Making a House a Home

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Frame by Frame Style

One of my favorite boards on my Pinterest page is my Making a House a Home board. I use this board to pin pictures that I would enjoy seeing incorporated in our home.

For example, I love these wall letters and they gave me the idea that I could incorporate something like this in our kitchen. Once we finish the crown molding project, I want to hang the word “Yum” on the wall.

Below is another pin from my board. I love the pillows on this couch, and since we just added a new couch to our living room, I decided to do my own interpretation of bright pillows on a dark couch.

I took our existing pillows and added a few more.

I also appreciate the look of a clean, well-organized pantry and I’m working on getting ours there.

A few months, ago I started collecting OXO vacuumed-sealed containers.

And I started incorporating the containers in our pantry.

Recently, I found a 12 pack of the OXO containers at Sam’s Club. They’re kind of a pain to clean because you have to hand wash them, but I’m slowly getting them all cleaned and into our pantry.

I’ve added about half of the 12 into the pantry and had to do a little reorganizing. It looks a little like a hot mess right now. But I’m on my way to a better organized pantry and our food will last longer in the vacuumed sealed containers. No more wasted snacks!

Just focus on the top shelf for now. Doesn’t it look nice? 🙂

Another picture I’ve pinned to my Making a House a Home board is the antique-looking wooden wall quotes.

I found a similar one that doesn’t have quotes on it, but I love the idea of incorporating wine into our kitchen decor, so this will hang above the entrance to our dining room once the crown molding is finished.

What is your own favorite Pinterest board? How do you find inspiration to make your house feel like a home?

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Hand-Me-Down No More

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Frame by Frame Style

We finally have a new couch!! Hooray! No more hand-me-down couch with a lack of seats when friends and family come over.

Remember our old couch?

Here is its replacement. It’s bigger, has more seating and fits in a little better with our decor.

Before we left to pick up our new couch at Ikea, we made sure it would fit by using blue painters tape to visualize the dimensions on the floor. I find this helps me to see how the object will be incorporated into our home. We did the same process when we built our kitchen island.

We postponed getting a new coffee table due to the lack of time we had a Ikea. We were more concerned about getting the couch while we had access to a truck to haul it in. It’s also a good thing that we didn’t buy a new coffee table because there is no way it would’ve fit in the truck. We barely made it with the couch alone. So until we find a new coffee table, our old wooden one will remain.

I would like to change our current coffee table to a square table. I really like this idea I found on Pinterest. I’m still debating the color, but I do like how bright this one is.

I’m so excited about our new couch. I can’t wait to add some more bright throw pillows and find/make the perfect coffee table and really tie the room together.

Pinterest Picks: Kitchens

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Frame by Frame Style

Holy crazy busy week, Batman! Sorry for my brief hiatus. I’m back now and ready to give you my Pinterest picks for this week.

Who doesn’t love a beautiful kitchen? The kitchen is the heart of our home. We spend a great deal of time in there cooking and hanging out. When we have friends over, we love standing around the island snacking and talking. When it’s just BJ and I, we cook dinner together and make snacks together in our kitchen.

Kitchen pictures are all over Pinterest and there are so many beautiful styles to check out.

I love all the windows in this kitchen. It is so bright and airy.

This kitchen is beautiful and rustic. I love the wooden beams on the ceiling.

This kitchen has a beautiful tin ceiling. I also really like the hanging lights over the island. Eventually, we would like to add track lighting so we can hang lights like these in our kitchen.

This kitchen is simple, but colorful. There is something fun and cheery about it.

I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains and this kitchen reminds me of the beautiful kitchens you find in some of the vacation home cabins near Canaan Valley, West Virginia. I love the view out of the windows of this kitchen.

Cupcakes and pastries anyone? I love the windows in this kitchen. It also looks like it would be a great place to entertain friends. Pull up a bar stool and enjoy a cupcake and a cup of coffee among friends.

This space definitely has a wow factor. I love that you can see into the dining room as if you are looking though a window to the outside. This would be a great entertaining space.

I love the skylights in this kitchen. It looks like a great place to enjoy a cup of coffee while you read your local newspaper on your iPad.

Here are more skylights and hanging lights in this beautiful kitchen. I also appreciate a double oven. We tried to get one installed in our kitchen, but it wasn’t an option for our builder.

All of these kitchens and more can be found on my Beautiful Homes Pinterest board.

Pinterest and reorganizing my office

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Frame by Frame Style

I’ve been hearing more about more about the Web site Pinterest, so I decided to try it out and link it to my blog! Here is my Pinterest site where you can find my inspirations and favorites.

http://pinterest.com/frmbyfrmstyle/

It’s still a work in progress, so keep checking back and I will continue to add more content. I’m also going to come up with better names for my boards, but as for right now, I’m having writer’s block when it comes to great names. It will come to me, somewhere random, I’m sure. I always find myself jotting things down on post-its or running to find my iPhone to jot down an idea. This is probably another good reason for me to join Pinterest. I found this article on Real Simple’s Web site that talks about using Pinterest for decorating ideas.

http://simplystated.realsimple.com/2011/07/11/pinterest-may-help-your-decorating-add/

Aside from joining Pinterest today, I also reorganized my office. I usually find myself doing this when papers and office supplies start stacking up and all of the clutter starts getting to my OCD. Because I spent about an hour yesterday shredding the junk mail that stacked up by the paper shredder, I focused my energy today on sorting through the random boxes sitting on my bookshelves. I have a habit of storing things in boxes and forgetting where I put them. About a year later, I go through the box and it’s like finding buried treasure. Although sometimes, the buried treasure would’ve been more useful a few months prior. When I was actually looking for it.

So after rummaging through boxes and throwing away trash and other useless items, I organized what was left and placed the items in their new LABELED homes! I also reorganized my books and added a few more that were laying around the house from my last visit to Borders.

The brightly colored boxes came from my sister-in-law. She used them for my bridal shower to organize and display different games and such and then after the shower, she gave them to me. The black and white box came from my best friend. She used it to wrap my Christmas present last year! How clever! Most of the boxes and baskets in my office were once given to me as part of a gift or to wrap my gift. I love giving (and receiving) presents in boxes and baskets that they can reuse again.

I rearranged some of the boxes and supplies on my other bookshelf for a less cluttered look. The bright green basket also came from my sister-in-law. She gave my bridal shower gifts to me in a green basket and a pink basket! They came in handy while I was planning my wedding and I used them to transport some of the wedding decorations. The gray and white box is from the Container Store and I used it to carry wedding papers and labels for our favors. Now the boxes have a home in my office storing supplies and other items.

For me, it’s always easier to work in a decluttered, organized office. It’s calming. Not to mention now that I’ve labeled the boxes with my handy-dandy label maker, I can easily find what I put away.