Inspiration

I’ve been trying REALLY REALLY hard to take lots of photos these days. Of course, I’m snapping many of Nora, but I’m also trying to capture house projects, family, friends, nature, food, etc… because if I don’t, I think I’ll regret it later on!

However, I often get annoyed with myself for taking so many pictures… but then keeping them “locked up” in my camera, my phone, or on our portable hard drive.

I should be printing and displaying these photos, right!

So I’ve been trying to print more pictures lately… and since photos are relatively inexpensive {compare to pricey art pieces} I thought I would share some ideas for decorating your home with photos. Of course, these are just a FEW of the many ideas floating around the Internet, and they can all be re-worked to fit pretty much any space — big or small.

Eclectic Shelf Groupings:

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I’ve shown pictures of these shelves in our office before — but I seriously just LOVE my “photo shelf” on the bottom. I found all these frames at garage sales or thrift stores and just spray painted them white. Now they look somewhat matching and I have an eye-catching display of our lives… all for pennies!

In a Row:

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Wouldn’t this be great for a hallway, entryway, above the couch, or on any other blank wall? What a great way to display yearly school photos, family photos, or just a fun mix of your favorite shots.

I know you can find really cheap white frames at IKEA… or you could forgo the frames all together and simply use clothes pins to attach pictures to wire or string.

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Colorful Wall Collage:

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Make a dramatic statement {and decorate an entire wall} with a gorgeous full wall collage like the one pictured below. All it takes is a grouping of inexpensive frames, and you can totally transform a small area into a fantastic photo gallery. Stunning isn’t it!

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Dramatic Canvas Prints:

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Canvas prints tend to be pricey — but I found this great tutorial that shows you how to make a “canvas look-alike” yourself. I already have ideas for doing something similar above our couch in the living room… now I just need to decide what pictures to use!

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Black and White:

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I love all black and white photos. Period.

I’m not the best photographer, so many of my photos are overly color-saturated, under exposed, a bit blurry, or just plain uninteresting. However, I can often transform them into a timeless piece of art just by cropping the image, zooming in, and removing the color.

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In a Frame:

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No, not just any frame… a couple weeks ago, I showed you how I made this simple chicken wire frame for about $5. I can’t get enough of this rustic-looking frame and just love walking past it every day. I also love that it takes about 10 seconds to swap new pictures in!

And here’s another clever {and really simple} idea for displaying multiple photos in a large frame. I think I might make something like this for our kitchen… or even the laundry room!

photo source

Even if you live in a small space and have a small budget, there are still SO many ways you can use photos to decorate your home. Plus, if you’re like me and often forget to actually print your photos — this will give you a good excuse!

How do you display your photos?

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I have partnered with Apartment Guide to serve as an Official Apartment Guide Organizing Blogger! As an official blogger, I will be sharing articles filled with tips for living on a budget.

Looking for more?

• Check out the frugal decorating ideas over at ApartmentGuide.com
• And make sure you read these quick tips to spice up your decor over at MovingToday.com
• Like Apartment Guide on Facebook and follow them on Twitter for real-time tips and updates on making the most of your space.
• Whether you’re living, looking or moving, Apartment Guide offers how-to tips for making the most of a space on a budget.
• If you’re ready for a whole new space or are looking to move, Apartment Guide has the photos, floor plans, features and tips to help you find the perfect apartment community.

Apartment Guide and owner Consumer Source, Inc. have partnered with bloggers like me as Official Apartment Guide Bloggers. As part of this program, I have received compensation. They have not told me what to purchase or what to say about the products used, and believe that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Consumer Source’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.

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{hello gorgeous farmhouse kitchen!}

Dave and I are already starting to make plans for a massive kitchen/dining room renovation we hope to start and finish this summer {with the help of my dad and many others I’m sure}!

I’ll be sharing lots more photos, ideas, and details in the months leading up to our renovation… but right now, we’re still in the “dreaming” stage — trying to decide what we want to incorporate into our new kitchen.

And since this is the house we’re planning to live in for a long time, I’m really trying hard to think not only about what we want right now, but what we’ll want/need in a few years once we have more children, older children, etc.

Of course, I can’t predict all our needs, but at least I’m trying!

Now, before I show you pictures of my dream kitchen, I want to show you a couple pictures of our current kitchen and dining room.

