2014: My Favorite Posts

It was nice to have a good break and be with family! I hope you had a great holiday too. 2014 was a busy year of projects in our home and taking care of four little girls. We've lived in our home for almost two years. It's a beautiful builder's grade (the hubs, Steve and I) we are trying to make feel cozy and our style. Here's a recap of some of my favorite projects and posts this year:

                   I gave our sconces a makeover with Rub N' Buff  and love how they turned out.

Steve and I made this frame for our daughter's room. 

In the winter, I was a contestant in the Creating with the Stars contest where Steve and I made this Melrose knock-off table. 

Color Block Dining Room Hutch: A week after the table project, we did a makeover to a dresser/buffet and added a hutch on top painting the whole thing in different shades of blue.

I love how this old tv stand turned into a stylish bar cart. Also, I show how I made this gold leaf mirror. 

Our tween daughter's room turned out to be navy, coral and white. Love it!

                         In the summer, we brightened up our front entry by painting and adding trim.

My sisters and I worked together to create this nautical loft space for our family home on Martha's Vineyard.

                         In the Fall, I got organized the paper clutter by creating a command center on a skinny wall.

Steve and I made these bookshelves out of plywood for Home Depot and organized our home office.

             Our laundry room now feels pretty, and organized with some hooks and built in cabinets.

I made this mirror into a large statement piece for our living room. You won't believe how inexpensive it was to make.

Lastly, this sofa has a long story that will be told soon, but I'm glad she's done! My tips for reupholstering furniture and getting over your fear of it are coming up soon. 

I have to admit, this was a bit therapeutic for me to look back at some of the things that happened this year. If you're new to Right Up My Alley, I hope you'll stick around. Onto new adventures and projects for 2015! It's going to be a good one!

ORC Laundry Room Reveal

Thanks for stopping by today to see my laundry room reveal for the Linda's ORC. For six weeks I've planned and worked on our laundry room with my husband to make a fresh start. Our room was great because it was a blank slate of possibilities. You can catch up on the progress of the room here:

                      week 1       /       week 2      /       week 3       /       week 4     /       week 5

                                         Let's review what the room looked like before we got started:

AFTER:

                 This room is definitely an improvement from where it started. I love how it turned out! 

I made this sink skirt to pretty up the not-so pretty pipes under the washtub. I added some instagram prints of my loved ones above to remind me why I do laundry in the first place. 

We added a ship lap wall with hooks on the other side of the washer and dryer to give some variety to the room. The laundry room is an extension of our small hallway "mudroom" so the hooks will be used for hanging lots of things. Did I mention we have four girls? I can just see all their snow gear now lined up on those pretty hooks. Above the hooks I added some art hanging from pants hangers. The quotes I made and printed off myself. 

My husband made the cabinets, the two shelves and the folding table on top of the washer and dryer. This will definitely help with storage! I found two vintage botanical prints at an antique barn sale and put them on the shelves. I love how they match the three green containers. 

Now onto the chandy!

We used a chandelier we already had from our house. I spray painted it and added beads. I'm going to feel extra fancy in my laundry room now that I have a chandy! I'll give you the tutorial of that soon. 

New cover for the ironing board spruces things up. Above, I framed a beautiful baby sweater all my girls have worn. I really enjoy meaningful art. 

There you have it! A happy, more organized and colorful laundry room. Everything in this room was done on a budget and I'll show you the total cost and different projects next week. Thank you Linda for extending the One Room Challenge. There are so many others who were involved in the challenge too, please go see what they did HERE. They will not disappoint! 

You can check out my last ORC project HERE where I did a make-over for our pre-teen daughter's room.

Thanks to my readers who have been so kind to support me! I'll be putting up tutorials of all our DIY projects this coming week. Now, I'm off to do laundry (for real)!

