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Spring Fling Home Tour
It is SPRING!!! I’m so happy that it is spring because the weather will be getting warmer and I can not wait to be outside enjoying the sunshine. Today, I’m sharing my Spring Fling Home Tour! That’s right, I’ve updated everything again for spring with fresh blooms and greenery. And this time, my cat and dog did not eat all of it. *WINK*
Since I just did a St. Patrick’s Day tour, I’m going to let the photos do most of the talking, with a few blurbs here and there as needed.
I would describe our style as neutral, modern, farmhouse. That may or may not be a real style, but I’m going with it.
In our living room, I moved a mirror and boxwood wreath above the sofa and kept the decor simple with a few of my favorite flowers, hydrangeas.
Our kitchen was recently updated with new countertops and a beadboard backsplash. (You can find all of the details and see the before photos here.)
I love to add pops of green to a room, since I feel that it adds a little life to the space. Because no one likes a dead room, right?
Our open shelving didn’t get springified much, since space is limited there. I did add one small faux plant though!
The breakfast nook also looks quite a bit different than in previous home tours.
I found the new (to us) dining chairs at a garage sale for just $1 each and will be sharing how I added the numbers to the backs next week. Stay tuned!
I hope you’ve enjoyed checking out my neutral, modern, farmhouse spring home tour. To see more of our abode not shared in this tour, check out the St. Patrick’s Day Home Tour. If you want to see more amazing home tours and styles, check out the links below. My friends have shared some amazing spaces, so hop on over and check them all out!
Day 1: Transitional and Vintage Decor Style
Day 2: Eclectic Style
Day 3: Farmhouse Style 1
Day 4: Traditional Style
Day 5: Farmhouse Style 2
Lehman Lane
Elizabeth Joan Designs
My Creative Days
Farmhouse 40
My Life From Home -
Giving the Kitchen Counters an Update
If you’ve been around here for awhile, you may remember when we painted our laminate countertops a little more than a year ago. Initially, we loved the new look and the counters seemed to be holding up pretty well. However, after some wear and tear, they started to PEEL. Eek! We put up with the peeling for awhile, but it made the counters constantly look dirty, so it was time to give the kitchen counters an update. You can see the new pretty countertops below.
Just in case you need a refresher, here are some photos of the evolution of our countertops/kitchen. The counters were an almond color laminate when we moved in.
Next, we updated the kitchen cabinets with paint, but left the counters the same for a short time.
We knew we wanted to change up the counters, but because of other home improvement projects, we opted to save some money and try to paint them.
Unfortunately, this is what they looked like after about 9 months. When we painted them, we were planning to use oil based paint and poly, but ended up purchasing a latex based poly against our better judgement, thanks to the
badadvice of our local hardware store paint guy. Don’t these look creepy?
I’m sure that we could have sanded off the poly and reapplied an oil based option, like Varathane, which would have held up much better. However, we are a little more limited now that we have pets in the house (who sometimes may or may not climb on the kitchen counters) and wanted something that we could just put in quickly vs. several days of drying time for the poly.
We decided to go with the Saljan black mineral effect countertops from Ikea. They are super inexpensive and we knew we didn’t want to put a lot of money into the project, since we probably would not end up seeing a return from it when we decide to sell our home.
These countertops were pretty easy to install ourselves. In all honesty though, we did have one oops and had to purchase an extra counter. (Make sure not to drop them after they have been cut!) My hubby cut them to size, including space for the sink and range, and we had a ready to go work surface within a few hours.
We’ve been living with the new countertops for about a month now and they are working out great so far! You may have also noticed a few other changes going on it the kitchen (Hello beadboard!) and tomorrow I will be sharing my spring home tour, so stop by then to see more details!
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Printable Easter Bunny Banner
Today I’m sharing a super fun, vintage, printable Easter bunny banner/bunting. These neutral little bunnies will look so great almost anywhere around your home and are perfect for welcoming Spring/Easter. Check out how I used them to decorate below, then download your own banner for FREE!
I snagged the hare image from the Graphics Fairy.
You can print these out on regular printer paper or cardstock (plain white or colored!) Once printed, cut each out along the lines with a paper cutter or scissors, whichever you have on hand.
To make the bunting, I also cut out colorful cardstock a little bit larger than each of the banners and glued them on with a tiny dab of glue in each corner. Using a craft knife, I made two small straight openings on each piece of cardstock.