Besides moving in our table and chairs, we haven’t done anything to these rooms. And while it definitely isn’t the worst kitchen/dining room in the world, we’ve been itching to renovate it since the moment we bought the house. OK, so maybe I’m a little more excited about this than Dave is… but it will be a relief when it’s finished

Our kitchen has tons of potential… so I can’t wait to see what we finally come up with. In the mean time, here are just a few of the photos I’ve been drooling over these past few months. Due to space, time, and financial restrictions, we probably won’t be able to incorporate all of these ideas into our kitchen… but I just love thinking and dreaming about what my kitchen will look like.

Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to tweak some of the ideas below and make them work in our new kitchen.

More WHITE:

I absolutely LOVE white. And I know you might think I’m crazy… but I don’t care My kitchen will be white — white cabinets, white backsplash, white farmhouse sink, white, white, white.

Our white kitchen will go with with our white couch, our white shower, my white dishes, our white linens, and all the other white in our home!

{hello gorgeous white kitchen! Unfortunately, our kitchen isn’t quite as big as this one!}

{I love the white subway tile backsplash of this kitchen}

More LIGHT:

I want lots of natural light coming through the windows. Currently, we have 4 big windows in our kitchen/dining room and I’m definitely not planning to get rid of any of them.

I also want lots of lighting in the room — like under cabinet lighting, recessed lighting, task lighting, decorative lighting, etc. I hate a dark kitchen!

{look at all the light streaming through these windows!}

{seriously, a kitchen with THIS many windows just makes me jealous!}

More SPACE:

“More space” might sound like a no-brainer — but one of my goals is to drastically increase the amount of space we have in our kitchen/dining room.

We are planning to knock out a wall to incorporate lots more cabinets and shelving. And we will also make room for larger appliances {since our current fridge is quite small and our oven doesn’t even fit normal cookie sheets!}

{I love the look of these open shelves… and checkout that farmhouse sink!}

{look at all that cabinet space!}

Obviously, I have TONS more ideas and details I could share with you… but I think I’ll hold off until we have more of a definite plan. It’s going to be A LOT of work and we’ll be living in a mess for several months… but I know it will be worth it in the end!

Oh, and make sure you check out the rest of my kitchen inspiration on Pinterest!

What would your dream kitchen look like?

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I already showed you a few pictures of our Christmas decorations, but I thought it might be fun to show you a few other fabulously decorated homes from around the web — not to make you feel horrible because you don’t have a perfectly decorated home {if this is you, just read yesterday’s post} but instead to get you in the holiday spirit and be inspired by other people’s gorgeous homes.

I’m always amazed by how creative other people get with their decorations — especially since I mainly decorate with trees, garland, pine cones, and other natural items. Below are a few of my favorite rooms – and no, I don’t think they are necessarily simple OR practical… just beautiful!

Wouldn’t you just love to have a grand staircase like this one from the Martha Stewart website? I LOVE the look of dark stair treads and white risers.

Or what about this fabulously color-coordinated room from Modcodesign.com!

I have a soft spot in my heart for the color red, so even though I’d never dare to spend money on a somewhat impractical red couch, I just love how it fits so well in this room!

Of course this entryway is probably not doable for the normal home… but talk about making an entrance! Someday I’d love to have our entire front porch completely decorated for Christmas with lights, garland, lanterns, trees, etc… someday!

I love a good “green and white” decorating theme too — so this rustic room from Country Living Magazine immediately caught my attention. Wouldn’t it be fun to decorate a log cabin like this!

I appreciate the simplicity of this white-on-white fireplace. Now all I need is a fireplace and I can probably pull off the same look

Here’s another white room — this is how I would decorate my cottage for Christmas… if I had a cottage!

These are just a FEW of the many holiday decorations that caught my attention while surfing the web this past month. And like I said earlier, I don’t think they are “simple” but I’ve sure had fun dreaming about what it would be like to live in such lovely rooms.

However, I assume most of these rooms were “staged” for the photo!

What are your favorite types of holiday decorations?

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It’s been almost a year since I first blogged about my Ideas Book.

And ever since then, I still get a couple emails or comments each week asking about my Ideas Book, what I put in the Ideas Book, how I organize my Ideas Book, etc. etc. I even get comments on other posts referencing my Ideas Book!

So, I figured it was time I revisited this topic… especially since I’ve significantly updated the way I keep track of all my ideas.

Yes, I do still have the exact same “dream house” Ideas Book in the photo above, however, since more and more of my ideas are coming from different websites, blogs, and other internet-related sources, I’ve been storing most of my ideas on Pinterest.

