DIY

DIY – Rattan Side table Upcycle

| The Bee Life

Embarrassingly enough, this upcycle has been 11 months in the making — eeek! Part of it was sheer shelf doubt and being intimidated about using and installing rattan for the first time. On top of that, I did not find too many other DIYs for installing rattan in the way I was going to use it, another stumper, so there was a lot of thinking and planning. Did I mention, I was intimated about installing rattan? Luckily, I finally got over that because, ultimately, I love how this piece came out!

This upcycle was pretty low budget, as I utilized 90% of materials I already owned from previous projects (like my Sideboard Glow Up) — but I’ve linked everything below if you’re a first timer a furniture flip.

Makeover Supplies:
– Rattan (17″ x 3.3′)
– Wood Filler
– Hand Sander
– Liquid Nails
– Wallpaper
– Magnolia Chalk Paint & Wax Sealer
– Round Felt Furniture Pads

My Total Cost: $46 (liquid nails + rattan)

For an 11-month project, this was fairly simple as it was just a paint job and switching out the side panels. One added touch to get rid of some of the gaudy was filling in the detail on the bottom front with wood filler which instantly elevated the piece. I had left over chalk paint and had already worked through the kinks of using Chalk Paint, so I knew what to expect when it came to painting with it — although I still did not LOVE working with chalk paint, I at least knew what to expect. The wax seal definitely helps protect any surfaces that are going to be high-traffic.

Let’s talk about the rattan. Removing the original metal was pretty easy, I just cut it out with wire cutters. The rattan I purchased does recommend soaking prior to use, so I did soak the roll before cutting and installing into the sides of my table. Disclaimer, I don’t think this was the easiest furniture piece to install rattan on and my method definitely wasn’t perfect, but it worked. This table had a framed alcove for the rattan to fit into, so my goal was to utilize some liquid nails to glue into the framed alcove. This was messy and not ideal. I ended up utilizing some dowels with painters tape to keep the rattan in place while everything dried — that definitely helped! Again, this wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t have another way to keep in place, nailing wouldn’t have worked, so I also made sure to try to get as much of the rattan stuffed into the framed alcove as possible for added support.

The final finishing touch was adding in the wallpaper — I had some scraps from the Sideboard makeover that I had planned to use, but then my mother-in-law gave me some wallpaper scraps, which fit this piece so well, so it was a no-brainer to utilize those! I added this to the inside back and then a few pieces on the inside top, just for an added touch. 🤩

This is the perfect little plant stand/side table with space for a little accent decor (thrifted books & a vintage picture of my great-uncle) while still showing off the pop of wallpaper and the classic rattan sides. And I love how it ties into the sideboard and can be used in different spaces around our home as we change things over the seasons. Would you want this piece in your home?

See More of Bee’s Before & Afters: Sideboard Glow Up, Moody Side Entry, & Glam Front Entry

Before & After: Moody Side Entry

| The Bee Life

One of our first spaces we made over in our home was our side entry. Ironically we didn’t use the space much besides going downstairs and rarely used it as a point of entry… until our kitchen renovation. By using it more, our needs for this space changed and it just felt like it was time for a refresh — we wanted to do something a little more bold compared to the rest of the house, we were especially inspired after our glam front entry makeover.

To get this project started and start making decisions, we started curating inspiration and creating a mood board for the space which included a mix of function and design. For shoes, we utilized an 11″ cube storage solution, which also became sort of a dumping ground within each of the bins. Also the shelf and hooks were crammed and small — it all made the space feel tight for an already smaller entry. We weighed the pro’s and con’s and had to lower the wishlist that would be a bit friendlier on the wallet and timeline.

