home decor

DIY – Christmas Village Houses

| The Bee Life

Of course, I wanted to share this a week earlier – but I have been super behind on all things Christmas this year, we JUST got our tree and decorations up this past weekend. BUT – I have been crafting away and can’t wait to share my two latest Christmas crafts this week. The first one was inspired by social, and I just had to recreate my own – it’s using wooden birdhouses from Michaels and turning them into Christmas Village houses, the best part? Totally customizable to your Christmas decor and colors! Here is how I DIY’d a birdhouse in three different ways – because what started with a good normal idea, turned into some fun as the creative juices got flowing.

DIY Shopping List:
– Bird House of Your Choice:
– Brownstown from Michaels
– Corner Lot from Michaels
– Craft Paint & Paint Brushes
– Pipe Cleaners (I used Gold & Silver)
– Glitter (I used the colors ‘Sugar’ & ‘Gold’)
– Mini Trees (optional)
– Hot Glue & Modge Podge

Anything else that might be festive or ‘Christmas Village’ related could be used as a finishing touch to your Christmas birdhouse – I definitely got created and created my own pieces from what I had.

a Retro Christmas Birdhouse

I had the Corner Lot Birdhouse for some time, as I had big ambitions a few summers ago to do some birdhouse crafts – so when I was inspired to create, I was trying to work with the birdhouses I already had. I started somewhat bold with the color choice for my Corner Lot Birdhouse… and I quickly was regretting it and going to scrap it since I was able to secure two Brownstones. But, as I started to dig through my craft supplies, I found my silver pipe cleaners, had a mini silver bottle brush tree a silver, green and blue jingle bells. I was instantly inspired to create a retro Christmas birdhouse. And, oh my gosh I’m obsessed. The silver bottle brush tree also fit perfectly in the little corner behind the fence.

Painting Tip: For clean lines, I used tape to create a clear line between the fence and each house, the back houses as well. There are also a lot of nooks and crannies so take your time and be prepared to paint!

Glam Brownstone CHRISTMAS birdhouses

My original plan for the Brownstone Birdhouse was to go white and gold, which goes perfectly with all of my other Christmas decorations. Painting this white, was definitely tedious, but also relaxing – I did have to do multiple coats with the white colors, at least 3 or 4. Darker colors only took about 2-coats. As I worked through my Gold Brownstone, I still wanted to do something colorful, but not so bold as the retro house, and something that would still fit into our decor – that’s when I was inspired to create a pink and gold Barbie Brownstone to go with my Barbie tree (she is definitely my favorite!).

Creating garland and the wreath’s for finishing touches was also fun and used with pipe cleaners. I wrapped at least 3-4 pipe cleaners to create fuller wreaths to hang on each of the houses. The garland was created with at least 3 pipe cleaners woven together and then I added some clear beads along for added detail and to look like lights. To finish off the pipe cleaners also really added a pop along the base and roof lines to really give these a finished look – and the mini bottle brush trees were extra that I had, that were a perfect finishing touch.

The last detail is adding some sparkly snow to your rooflines, stairs and landing – with modge podge I just went glitter crazy and added as a fun pop!

Which birdhouse is your favorite? B loves the white and gold one… I’m a fan of the pink one but also really love the retro birdhouse, since I was about to give up on it early on.

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

Latest Obsessions 09.21 – Bubbly Fun Edition

| The Bee Life

National Prosecco Day was last month and I always first think holy sh** we’re half way through August and Summer is over… and then instantly like, oh but it’s National Prosecco Day. *pops open a bottle of bubbly* — I often joke that I try to live every day like it’s National Prosecco Day… but adulting and life sometimes interfere.

To commemorate a much delayed NPD, I’m sharing a few of my latest process-obsessions. We’re in the process of creating a built in bar in our basement to further complete our intimate basement space — and the best part about it all besides having a new space to decorate is the fact that we bought a champagne fridge! (I mean technically it’s a wine fridge, but we’ll be stocking up on the bubbles). So without further ado, here our my latest obsessions to help make our bar a bubbly sensation!

Prosecco Prints. I am playing around with a prosecco themed gallery wall – I love the idea of pulling in black and white to match our large painting we have in our basement. Fun illustrated bubbly bottle outlines, or even great champagne inspired quotes (ugh, there are so many good ones!) is what I keep coming back too – but can’t decide on.

