy with it.

I did not like the builder model faux marble sink and backsplash in this powder room bath.  Terry has some butcher block pieces of wood in the garage so I asked him if he could make some kind of new counter top for the vanity out of the wood. He said why yes I can!!!!! So awesome this man!

So here is the before shots:

Little Cooper photo bomber watching my every move as I took pics of the powder room.

Here is the sink top.  Just a builder faux marble beige sink top and they took some pieces to make the backsplash.

Nothing exciting about this vanity top.  I really did not like the color.  The vanity top had a darker cream color with lots of yellow.  Just did not like it against my light gray walls and chippy whites in there.

Here is how it looked this morning after taking down the back splash and counter top.  You can see the damage to the walls where the back splash pieces were.

I was hoping to show you the reveal today but with the damage to the walls we are needing to do a little more repair than expected.  Lots of spackle and sanding involved!

Terry has been working on that task and so far so good.  

We are taking off to spend a couple of days at my daughters to watch these two angels.  Abby is excited that we will be having a sleep over at her house.

We only live about 20 minutes from them but my SIL is working a 48 hour shift at the fire department and my daughter is working two very long days starting tomorrow.  So it will be easier if we just move in there for a few days to watch the girls.

Abby already has games lined up and movies to watch at the sleep over party.

I promise we will get back to this bathroom Saturday and I hope to have pictures up on Sunday or Monday to show you the reveal.

Have a great rest of the week everyone.
Hugs to all of you and again thank you so much for the best wishes and prayers for my mom.
Hugs,
Kris