SOURCES:
Coral art, baskets, green containers, hooks ... IKEA
Stripe rug... Overstock
Ironing board cover, baskets ... Target
Instagram pictures... Printsagram
fabric (P/Kaufmann)... Hobby Lobby

One Room Challenge- Week 5

Here we are at week 5 of the ORC! We have one week left to work on our makeovers and I'm far from done. However, our laundry room re-do has made some good progress this week. Check out our board shiplap wall with hooks! I'm loving this look. I'm working on what to hang above the hooks, and those two vintage botanical prints will probably make the cut. The laundry room is right off the small hallway from the garage so I wanted to extend the "mudroom" by putting up hooks for all the kids' gear. 

We also put up our DIY cabinets this week and the folding table. Between the two cabinets we will be installing two open shelves. The sink needs it's skirt still which I'm still working on making. I'm also going to work on adding some texture to the folding table by possibly making it look like Carrera marble. Another thing to add to the list!

With one week left I have to be realistic. I wanted to paint the floors, but we'll see if I have enough time. Do you think it will look good with a black and white runner and call it a day? Or do you think it would look better painted, with a rug?

Things to (still) do for the laundry room makeover:

-hang art
-install two shelves
-install hardware
-poly coat cabinets
-finish and install wood bead chandelier
-sink skirt
-put in new rug
-probably more things I can't think of right now

Let's see how the progress of everyone else's rooms with the 20 main participants and the linking participants of the ORC. Can't wait for next week to see everyone's reveals.

One Room Challenge: The Laundry Room, Week 3

If you're new here and not familiar with the One Room Challenge it's basically a room makeover in six weeks. I'm working on a makeover in our laundry room. Only three more weeks until the deadline reveal. You can catch up on what's been happening on week one and two.

First, I looked for two cabinets for the wall with the washer and dryer. I  looked at the Re-Store (which has used building materials), Craigslist, and other stores. However, I wasn't able to find anything within our budget in the size we wanted. We (my hubby and I) decided to build them with the wood we had. We have a lot of scrap wood from other projects which we could use for these cabinets. We did have to buy some wood, but we are using what we have too. Above, is the frame of the cabinets. Next up is to put on the doors and start painting.

                                                                        source
We will be putting our cabinets on either side of the wall with a shelf in the middle, like this picture.

On the wall opposite of the washer and dryer we put up thin boards to give more texture to the wall. This is a picture of the boards primed.

Soon it will be white with a row of hooks above it and some art work or a drying rack. Like this idea:

source

There is a lot more to do for the room:

-Paint room

-Paint cabinets

-Paint folding table (on top of washer and dryer)

-buy a rug

-drying rack

-hang hooks

-hang chandelier (and possibly paint it)

-baskets

-art work

-new cover for ironing board

I better get going on this list! Go check out what some of the other bloggers and designers are up to HERE and HERE. I'll have another update next week. Thanks for stopping by. 

One Room Challenge: The Laundry Room Redo (Week 1)

I'm joining the rest of the crazies in Linda's ORC! If you are unfamiliar with the ORC, it's a design challenge to get a room done in six weeks. Plenty of time right? Well, last time I worked on my daughter's room and it was pretty tight right up to the end. I'm sure this experience will be similar. Every Thursday, for the next six weeks I will be updating you on the progress of the room. I'm a linking participant, and there are twenty designers who were selected to show their skills. I can't wait to see what they come up with. I really like this challenge because it forces me to get going on a room I've been wanting to do for awhile. So here's the blank slate of a laundry room that I'm going to tackle:

                 

This little sink has a lot of potential to look cute. I'm thinking a skirt would dress her up. 

Baskets and bins will help me a lot in this room. Also, hooks on the long wall, and a new light will go a long way. I'm not for sure about the wallpaper, even though I love it. It's out of my price range so we'll see what I end up doing.

Now for some room inspirations:                            

source

I love the idea of an accent wall either painted dark, stenciled or wallpaper. Floating shelves would be a great DIY to do in here too. 

                                                                               source
I like the idea of putting up pictures of my children and family in here so I can remember why I do laundry.
Overall, I want our laundry room to be practical, organized, happy and a place where I'll want to stay around and fold laundry. I can't wait to get started! I'll show you sneak peaks along the way of my progress every Thursday. Thanks for stopping by!