Hello! & A Giveaway

Can I just give a huge SQUEAL and say how EXCITED I am to have been featured on one of very favorite blogs out there, Living with Lindsay. I hope some of you who are visiting for the first time pull up a seat and get comfy!

This little blog is just an idea I had a few months ago when my girlfriends and I wanted to share our own little stabs at DIY home design with each other. We got sick of emailing large attachments to each other (we all live in different states) but we definitely did not know nearly enough about home design or do projects frequently enough to fill our own blog.

After running into this dilemma, I was sure there were other part-time DIY'ers out there who have run into this same problem! DIY'ers who would love to post their projects but not have to worry about keeping up a full-time blog. That's how A Home in Progress was born. I really hope that this is a place that you come often to support other DIY newbies and share your own attempts at making your house a home!

To celebrate the wonderful Lindsay posting about us on her blog, we're doing our first little giveaway! A set of 8 chalkboard labels - they can be drilled to work as home labels, as shown here, or with the holes on the side for gift labels!


To enter, just leave me a comment letting me know you dropped by. If you become (or are already) a follower, I'll enter your name twice! And finally, if you mention this giveaway on your blog, I'll enter your name a third time! The giveaway will close Friday at 10pm and the winner (chosen randomly) will be announced Monday!

Thanks for the love, Lindsay! Go show her some love and visit her site. It's really one of the best out there.

Because It's Monday & A Giveaway

I'm not very productive on Mondays...just recuperating from a crazy weekend and time together as a family! So I thought I would post a quick (literally 5 minutes and however long it takes your glue gun to heat up...) and easy project that anybody with a "case of the Mondays" (name that movie) could do.

It happened to be my 6th wedding anniversary this weekend, and my husband brought me a wonderful basket of mums as an anniversary surprise. I loved them because I had wanted to bring a little fall to my front porch.

Here they are straight in the planter from the garden store. Not bad, but I had five minutes to kill before we left for our date, so I decided to make it look not so straight-from-the-store.

I just took some leftover yummy fall-like brown ribbon and got my glue gun and went to work!

I made sure I started in the back of the planter, where the wood strip meets.

Finished product! Not bad for free and 5 minutes!

Tomorrow I'm going to post my first giveaway! I have been totally inspired by a few giveaways on some awesome sites, that I thought I would try and share the love. So....check back tomorrow for details on how to enter to win your own set of chalkboard labels! Perfect as the holiday gift-giving season (yeah, I just went there) is just around the corner!

P.S. The movie quote above is from a total classic (in my opinion), "Office Space".

*Not* a Painted Wood Project!

I told you it was coming! I saw my friend Anjeannete's entry table redo and I asked her to let me post it here for you! It's beautiful and she did not paint the wood table. Let me say that again - she did.not.paint.the.wood.table. And it still turned out fabulously. Here, see for yourself! I'll let Anjeanette tell the story of how this table came to be in her own words:

So I have been looking, for a while, for a antique "looking" table
or dresser to use as my entry table. I have
been looking at garage sales and
thrift stores and online, and haven't found anything....until
I noticed this beauty in my neighbors garage.


No I wasn't snooping.....ok...maybe a little.
They keep their garage open all the time
and I saw it sit there for over a month.


I finally asked my neighbor what she was going to do with it, and she said
she was getting rid of it. She asked if I wanted it..........ahhh......YES!

I debated whether to paint it black, and maybe distress it, or stain it or just
to leave it how it is. I decided to sand it a bit and stain it. It was
really easy and I think it turned out well.

Okay, I love that she saw that table sitting there and just asked her neighbor about it! It reminds me of when Thrifty Decor Chick sent her sister dumpster diving for a treasure that somebody threw away! (Read the story here) You just never know where you're going to find a treasure! Thanks, Anj!

Adorable Girl's Room!

Yay for project submissions!!! This comes from a good friend of mine, Brenda. Not only did she do a super cute job on her girl's room (more details below) she also has a great cooking blog! I'm trying the enchiladas later this week and am so excited.....mmmmm.....

Anyway....back to decorating. She sent me the pictures and the "how-to" in her own words, so here's Brenda!

A few years ago, I got wood letters that spell Ellie's name and had my dad cut 8X8 squares of wood that were about 1-2 inches thick. I painted the squares white and then put scrapbook paper over top and glued the letters on the squares. I modpodged the entire thing and it turned out a disaster! I never hung them up because they turned out so bad. I finally found a way to use them in a way I like! (insert: need better camera for things such as this!)

This really does not do it justice.

What I changed:
I took the letters off the squares and put scrapbook paper I had on hand on the letters instead of leaving them white. I then tore off the old scrapbook paper off the squares and picked a more easily matchable paper to put on it. I used spray adhesive to get the paper to stick to the wood and letters. Don't let any get on your fingers or you will make smudges on the scrapbook paper.

I then took these cardboard squares I had gotten at a thrift store for a dollar (for the entire pack) and put them over top the scrapbook paper on the square to make my own "art":

The square wood board with the smaller cardboard squares attached

I had bought a pottery barn butterfly mobile at a garage sale for a dollar and I took the butterflies off and hooked them onto two letters. I just used the wire all ready on the butterfly to make it so I could remove it if we changed themes. My mom had gotten us butterfly nets at Michaels for a few dollars and so we had all ready sawed half of the stick down, I was able to use it as decor under the letters. I just used two push pins to get it to stay. I then attached the other butterflies also using their metal wires to the net. If I only had a better camera! Sorry for the horrible lighting.

