What jute know about jute;

^ You see what I did there? I'm pretty cool I know ;) or just super nerdy

I've been dying to do this little D I Y ever since I saw a picture on Pinterest a while back.

I fooled myself into thinking that this light we bought from Lowes would be fine as is in our home,

 it was such a good deal & our light before was this hideously outdated fan with gold accents all over it so it just had to go. I've always know this wouldn't be our forever house so I try not to be very picky when a good deal comes up & we can update the house at the same time but with me being me I just couldn't look at this lamp shade anymore.

It was slightly the right color, but slightly not. But what bugged me the most about it was they didn't even carry the fabric of the shade into the inside, which its a huge drum shade so you can see the inside quite clearly. Its a yellowy beige & the inside was bright white.

Sooooooo, I dreamt {thats a word right?} up this beautiful image of wrapping it in Jute in my head. 

We have a ton of jute rugs throughout our house, so it would jive way so much better & add a little texture to the space, which is never a bad thing in my book ;) .

I just waited a few months before asking the Hubs to take down the light he was so proud of putting up in the first place {loooooooooooove you honey!}

BEFORE:

I'm willing to accept that the before really isn't that bad & that I totally made it sound way worse then it really was, but guys, it REALLY bugged me how it didn't match like anything at all in my house.

It also really peeved me that you could see the seams & the plain white inside of the lamp shade so it needed something.

So here's some step by step pictures I took of the process while doing this.

{p.s. if you decide to ever do this to something, make sure you've got a movie on or a DVR full of shows to watch because it takes FOREVER}

I kind of jumped the gun & started but then realized I should show how I did this;

but it was actually super easy. All you need is a few rolls of jute. It took me about 3 & 1/2, which can be bought at Lowes or Walmart. They are about 2-2.50 a roll, so fairly cheap for such a big difference.

All I did was take the roll & start wrapping it around the shade, the first line I tied a small knot at the top & just kept going, that way it held it in place.

This was after about 45 minutes of doing this, and I thought my fingers were going pretty fast once I got the hang of it. I wills say though that the lamp shade itself is a bit more yellowy in person, I couldn't get a good picture of the coloring on my camera,

So basically you just keep wrapping, & tying once you get to the end of a roll or start a new roll, try to make the knots as small as possible, that way you can't notice them.

AFTER;

I feel like the darker color goes much better with the ascetic in my house,

& the fact that I have a lot more jute accents than that yellow beige color that I had none of.

My favorite part about this is that it is all the same the same color//texture, no more two toned light.

{which if you've read my blog for awhile you know I am not a fan of two tone that much ha!}

As far as light goes, I haven't noticed much of a difference in the light it gives off with it being more darker of a color & a heavier fabric//texture, if anything I think it makes it a bit better because the light really poured out of it before.

So there you have it, my D I Y Jute Wrapped Light!

What do you guys think? Do you like the look of it?

I know the hubs & I are diggin' it.

The look he gave me when I first told him what I was going to do & the look he gave me after it was done was priceless. He think's it's pretty rad. ;)

Until next time;

xoxo

Jordyn Luise

p.s. check out my Facebook page  & Instagram Feed to see what I'm up too when I'm not posting!

DIY Chalkboard

This project was so easy you guys!!

Seriously, anyone can do it!

The best part?!?

it costs less than $20.

You can put one of these anywhere. 

I wanted something cool to put on my wall that went with the whole vintage-rusticy

 {I think I just created a new word?! ha}

 vibe we have going on in our house.

Materials:

• 2 pieces of 1 inch piece of pine wood {or whatever border thickness you choose, and depending on the size of your chalkboard you might need more or less}.
• Nails or Staples.
• Picture Hanging Wire & Screws {to make it so you can hang it off the wall}
• A piece of super thin wood {I got mine in the same isle at Lowes as the pine wood}
• Some stain {Dark Walnut by Rustoleum is what I used for this!}
• Chalkboard Paint {I used Valspar's Brand}
• && 2  paint brushes! {I use the cheap dollar ones for stain because I just end up throwing them away}
• & a protective coat. {I use Polycrilic because it is water based and can easily be washed out of your brushes & doesn't yellow over time!}

How you do it:

1. First things First, you need to cut the chalkboard to the size you want. Keep in mind that a border is going over it so make it a little bit bigger than you really want.
2. Cut the pieces of pine wood to make a border around the wood.
3. After that you nail the border together {not too the actual chalkboard}
4. At this point we stained the wood & painted the chalkboard with 3 coats of Valspars Chalk Board Paint
5. After that we then nailed the frame & chalkboard together.
6. Once your chalkboard is complete just screw two screws that are level into the back of the board, leaving them a bit raised & wrap some picture wire around the two to make it easy to hang up!