Bubbly Quotes. OK, so there are like SO many good quotes about champagne (I know it’s NBD) and bubbles. And a lot of them are from the great F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Here are a few of my favorites:
– “Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
– “Among the whispering and the champagne and the stars.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
– “Now we sip champagne when we thirsty.” – The Notorious B.I.G.
– “My only regret in life that I didn’t drink enough champagne.” – John Maynard Keynes

Champagne Fridge. We scored this fridge at almost 50% off – just by chance. We were going to do a bulk online order, and I just happen to just go into the store and saw it was discounted in store! Score – we just had to drive to another location that had the last one in stock. This Frigidaire 34-bottle wine fridge (is actually still discounted from $419 to $319) and fits better with the pre-fab cabinets we got as well. Even better, champagne bottles fit just as easily as the wine bottles. Now, we just need to keep it stocked!

DIY Cork Memories. Another fun little project I may tackle, is creating 3D art with champagne corks that we’ve saved and written on documenting special moments. We have one from our first Christmas married together and a few others – I think it’ll be a fun way to use those, while also creating a custom piece that is special and meaningful to us!

Life of course has been a little nuts, as I had full intensions on sharing this post a few weeks ago on National Prosecco Day, but that’s life! I cannot wait to share our DIY built in basement bar with all our fun bubbly pops and personal touches with you soon!

Before & After: A Glam Front Entry Makeover

| The Bee Life

For awhile now, I’ve been wanting to do a ‘drastic’ decor upgrade to the main floor – either in the living room or dining room. I really wanted to add an accent wall somewhere with some bold wallpaper, but both rooms just don’t have a simple enough wall to be a true statement wall. Then I thought – what if we wallpaper our front entryway? It’s a small space, closed off from the rest of the living room and an opportunity to do something a bit bold – especially compared to it’s pretty basic current decor. Oh, and it’ll be easy and affordable!

The before

There isn’t a whole lot to say about the before except that we had painted her a grey-ish color along with the rest of the rooms on the main floor, added a rug and I did a fun little DIY with some souvenirs from our house – which I love, they’re in the process of being relocated as I type! We have the same original light fixture and that is about it. Take a look for yourself:

the makeover

Super boring, right?

I had two wallpapers picked out; (1) would be a safe option, that would allow us to reuse the current decor and (2) something a bit more fun, glam and daring especially compared to most of my design choices. After consulting with B on both, we decided to go with Glam Option #2! This meant we would be adding in other finishing touches to really pull this space together. Once we had our pattern picked out, we estimated how many rolls of wallpaper we would need based on our small entryway space… welp! The wallpaper added up quickly in rolls and in price, but that was another reason I decided to pick Target, because the peel and stick paper is fairly affordable and decent enough quality compared to other options. We ended up needing four rolls of wallpaper, and used almost every inch.

Wallpapering this space was tough and definitely tested our patiences. We were quickly reminded that our 100-year old house walls are not straight, in addition to having a hell of a time doing the puzzle of making sure the patterns lined up perfectly, while also trying to get maximum coverage from each roll. We got as much of it to line up in long straight pieces as possible, but still had a lot of patching and matching to do. I would definitely suggest sticking to a straight wall for any first time wallpapering projects, especially if you aren’t good at puzzles or have a lot of patiences. We even accounted for starting a few inches from the ceiling in order to be able to get two sheets from one roll (ideally) — starting lower, we planned to add custom ($$) crown molding around the top, as she didn’t have any molding to begin with!

Let me just preference, this glammed up project quickly added up! The wallpaper alone was over $100 and then we probably put in over $100 with just the ceiling updates from the double layered molding to the ceiling medallion that we bought and then spray painted so it would have a pop of gold at the top! Finishing this molding and painting the ceiling, really makes the room look so much taller and bigger. B really did an amazing job repairing some cracks, patching them and then getting her looking like new again.

The side table was also another pain in the butt project, long story short – I was trying to not spend too much on legs for the wood top that we already had (thanks f&d) – and after failing with my “cheap” option, I ended up ordering these hairpin legs, which was the original more expensive option I was trying to avoid and then spray painted these beauties to go with the rest of the room. We also spray painted an old silver outlet cover, that again just pulls all the accents together and pops again this romantic wallpaper.

Now let’s talk finishing touches! The round gold mirror, definitely is the cherry on top — I really was resisting falling on the round mirror trend, but she just does this space so good. I shopped around and ended up finding mine at Home Sense it was the same brass/gold finish I was looking for, same 28″ shape, but $10 cheaper than Target! So if you’re looking for your own, shop around at those home stores for a little better deal. I also snagged that adorable ‘Hello’ gold table top sign at Home Sense, which IMO is just the perfect welcoming accessory to add to this awesome table. Finally, finding a rug that fit this space and warmed it up a bit was key – I ended up buying a few before ending up on this 4′ round woven rug. I’m sure I’ll be adding a few other details to cozy up the space.

