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

2013 ~ New Beginnings

I feel like it's time I come clean.

I am horrible at keeping up with this blog.

{but you guys already knew that}

I'm not here to have a pitty-party or anything but to be fair we have had A LOT going on this year.

Everything has just been one hit after the next.

We've experienced two deaths of fellow friends that has hit us hard, along with that,

my husband has been dealing with medical issues.

In his right hand two of his fingers just decided to go completely numb and he has lost a majority of his strength in them.

So add that all into the mix of the every day highs and low of marine corp life, work, school, ya know, the whole shebang  && you get a very very tired Jordyn haha.

{p.s. I have been sick non stop, this weather needs to make up its mind!!}

Blogging has just been low on my priorities lately.

SO, There is my long over due apology, I'm sorry!

But I promise, things have calmed down {I hope at least} 

Sooooo, I'm back.

Because I'm determined that 2013 will be a way better year!

&& with that being said.

I have a project to show you!

A few months ago I picked up this amazingly old antique dresser.

It was in pretty bad shape,

even though the girl before me had put a lot of time into stripping the old paint down, it had a lot more of work to go.

After days of sanding {seriously} a bottle of mineral spirit, this baby was ready to paint.

I have NEVER experienced paint like that before, it just would.not.come.off.

layers upon layers upon layers of bubbling paint.

it was a nightmare.

BEFORE:

I love love love this style of dressers.

they are my absolute favorite.

You have no idea how long it took to get all these layers off.

But with an antique like this, it REALLY needed it.

The paint had bubbled and cracked all over.

And not a "pretty" bubble crack either.

As you can see, there was lots and lots of paint, it would not budge.

I let mineral spirit sit on this for a few hours,

then I sanded, and sanded, and sanded,

&& gave up when it felt smooth haha.

 AFTER:

I have a lot of white & grey furniture in my house downstairs,

so for this piece I really wanted to bring everything together.

I thought the white & dark walnut would make the dresser match better against my dining room table

{to see pictures of that check out the link here}

Both this dresser//buffet && my table are antiques.
Making them the same color made it feel like these were apart of a set.

As you can see, I have yet to find the perfect hardware for this baby.

It is a lot harder then it seems to find something that looks just right,

& 8 of them in fact haha.

I am SO in love with how this turned out {surprise surprise, ;)}
It feels like it just belonged here.

Plus I love the contrast of the dark wood with the bright white.

{paint color is white dove by valspar}

The bright white looks so good next to my vintage silver accents, so it's a win win.

and it's not complete without a little chippy owl in the mix! 

Remember that bottle candle holder I found while thrifting??

{link here}

Well it's mate didn't last through my plane ride back home,

ever since I have been moving him around until it found the perfect home, right there on my buffet :)

I love the old key wholes on this piece, the gold also tied in the eclectic mix of finishes I have downstairs in my house; oil rub bronze, silver & gold.

And what's a buffet without fresh greenery && a yummy candle??
{calvin klein bitter sweet vine. he seriously makes the best candles ever}


So what do you think? I'm completely smitten with this old beauty.
By the way, did you see that my blog got a little re vamp?
I thought it was fitting, new fresh start to 2013 for my blog.
Also don't forget to check out my Facebook as well! I will be updating a few things around here on both the blog & Facebook page. Tutorials, Home Tour, Projects. ect. So keep your eye out!

Facebook link Here!


xoxox
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

What we have been up too: Dining Room

The day has finally come.

I've come to a conclusion, things will always be "in progress" at my house.

I'm just that kind of person.

Ideas are always going in my brain,

SO, I figured I should probably share what we have been up too lately.

My dad left town at the end of last month, yeah I know, he was here awhile! haha!

But his presence was highly appreciated.

We have gotten so much done in such a small amount of time,

I can't wait to reveal what we have done so far to our cute little home :)

I'll share with you all some photos of it now & some plans for what we want to do eventually.

So without further ado let the showing of our home begin!

Dining Room:

This table didn't always look like this.

Funny story about how this table came to be.

We had already bought a dining room table from Pier1 Imports when we moved in

but if you know me, I am ALWAYS on Craigslist & Lejeune Yard Sales. &

I stumbled across this beauty. I was in Washington at the time & had the Hubby go pick it up because I had to have it.

But once I got home from my trip I was pretty shocked to see that the table was yellow.....not white, yellow.

And not even a cute yellow, it was a mistake. & you could tell.

Someone put oil polyurethane over white paint and it was just hideous.

So then the project began.

Here is a shot of what the table & the dining room space looked like before.

I forgot to take better close ups but trust me. It was not that pretty close up.

Before:

Sigh, I loved those lamps. 

The hubby accidentally broke one so now one has found a new place in our home {the office}

I have to find new ones for the dining room once we get a new buffet table

{the table pictured is now our tv stand in the living room}

After:

That chandelier was actually a lejeuneyardsales find,

before it was an off white color which had to be changed since my furniture is white not off white ;)

Initially I had been debating between two different lights at Lowes:

vs

Can be found {here} && {here}

How much was my find? 15 dollars :) Including the can of spray paint.

Now don't get me wrong, I am still drooling over that Allen & Roth one.

I probably will change it & find a different home for my lejeuneyardsale find.

But 200 dollars seemed pretty steep for a house that isn't Mine & the Hubby's forever home.

But then I remind myself, I can always take it when we move ;)

 The Plan:

I love how much progress has been done since we bought our home, before it had dingy white ceilings, green & tan walls. Half of the downstairs was carpet and the other half was linoleum.

• We opted to make the whole downstairs hardwood rather then section it off like it was with the two different floor choices so that it would feel more bigger and open. 
• We chose a light color on the wall to brighten up the space since we are an inside unit and have no windows other than the one by the door & the window in our back door in the kitchen (opposite side of the room not pictured above ^)

So I hope you enjoyed seeing what we have been up to in the dining room && what we plan to be up too soon ;). I will be back tomorrow with another "what we've been up too: Kitchen" version.
Have a  happy Tuesday!

Xoxo
Jordynluise