& viola! You have a chalkboard :)

It is the perfect way to add a little character or fun to a room! We use ours to leave each other messages, for to do lists, reminders & groceries lists downstairs next to our kitchen by our dogs food bowl. I couldn't think of anything to hang about it that made sense or didn't look out of place next to the kitchen or dog food station so I thought it was the perfect fit.

I hope this was helpful!

If you end of making one link one up to my Facebook page!

I would love to see it :)

If you have any questions feel free to email me, comment below or send me a message on facebook!

xoxo

Jordyn Luise

Laundry Re-Vamp

Hey Everyone!

If you haven't noticed already I added a new page to the blog up at the top "Home Tour".

While it is currently under construction, I will be posting pictures && adding links up to my posts about our DIY Renovations// Rooms to that area!

For one of the first posts I thought I would link up our Laundry Room//Closet that I recently fixed up.

It cost me seriously nothing. Less than $80.

Ever since I got a Pinterest last year, {seriously addicting! add me here if you aren't already following me!}

I've been dreaming of redoing this little closet.

It sits right off of the kitchen & is in the hall way by our bathroom downstairs.

It was such an eye sore if the doors were open & I just hated looking at it so I felt it was time to make it less hideous & more functional and pretty.

Before:

It was just boring, an eye sore, & that wire shelf was slowly coming out of the wall.

I would just shut the door & forget about it.

After:

In my opinion, I think its 120% better.

It just looks so crisp & clean to me.

Perfect for a little laundry closet.

Instead of trying to fix that wire shelf I just took it out & replaced it with a piece of pine wood that I stained & sealed. I screwed some brackets to it that I bought & spray painted in Oil Rubbed Bronze by Rustoleum.

Which all together cost me about $20, most expensive part were the brackets, I already had the stain & sealer on hand.

When using the shelf I wanted to put a few things that were functional but also decorative since this part is visible throughout the whole downstairs I didn't want it to be such an eye sore when the doors were open.

Up on the top shelves I bought these two wire bins from Marshalls to store Laundry Goodies.

Extra dryer sheets, spot cleaner, woolite, ect.

Along with that we store our extra toilet paper & bleach up there as well.

I added a trash can so that I could throw the lint from the dryer away right there,

along with the trash can I bought a dish to put all the change & things that I find in our pockets as I do laundry.

Remember the D.I.Y. Laundry Soap Recipe I shared awhile back?

Ever since I made it I have never gone back to store bought, I LOVE it!

If you haven't already check it out here & try it!

and of course the cutest tea light holder ever! I love burning a small "fresh linen" tea light in there, it makes it smell so good :)

& this little beauty I just had to put somewhere,

I had a big space left on the shelf so I thought this would be perfect for here.

My husband actually painted this for me, I had a picture of something similar to this as my background and we had a spare piece of canvas that he decided to surprise me with.

this is the view of the space from our dining room, this little part is right off of the kitchen and dining room and is right next to the guest bathroom.

Best part about it? I can just close it up once I'm all done using it if I don't feel like keeping it visible throughout the whole downstairs!

Not too shabby for a closet laundry room eh?

Sources:

Rug - Marshalls {bought this forever ago but they always get these kind of rugs}

Wire baskets - Marshalls $12.99 each

Wall color - White Dove by Valspar in Satin

Shelf; Wood, Brackets, Oil Rubbed Bronze Spray Paint, Dark Walnut Stain & Polycrilic Clear Coat - Lowes {I had everything on hand except the wood & brackets which were about 25ish dollars.}

Tea Light Holder - Micheal's Craft Store $3.99

White box for dryer lints - Marshalls {it is actually the package a candle came in haha!}

Antique Dish - Marhsalls $9.99

Trash Can - Ross $6.99

xoxo

Jordyn Luise

Fancy Dog Food Bowl

If you are one of my Facebook friends or Instagram followers then this won't come as a surprise to you,

I am a little obsessed with animals.

