Blog

Cheap way to cover a chainlink fence

June 7, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

Welcome back to our third check in on our curb appeal project. One thing I really enjoy and struggle with in these types of projects are blending what I like, with budget, with what’s socially acceptable for the neighborhood. Most of us are well aware that pallet projects have been around, have hit their prime and are basically common knowledge. So today, I present to you just one more way to utilize those pallets.

This may not work for every neighborhood. But for my neighborhood, it’s a bit eclectic and by the beach. You know how creative and repurposeful those beachy folk get.

pallet fence with planter pots

The Cheap Way To Cover A Chain Link Fence

If you’ve got some visible chainlink fence that you want to liven up a bit and that you want to make a little more private, pallets can be a really cute, kitschy and inexpensive way of doing this.

Paint your pallet your preferred color.

Pose the pallet against the fence and straighten. Use heavy duty zip ties to secure it to the fence. You must use a heavy duty zip tie that is made for outdoor use.

Once secure, drill through plastic planter pots into the pallet for a pretty plant filled fence. Colorful, practical and cheap!

painted pallet for fencing project

heavy duty zip ties hold pallet to chain link fence

screw through plastic planter pot into pallet wood

Now that you’re armed with a new way to utilize those pallets, be sure to visit the other ladies participating in this curb appeal challenge:

The cheapest way to hide a lessen the eyesore of a chain link fence and add a bit of privacy to your yard

Love pallet projects? How about one on wheels! A pallet fence on the go? Yes…

Eclectic Bohemian Home Tour: BSHT Summer Edition

June 6, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

Hey! What’s Up? Hello…

As promised, today is the remaining “finished” rooms of my home. For me, summertime means lots of time out of the house. So when we do spend time at home, it’s an escape, a place to recharge and relax. What does summertime mean in your home? Do you decorate differently for the summer months? Or do you simply use the spaces differently?

That’s the fun part of the Blogger Stylin’ Home Tours hosted by Lindsay, the owner, editor and content creator behind The White BUffalo Styling Co. Today and every day this week, you’ll see how some of the best of the best decorate and live in their homes for summer. And I have a spot amongst them, it’s crazy! If by some chance you don’t already know Lindsay, she is also sharing her tour today so make sure you follow through the loop at the end of this post to catch all of the tours today.

Chances are, you’ve already started the loop and you’re here from Jennifer’s blog, Dimples and Tangles. Isn’t her style just the perfect blend of eclectic and glam? I loved her tour! Thanks for making this stop on the line up of tours today. If we haven’t met yet, I’m Corinna and I’m passionate about creating spaces meant for living in. It means my spaces may look a little different than others you’ll see online. And it may be taboo to let the kid’s toys hang out, but this is my real life and you’re welcome to be just as comfortable here as we are. Grab your tea, coffee, water or other beverage of choice and let’s tour!

Walking into my home, you’ll land right in our living room. When we first moved into this house, it was in my early days on discovering Pinterest and blogs and I tried to emulate what I saw in those spaces I pinned. But, at the end of the day it wasn’t me. This is how I’ve naturally decorated and lived my whole life. It’s a little boho, a little cozy, and a lot laid back.

I love to have company so we have lots of seating.

But we also watch a lot of TV, so I’ve worked the room to make TV watching comfortable.

I’m a passionate plant caregiver. I’m not the greatest at caring for plants, but I love it so much I keep on at it anyways.

I’m also a passionate textile collector. Pillows and interesting scarves are my weakness.

The rug is from Target. I get questions about it all the time and it’s right there at everyone’s favorite store 😉

Most of the furniture in my house is second hand. The instant gathered look second hand furniture gives a space gives me life.

Because this is our primary living space (and I say living in many more ways than just the title of the room), we also have a lot of my son’s toys in this space. So you’ll see his practice vacuum and lots of baskets and furniture dedicated to their storage.

Off this room is the hallway that leads to the 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and 3 closets this house has. I would love to have you tour the hallway and my bedroom. You can catch those spaces in this separate eclectic home tour.

The other opening off the living room leads to the kitchen and that connects to the dining room. We’ll bypass the kitchen this time, but let’s tour the dining room next!