What is Pinterst?

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Basically, Pinterest is a much cooler, much more sophisticated version of my Ideas Book! 

I can store recipe ideas, decorating ideas, holiday ideas, fashion ideas, party planing ideas, and pretty much any other type of  idea you could possibly come up with — and they are all organized on different “pin boards” that are really easy to use and access.

I’ve only been using Pinterest since the Summer, but it’s already been so helpful as I can quickly and easily look back to find the recipe I want to try, instructions for the baby quilt I made this past weekend {it is SO cute!}, or even ideas for our 2011 holiday cards.

Here are some of the Pin Boards I have right now:

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Fall Decor Ideas

Christmas Card Ideas

Newborn Photo-shoot Ideas

Christmas Gift Ideas

Farmhouse Inspiration Ideas

Organizing Ideas

Craft Project Ideas

Sweet Treats Ideas {Don’t even go there if you’re on a diet!}

And even though it’s super cool to be able to keep all my MANY ideas in one place that I can easily access from any device that’s connected to the internet; the thing I love the most about using Pinterest is that I can share those ideas with anyone else who wants to “follow me” or anyone who I share the links with {like I did above}.

So for example, I sent the link with the cute Newborn Photo-shoot Ideas to the photographer who will be taking our newborn photos so now she has a much better idea of what I’m looking for.

I also shared the link to my Christmas Card Ideas on my blog last week which allowed you to see some of my favorite Christmas cards from around the web.

So as you can see, I still have just as many ideas — and they are still organized in one place — but now I can share, access, refer back to, and enjoy looking through my ideas much more easily. Win, win, win, win!

How do you keep track of your ideas?

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Do you use Pinterest?  Do you have a physical Ideas Book like I mine? Or do you have another method?

Oh, and if you are on Pinterest, please feel free to follow me and then I’ll follow you back!

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Dave, my dad, and I have been working hard to finish “round one” of our renovation projects before Dave starts school and before our two international students arrive {in about 3 weeks!}

And one of the main projects we HAD to finish was our new hardwood floors — but they aren’t just any hardwood floors; they are reclaimed barn wood – which basically means the wood we used for our floors was taken out of old barns and milled down into 3/4″ tounge-and-groove hardwood floor planks.

This is what it looked like when they delivered it to our house a few months ago!

We purchased our reclaimed barn wood from Creation Woodwork, which is mill right here in Michigan. The mill is owned by a husband and wife team and they have all their mills, buildings, and equiptment right on their own property. So when I went to pick out my wood, I got to see all the gorgeous reclaimed barn wood in their house too! {You can read more about my trip to their saw mill here.}

We used yellow pine from a barn over 100 years old {so it fits the period of our 120 year old house} and we got it in varied widths — 4″, 5″, and 7″ wide planks — which gives the floors a really cool look.

This is what the floors looked like before any stain or polyurethane.

After LOTS of debate, we chose Minwax stain in “Special Walnut” 224 — and I am absolutely THRILLED with the color results.

It’s dark, but not too dark, and there really aren’t any strong “black” or “red” tones either.

You can see the amazing color transformation in our hallway after just one coat of stain!

Even though my doctor said it would be fine for me to do the staining, Dave actually had some extra time — and after he started, we realized how intense the smell really was!

He had a really heavy-duty mask on the whole time and made me stay upstairs or out of the house!

Here’s a close-up shot of the floors after Dave finished the stain — just waiting for a few coats of polyurethane now.

For the polyurethane, we used Varathane brand Floor Finish in “satin” because we didn’t want super shinny floors, just a nice sheen. We also used water based because the smell of of the oil based Varathane was out of control — and it took way longer to dry between coats.

The photo below is after FIVE coats of polyurethane! {thanks Dave!} You can see the subtle “sheen” of the floors — and they are actually pretty slippery!  You can also see the detail of the thresholds my dad put between each room. I just LOVE the look of a threshold. I feel like it creates a grand entrance to a room and it makes it easier to lay the floors because you can stop and start with each different room.

I think the dark floors nicely compliment the rest of my very neutrally colored house! They are definitely a focal point.

Here’s a peek into our master bedroom — which isn’t totally finished yet, but at least you can see how the floor looks with some of our furniture.  Very “Farmhouse” I think!

It was a pretty long process and lots of hard work, but we are so happy with the results — and it looks much better than any hardwood floor we could have purchased from a big-box store.

