Better After

8 In miscellaneous/ outdoors

Hold the Door

Jilly’s front door was … I don’t want to say terrifying … but it was one of those doors that children probably skipped when trick-or-treating on Halloween. She even admits “It made my stomach turn every single day.” Luckily she possesses great taste and a helpfully handy brother, and together they made it 100% appealing. I bet the children gather in throngs now just to look at it!

But hold the phone. That was only the outside. Inside was another story completely. A sinister secret of faux oak stain, orangey shellacked trim, and honeycomb blinds. After two years of averting her eyes every time she walked by and blindfolding guests on their way out, she decided to give it the attention it deserved. She chopped up a door from ReStore to make the panels on the bottom half of the windows, ditched the blinds in favor of frosted glass inserts she DIY-ed with a $5 roll of contact paper, caulked, painted, and stood back and proudly admired! See the whole story on her blog Girls With Good Taste.

Doesn’t Jilly seem awesome? Don’t you wish you could hang
out with her for a day and pick her brain? And maybe go treasure hunting
at her favorite thrift stores, and go out for lunch (her treat)? And
also her best friend Mia who is equally as awesome came along, and your
very favorite blogger was there too, (me! It is me, right? Shhh,
let’s pretend), AND, like that wasn’t enough, YOUR best friend was
invited too? And we all had a fabulous time out on the town, shopping,
eating, and generally having the best day ever?

Well, hold
the phone again. Because that is exactly what Jilly and Mia are giving
away in honor of Best Friend Month on their blog Girls with Good Taste. You. Them. Me. Your BFF. A full day of thrifting, feasting and pee-your-pants fun. Check it out HERE!

March 12, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

11 In bathroom/ office

Let’s talk about stripes, baby!

Who can you look to for help when your bathroom is so boringly boring that you’ve lost all hope? Who will save the day when your walls cry out for adornment and attention?

Who can you turn to when your office makeover is still lacking that final piece of pizazz?

MR. STRIPEY!

(Mr. Stripey is actually a variety of heirloom tomato. But we are going to pretend Wikipedia never told us that and go ahead with our stripe-painting superhero theme).

Virginia’s bathroom needed some personality on the double! Mr. Stripey to the rescue! Those wide gray stripes are the perfect way to add a punch of interest to the wall while still keeping everything in tasteful territory. Love it! See it all on her blog Live Love DIY.

Oh no! Andrea needed a jolt of color to complete her office makeover, but where? Mr. Stripey strikes again! This time on the ceiling! He’s so clever. Much more to see on her blog Sister’s With Flair.

And when Colleen wanted a bold look in her bathroom, who did she call? Mr. Weird Wallpaper.

Whoops, wrong number! She hung up and called Mr. Stripey, who zoomed over in his stripe-mobile (I picture it looking something like this) and striped that wallpaper into oblivion!

(I actually thought the wallpaper was kinda cool, but the new look is waaay better).

Take the whole tour on her blog My Lemondrop Dreams.

March 9, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

5 In desks/hutches/buffets

Captain’s Orders

If your Habitat For Humanity Restore is anything like mine, they never have what you need. EVER. And if you happen to actually find something to buy there, when you get it home, it will ALWAYS be the wrong size, wattage, etc. and they WILL NOT let you return it. HA HA, NICE TRY LADY. But I’m not bitter. (Yes I am. I hate my Restore).

Anyway, I hope your Restore rocks. But if it doesn’t and you find yourself with some randomly sized cabinets like Micah did and no chance of returning them, well, whip out your saw and nail gun and caulk and a bunch of other stuff, and you MAKE them work for you! She and her husband made a desk! Yes, those are the same cabinets! See the whole process on her blog Captain Micah.

March 9, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

17 In desks/hutches/buffets/ laundry rooms/ tables/dressers

Teal-aqu-orquise, or whatever you call it.

Teal … aqua … peacock blue … turquoise; whatever you want to call it, its still going strong. Maybe someday it will be the avocado green of the color wheel, but let’s hope that day is far away. (I quietly predict that day will never come, judging by all the roadside turquoise jewelry my grandma still wears that is decades old and still looks totally hip). Turquoise Forever, who’s with me?!

Well, here we go:

First, a little hutch redo from Kara at Decor Voyeur that looks so much cuter now that it has been de-fronded, or whatever the heck used to be painted on there, in favor of distressed aqua and red knobs. Aqua and red! Surely this is a timeless color combo? How can it get old? I submit that it cannot.

Did you know that turquoise looks pretty rad next to walnut stain? I did not, but now I do thanks to Jennifer from The Magic Brush! Be sure to check out her blog for the story of how she had to outwit a potentially dangerous Eskimo stalker to buy this hutch.

Ahh, yes, here’s another classic look, bronze and turquoise. Or, as Dionne calls it, teal-icous! Or, it we want to get all nitpicky about it, Venezuelan Blue, which is what Benjamin Moore calls it. I think we can all agree it looks awesome. See it on her blog The Turquoise Iris.

This hutch was perfect for a little girl’s room, if that little girl enjoyed smoking pipes in the drawing room after dinner. Fortunately Brooke’s daughter did not, so Brooke youth-ified it with happy aqua paint and a bold black outline for her bedroom instead. Did I mention she found it for free too? No fair. See more on her blog Covered in Grace.

Would you enjoy some Aqua Chiffon with your laundry? (Isn’t that the perfect paint color name for a laundry room?) If you’re going to do chores, do them in style right? That’s why I always insist on cleaning the house in my feather boa and tiara. Not really, my feather boa makes such a mess. See all the many details Michelle put into this room on her blog Sweet Something Designs. (My favorite is the floor!)

And finally, Better After reader Kristy found this table set for $50 on craigslist, but wasn’t digging its deep dark stain. So she sanded the life out of it and painted and (lightly) re-stained for a completely new look. Who knew all that fabulous wood grain was in hiding under there? I almost thought she had faux-ed it!

Hope you enjoyed this aqua round-up! Great job and high-fives to everyone!

March 8, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

6 In outdoors/ tables/dressers

Life’s a Picnic

Andrea and I have the same picnic table! Only mine should be the before picture, not her leaf-strewn but otherwise perfect table. Mine is on my back porch where it receives daily sprinkler soakage, nonstop withering sunshine, and a steady stream of bird poo. Plus, edges of it have been chewed off by a dog and we don’t even have a dog. Needless to say, we don’t use it much. That’s a shame, because it could look as cute as Andrea’s! I’m sure my kids would love it, and they wouldn’t even have to fight over who gets to sit where, because I would handily assign them seats based on birth-order! Genius.

See more on her blog Making My House a Home.

March 8, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

8 In tables/dressers

Gray Heirs

I often worry about myself and my love affair with the color gray. My clothes are gray, my walls are gray, my hair is gray. Ok, not yet, but it could happen. But I wouldn’t be opposed to gray hair. Only if it was that shocking silver bright gray though, not like, that old-mop-water gray. I obviously think about this a lot. That worries me too. Let’s change the subject. But let’s still talk about gray. It’s my favorite. Here are some gray-lovin’ makeovers sent straight from Audra to you! She vastly improved their station in life, from thrift-store fodder to heirloom worthy!

You can see more on her blog Simply Salvaged Restoration. (Gray chest HERE.)