This is the first true glimpse of the dining room I’ve shared. I wanted to share an extra special look for those of you who are new.

I just recently put up a faux wainscotting around the room. It’s the first phase of 3 to get the trim in this room to match the mission/craftsman style I covet so much. In the space above the trim, there will be a jungalicious wallpaper.

The light is another new addition. It has a very cool oil slick look to it that compliments the pops of turquoise, pink and purple in this space. I love color and I especially love color in unique pops.

I decided to use a fan back peacock chair on one side for something different. Every guest I’ve had loves it and I feel like a queen when I sit in it, so this decision is still a win for now.

And finally, the pièce de ré·sis·tance is this blue fireplace mantle my husband and I just got up yesterday afternoon!

I’ve been envisioning this for a long time and it’s rewarding seeing the vision come to fruition. Your home should make you happy and work for the way you live. And this makes me happy and gives me a place to display pretty things out of reach of a 4 year old.

And that’s my home. At least, what’s pretty enough to share on the internet. Your next stop is the beautiful Claire Brody. I promise, you don’t want to miss the talent this lady is about to show you.

Check back everyday this week:

Monday:

The White Buffalo Styling Co.

The Chronicles of Home

Life on Virginia Street

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

The House of Silver Lining

Eclectic Bohemian Home Tour: Eclectic Interior Inspiration Hop

June 3, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

Hey, What’s Up? Hello!

I’m so glad you’ve popped in today. Today and this upcoming Monday will show you all of the “finished” rooms in our house. It’s summertime and my beautiful friend Jess from Domicile 37 invited a bunch of your favorite bloggers to share our homes virtual tour style! All of the blogger’s who’ve shared their homes this week have some variation of the “eclectic” style. So basically, if you haven’t checked out the tours this past week- you’re missing out!

In case you don’t live in the South (or the USA, because I suppose the holiday isn’t relevant otherwise), Summer kicked off last weekend! I do hate a short spring but there’s something magical about summertime that makes up for it. Part of that magicalness of summer is how our interiors change to reflect a different lifestyle.

If you’re here from Primitive and Proper, hello! You may have visited me before since Cassie and I cohost Thrift Score Thursday along with 2 more of our friends. If you haven’t, you’ve been missing out! Welcome to my Boho Abode. You’ll get a crash course on a lot of the work I’ve done on my house the past few months.

For me, summer is about baking in the sun for a few hours whether it just be enjoying the sounds of the neighborhood, playing with my little, gardening or working on my latest project. Then it’s time to hit the air conditioned house for the hottest point of the day for a nap. And then it’s an in and out evening involving cleaning up, making dinner, enjoying the sound of crickets and watching the sunset.

On the tour today I’m going to show you a little bit of our hallway since there’s already been some changes since it’s reveal at the beginning of the year and then I’ll show you how I’ve redecorated my bedroom.

I hope you have some good tea and music because I have a lot of pictures to show you!

Leaving the living room and entering the hallway, you see a giant floral piece of art. I love it because it helps to bring the outdoors to a space that has no direct connection to the outdoors. The hallway light is also set pretty far down the hallway so I have this swing arm for addition light. It’s perfect for late night runs to the bathroom since it’s on a dimmer.

When you first look down the hallway your eyes will likely fall on one of two cool pieces. My large blue mirror (that I picked up off the side of the road and repaired and painted myself!) or the sputnik with edison bulb light fixture.

I do eventually plan on moving this light into the kitchen since it is just one touch above what I need and want for this space. But the mirror I only just recently pulled in here. I had a different mirror here first but moved it into the dining room and pulled this one back out. The proportion of it to the drawers is a bit off but these drawers are here temporarily as I’ve got them.

The first door to the right is the coat closet. It in major need of a coat closet makeover since it’s mostly junk storage at the moment.

Beyond that is a thrifted, handmade and creatively thrown together hallway art wall. Opposite the random baskets, custom pieces and personalized art, the door to the furnace houses all the cleaning supplies and tools and the next door is the linen closet.

