Entry Way Updates

Stool Makeover with Gold + Fur

BLISS AT HOME — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:03:28 +0000

We were given a really cute desk to makeover for one of our boys. It came with a little stool that we don’t need for it, so I decided to give it a little makeover and use it in our bedroom. This time of year I am home more and I like to mix things up around the house.

It’s just a basic fold down stool. I forgot to take a before of it, but it was pretty basic. Black legs and a wooden seat. A coat of 18kt. gold spray paint and a little sheepskin cover and I love it.

I also hung the our little DIY Chalkboard above it. I think the simplicity of this is just sweet. As you can see my 4 years of French class have paid off! I joke!

I will be showing you guys some little tweaks we’ve been doing around here. I have been adding a little more gold to our master bedroom.

Connect with Bliss at Home:

DIY Butterfly Art

BLISS AT HOME — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:36:07 +0000

Today I am sharing some easy-to-do art for the Summer Celebration Series. There have been so many great ideas from this group of bloggers! I am so happy to participate in it.

This DIY Butterfly Art is a quick and easy little project you can do to add a touch of summer inside your home this season. I live in the Midwest, so seashells and starfish aren’t around these parts, but butterflies show up in abundance. I like to decorate for summer with things that are native to our area. Now, this summer we are going to the east coast, so I may just have to collect some things along the beach and bring them home with us. We may have something beachy in here before the summer’s over after all!

For this project, I just used some old frames I have been hoarding. These frames had seen better days and the glass was broken out of them, but they are perfect for specimen art. So, hold on to those old frames. You can always use them for something!

I gave them a coat of some white spray paint I had leftover from another project.

Then, while I was out and about I saw this gift bag for only a dollar and loved the pattern and colors so I used it for the background. On the second frame, I just flipped the patterned side over for the solid color. I glued them to the backs of the frames using super glue.

I used faux butterflies that you can pick up at any craft store this time of year and coated them with the same white spray paint I used on the frames.

Once everything was dry, I assembled my frames and used the same super glue to glue the butterflies in place. Quick and easy summer art!

I am using these on my bookcase for a little summer touch and a pop of color.

Be sure to check out Claire’s Headboard Porch Swing over at The Rustic Pig from yesterday and Taryn from Design, Dining, & Diapers is sure to have a wonderful project lined up for us Tuesday! I hope you have been enjoying the Summer Celebration series!

Check out these wonderful blogs for more Summer Celebration Inspiration:

June 9th- Making Home Base// DIY Nautical Wreath

June 10th- House By Hoff// Three-Tiered Summer Planter

June 11th- Migonis Home// Beachy Summer Tablescape

June 12th- Mom 4 Real// Free 4th of July Printable Water Bottle Labels

June 13th- The Golden Sycamore// Vintage Patriotic Decor

June 14th- Crafty Texas Girls// Outdoor Kid Mats

June 15th- The Wood Grain Cottage// DIY Garden Stakes

June 16th- The Rustic Pig// DIY Headboard Porch Swing

June 17th- Bliss at Home// DIY Butterfly Art

June 18th- Design, Dining, & Diapers

June 19th- The Lilypad Cottage

Happy Summer!!

Connect with Bliss at Home:

THE REVEAL>>>Before & After shots of our project

IKEA BILLY Bookcase Library Wall >>> SOURCE LIST

BLISS AT HOME — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:49:57 +0000

Today we wanted to share our sources and costs with you guys. We love to find inexpensive alternatives for our DIY projects. I hope you have enjoyed this series and we will try to cover as much as we can.

Building the Library Wall >>> Source List

(4 ) BILLY bookcases purchased at IKEA ($59.99 each) $260.43

3/4″ Top Choice Birch Hardwood from Lowes $53.70

2×4′s (already had) no cost

Screws (1lb. box is more than you need but we wanted them for other projects) , anchors, brackets, spring roller catches purchased at Lowes $37.49

Liquid Nail from Lowes $5

(2) 8ft. long baseboards purchased at Lowes $32

Crown molding purchased at Menards $15.85

Fast’N Final Lightweight Spackling purchased at Lowes $6.73

Valspar Paint and Primer Semi-gloss (color off the shelf white) purchased at Lowes $17.34

Total cost including tax = $428.54

Library Lights on Remote >>> Source List

(4) Brass Picture Lights from www.lightingemporium.com ($13.49 each + shipping) $62.91