More so, my dog, Harley.

My husband thinks that Harley is so spoiled, but, can you blame me?!

He is so cute!

There, now that we have all had our photo blast of my fur baby, we can carry on haha.

We are slowly but surely getting our house the way we want it & I don't know if it is just me but

I think that looking at two bowls on the floor is a total eye sore haha.

So I decided I wanted to make a more "pretty" food/water station for Harley. 

A lot of you might remember this entry way mirror and storage unit, I was in the process of selling it.

But an idea struck me && I decided to keep it.

Our house is a town house, you walk in and you see the all the way to the back of the house,

we don't really have a set "entry way" area so this was no use to us.

But I loved the shape of it & adored the curved mirror.

Only would I look at a vintage piece like this && think, HEY lets make a dog food station!

I know what you are thinking, something a long the lines of "uh............what?!"

Yeah, So was my husband.

Here are the materials you are going to need for this project:

• A Jig Saw {Not Pictured}
• A box of some sort {I used the base of the entry way storage, but this could easily be made with some wood & pre made legs at your local hardware store}
• Dog Food Bowls - We actually got mixing bowls from Walmart, my dog drinks so much water that it just gets annoying filling his bowl so many times in a day, we wanted something deeper then the average dog food bowl so we found these in the Kitchen isle at Walmart & they are easy on the eyes to look at && fairly cheap as well {$6 or $7 I believe?} so that was a double bonus.
• Paint & Protective Coat & Paint brushes - I used Valspar's Dark Kettle Black in Flat & Rustoleum Ultimate Polyurethane in Matte Finish, & A separate brush for painting & protective coat.
• I also Used Valspar's Chalkboard Paint & had some chalk that I picked up at Michael's.

Now onto the fun part!

Step 1: Cutting & Placement

Before you start cutting wholes you want to plan out where you want the bowls to go,

Once you have that figured out you want to take the bowl and make a clear cutting line for it.

But when cutting keep in mind you want to actually cut the hole about half an inch in from where you drew the circle.

You want the bowls to sit on top && not fall through the holes, so make sure that the bowls you use have some sort of a lip on them.

Along with these being a nice shiny silver, we chose them as the dog food bowls because of the wide lip around the top of the bowl for that exact reason.

Step 2: Painting & Top Coat

I chose to paint this black for multiple reasons.
This will be sitting to the right of our cabinet that houses our microwave/pantry in the kitchen.
I didn't want to paint it white like most of my furniture because this will be used everyday.
I also didn't want to paint it blue or grey {the other colors in our house}
because I didn't want it to compete with our dark grey kitchen cabinets.
{to see our kitchen update/renovation check it out here}
So I chose black.

Along with painting the entire thing Black I chose to paint the detailed insert with chalkboard paint.
I love that you can't tell that it's chalkboard, it all blends in, making it look classic and simple.
I wanted to give it a fun element by adding the chalkboard and making it more "personal".

Here is a picture of it before I put everything together,

We also loved that this had storage & that it opened up on the top. It was a must for us.
We don't have a lot of storage in our house so I use to just sit the dog food to the right of our fridge.
What I love about this new dog food station is we now have a place to store the food without it being an eye sore.

&& here it is all done!!
I am loving how it looks & isn't an eye sore anymore!

As you can see, Harley isn't the only one who loves his new water & food station.

 

So what do you think?!
I will admit, I was nervous about dismantling such a cute piece of furniture but this is so much more functional for us && I would do it again in a heart beat!

I have other places for the mirror that was once attached to this,

you will later see that when I show what we've been up too in our bedroom which has taken a complete overhaul over the past year.

As long as finishing up random projects around the house we are working on our laundry storage, bedroom & dining room right now.

So stay tuned for more updates on that && some client work I will be showing later this week :)

I hope you all are having a great  day & start to fall!

I go back to school on the 21st so I'm trying to get caught up with all our projects going on around here,

as well as a new job & more client work!

It is finally starting to cool down here in NC.

I am so ready to bust out my sweaters && boots.

I just hope NC keeps this up ;)

Talk to you all soon!

xoxoxo

Jordynluise