Studio Steps Makeover - Diamonds {and Chocolate} Really Are This Girl's Best Friends

here are few things that a girl loves more than chocolate and diamonds, except maybe chocolate, diamonds, and words that inspire. Honestly, I've never been the type to go gaga over real diamonds, but I do love a nice diamond patterned floor. So I'd like to share with you how I brought all those elements together to makeover the steps in my studio.

In the very beginning, the landing and steps were covered in old carpet. I pulled it up and was pleased to find the nice wooden stair treads underneath. I knew they'd look great painted. But first I primed everything.




So after I painted the steps and landing in my studio a deep chocolate brown, I felt the landing needed a pulse. I needed to do something to bring it to life. Nothing like a few diamonds to perk up an otherwise plain space. I went to work masking off the diamonds...



and then painting in the masked areas with white.



What a difference a few diamonds can make! Oh, look! Speaking of chocolate, another gratuitous photo of Mrs. Gumball Machine herself! Diamonds become her, don't you think?



I have always wanted to put words on stair risers and this was the perfect opportunity. I thought about painting them on in the same way I did our fireplace, but it would have been really hard to get down and work on such a weird angle. I suppose I could have hung by my ankles from the ceiling, but that seemed a bit silly and impractical. Instead, I took the easy route and ordered my chocolate brown words from Vinyl Words. It was very inexpensive and easy as pie to apply!





Here are a couple of before and after shots...I think that the only thing I want to do now is add a horizontal piece of narrow trim at the bottom of the first step to cover the ugly tile grout line and to keep things nice and crisp looking. There was trim there when we had carpet - now I see why it was there to begin with. {The grout is clean, but very old and dingy looking. I need to come up with a solution for all the grout in the studio and am thinking about grout stain...hmmm...}But other than that, the studio step makeover project is complete. One more project down!








By the way, I'm entering this project in a home improvement contest. If you would like to rate it to help me win, you can click here. Just scroll down to the bottom of the entry to rate! Thanks!


If you enjoyed this do-it-yourself project, be sure to check out the DIY party going on at Kimba's Soft Place to Land right now - LOTS of great completed projects to peruse! Also, check out the fun Stare at My Staircase party going on at The Stories of A to Z!

From Gaudy Art to Fabulous Chalk Board

irst I'd like to say thank you for joining me here at my new home! Everything is pretty much the same, you'll see. I have simplified the categories and you'll notice that the comments from the last few posts have disappeared, but everything else is intact. If you are a follower of my old blog (www.owcl.blogspot.com), I would greatly appreciate it if you'd follow me here now instead as I will no longer be updating the other site. As I mentioned in my last entry on my old blog, I will be hosting a giveaway soon for those that begin following me here in the next two or three weeks. Be sure to update your subscription if you have one as well! { Thank you! }

Make Your Monday: From Gaudy Art to Fabulous Chalk Board

Folks, if you haven't done so already, you must go to your nearest thrift store and purchase the biggest, gaudiest, most unattractive piece of framed art you can get your hands on. Watch out for other shoppers who are there for the same reason as they may try to run you over to claim the last one. {Well, more than likely, most other shoppers will wonder why you would pay good money for such atrocious art and they will feel pity for you due to what they perceive as a total lack of taste and class on your part. But nevermind those shoppers.}

Now, take that awful piece of framed something home {in my case, it was a lovely bullfighting matador. Yeah, I know.} and paint the frame. If you're fortunate, you will have found some art with a nice sturdy frame. Mine was wooden - totally worth the $9.99 I paid for it!



You may want to prime over the art itself to keep anything from bleeding through and to give the chalkboard paint something in which to stick. I can't tell you how gratifying this step was for me. Buh-bye bullfighter!



I next distressed my frame a bit, taped off the frame, and spray painted the middle with chalkboard paint. It took a few coats and honestly, I think next time I'm just going to use the brush on chalk board paint to avoid drips. I didn't have any problems until I neared the end of the spray can and then it started to drip a bit. But I'm very pleased with how my gaudy art to fabulous chalk board project turned out! I found the perfect spot for it in the kitchen, though I had intended to put it in my studio.








I ended up using two cans of chalkboard paint but one would have been PLENTY. I just used extra to try and cover up some drips (didn't work). I spent around $20 total for this project.

So there you have it! Have you done a chalkboard project yourself? I'd love to see it!

Now, off to find some ugly framed art for my studio...