Passing the artwork there’s the 3 bedrooms and bathroom (I swear I’m finishing that room up shortly- expect pictures in the next month!). One of the bedrooms is my “office” and the other is Carson’s old room turned hubby’s temporary bedroom (while I was working and he was leaving for work at 1/2am every morning- it sounds weird but it worked for us for that time!). Those rooms are absolutely terrible and I hope to get them in some kind of respectable shape soon.

But then you turn past the mirror and chest or drawers and you see my room! I had to keep the light off and the tapestry closed to prevent blow out so the pictures are a bit dark but that also means you can see more. I’m going to keep working on a solution, no worries!

My bedroom is super tiny. It’s about 10 by 12 feet. With a 4 by 4 foot closet and no master bath. A lot of people cannot even imagine what that’s like! Ha. I’ve managed to get a bench, vanity, chair, pull 9 drawer dresser, bed and two nightstands into the space. Yes, it involved thinking out of the box a bit. But I’m really happy with the space.

Since the first week of summer had a lot of clouds and rain for us, these aren’t the brightest of photos. But I hope you enjoyed the look into my home. And pro tip: keeping your windows covered during the hottest times of the day can help keep your house cooler 😉

You now need to head over to Suburban Bitches. Tricia is awaiting your arrival to tour her home. Thanks for visiting you guys, have a great weekend!

Here are the eclectic style blogger home tours for the whole week. Catch up if you haven’t seen them all. You must!

Monday

Blue i Style

Polished Habitat

Bright Green Door

Maggie Overby Studios

Tuesday
Ciburbanity
The Striped House
Style Mutt Home
This is Our Bliss

Wednesday
Copper Dot Interiors
{Home-ology} Modern Vintage
Up to Date Interiors
Bigger Than the Three of Us

Thursday
Rain on a Tin Roof
Pretty Practical Home
58 Water Street
Domicile 37

Friday
Primitive & Proper
A Designer at Home
Suburban Bitches
Casa Watkins Living

Thrifted Bohemian Windchimes

June 2, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

thrift score thursday12

Hey there, hello! For today’s Thrift Score Thursday, I want to chat with you a little bit about windchimes. How they’re kinda expensive and it’s hard to find really boho ones. Really, all wind chimes are perfect for boho (and most are fab for feng shui), but I really love the styles and textiles of Asia, the Middle East and India (I’m terrible at geography, so I may be mis-mentioning those).

I’m working on bring better positive vibes in my house. I’ve always been interested in feng shui and I try to practice and implement things as necessary. So I did a bit of research on how I can use windchimes to help bring those positive vibes in. I came across Red Lotus Letter and found lots of helpful guidelines for doing that. If you kinda dig feng shui and/or are interested in how windchimes can be used, here’s the windchimes and feng shui article.

I don’t need to increase water or earth elements in my spaces because I live so close to the ocean and I use a lot of wood. So my material of choice was metal. I have one of them hanging on a south wall, which is meant to bring fame and recognition (blog famous? nahhhh…), it’s not necessarily where I need the extra boost in life but I am excited about the positive boost in the space we spend the most time in. Metal WIndchime for front yard positive vibes feng shui

Moroccan inspired lantern and indian elephant windchime for good feng shui

The other chime is hanging on our front porch to help shield the front door from negative energies and make entering the home a positive experience. Feng shui stuff is kinda cool 😉

And now that I’ve likely bored you to death with feng shui talk, let’s peruse the feed! (don’t forget to give me a follow while you’re there @adesignerathome)

My Features:

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Wanna Play? Here’s The Rules!

We want you to participate! Hit up your local thrift stores, craigslist, yard sales, estate sales, side of the road, anything! Thrifty doesn’t necessarily mean from a thrift store. We want to see your good deals, wacky finds and treasures.
Don’t feel like you need to save those finds for Thursdays! Yes, features are shared on our blogs and Instagram on Thursdays, but we’re all checking in on (and using!) the hashtag all week long. So, when you see/find it, feel free to share it!
Want to get featured? Add the #thriftscorethursdsay hashtag, Follow the hosts (@the_gathered_home, @primitiveandproper, @adesignerathome and @maggieoverbystudios) and tag a friend to play along, too!
Each week, Cassie from Primitive and Proper, Brynne from The Gathered Home, Maggie from Maggie Overby Studios and Myself (A Designer At Home) will pick a favorite thrift score or two to feature! So please note that by linking up with #thriftscorethursday, you are giving us permission to share your finds via social media or on our blogs.