Shop My Pieces: Canary Floral Wallpaper from Target / Ivory Woven Rug from Target / 28″ Brass Mirror / 20″ Ceiling Medallion

Even with this project snowballing over budget (even though there wasn’t a budget) and taking a little longer to finish up with some roadblocks — the space is such a little treasure. We get to enjoy it especially now as the weather continues to shift, we ever catch glimpses of the fun wallpaper pop from the living room or even dining room. Now anyone that comes over, will need to come through the front door to soak in all her glam and glory.

Adding Christmas Magic to Your Master Bedroom

| The Bee Life

Since we are home a lot more, there was one space that usually goes untouched most years when it comes to Christmas decorating, our master bedroom. Sure, we always switch out our bedding with some cozy and festive fleece bed sheets — but that is about it. And with our sitting area rearranged from the summer, I thought the space was in need of a little Christmas magic!

Here are three easy ways you can add Christmas magic to your master bedroom, a guest room or any other space for that matter without breaking the bank or going complete Elf in every room, and it’s how I added a little extra sparkle to our master bedroom this Christmas season, that is sure to be replicated year after year!

A Simple Christmas Tree. I had smaller 4ft. alpine tree in need of a spot. With a slanted ceiling in our master by our seating area, this height and tree was the perfect addition. I opted to keep it simple with just some circular LED lights and left off ornaments or a topper — and it adds a bit of magic, especially at night. I wrapped a circular knit scarf around the base for an easy tree skirt!

Festive Fleece Bedsheets. These are an absolute must, especially in your guest rooms — it makes a bed extra cozy and soft. We love neutral Christmas prints or some classic plaid. I always keep an eye out on the sets at Target each year — I am loving the dog print this year, and hope Santa brings it to me for Christmas! Add a few extra accent holiday-themed pillows to finish off your bed with a bit of Christmas!

Greenery & Garland. A few more finishing touches is all you need to finish up adding a layer of Christmas to your master bedroom! An extra bottle brush tree was perfect addition to our side table in our conversation area. I also added some greenery on a mirror and on top of our mini fireplace to give it a bit more of a cozy feel. Lastly, I strung up some gold and white ‘Merry Christmas’ garland over our gallery wall for a little extra sparkle.

Falling asleep to the glow of our little Christmas tree has been such a treat each night, especially since our main floor is so magical with so much Christmas — I often don’t want to leave it, especially at the glow and darkness of the night. Am I the only one like that?

If you’ve wanted to add a little extra Christmas to a guest room, kids room, or even your master — just remember to keep it simple and focus on a few areas to make a statement and sprinkle of Christmas. Like a corner with a little, skinny tree or making your bed a sugar plum heaven to rest your head!

Here’s to More Sweet Christmas Dreams!

House Anniversary Tour: Our 2020 Projects

| The Bee Life

We’re celebrating six years as homeowners! Homeowners may be one of the ultimate adulting moves (besides having kids), as it comes with a mixed bag of unknowns that can be really great and really horrible. This year’s house anniversary tour is going to be highlighting the updates we’ve made this year both fun and not so fun, as we definitely tackled a few while we’ve been quarantined at home!

But, before then — I wanted to share a few of our not so great house moments, since homeownership isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. Before we even moved into our house, our refrigerator busted — that was an automatic couple hundred dollars right off that bat that we weren’t planning on! One of the first really cold winters, we came home to frozen pipes in our kitchen! Since then we’ve learned to run the water over night on those super cold days. Did I mention we live in a 100+ year old home?

Fireplace Hearth Makeover. This was a vanity project that we did pretty early on in quarantine, that was a quick weekend win, once we figured out what tile we wanted! We finally got rid of the original red tile and gave it a lighter update, see the fun before and after here.

New Furnace. This was a not so fun one, but something that B really wanted. The last two winter’s we’ve had to make significant finance repairs to our 25-year old furnace, and B had enough with it! He was able to take advantage of getting a more efficient unit for a decent price with the same company who installed our AC the summer of 2018.

Main Bathroom Budget Update. I loved this project — it was intended to be a temporary update on a space that we will most likely eventually gut and completely redo, so we wanted to make sure this was on a lower budget, while also taking care of a few of our pain points, which were a small, generic counter and sink and the yellowy tiles all over the room. My favorite transformation was painting the tile white, it completely transformed the space! Check out the full makeover here.