___________________

Edited to include the link to a fun Frugal Friday link party going on this week at the Shabby Nest and Kimba's Soft Place to Land DIY Day! Check out the other great projects!}

Reflections

Every house where love abides
And friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home sweet home
For there the heart can rest.
~Henry Van Dyke

A Touch of European Inspiration

often like to imagine that I live in a quaint and cozy thatch roofed cottage much like the one in this painting, tucked away somewhere romantic and idyllic like Provence. Ah, beautiful Provence! I like to imagine such things especially when I glance up at the ceiling in the living room and see the 8 X 6 inch patch of missing "popcorn" {which sometimes snows down to the floor in the middle of the night} , or when I sigh hopelessly at the weeds I've managed to grow in my so-you-call-this-a-garden? garden, or other things that are not very Provence-like. I am a "head in the clouds" kind of homemaker, that is to say, while I should be cleaning or menu planning or doing laundry, I'm thinking up ways to try to make our home like the cottages I dream about. I don't have to tell you, dear reader, that it is really quite therapeutic and satisfying to do a few small creative makeovers and knick knack shuffling and Voila! Is this a French cottage I'm beginning to see peeking through the popcorn and weeds? Perhaps so!

I've collected a few beautiful vignettes from tourist and decorating sites or shops and I hope you enjoy looking at them as much I do. I apologize that I can't remember where I found a few of them...

{country living}

{country living}

{country living}

{country living}

{country living}

{farmhouse wares}

{farmhouse wares}

{family linens}

{the blissful}

On the home front, hubs returned from a nearly week long business trip last night and brought back the camera - the camera that I had planned to use last week to document some of the things I've been working on. I will share those soon. Note to self: Hide the camera the next time hub goes galavanting Buy another camera. :)

A Month of Sundays

nd so it has been a month of Sundays since my last entry. Has the idea of a lazy summer, complete with swimming hole swimming, porch swing swinging, ice tea sipping, and of course, recreational blogging, become a thing of the past? No, surely not - but sometimes such simple pleasures have to take a backseat for a while so that life can take the wheel and get to where it needs to go.

Ours has been an unusually busy summer so far. As I've mentioned before, our place of worship was just remodeled and all the work was volunteer - so we helped with that along with our regular weekly volunteer work. During this time, we also had a two day Bible education program that we attended the first week of June, then a special visit from a traveling minister and his wife for a week. Tomorrow, we are leaving for another (3 day) Bible education program, which is out of state. I've been packing and cleaning and planning for our trip for a week now, along with spending some time with a dear friend that's visiting this week from Pennsylvania. So all of this has happened within the last four weeks and as you can imagine, I haven't had a moment to focus on much of anything else.

There is a time and a place for everything, though, and after this trip I want to share with you a few decorative changes that I've made to Twice Remembered recently. Like most of you, when I have guests over, I'm motivated to "fluff the nest" and spruce things up a bit. And I've still been making my weekly trips to Goodwill and always find a little something special to bring home. More and more, our home is looking like a little old French style country cottage. I often think about how years ago, more than anything, I wanted to buy a hundred year old, dilapidated house (with lots of character!) to slowly fix up over the years. That didn't happen. Instead we bought a nondescript 30 year old house to work on...for years. But it is interesting to slowly see the backwards progression of our home. It really is starting to feel like that 100 year old cozy farmhouse I envisioned for so long.

I hope all of you are having a delightful summer and I look forward to being back on my regularly scheduled program after this trip! Take care and we'll "see you" soon!

And the Winners Are.....!

've posted the names of the winners of the three Cottage Charm Giveaways I offered this year. Just click on the links below to see who won!

Giveaway #1 (for hostesses)
Giveaway #2 (for everyone)
Giveaway #3 (for those adding banner to blog)

Thanks again to EVERYONE who made this years Cottage Charm Giveaway event a great success! I hope everyone had fun!

Cottage Charm Giveaways: Just One Week Left to Join

any thanks to all of you who are participating in this years Cottage Charm Giveaway Event by hosting giveaways on your blog. We couldn't do this without you! For those of you who are thinking about having a giveaway, there is just one week left before the big blogwide drawings on May 30th. You have until then to post your giveaway and then let me know so that I can add your link to the giveaway list. We've almost hit 50 giveaways and the original goal was 75-100 this year. I think we can still at least reach 75 this final week, so let's see what happens! If you are interested in participating, just click on the banner below for instructions. Thanks again, everyone!