Better After

Pursuit of Cute

When my first child turned one, I threw a great big party, sent out handmade invitations, ordered a ton of fancy cupcakes, invited every other one-year-old in town, and then watched them drool on stuff and fall asleep. They didn’t even look at all the streamers I painstakingly hung.

My next two kids got a party hat and a cake to smash. Mama took a few fun pictures, and that was that.

Let’s face it, 1st birthday’s are more photo-ops for parents than memorable events for the kids. Lynda had the same kind of idea. She refinished this aging high-chair (it had actually belonged to her grandfather when he was a baby!) with paint, ribbons, and polka-dots for an absolutely adorable 1st birthday gift for a friend.

So not only will she have enviably cute birthday pictures, she’ll also have a ridiculously cute place to eat everyday. That’s the gift that keeps on giving. See more at Oh So Shabby.

And here’s another child’s chair makeover that is about to break the cuteness-meter, from Amanda at Mommy is CooCoo. I’m in hot and heavy love with that fabric. (The new fabric, not the teddy-bears-at-a-county-fair-fabric).

Tricked ya! It’s so tiny, it’s not even child-sized! It’s like, newborn-sized. (Disclaimer: please do not place newborns in tiny chairs, especially not on top of a piano, no matter how adorable that may seem at the time.)

November 4, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

12 In kitchen/dining

From plain to planked: a kitchen makeover

Hey howdy hey! Hope you had a great weekend. If you’re a Phoenix local, and you missed my sister-in-law’s awesome vintage sale, good news! By popular demand she’s opening for one more weekend, this Thursday and Friday, Nov. 7th and 8th. Info here.

And if you’re just here to see what the makeover flavor of the day is, well, you won’t be disappointed either. Here comes a fantastic kitchen makeover from Ashley at Domestic Imperfection.

Before it looked like a kitchen you’d find in some really sad and boring office, e.g., the break room at the DMV.

After: Awesometown! I absolutely love how she raised the cabinets up to the ceiling then added open shelving underneath. And also the plank wall, and also the blue cabinets, and, and, and … Great job Ashley!

November 4, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

14 In My House

My Halloween Hutch

A while back, a couple of my favorite gals Jilly and Mia came to visit me and to spend a day thrifting and DIYing. We ended up at one of the gems of the west valley, Good Buys.

Good Buys is a second-hand furniture store run by possibly the meanest woman on the planet. We were there for maybe 30 minutes and she yelled at us for what felt like the entire time and almost made me cry twice. We actually had to hurry out of there before Mia started throwing punches. She’s just horrid. But, she has good deals!

I picked up this little beauty for a mere $125, which I thought was pretty darn good for a super solid hutch of this size. I really loved the details on the doors too.

Haha, look at my dog!

Anyway, we got it home and somehow got it upstairs, just the three of us. I have no recollection of how this happened. It’s so heavy. Anyway, we painted it with one of my favorite whites, Swiss Coffee, and I love how it turned out! Thanks Jilly and Mia!

Right now I have it all decked out for Halloween, so I thought I’d give you a little tour of the inside. C’mon in …

I wanted to do a little apothecary, so I rounded up some old bottles and such from Goodwill and spookified them.

This one gets a lot of comments, I just jammed some plastic skulls in there and topped them off with tea. Spooky!

I printed out a few Halloween labels from Design. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. for the rest of my remaining jars, and filled them up with whatever creepy things I had on hand.

These are some of my favorite projects, my DIY altered books. So fun to make!

Everybody just LOVES this glittered pumpkin the very most of all, and always asks me how I made it. Yeah … I bought it for $6 at Ross.

Found this little witch statue at my sister-in-law Kalli’s most recent vintage sale, and she’s doing another one this weekend! It’s her last one of the year, so be sure to check it out if you are in the Phoenix area, it’s AMAZING. More info here.

My friend Kelley, aka Queen-of-Halloween, makes these amazing bottles. She made casts of different doll-heads, then filled them with resin and glitter and gifted a couple of them to me. She sure knows the way to my cold, dead heart.

Hope you enjoyed the little tour of my Halloween hutch and that you have a super spooktastic Halloween!

October 31, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

7 In other rooms/ outdoors

Faux Van Goghs

Happy Halloween to you! This time of year I usually reshare a big bunch of before and after shots of overly-photoshopped celebrities in my annual Tricks and a Treat post.

I didn’t round up a fresh one this year, but I have since discovered a really intriguing Pinterest board called “Don’t Compare Yourself to Celebrities,” which sheds a lot of light on the impossible standards of the beauty industry. It’s a fascinating collection that shows what really goes on to produce those ‘perfect’ images we have come to expect as normal. Very thought-provoking. Just wanted to share!

And speaking of sneaky ways of faking a desired look, check out these stairs from Sarah at Compulsive Craftiness. Yep, that is 100% real fake. She painted the wood-grain herself! Beautiful AND attainable!

And Michelle had the same idea for her metal door which was lacking any warmth. Hard to believe that’s totally faux!

Great touch adding the knots in the wood, I would have never known it was a metal door unless I physically knocked on it. Check out her process on her blog Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust.

October 31, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

2 In chairs/ottomans/seating/ outdoors

(Past Its) Prime Crib

Do you have an old crib lying around that you can’t bear to part with, even though Jr. is all grown up and your baby days are behind you? “My grandkids might want it someday,” you think, “if only I could find all the parts and slats and missing screws and such … Maybe if I searched the attic … and the garage …”

Don’t torture yourself. How about turning it into something you might actually enjoy, like an outdoor bench? Nostalgia and function. Now there’s an idea! Every time you use it, it will be like a walk down memory lane. Or a sit down memory lane. Or whatever. From the talented Debbie at Painted Therapy.

October 30, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

12 In living room

Shaggy to Styling: a ’70s living room makeover

When Better After reader Katie laid eyes on this house, her first thoughts were “I’ve finally found the perfect venue to open my ’70s-themed karaoke bar, YES.” No wait, that’s what I was thinking. But Katie has more vision than me, and actually planned on turning this shagalicious space into a beautiful home.

Out went the wall-to-wall shag, up came the sunken floors, and into the current decade came everything else.

And how about that inexplicable iron railing? Probably meant to protect guests from falling three deadly inches into the sunken living room, but now it all flows together as one open space. (That corner would have made the perfect karaoke stage though, did you even consider that, Katie?)

There was a lot of green and gold in this home when they began, like the gold tile in the entryway here. So Katie and her husband chose to work with it instead of against it, and brought in some cheerful paint colors to play it up.