Our floors are filled with 100 years of character, imperfections, and flaws… they honestly look like they could have been the original floors of our 120  year old farm house.

And that’s exactly the look we were going for!

What do you think? Have you ever worked with reclaimed wood before? Do you have any tips for keeping hardwood clean?

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Welcome to my Huge Birthday Giveaway Celebration!!

Instead of receiving gifts this year, I’ve decided to give YOU an opportunity to win a bunch of awesome products I currently use and love.  I’ve partnered with 26 amazing companies to offer 26 different giveaways for my 26th birthday. There will be multiple giveaways every day from June 13-18 — so make sure you come back!

You will be able to find all 26 Birthday Week Giveaways here — just keep scrolling down to view them all.

Giveaway #17: Cora Anne Designs $50 Shop Credit

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If you’ve never heard of Cora Anne Designs, you need to head on over there right now!

Jill — the creator of Cora Anne Designs — lives and crafts right here in Grand Rapids, MI; and she has a fabulous Etsy shop where she sells all sorts of amazing things.

Some of my favorite Cora Anne products are pictured above:

1. I love her Zippered Pouches.

2. I think I could hang a Burlap Yarn Wreath on every door in our house.

3. I WANT this to-die-for Ruffle Flower Pillow in our nursery!

4. And seriously, aren’t these Gift Tags adorable.

Because I couldn’t choose what products I wanted to offer for my birthday giveaway, Jill decided to just give one lucky reader a $50 gift certificate to her Etsy Shop — yay!!!

Jill is also giving everyone 10% off by using the code:  SIMPLE10  at checkout!

Enter to Win!

Simply answer the question below by leaving a comment on this post. You can even gain bonus entries for doing each additional item listed below (just make sure that you leave a comment for each one).

REQUIRED ENTRY:

• Visit the Cora Anne Designs Esty shop and tell me — What is your favorite product?

BONUS ENTRIES:

• Subscribe to Simple Organized Living via email or RSS

• Follow Simple Organized Living on Facebook or Twitter

• Follow Cora Anne Designs on Facebook or Twitter

Just a reminder that any comments left on Facebook or Twitter will not count for my birthday giveaways, and you must provide a valid email address to be considered.

All giveaways during my birthday giveaway week will close on Monday, June 20, 2011 at 10:00 EST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via a full blog post on Tuesday, June 21. I will also notify all winners via email.

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Earlier this week, I blogged about our dream house — and how excited we are to be moving there in just a few short weeks!!

Well, apparently many of you found our news equally exciting!

Since Monday, I’ve received TONS of positive feedback via facebook, twitter, blog comments, and even a bunch of emails from people I don’t know — who just felt compelled to send their congratulatory words my way!

I just love looking at my Inbox and seeing “Congratulations”, “We’re Excited For You”  {and my favorite}  ”You Don’t Know Me, but Congrats” as several of the subject lines!!!

Thank-you, Thank-you, THANK-YOU!!!!

I am also elated that so many of you have now been inspired to create your very own Ideas Book and start the process of dreaming about what your “someday house” might look like.  I speak from years of experience waiting and dreaming — without ALL my dreams and without my Ideas Book, our dream house would NOT have become a reality this quickly. {However; I suspect God may have played a small role too }

And to answer ALL the questions asking if we are planning to start a second blog; documenting the renovations, DIY projects, before & after photos, etc. for our new farmhouse — YES!!

We already have a domain name, I’ve started messing around with the design, and hopefully we’ll be ready to launch the new site just after the first of the year!

In the mean time, here are a bunch of my favorite farmhouse blogs — this should be enough inspiration to last you awhile!

• A Country Farmhouse
• The Farm Chicks
• Farmhouse Musings
• A Farmgirl’s Dabbles
• Hooked on Houses
• The Lettered Cottage
• The Inspired Room
• Between Naps on the Porch
• Centsational Girl
• Funky Junk Interiors
• Miss Mustard Seed
• Urban Farmgirl
• My Farmhouse Kitchen
• Southern Hospitality
• Simplified Bee
• White Flower Farmhouse
• Brabourne Farm
• Soule Mama — Thanks for sharing this link Heather!

Believe it or not, these are just a FEW of the many inspirational farmhouse blogs floating around the blogosphere.

Keep up the great work ladies — I’ll need all the inspiration I can get over the next several months!

Oh, and let me know if you blog about your dream house — I’d love to follow you too!

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