Then I strung them up with some baker’s twine. Festive, right?
There are so many things you can do with these banners!
Attach one to a wooden dowel and hang it on the wall (or from your front door) to welcome guests.
These would also look great framed or hanging from the back of a chair to fancy up a table setting. So many possibilities! Below I added one to our Mouse Trap Photo Holder for display in the kitchen.
To print out your own banners click {here for large} and {here for small}.
Thank you for stopping by to check out these vintage bunny printables! I hope you enjoy using them and would love to see any creative or crafty things you may use them for. If you are looking for more Spring inspiration, check out these two fun projects!
DIY Split Pea Wreath This beautiful split pea wreath is the perfect way to add a little greenery to your home. Plus, it’s super easy to make!
Gardening Easter Basket Looking for an alternative to candy this Easter? Glam things up with a gardening Easter basket featuring golden goodies.
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You may also like:
Wood Box Caddy 
Summer Hosta Wreath 
Placemat Pillow 
Eye Shadow Easter Eggs -
Afternoon Chit Chat – No. 1
Hi Friends! How are you doing? I hope you all are well. Sometimes I feel like I get tunnel vision with this blog and will just pump out project type posts with tutorials. And honestly, I’m sure that can sometimes seem a little boring and impersonal. Since the beginning of 2016, I’ve really wanted to try to incorporate some more personal posts, but I have not really done much of that. So, this post is going to be a general update about life stuff, with a little touch of home sprinkled in. So, grab a cup of tea, coffee, or whatever you like to drink in the late afternoon (margaritas?) and let’s get chatting.
1. Seasonal Depression & Sickness
I don’t know about you, but I think that I’m slowly turning into one of those people that suffer from seasonal depression. (Clearly, this is self diagnosed.) I’ve been really down and think it is because of the shorter days and colder weather that ends up keeping me more home bound. It’s been hard to be motivated at times, especially on those days that I would rather just stay cozy in my warm bed. However, last week, the weather took to turn for the better and I feel like a new person. Well, except for some crappy post nasal drip that started shortly after it got warmer. Stupid allergies. Anyway, here’s hoping that spring is just what I need to get my motivation back!
2. St. Patrick’s Day Home Tour
Did you see my St. Patrick’s Day decor earlier this week? I joined in with a fun group of ladies and we all shared how we decorate our homes for the
leprechaunsholiday. Since I usually do not go over the top with holiday specific decor, I stuck with bringing in some greenery (real and faux) and adding a few lucky touches, like an Irish blessing on my chalkboard, an old horse shoe in the foyer, and a pretty green shamrock plant that my puppy decided to attack (see below.) Do you decorate for St. Patrick’s Day or just stick to gussying things up for bigger holidays?
3. The Curse of the Black Thumb
I may have mentioned this before, but I’m not very good at keeping plants alive. There are 2 in our home that have been around for more than a couple of months (The Fiddle Leaf Fig and a Pothos Plant) and I’ve figured out that their survival has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them not needing any sort of fickle care. In addition to my own struggles with plant life, I now have a couple of plant assailants living with me! Harper, our Golden Retriever pup, and Rowan, the sly white kitty, both enjoy attacking real plant life, as you can see in the photos below. The scariest part is that plants can be really dangerous for animals, but luckily we haven’t had any major issues with them ingesting the plants. They mostly liked to bat at them or just pull them apart and spit them out. Any suggestions for keeping them away from our greenery will be greatly appreciated!
4. Update on 366 Project
The 366 Project (where I attempt to take one photo everyday for a year) is going alright. I haven’t been able to keep it up 100% though. There was one day that I took a bunch of photos, but my camera did not record any of them onto the SD card, two days I didn’t post because I felt like poo, and one day where I completely forgot. Oops! But I’m trying to let go of my perfectionist tendencies and just allow myself to be OK with that. Which is soooo hard! My goal was to be able to record the journey of our family/lives this year, so I’m just going to keep on plugging away with it. Here are a few of my favorites from the past couple of months.
5. The Inside Scoop on Room Makeovers
We have a few big changes going on in a couple rooms of our house and I’m so excited to share them. Recently, we’ve completely made over our powder room and the kitchen also got some major updates that you won’t want to miss. Stayed tuned next week to see what we’ve done!
So, that’s what has been going on around here the past several weeks. What have you been up to? Any fun home/decor makeovers? Are you looking forward to spring too? Join the conversation in the comments below!