Surge Protector on Remote from Lowes $19.50

Extension cord from Lowes $7

Total cost including tax= $89.41

Hidden Speakers >>> Source List

16 Gauge mini-spool of Monster speaker wires from Best Buy $21.49

Insignia 2-way Indoor/Outdoor Speakers from Best Buy $42.99

Total cost including tax= $64.48

If you would like to see all the posts on our library wall this past week check out these links:

MUSIC >>> How we added hidden speakers & a sound system

LIGHTS >>> How we added brass picture lights & put them on a remote

TRIM >>> How we made our bookcases look built-in

STYLING >>> 7 Tips for styling bookcases

That was such a fun way to kick off Let’s Rock This House! Our next project for this series is Pimp My Patio. We have just started on this one, and will be giving some behind the scenes sneak peeks on Instagram #rockthishouse

Connect with Bliss at Home:

THE REVEAL>>>Before & After shots of our project

7 Tips on How to Style a Bookcase

BLISS AT HOME — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:47:34 +0000

I have 3 places in my home that I love to style the most. I really like all of it, but if I had to choose 3 it would be:

• Bookcases & Shelves

• Coffee Tables

• Bar Carts

Welcome to Day 5 of our IKEA BILLY bookcase library wall reveal. Today, I’m sharing how I style a bookcase.

Here are 7 tips to make your bookcases appealing.

1. Work large items to small items.

1) I like to place my largest item first. It may be a picture frame like it is here or a vase or accent. I usually place this far right, far left, or centered. 2) Medium sized items, usually books fill in. I like to play with this. Stacking books or lining them up. I do both. 3) Last place smaller items. If books are stacked I like to add something on top.

2. Feature 1 item as an art piece.

These antlers are an example of how featuring one item on a shelf works. Antlers are natural, sculptural, and a little quirky. This really highlights their form and adds interest.

3. Group similar items together.

Groupings have more impact than spreading similar items out. A collection stands out when it is featured together like this collection of mercury glass.

4. Place kid items low.

Since this is our family library, we wanted our kids’ books to be easy to get to. Placing their items low makes them easy to grab. Our 4-year-old loves to sit right here and look at his books.

5. Embrace negative space.

Not every shelf has to be packed full of items. I’ve seen a lot of bookcases just full of a mess of clutter and not the classy kind. Leave some shelf real estate. Here a stationery box is front and center and there is nothing placed next to it or above it.

6. Take sleeves off books or add book covers to paperbacks and label them.

Paperbacks usually don’t have the most appealing spines so I like to cover mine. Here’s some details on how to make book covers. I also like to take the sleeves off my hardbacks that have good spines. Mixing book covered books with the same colors and patterns throughout a bookcase also brings unity to a shelving unit with a lot of books.

7. Step back. Reassess. Edit.

There are always little tweaks to be made. It’s better to see it as a whole and then go back and edit out items or add something else in. I had to do this quite often with four tall bookcases.

Our Pimp My Library Wall Reveal is rolling along and tomorrow we will be sharing our source list.

Here’s a look back at this week’s posts on our IKEA BILLY bookcase library wall:

MUSIC >>> How we added hidden speakers & a sound system

LIGHTS >>> How we added brass picture lights & put them on a remote

TRIM >>> How we made our bookcases look built-in

Connect with Bliss at Home:

http://bliss-athome.com/2013/06/10/ikea-billy-library-wall-the-reveal/

IKEA BILLY Bookcase Library Wall >>> Getting That Built-in Feeling

BLISS AT HOME — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:57:49 +0000

You wouldn’t pimp your car and not add custom trim. I drive a mommy bus, I mean a Chevy Traverse, but that’s neither here nor there. Think of this as the custom rims on your pimped out car.

Welcome to Day 4 of our IKEA BILLY bookcase library wall reveal. Here’s how we took 4 IKEA BILLY bookcases and turned them into a library wall. If you want some free entertainment you can see our trip to IKEA Mission Impossible style.

First things first. We removed the old baseboard from the wall. Slowly but surely, I am de-oaking this house of its prior 1994 charm.

You see we had a little helper there. He’s really happy about it! I love that our kids embrace our projects. I don’t think they know any different!

Next, we assembled the 4 bookcases and spaced them evenly along the wall.

Then, we cut out the place where our outlets are so we have access to them. After that, we anchored the bookcases to the wall. Dave went all Tool-Time Tim and had to go get other anchors because he didn’t approve of the ones that came with the bookcases. ARRR-RAGHH!

Now it was time to build a frame to attach our header board. We used 2×4′s left over from another project and anchored a frame above the bookcases. The front of the header board we wanted to go over the bookcases a little so we made adjustments for that.

We also placed our speakers and ran the speaker wires before we continued.