The net

Butterfly attached to the "E"

Thanks, Brenda! I seriously think my favorite part of this was that she tried something, it didn't work out, and so she figured out a new use for it! I think it's fabulous and perfect for a little girl's room. Don't forget to check out her cooking blog: "B Dub's Cafe" (love that name!) for some great step-by-step cooking inspiration!

A Home In Progress This Week

I'm so excited for the projects I have coming up this week. I will FINALLY post a non-painted-and-still-totally-beautiful wood project (I know, I know, I promised it last week but it was spent getting my oldest ready for preschool...sob sob) and some awesome wall decorations and letter hangings for a little girl's room.

It's almost (officially) the first day of fall - although according to Melissa at The Inspired Room, fall decorating season is already here! I love fall, it's my wedding anniversary, you get to wear cozy sweaters, the weather is just about perfect where I live. Now I want to bring that inside my house in a fun, inexpensive way! If you have a cute fall project, decor idea, or cozy fall recipe, I would LOVE to share it here!

Happy Fall!

P.S. Have you seen my fun little button for the blog?? Check it out - it's on the right-hand side of the screen, just scroll down! If you've got a H.I.P. (home.in.progress) home, grab it to paste on your own blog!

Is Your Home Hip???

Ummm....look to the down and to the right of the screen and you'll notice a sweet little button - all for this little blog! Natalie Hartley (not ME Natalie, my cousin and FAB graphic designer) did the blog header and button for me - her contact info is listed if anybody needs some help!

So.......I just figured out that A Home In Progress' initials are HIP (hello, happy accident!) so for those of you with HIP homes.....I would LOVE it if you could spread the word about this little blog with your other HIP friends and family by grabbing the button for your own blogs. (I know, a little cheesy, but kinda cute, right? Right?? Right??)

I hope to start getting more and more project submissions from you guys.... To me, it is so much fun to see people really putting energy and love into their homes, even if isn't a flawless project (none of these are)! This blog is not a showcase of perfection! It's about progress.... So let's see what you've been up to!

Tune in tomorrow for a project all of you will love....wood purists and even us paint-it fans, too!

New Life for an Old Hutch

(For those of you who aren't fans of painted wood, this is your warning to look away now. Then again, if you're not a fan of painted wood, I highly doubt you're interested in this blog anyway!)

I love wood. I get that wood purists cringe when something could be salvaged and stained back to a beautiful wood finish. I. get. it. Anyway, this is a painted wood project. If you're a purist, take a deep breath but take a look and see what you think. And then I'm posting something for you later this week where somebody DID bring a wood piece back to life by restoring the wood and it's beautiful, too! There's room for everybody!

So, I've had the same Ikea shelf for the past six years as my bookshelf. It's served it's purposes nicely, but I've dreamed of having a nice hutch or something that made more of an impact in the room for a while.

Enter Craigslist. I scored this piece for $30 from somebody who just wanted it gone. It looks a lot better in the pictures than it did in reality. It was well-used but not anything that I couldn't get past!

I loved the glass cabinet.
And had some nice drawers and covered storage, which is a must in a house
with two toddlers.

It had nice curves.
And the drawers had nice dovetail construction. I know that's a sign of good construction from watching Antiques Roadshow all of my expertise.

I used this tutorial from the Nester. (I am sure you have, but just in case there are a few of you who haven't, please go check out The Nesting Place. It was the very first home design blog I came across in blogland, and her motto of "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful" is just the best.) Anyway, I just LOVED her armoire - the color, the tutorial, everything. And I waited. And waited. And finally the time came for me to paint something that beautiful color (it's Sherwin Williams Halcyon Green).

Since the Nester started out with untreated pine, she just dove right in and DIDN'T sand or prime (since she used paint with primer in one). This wood had definitely been treated before, but I'm sort of a lazy perfectionist, and a detailed sanding just wasn't sounding fun. So, I did a quick sand to rough the surfaces and get out a lot of the nicks and scrapes.


See? Nothing major.

Here's the stuff. Isn't that color awesome? I thought about being original and finding my own color, but why would I when this one is just so perfect???


The color actually looked great with just one coat. I didn't notice a HUGE difference with between lots of prep (sanding, primer) and what I did, which was minimal at best. If this were a piece that would be used and abused more often than this, I probably would've done more.


These slats were soooo difficult to get without drips or goops. Oh well - nothing's perfect in this house (oh, that is such a freeing feeling)!

I added some new hardware, but kept the original hinges.
And here it is in its new home! I only kept the best books that we use and packed the rest in the basement. Inside those drawers are our keys, sunglasses, and odds and ends. Inside the cabinet are all of my kid books and accessories - covered and out of sight! I love it!

Great quick tip: A tip I read somewhere (if you know of who to credit for this, please let me know!) is to take the shiny paper dust jackets off your nice hardback books. I did and it looks so much more cohesive and subdued. And they are the exact same books we had before!

Come back later this week for a before and after where somebody kept the wood - it turned out just as beautiful!

I'm linking this to Kimba's DIY Party at a Soft Place to Land.....go check out some fun projects!

So, are you a painted wood fan or a purist? Does it depend on the piece or the room its for?