What We Did:
– New paneling on lower half of stairs for a cohesive look – this included wood filler, sanding, caulking, priming & painting.
– We made a custom shelf that was wider with boarder trim that we raised much higher
– Electrical Update: The original light fixture had an exposed wire along the ceiling, so we worked with an electrician friend, cut open the ceiling and the wall to reroute the wiring & ended up installing a new fixture
– We did a lot of painting, which included priming, two different blue colors for our two-tone look, and even painted the ceiling
– New stair runners
– All new organization solutions for the space

BEFORE

Let’s talk budget

As I mentioned, we definitely scaled back some of the plans to try to be more budget friendly – but this project still added up quickly with the wood updates and all of the paint. We ended up priming everything, painting the darker blue and then the light blue, AND THEN the ceiling (which luckily we already had ceiling paint). Lot’s of painting and a lot of time with the wood. Electrical updates are expensive too especially when wire is involved, but this was a nonnegotiable for our project since we wanted to get rid of the wire running along the ceiling! When it comes to doing your own home projects, definitely weigh the pros and cons that make an impact for you and your space. Sometimes that is time and we are willing to spend more to outsource and get it done quicker, than if we were going to do it — and others it’s spending a little more to change something that has always bugged you.

Project Breakdown:
– Paint & Wood: $270
– Decor & Accessories: $250
– Electrical: $140
– 35+ hours of work

TOTAL: $660

My main goal for this space was to be more intentional with built-in finishes, like our custom shelf and wide border trim. I also really wanted to make this a statement like our front entry… wallpaper was honestly a pain for the front entry and super expensive, so that got crossed off the list — causing me to be a bit more creative with the impact. I’ve always loved rooms that are all one color, including the trim, accessories, etc. so I grabbed some paint samples and put some on the walls to see what B and I liked.


It’s amazing to me that by painting this small space a dark color and making a few other design tweaks, this space could feel even bigger than the white and grey space we had before! The custom shelf being raised with the hooks being spaces out is also another reason why this space feels big. Painting the door was another last minute decision that I’m so glad we did, because it really just creates and makes this space complete. I pulled in lighter wood and orange accents to really compliment the blues. We also painted the light switch cover, railing the wall color for a full take over.

Eliminating the cube for our shoes has also been really great, the basket holds my shoes and we switch out seasonal to our front hall closet to what we need here. The same goes for those wooden bins on the shelf, we switch out seasonal items to just what we need, so that we don’t have a catch all — it’s worked out so great and has been easy to maintain. We also have some extra hooks going down into the basement for additional storage and overflow as needed for seasonal/Moz’s items/hats or for guests!

We’ve been living in this space for awhile, I definitely want to hang up some more photos, I considered doing the frames the same color or doing all gold frames for a speak-easy type feel and mix in some vintage and images of things we love for an eclectic feel — still trying to figure out exactly what that might be.


Shop our finishes: brass hooks, wooden bins, shoe basket with lid, accent rug

Anthropologie Holiday Candle Dupe

| The Bee Life

It wouldn’t be the holiday season without another Anthropologie dupe! I did a dupe this year on the Frosted Bottle Brush Tree Candle. This honestly was super easy, with endless options to customize and create your own. Originally these candles are priced anywhere from $68 – $16, these candles I duped were about $14 each or less.

The candles I found were at Home Good’s and Marshall’s by a brand called Sand + Fog, they were $7.99 each but came with painted lids with holiday prints. I also made sure to find holiday scents since I’m gifting them for Christmas gifts! Luckily, I had a decent amount of mini bottle brush trees from previous years, so I only had to buy a few new to create this craft.

DIY Shopping List:
– Candle of your size or choice, ideally with a wooden lid
– Bottle brush trees: 6.5″ Assorted Set OR 6″ Set from Target OR 4″ Set from Target
– Hot glue
– Paint or spray paint as needed

Step-by-Step:
1. If your candle lids have a print on them, paint them white or color of your choice. You may need a few layers depending on the design. If you have a plain wooden top, skip to the next step!
2. Remove the base on your bottle brush trees, and trim off the excess wire with pliers. You’ll want the bottom of your tree as flat as possible.
3. If your bottle brush trees are all the same height, you can take pliers and cut a section off the bottom in order to have different heights.
4. Before gluing in place, play around with the heights and amount of trees you fit on the lid — I fit 3-4 trees depending on the size.
5. Once you have your placement figured out, generously apply hot glue to the center base of your trees and put into place – if your trees are taller, you may need to hold the tree in place.