We selected white birch to build our header board. We chose this because of its ultra smooth finish and it didn’t show much grain so it was ideal for painting. One 4′x8′ sheet of 3/4inch white birch was enough for the header and the panels to cover in-between the bookcases. Since really big cuts were involved, we took our measurements and had the super helpful people at Lowes make our cuts for us. This is a great alternative if you don’t have a table saw.

Once the header board was installed, we filled all the screw holes and seams with wood patch. From there it was pretty simple. We added our panel pieces to cover the spaces between the bookcases. We added trim to the top and bottom of the header board and baseboard along the bottom of the bookcases. Then we gave everything 3 coats of semi-gloss white paint.

We also took the time to fill all the shelve holes we weren’t using. We used DAP Fast’N Final Lightweight Spackling for that. It has a whip cream consistency and is really easy to work with. Also, if we ever want to change the shelves around this is easy to pop out.

A couple of days later we received our brass picture lights in the mail and were able to install them.

And that’s it. That’s our little story on how our library came to be.

If you don’t want to miss a thing you can check out these posts to see the details on other aspects of this project:

The big reveal Before & After pictures:

How we installed hidden speakers and the sound system:

http://bliss-athome.com/2013/06/11/ikea-billy-bookcase-library-wall-sound-system-speakers/

How we installed the brass picture lights and put them on a remote control:

http://bliss-athome.com/2013/06/12/ikea-billy-bookcase-library-wall-lights-on-remote/

Tomorrow I am going to show the shelves up close and personal and share some bookcase styling tips and Saturday we will give a complete source list with prices.

Connect with Bliss at Home:

IKEA BILLY Bookcase Library Wall >>> LIGHTS ON REMOTE

BLISS AT HOME — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:02:10 +0000

Welcome to Day 3 of our IKEA BILLY bookcase library wall reveal! We did the before and after of the library wall, showed how we installed and wired hidden speakers and our sound system, and now it’s time for the lights.

When I was looking at inspiration images of libraries, one thing I knew I wanted to incorporate into our library wall was placing brass lights along the top. There are a lot of great options out there, but alas, I am a girl on a tight budget. Most of the lights I loved came with a hefty price tag. It was time to search for an alternative. When I say tight budget I mean meager, small, miniscule! I wanted to keep each light $20 or less. To dream the impossible dream…

Guess what?? I found some!! It took a little searching but I came across these polished brass picture lights at www.lightbulbemporium.com for only $13.49 each and they were pretty perfect. I knew I wanted lights on cords and the light to be 14′ across. I also wanted an adjustable bracket so I could angle them to my lighting needs. This fit the bill so I ordered 4 to go above each bookcase. The shipping was also inexpensive which was a relief!

Now to put them on remote control. There is no way I was going to go up on a ladder and turn each light on. That’s crazy! So, we purchased a 6 outlet surge protector with 4 “always on” outlets with a remote. You can find these at home improvement stores. We purchased ours at Lowes.

Available at Lowes

Remember our dead front access panel from yesterday’s post? Well, this is where we mounted the surge protector. That front panel pops off and we can access the surge protector if we need to. This is also a great little cubby for hiding things, like presents. Shhhh! Don’t tell the kids!

We installed the four picture lights across the top board centered over each bookcase. Then, we ran the cords to the surge protector mounted on the wall. The surge protector runs on an extension cord that plugs into the same outlet the receiver uses. Completely hidden and the best part is the lights turn on and off by the remote. We still have two regular outlets left on the power strip if we ever want to use them for anything.

They do sell LED wireless picture lights on remote, but I didn’t like the light they gave. At night, these give off a nice soft light. They also carry the light bulbs for these at www.lightbulbemporium.com so I ordered plenty of extras for future needs. I would recommend this when using picture lights, because I have heard horror stories of people having a hard time finding replacement bulbs.

Tomorrow we are going to show you how we made our BILLY bookcases look built-in. See you Thursday!

Connect with Bliss at Home:

IKEA BILLY Bookcase Library Wall >>> Sound System + Speakers

BLISS AT HOME — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:02:08 +0000

Just incase you missed the big reveal, here is yesterday’s intro post for our IKEA BILLY bookcase library wall. You can see the before and after shots.

Now, you can’t have a Let’s Rock This House! series and not have music!! That would just be silly!! How would you rock??

One of the things we really wanted to incorporate into this space was to have music wired in. Sound systems and speakers can cost beaucoup bucks so we found a great alternative. We use our IPODS, phones, and old CD’s for our music and for Mother’s Day I got Sirius XM radio.

Here’s what we did to keep cost down and still have great sound and have everything compatible with our existing ways to listen to music.