Sunroom Flat Roof. This was our least fun project, both from finding a company to do the work to the final price tag. But alas, it was definitely a necessity as we had a pretty decent and consistent leak from our flat roof into our sunroom. Long story short, apparently residential flat roofs are an anomaly and there is a variety of verbiage to describe how to fix these which is super confusing as a homeowner. Thank goodness for good friends with dad’s who are roofers 🎉. All in, we had about 6 different companies quote the project, and consumed about a month of our lives for approximately $2,450. But hey, no more leaks!

Backyard Makeover. Oh, I loved this project. It was definitely under estimated of how much of an impact this would actually make — I didn’t realize how much of a sad backyard we had until this project was complete! We added in some custom beds, edging and modern fences to help hide a few ugly things we don’t have control over. I love looking at our backyard now, it’s so pretty! Click to see the full makeover here.

Office Update. Since working from home has become permanent, my at home office definitely needed a little refresh to be a bit more functional for actually being a home office! This project was low budget, and quick which has made the space feel a bit more complete, even though it’s not pink. See my office update, here!

We’ve had six wonderful years at our house, and it’s always so fun to see how far we’ve come and improvements we’ve made along the way. It’s been a staple of fun memories, parties, milestones, late nights and early mornings, it’s been our home sweet home.

House Tour – Our Fall Front Porch

| The Bee Life

I love decorating our front porch for fall — it is so much fun for me, the colors are incredible the shapes are always different, and I always tend to go a little overboard, but still rein myself in. And because of the stunning floral hoop wreath that is adorning our front door, I definitely wanted to give her a supporting cast of more fall favorites.

As much as I love fall, the thing I love most about fall is the small pumpkin patches and farms I grew up going too. So, one thing, that I’m not sure I’ll ever get ok with, living in/near a city is the lack of traditional pumpkin patches and farms that I’ve known living in a rural farm town. Although we visited my parents earlier in the month, we didn’t get to make it to a pumpkin spot — so I headed to my go-to city spot and stocked up on pumpkins, mums and gourds – to avoid crowds or drive a bit farther out of town.

Besides creating a fun statement on our main front porch around our homemade wooden welcome sign — I also stacked up our steps with mums, pumpkins and even more gourds. If our mailbox wasn’t on our front porch, I would’ve considered doing a complete rainfall affect with all the pumpkins and gourds, but we have to be functional over here too!

The mums were a little smaller and not bloomed yet, from what they normally have been in years passed, but I like the mix of purple and yellow that I was able to get and place them in my white planters. And I even went back a second time after getting my main pieces in place for a few more gourds of all sizes to help finish off the look. I was hoping to grab a few more mums, but they were completely out!

I have fun stacking, layering and mixing up different shapes, colors and textures together with the different pumpkins and gourds, on the porch and along the steps. The colors of fall are truly magical, from the trees to the pumpkins — it is truly a beautiful time of the year, the trees around us are really showing off right now and it’s incredible.

DIY – Easy Fall Floral Hoop Wreath

| The Bee Life

The fall hoop wreath trendy train drove by my house and I jumped right on! And I’m so glad that I did. To be fair, I was planning this for awhile — but I like to wait until October to give in to fall, and I always love a good statement piece for my Sherwin Williams Commodore front door! Best part? I purchased everything online for contactless delivery or pick-up and everything came straight to me!

Two key decisions were made early on; (1) I went the embroidery hoop route vs. a metal hoop, why? Because I felt it was a little more homey and sturdy. Decision (2) I wanted a big hoop, like double the normal size to really fill up my front door. So, because I went oversized with the embroidery hoop I needed to make sure I had enough florals to fill it in, and that they were proportionally sized to the hoop. I also picked colors that were fall inspired, but also would pop and coordinate with my blue door – orange seemed perfect with a mix of pinks and creams.

DIY Shopping List:
– 23″ Embroidery Hoop
– (1) Jumbo Cream Peony Stem (my focal point)
– (2) Sunset Orange Peony Stem
– (1) Cream Peony Bush
– (2) Orange Pom Pom Stem
– (2) Mauve Spider Mums Stems
– (2) Blush Chrysanthemum Stem
– Hot glue gun and glue sticks
– Burlap ribbon / left over ribbon

Estimate project cost: $60

Step-by-Step DIY Instructions:
1. I started with my oversized cream peony to determine the focal point of my hoop wreath – so I plucked it from the stem and glued it on the rim of the embroidery hoop. From there I used the orange pom stems to help add a baseline for where the rest of the flowers would flow. I glued these right along on top of the edge of the hoop and bent the blowers in the arch shape.