All Instagramed out yet? I sure hope not! Because you’re not finished. Yup, you’ve got more thrift scores to look at. I know you’re not disappointed. Ha. Click on my beautiful cohost’s faces below to check out what they’ve scored and featured.

How To Remove Bushes

May 31, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

It’s been a week since I announced my participation and plans for a curb appeal themed challenge. My curb appeal sucks. And so I’m hoping to do my best to get the area looking as better as I can get it in a matter of a few weeks.

It’s been raining nearly nonstop since last Tuesday. What a bummer! We did manage to get the bushes removed. It’s strange how much bigger the house looks without them. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a small house at 1,200 square feet, but it’s a strange illusion nonetheless.

Since there hasn’t been a whole lot else going on besides removing the bushes, I figured I ought to share exactly how we did it. We knocked out 6 bushes and 4 trees in less than an hour (we only removed half the stumps though, so there’s that additional time we still have to put in). There was a lot of sweat, so the rain shower we received just after was welcomed.

How To Remove Bushes:

These bushes were shockingly massive. It took taking them out and seeing how much yard they took up to see just how big they really were.

First, we used bypass loppers to expose the base of each bush. The branches were long do to make it easier to cut through the base of each bush, we used the loppers to cut off the lower branches so we could reach with the reciprocating saw.

Once the trunk was exposed we cut through it with a reciprocating saw (as I just mentioned). This just helped us cut down on the amount of branches we had to work around to get to the trunk.

Then using a digging shovel we worked our way around the base of each bush, occasionally pulling out the axe to cut through especially thick roots.

The rain was coming back over us so we only did the side we plan on doing the patio. But here’s the before and after!

In The Next Week:

What I hope to accomplish this next week is getting the patio set up. I’m not following traditional instructions for getting this put in because I’m lazy and our soil is tough with very thick grass.

The plan is to use these two products:

I’m also hoping to get a tree planted on the other side of the yard, a new mailbox installed, and I want to start working on a cute house number + planter project. Still lots to go! Pray this rain lets up for me, will ya?

Check in with the progress on the other’s blogger’s curb appeal projects here:

Paint Yourself a Smile

A Designer at Home

Seed Sorting: My Free System

May 30, 2016 by CORINNA HENDERSON

Even if you’re not an avid or successful gardener, a seed collection can pile up. Case in point- me! Whether I’m buying them myself or they’re being gifted to me, the pile seems to double on me at least once a year. Now that I’ve quit my job and have a bit more time on my hands, I want to start planting and actually using the seeds I’ve been hoarding.

But if you know a little about gardening, you know that every plant has an optimal planting time frame during the year. So a good chunk of my seeds aren’t meant to be planted right now and it’d just be a waste to do any planting work on them.

My seeds have been sitting on my kitchen countertop for a while now while I try to figure out what to do with them. I wanted them visible so I could actively try to come up with a solution. I didn’t want to spend much, if any, money on a solution because I’m working on making over our front yard and am still finishing up the dining room right now (and technically the bathroom, but there’s no more expenses for that, I just need to finish installing everything).

And then an idea sparked!

My Free Seed Sorting System

I used to get a lot of junk mail before I figured out how to stop receiving a lot of things. I always felt bad about the waste though and kept the return envelopes that came with a lot of things. I’ve got a pretty massive mile of them that are also waiting for their purpose.

So I grabbed 12 of those old envelopes, labelled them with each of the months, and sorted the seeds based on what the package recommended for my zone.

I now have a small section in a cabinet of my kitchen with each month’s envelopes. At the start of each month I’ll just pull out the corresponding envelope and pick which seeds I want to plant and execute that over the course of that month.

Recycling is an awesome system and I love finding creative ways of doing it in my own home. I know this idea is probably way elementary compared to some more extensive systems you’ll likely find. But given I didn’t spend a single dime, I thought this idea could help someone else out, too!

So remember, save those return envelopes from your junk mail, you never know when they’ll come in handy for seed sorting or something else!