Indoor/Outdoor Speakers

+

Hi-Fi Receiver

+

Speaker Wire

That’s it. When you are working on a budget, you can still find great products and get good sound quality. We purchased everything at Best Buy. The Hi-Fi Receiver is compatible with all forms of listening enjoyment: AM/FM radio, Sirius XM, CDs, and IPODs. We will include all products in our source list at the end of the series.

Here’s how we set it up to keep the speakers hidden without compromising sound quality. This is so simple.

We lucked out having an existing outlet right next to where we wanted to place the receiver. It is hiding behind the books next to it. We just cut a hole in the back of the shelf where the outlet is located. For the speaker wires, we drilled a small hole into the side of the bookcase and ran the wires all the way to the top of the bookcases. That middle panel that is in front of the speaker wires is actually a dead front so we can access it if needs be. The two speakers rest on top of each side of the bookcase. The speakers came with adjustable stands so we placed them to gain the best acoustics.

We wanted the receiver not to be a focal point so we placed it on a bottom shelf and a chair blocks the view pretty well. Everything is on a remote so it’s super nice to change channels and control volume. We are so happy with the clear sound quality!

Pretty cut and dry, huh? Tomorrow we will be sharing how we installed our library lights and put them on remote control. We will also give details on how we fashioned the dead front panel. See you Wednesday!

Connect with Bliss at Home:

IKEA BILLY Library Wall >>> THE REVEAL

BLISS AT HOME — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:33:18 +0000

Today I’m sharing our library wall that we made with IKEA BILLY bookcases. I have always wanted a library in my house. We just don’t have the space to dedicate an entire room to a library, so we opted to put a library wall in our living room. This room already screams library to me with the brass fixtures and big fireplace. Hiring this out would had been big bucks so we came up with a way to customize store-bought bookcases to fit our wall and tweak them to have some add-ins. We’ll be breaking that down all week-long. I thought it would be a little much to put everything into one post!

Here’s the line-up for the week>>>

In case you don’t remember, here is the Before:

See all those books in the left corner. Yeah, it’s definitely going to take time to fill up 4 bookcases, but I love that we will all add to it over time. The reason I chose this wall is because it is long and it runs the whole length of the upstairs. I wanted to break it up and define the space more. Also, adding the white bookcases here reflects the light from the big picture window across the room. It has brightened up this room so much.

Are you ready to see the After??!!!

I am so in love! We went with the BILLY bookcase because it comes in a depth of 11”. That way we are not compromising that much space from the wall. We are now gaining so much shelving and storage. We added details to make it look built-in which we have an entire post dedicated to so we can explain the process.

We also have been joking with you guys how we have been P-I-M-Ping our library wall. Here’s what we’re talking about…

We worked on a tight budget and we were able to add hidden speakers and a sound system, library lights on remote control, and add details to finish it off and add more appeal to our bookcases.

We have all been enjoying our library, especially the kids.

Here’s some shots of the finished library wall in our space…

I also feel like this window totally fits in with the library wall now…

I love the contrast of the blue wall against the white bookcases…

We have plenty of room to grow our library…

Shelves are so fun to style! You know I’ve been enjoying that!!

It is so nice to have this in our living room. Everyone has been enjoying it and I love that. This has really enriched our home and we did it on a tight budget! We’ll be sharing what we spent at the end of the series when we post the source list.

Even our new puppy Zoey feels right at home in here…

Tomorrow we will be sharing how we installed our secret speakers and wired our sound system. You can’t pimp a library wall without some dope beats, right??

Connect with Bliss at Home:

I Heart THIS Sundays

BLISS AT HOME — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 10:56:45 +0000

For the summer, I decided to try out a new series to feature some of the things I’ve been gushing over all week. I’m a night owl this time of year and find lots to gush over! So, this Sunday I heart…

#1

Emily’s desk from Recently. I love everything about this!

#2

This new art coming soon by Laura Dro. The colors are gorgeous and I am not much into florals but I am totally into this! That first one would work great in my house!

#3

These agates, geodes and crystals that I just got in the mail. Gorgeous! Thank you Sun & Glory!

#4

This foil art from Charm & Gumption. I think this would be perfect for the boys room.

#5

This painted arrow pot by Allons-Y Kimberly. So simple yet perfect.

Tomorrow’s the big day! I can’t wait to show you guys our library wall!!

Also, today is the LAST DAY to enter the JESSEd home giveaway. A great chance to win a glam tablecloth!

ENTER HERE

Enjoy your Sunday!!

Connect with Bliss at Home: