When you park the car in your garage, do you walk around to the front door to enter the house? I didn’t think so! If your family is like most, chances are you come and go by the garage entry door something like 97.3% of the time. I totally made up that statistic out of thin air just now. But think about it – you drive in the garage, everybody hops out and runs in the house to the potty, for a drink, for dibs on the tv remote. That 2.7 % front door usage includes going for a walk, running in and out the front door to play, picking up the mail and other quick forays. We dress up the front door for curb appeal and to make our home pleasant for us. And seldom use it. Especially if we live in a place where winter is a season that makes its presence known! Why shouldn’t we dress ... [Read More]
makeovers
How to hang a wall cabinet the easy way
So happy with the transformation of my $5 bathroom cabinet! I think it turned out well and I love, love, love the amount of storage we have now! The white really pops against the new paint color -- Frost, a very light gray with blue tones that goes from lavendar to blue to gray as the light from the Sola Tube in the ceiling changes throughout the day. Our kitchen cabinets delivered about the time we were ready to hang this. Geek that I am, I looked through the directions included for hanging wall cabinets. The directions they gave looked like a great idea! So Wheels and Bytes opted to try it out. And the method worked like a charm! First Wheels determined where the studs were in the area where the cabinet was to hang. The old one that we were replacing was light weight and ... [Read More]
Transition Kitchen: How to make do while your kitchen is remodeled
Cooking is definitely a challenge when your kitchen is a major construction area! I made a temporary kitchen in the dining room. Sharing this morning in case you are thinking of ripping out your kitchen for a redo -- a dose of reality!! It will be so worth it all in the long run. This is Crockpot Central. I have the lunch crockpot going and am getting ready to load the dinner crockpot. The Work Station is on a corner of the dining table. I'm making a crockpot peach cobbler. You won't be reading that recipe here. Total fail even though the work crew gamely ate a portion each -- they were really hungry, which helped it go down :-). The all important coffee, tea and snack station. We break about 4ish each afternoon for a sit down snack, because we are usually involved in ... [Read More]
How to choose color for your home
This is not a how to post on choosing color in the usual sense. There is a lot of information available about color choosing. For example, how to be aware of the undertones of colors – even neutral colors have an undertone and those with blue undertones don’t play well with those that have yellow undertones. Color undertones of the things you cannot change, such as flooring or granite countertops or trim, will limit your choices. (Maria Killam, interior designer and colour expert, does an excellent job of explaining undertones on her blog ,Colour Me Happy.) You can find out about monochromatic color schemes where a single color is represented by different shades and values. Or complementary colors where opposite sides of the color wheel come into play, like orange and blue. Or colors ... [Read More]
Stellar Staircases — The Results or How to install a stair runner
For weeks I dreamed of a stellar staircase with dark stained treads, white risers and swirling teal stenciled leaves. Then reality happened and I found out there were some questions I should have answered first. Now that we have the answers, here is where we arrived. Those stairs needed padding and floor covering. Not wall to edge as it had been before, but at least the path up and down the stairs had to be covered for appearance, sound control and traction for our pet. At first I could not find stair runners anywhere, then the nearby home center restocked. Their runners were expensive and not what I wanted at all -- dark and/or busy patterns. I bought regular hallway rugs in a neutral gray beige and planned to install those. And then I found a stair runner at a discount home ... [Read More]
Stellar Staircases – The vision
I love painted staircases. Dark treads, painted or stained a deep rich brown. Or may be black or a dark gray. Light colored risers -- preferably white to contrast with the dark tread. I finally narrowed my Staircase dreams to ten possibilities. Classic dark and white appealed to me: Bloomerism So did the dark and white combination with words: Lisa's Creative Designs Or numbers: Dixie Delights On the other hand, patterned risers were intriguing. In bright colors: Weekend Decor Or pattern in a nuetral: Small Changes Big Improvements Or maybe a monochromatic scheme: home and harmony Color on white seems fresh and ... [Read More]