2. Next, I plucked the orange peony and cream peonies and played around with arranging them to flank the larger peony. I put the orange peonies on either side of the oversized cream peony and then started to fill in with the pink spider mum and chrysanthemum. I also made sure to pull off some of the peony greens and filled in and layered between flower placement.

3. I made sure to raise one side up higher with more of the orange pom stems and greens! The best part to remember is you can play around with the flowers before finally putting them into place with the hot glue and take it one at a time to build and fill in your hoop wreath. I also didn’t want complete symmetry so made sure to keep it a little mixed up!

4. To finish off the floral hoop wreath, I found some old burlap ribbon and cut a little piece to tie around the gauge part on the embroidery hoop to cover it up to hang on the door hook and on our front door!

I really love how it turned out, and that I went with the oversized hoop — it really makes a statement on the front door, just like I wanted! If you decide to go with a smaller hoop, you probably won’t use as many flowers or need an oversized one and utilize a few smaller floral stems.

Budget Home Office Refresh

| The Bee Life

It’s nearing the end of July and the the fourth full month of working from home, but for the record — it seems like it’s been much longer than 4 months. With spending a bit more time in my home office (like nearly 8-hours, 5-days a week) — I started scheming for an update. As I mentioned in my May obsessions, our office wasn’t intended to be a working, functional office but more of a home for our sports memorabilia while serving as a third guest room space. So keeping this space true to it’s original intent and sports decor, I still needed to enhance the space.
BudgetOffice(1)For this budget friendly refresh I focused on three things; (1) fresh paint (2) new white shelves and (3) large gallery wall with our sports memorabilia.

We have a little blue alcove, I really was trying to add in a fun pop of pink and was thinking wallpapering a tiny sliver of the blue alcove for a fun accent wall within the accent wall.  I searched on Target, and I searched all over Etsy and I just couldn’t find anything that wasn’t going to completely change the whole vibe of the room. Then I thought maybe I’d paint some sort of cool accent wall with the blue — again, I just couldn’t figure anything that felt right, so I pivoted. The blue was in need of some touch-ups and I had some left over Sherwin Williams Naval, it wasn’t the same blue – a bit dark but close enough so I painted!
BEFORE
BudgetOffice_Before(2)
AFTER
BudgetOffice(3)Before we got started painting — we ended up taking our white floating shelves down. This project was one of B and I’s first DIYs we did, and it definitely wasn’t perfect — so we deconstructed and I planned for a new cleaner and streamlined solution to replace them. With a few coats of paint, the blue was looking refreshed and a bit darker. I went for a simple white shelf look with gold brackets. Since I was unable to find gold brackets in stock and for a decent price — I spray painted some white ones that were more affordable! I bought these white brackets for $2.28 each and used gold spray painted I already had and they turned out pretty perfectly. I bought white laminate shelves pre-cut that worked perfectly and were bigger for the space.

Pro-tip: Spray paint the screw tops too for a seamless look once you install. 

The final and biggest piece that took the most time and most money (about $160) was putting together a gallery wall with all the various sports photos and other fun sports souvenirs into a big gallery wall on the large back wall in the office. Luckily I already had a lot of the artwork and frames, but there were some new pieces that we needed to help fill in the space. Some of the fun new additions included a display case for my baseballs, a larger vintage print of Yankee Stadium from the 1920’s and then a fun shelf to display some of our Cavs bobbles heads. A few other frames and prints and we were able to incorporate all our favorite sports teams, memories and a fun race photos too. One fun favorite sports memory that we included was our Game 7: World Series ticket and photo.
BudgetOffice(4)
BudgetOffice(2)
I really love how the gallery wall turned out and it’s definitely the focal point of the room, until you see the fun little desk alcove. Another key part of the gallery wall was pulling some of the 3D elements into the wall and off of the shelves to give those some more breathing space and clean them up a bit! The side roller cart to the right of my desk came from my actual work office and fits nice to be a bit of a desk extender with my monitor set-up along with some drawer storage. Although this wasn’t a complete make over, it’s a good reminder to anyone who is looking for a refresh and are happy with pieces you already own, that you can make subtle and affordable updates to make a fun update!

There are still maybe a few little things and photos for shelves that I want to add, but those are fun little pieces to update along the way. I also have been tossing around getting a pink neon sign for my blue alcove for that pop of pink — we will see! Let the work from home life continue!

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