So Many Brush Bottle Trees, So Little Time. As I mentioned, this can be tailored to your design and style and truly make it your own. I love a little more retro flair with my Christmas decor, so I found these cute retro bulbs and gold trees to mix into a few of my candle tops. On some of the plain green trees, I even added more white paint to make them look like snow-covered — you can also play around with spray painting the trees to whatever color you want. Finally, I do think adding in various heights can help add depth to the candle top, unless all the trees are different like the gold, silver, and white trio at the very top (which is one of my favorite ones!)


What do you think? My anthro dupe is definitely a different vibe than the inspiration, but replicating the originals would’ve been pretty easy to do by sourcing different bottle brush trees. It would be really fun to grab an extra-large candle to create a little bottle brush forest on top!


Check out my other high-end holiday dupes:
❄️ Pottery Barn Snow Globe Place Setting
🎄 Anthropologie Monogram Ornament
🔔 Christmas Village DIY
🎅 Nutcracker Napkin Rings

DIY – Nutcracker Napkin Rings

| The Bee Life

Oversized nutcrackers are definitely all the rage this holiday season if you follow any home DIYers on the gram. I’ve always loved nutcrackers since I was a little girl, and pulling out our nutcrackers each year to decorate was always something I looked forward to doing with my mom. So when I saw these little 2-packs of plain wooden nutcrackers in the Dollar Spot at Target over the fall, I snatched them up and brainstormed fun, easy, and affordable DIY, napkin rings!

The best part of this project is that it maybe cost me $17 to make — if you’re starting from scratch estimated $34 which comes to a little over $4 per table setting, as this makes enough napkin rings for 8 place settings. Which is well under the non-sale price of these similar Crate & Barrel nutrcracker napkin rings that start at $6.95 each.

I had old shower curtains that I utilized and then only ended up buying the blush chalk paint, utilizing other spray paint and colors I had, that would fit into my Christmas decor color scheme.

DIY Shopping List:
– Mini Wooden Nutcrackers | $3 ea.
— This 5 count at Michael’s is a good substitute | $4 ea.
– Metal Circular Shower Rings | $10 – $12
– Hot Glue or E6000 Glue
– Spray Paint – Color(s) of your choice
— Blush Pink Chalk Spray Paint | $8-10
— Metallic Gold Spray Paint | $10
— Olive Grove Chalk Paint | $36 (don’t recommend buying just for this project!)

Once you have everything from there, this DIY project can be pretty simple. You can paint your nutcrackers all the same color, get more intricate and paint faces and detail out their outfits, or you can do a color scheme like I did mixing in your holiday colors. Mine are green, blush, and gold! One thing to make sure you do is to paint the bottoms of your nutcrackers, as that will definitely be a focal point to guests at the table.

Once all your rings and nutcrackers are painted, you’ll want to glue your rings to the back, bottom of the nutcrackers. I utilized hot glue, but recommend E6000 for a better hold that is a bit more durable. Wah-la!

Now you’re hosting holiday ready! The best part about this project is that you can always repaint these in a few years to mix up or adapt to your changing holiday decor and style. I also like these, because they’re smaller to store in your decor.


Check out my snow globe Pottery Barn place setting dupe.

House Tour: Basement Makeover 3.0

| The Bee Life

It’s been 8-years since we purchased our home, and last fall we finished the next stage of our basement makeover which has been in progress since 2018. I can’t believe I haven’t shared it, because this really just ties a bow on this ongoing project – it’s also a space that when we purchased our house I had 0 intentions for our basement and for it to merely serve as a basement for storage and other basement things. I hope this post also serves as a reminder that in a world of Before & Afters in mere seconds through an Instagram reel, that house projects can take time and also evolve… and that’s OK!

Here is a quick timeline of our basement projects;
– 2018: Waterproof & create initial living space + $60 shiplap wall
– 2019: Remodel basement bathroom
– 2021: Build drywall, add french doors, and built-in bar

The Compromise

I will totally admit, that this third phase of our basement makeover was initiated by B (in the midst of our kitchen being ripped apart no less!). He was itching to build an actual wall — I was having a tough time trying to invision the best configuration AND I felt how we had it worked out fine… well once I spent some time to give B the wall configuration and it started coming to life, I was instantly in love! Our compromise for the project (B wanting to do drywall, me not as into it) was if we could add a built in bar as well along the new wall. I showed B the vision, and we both had a game plan to work through phase 3.

In addition to building a wall to replace the make shift drop cloth wall, we also built around our furnace to consolidate our storage and other equipment from the main area in our basement and added a bi-fold door! This was part of my hold up, since I wanted it to be more than just a wall to seperate the rooms, but more encompassing of a few other things for our basement space.

What We Did

In addition to building a real wall in place of our make shift drop cloth wall, we also worked to enclose the storage area and the furance and water heater. From there we started dreaming about how cool it would be have double french doors from the living room area to the rest of the basement, we had actually talked about that many years ago as big goals. And then we made it happen! Installing the french doors was definitely not fun, and probably should’ve been like 4-person job – but somehow we did it, with all the credit going to B.

For the built in basement bar, we wanted to keep this as affordable as possible – so we ended up getting the pre-fab cabinet bases from Lowe’s — one compromise for this was having 24″ depth, it took up a little bit more of our living space than I would’ve preferred, but getting custom or skinner ones was significantly more! We scored my champagne fridge on sale and then used nicer plywood, glued together and created our own counter top that we stained in our go-to Walnut and polyurethaned the top for extra protection, again an affordable route!

We were already blessed with a bright basement with big windows and lots of them, but painting the basement white with waterproofing and the overtop, definitely help brighten up and clean up this space from it’s dingy blue walls.

Our basement was a blank slate, that we’ve turned into something. We’ve added function, additional living space, a whole new bathroom, and storage! And now it’s just time to live in it and enjoy – although since the 2020 C-word, we haven’t hosted with overflow in the basement as I always envisioned, like the guys downstairs watching the game, with snacks on the bar and mixing their own drinks – maybe some day!

Cheers to constantly evolving and making these a bit more beautiful than the way we found them!

DIY – Sideboard Glow Up

| The Bee Life

I’ve been itching for a DIY project, and as much as I love the looks of our sideboard that transitions seamlessly from our living room to our dining room, our project skills and taste have improved since we first did this project back in 2016. The functionality and size of this piece are ideal, so there was no sense in trying to find and buy something new, we just needed a little glow up. After much brainstorming, I saw @hotpinkpineapples cabinet makeover and was instantly inspired to recreate this beaded look on our doors — the color was just throwing me.

To throw it back to 2016, we found a battered bookcase on the side of the road and added doors to it to create extra storage for glassware, entertaining, and games. The legs on the bookcase have always been questionable, so with this glow up, I also made sure to reinforce and take the time to fix some things overlooked with the first make over – like new legs, reinforcing the bottom, taking the extra time to sand the doors to remove some of the roughness and using wood filler to create a seamless look.

Makeover Supplies:
– 4″ Wooden Legs with Metal Leg Plates
– 25mm Wooden Craft Beads (I got 3 packs)
– 1-inch edging
– Gold Acrylic Pulls
– Wallpaper
– Magnolia Chalk Paint & Wax Sealer
– E6000 Glue
– Wood Filler
– Gold Spray Paint (for the old hinges)

This was my first DIY with Chalk Paint… and let me say, I was not impressed, actually super bummed. I did the chalk paint because it’s supposed to be easy, durable, and little prep. I ended up sanding the old piece for the wood, but never primed anything… and as I was in the finishing touches stage the paint easily chipped off, or was stripped entirely when I was applying the wallpaper all the way down to the original dark wood grain. I wasn’t happy! So I made sure to get the wax to give it that protective finish – I did a couple coats on the high-traffic areas but am not convinced it’ll hold up. I also put contact adhesive shelf liner down inside to help with the chippy chalk paint.

Another learning on this DIY was gluing all the beads on, super easy, but the glue had a lot of leftover cobwebs, which was annoying when it came to finishing/painting – so either be careful or super diligent when you are gluing to avoid unnecessary webs. I am really happy with the 25mm size of the beads with my larger doors, they definitely make a statement!

Since the front was getting a glow-up, the inside also needed a makeover too. I wanted it to be a fun party inside, especially since this holds games, additional glassware, and other entertaining supplies. I think the fun tropical leaf pattern in black, white, and grey is super chic and lots of fun. What do you think?

I’m low-key obsessed with this makeover, and have found a small place for some green in my home with accessories and supporting pieces! Working on this project definitely got my creative juices flowing, it’s amazing when you spend the time creating and making something how that stems into other ideas and thoughts in other aspects of your life. 🥂

DIY – Stair Runner Upgrade

| The Bee Life

Our first project of the year is complete! After being sick most of January, we finally had enough energy to conquer this project which was a quick 3-hour project with a huge impact. After seeing Peony and Honey’s stair runner makeover, the wheels were spinning, but nothing started to move. It wasn’t until we put our removable stair treads back on our bare wooden steps that I was not loving the look anymore! So I did a little extra research, found some runner options, and pitched the idea to B.

We had a two-tiered staircase with a larger landing with bay windows going up to our second floor. So there was some debate about how to treat the landing – which may still be coming, but for now is going to be bare wood floors. Regardless, we needed to get two runners for our project to account for the two runs. We figured out our length needed by measuring the stair height and tread and then multiplying it by the number of steps to get our total length in feet. Oh! And this is definitely a two-person job if anything to help keep the carpet tight while the other staples in place.

DIY Shopping List:
– Runners according to your measure length – we ordered a 2x10ft and a 2x12ft rug
– Electric Staple Gun
– Staples
– Pliers
– Exacto Knife

I was honestly hoping this project would be a little more affordable, but we ended up picking out runners that were more expensive, which drove the majority of the budget. The runners are definitely more plush, which was good for hiding the staples. This one couple, which was part of my research did theirs for $100 – so it’s definitely possible to do this on the cheaper end with some more affordable rugs and different nailing tools. This DIY project was around $360 for us.

Before we got started, I vacuumed and washed the steps with Murphy’s Oil Soap to make sure they were super clean (& dry) before we put the runners on. After all of our construction, they definitely needed it! The smaller of the two stairs took us a little over an hour to get the runner on, and then larger steps, closer to 2-hours because it was a little bigger and these are the main stairs you see from the first floor.

Step-by-Step:
1. First you start at the top of your stair, with the flat end of the rug – make sure it’s centered within your stair with equal length on either side before stapling into place. Stapling along the sides of the rug and top is key to getting it secure!
2. Make sure it’s tight, as you work into both back of your stair to fold over top on the stair topper.
3. Once you get to the first ledge, it’s important to fold over and staple along the length to keep it in place and tight! Ours was tricky because it was very plush, so finding the sweet spot in between the plush was crucial to getting a tight and secure staple in.
4. Basically rinse and repeat down your stairs! You definitely get the hang of it after the first couple of stairs.
5. Once you get to the bottom, get an exacto knife to cut your leftover rug. We put a piece of wood underneath as to not damage our flooring and get a good straight cut across. Using heat along the cut edge will help from fraying – I suggest a heat gun. (We ended up cutting a little longer, and folding under to avoid the fraying).
6. Afterwards, I went back and replaced any staples that were super noticeable, or hid them by adjusting the rug with pliers ever so gently. I also went and reinforced any sides and areas that moved more than I liked.

  • Dog Sitting on Stairs

B and I love how this turned out – and it is definitely an upgrade! As I mentioned, we may add a runner to the landing that matches or update the landing rug on the second floor to match this as well for a little more cohesion. I also feel like we need some new curtains for the bay windows… *immediately opens the Target app*.

Anthropologie Monogram Ornament Dupe

| The Bee Life

As soon as I saw Anthropologie’s Monogram Ornaments, I was instantly in love, instantly inspired to create my own twist. So here is my easy Anthro ornament dupe. (I mean, I’m not saying mine are cuter than Anthro’s but they’re still cute!)

Since this was pretty similar to a Pottery Barn place setting dupe I did a few Christmas’ ago, I had a pretty good game plan of recreating these monogram ornaments.

DIY Shopping List:
– Plastic Large Ornaments
– Mini Trees (Gold or Silver)
– Wooden Letters
– White Paint
– Cotton Balls
– Ribbon
– Hot Glue

Step-by-Step:
1. First things first, you’ll need to cut an opening in the bottom of your plastic ornaments. This was a bit tricky to figure out, and should be done very carefully!  I used a sharp mini Philips head to poke a hole in the bottom. Once I had a hole, I used a Uline knife to cut a smaller circle for the opening, go slow and wear gloves to protect your hands. Repeat based on the number of ornaments you’re making – this is the least fun part of the whole project!

2. Before you get this started, you can start painting your letter. Make sure to paint both sides – pick fun colors that will coordinate with your metallic bottle brush trees. The bottle brush trees I recommend are also a bit too tall, so you’ll have to pull the bass off, cut about a half-inch off, and then reattach the base with some hot glue!

3. Using thicker paper, trace a circle using a drinking glass that is rounder than your ornament, trace, and repeat to cut the same number of circles as you have ornaments. These are your bases!

4. Once your letter is painted, and your tree is trimmed it’s time to hot glue your letter into your tree! You can try this out before committing with the glue, but just rest the letter in nicely. Then you can glue the tree to your base, pull apart a cotton ball and glue it down for your faux snow. Afterward, you can push this up into the ornament and glue it around the base at the seam.

5. With white paint, you can create a snow top, on your ornament – I needed to do about 3-4 coats of the white paint until it was thick and nice. You can then use pipe cleaner or ribbon to add a finishing touch around the base. Using ribbon and pom-poms you can dress your top however it works with your letter!

Gift to friends, family or trim your own tree with a fun keepsake ornament for the year! I may be making a few more of these – but for now, these are the finishing products.

Happy Holidaying!

House Tour: Basement Bar DIY

| The Bee Life

Ready for a fun reveal? As we’ve been in influx awaiting the official go ahead for our kitchen, we of course found another project to keep busy with. So why not build a wall in the basement and create a built in bar?

A few years ago, we created a ‘finished/unfinished’ space in our basement for an additional living space with a TV, $60 DIY shiplap wall and some deep couches. To help section this off from a storage area, we created a wall with a large drop cloth and piping, which worked great for an easy, temporary solution – but the plan was always to create an actual wall… eventually. Well, B had been itching to build the wall, and I told him I really wanted to add a built in bar and shared some inspiration, so together we worked to figure out the spacing and how we could pull it together – but not without a few disagreements of course.

To keep it somewhat simple, we bought prefab base kitchen cabinets from Lowe’s — we originally wanted to find something a bit more swallow, but everything was super expensive, so upon searching we found a taller wine fridge and compromised for deeper cabinets. From there we needed to figure out a counter top, all your typical counter tops at Lowe’s were either super basic and blah or a bit more than we wanted to spend, so upon doing some research B found this nicer plywood that we could stack, glue, stain and polyurethane to create our own counter top. It actually came out way better than expected.

Once we had our base all figured out, it was time for the fun part – decorating! We were able to utilize some left over gold handles from a previous project for our cabinets, that give it a modern and sleek look, pulling in the gold accents. I went with a simpler approach to two parallel photos vs. a gallery wall like I was initially thinking – it definitely keeps it cleaner with the two stacked shelves on the right side. We got the brackets off Amazon and then bought the shelves, that were a little more expensive but a nice sleek look that we were also able to stain and polyurethane. We also got the wine glass holder from Amazon, which fits perfectly and has ample counter space still underneath it.

A few other fun touches include the artwork, that B and I ended up hand painting ourselves – I did the fun Notorious B.I.G. quote and B did the champagne bottle! We also had to get oversized snack jars for some sweet and savory treats, although I can’t say they’ve been staying full. Moz also has her own filled with her favorite treats. Lastly, we finally have a place for the cocktail books we’ve received over the years – and the Fancy AF book inspired me to also make this an unofficial Bravo Books library – more to come as my collection grows! Some greenery and other fun bubble trinkets also helped finish off the space.

We are finishing up painting some french doors that will open and close also into our new basement space – which will make it perfect for any guests who may end up staying in the future. The space has seen a complete transformation – and we also now have an enclosed nice big storage closet on the opposite side of the wall too.

We can’t wait to host some friends, catch a football game and eat some snacks – because that counter is also big enough for plenty of food and we’re stocked with plenty of beverages!

Shop Our Look: Oversized Snack Jars | Gold Hand Pulls | Gold Shelf Brackets | Gold Wine Glass Rack | 4.6ft Artificial Palm Tree | Frigidaire 34-Bottle Wine Cooler | Larger Base Cabinet | Smaller Base Cabinet