Merry Christmas from our 1802 home to yours! This year, I thought it would be nice to show you how I decorated our mantle for the winter season! John loves decorating for Christmas, but I thought I wasn’t much of a seasonal decorator. Although without having a storefront to decorate this year, I enjoyed decorating our home for Christmas more than any other year. It was exciting to find new items to decorate with and make the house feel fresh again! I may have just used all my design energy on the storefront over the last 8 years so it was nice to have that energy for our home this year!
John and I found vintage thermoses from one vendor at a holiday craft show. I was so excited and told John I wanted them. He asked, “How many?” I said… “All of them!” He gave me the look that said, you’re crazy and I have no idea how this will look good, but I trust you! I wanted to do all vintage thermoses on the mantel mixed with pine trees and lights. That way, it’s not just a Christmas mantel, it can last all winter and look great!
So, that’s just what we did! We bought all the vintage thermoses that the vendor had and started adding them to our mantel!
Vintage Thermos Mantel
I loved it, but it needed something more… colored lights. I usually ONLY like white lights, but with this vintage feel, the colored lights felt right.
Isn’t that better?
What else could make a thermos mantel any cuter? Gnomes I say!!!
Look at these cuties that I found in a shop in Saratoga Springs during their Victorian Walk.
The mini coffee cups in their hands!!! Stop it! I just can’t take all that cuteness!
So let’s recap the beauty of this design… It’s repurposed vintage items mixes with new locally sourced items, and topped with LED colored lights and pine tree art. What do you think? Will you decorate your mantel with vintage thermoses next Christmas?
Oh, and one other design tip. If you’re light on decor or just want to bring the beautiful outside indoors, try cutting pieces of pine trees and adding them to your favorite pitchers. I did that here:
Isn’t it so cute!
Now let’s take a look at the mantel from afar:
Could your house use some new decor or design? We’d love to help!! We can help pick out colors, finishes, and products that will give your house a refresh in the new year.
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We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
I hope you had a nice weekend! It was a rough one here with a surprise root canal on Friday morning and the flu the next day. The kids and I are hacking our days away on the couch. Good thing I can type and not talk to share this week’s makeover with you.
It’s been a bit since I’ve shared a custom order with you. This coffee table and end stand set was already owned by one of our clients. Here’s what they looked like before:
We painted this set with Benjamin Moore Black and sprayed it with a protective clear coat.
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
How was your weekend? We had a festive weekend with the Saratoga Victorian Walk and the Troy Victorian Stroll! It was so much fun!
I’m really excited to share this week’s kitchen makeover with you! One thing that sets us apart from other kitchen cabinet painting companies is that we also do interior design. So when we come to your house to paint cabinets, we’re not just thinking about what colors would work for your space, we can also make design recommendation to completely update the kitchen. With this project, Amy started by hiring me to do a design consult to help them pick flooring, counters, hardware, paint color, etc. After all of those details were selected, we did the kitchen cabinet painting for them and added new hardware. They had a contractor who did the rest of the changes to the kitchen.
Here’s the kitchen before:
Kitchen BeforeKitchen BeforeKitchen BeforeKitchen Before
We painted the kitchen main cabinets and peninsula Benjamin Moore’s Simply White. We also added new hardware, and sprayed everything with a protective clear coat.
If you’d like to see how we paint Kitchen Cabinets, click here to check out our video on YouTube.
Ready for the after photos?
Kitchen After
What an beautiful transformation!!Â
Could your kitchen use an update? We’d love to help!! We can help pick out colors, finishes, product and do the cabinet painting, tiling, add new hardware. You can use our Contact Us form to request our design services or a quote for painting your kitchen. Please check out other kitchen projects on our For Sale page. We’ll need to see a picture of your kitchen, a list of how many doors and drawers there are, and where you are located to email you an estimate. This change ups the value of your home and gives you a whole new look at a fraction of the cost of new kitchen cabinets!
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
How are you? I hope you’re back into the routine of normal schedules after a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and that your hearts are full from the practice of giving thanks. It’s such a good discipline in the valleys or on the mountaintops. We all have something to be grateful for!
For this week’s makeover, I’m excited to share a kitchen makeover where I did the design and then we painted the kitchen cabinets. I feel like we most often paint kitchens white, but in this case the kitchen went from white to green! If you’ve ever tried to pick a medium sage green, you can know how tricky that process can be. We went back and for on this kitchen, but landed on Benjamin Moore’s cedar mountain 706. I couldn’t love it more!! It’s hard to photograph this green because it looks so different based on the lighting, but click the link above to see the color on Benjamin Moore’s site.
Here’s the kitchen before:
Kitchen Before Kitchen BeforeKitchen Before
We painted the kitchen main cabinets and peninsula Benjamin Moore’s cedar mountain 706. We also added new hardware, removed the wine fridge in the island and made a shelf for a microwave to free up more counter space, and sprayed everything with a protective clear coat.Â
What an beautiful transformation!!
If you’d like to see how we paint Kitchen Cabinets, click here to check out our video on YouTube.
Ready for the after photos?
Kitchen AfterKitchen AfterKitchen AfterKitchen AfterKitchen AfterKitchen AfterKitchen After
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
I’m thankful for each of you. It seems surreal to me that I’ve been writing these weekly blog posts for almost 11 years now. It seems like it can’t be true. It seems like I just took the leap to start my own business. It probably feels that way because small business always feels risky. It seems like John just quit his job to join me, but it also feels like we’ve grown so much. Those first few years of working together were not for the faint of heart. It probably feels that way because sometimes it’s still hard. It seems like I should still have toddlers who sleep while I work, but now they work with me. It seems like so many friends are in our lives because of happenstance, but really, so many of our paths have crossed through FunCycled.
Since this is the week of Thanksgiving, I’m probably feeling extra sappy. It’s one of my favorite days to celebrate because it’s not about buying the best thing or attending all the events; it’s simply sitting around a table with people you choose as family or with family. We thank God and lift up each other with words of gratitude; all while enjoying the best comfort foods. I. love. it.
So I thought it would be nice to share just a few things I’m thankful for in our Repurposed Idea House this year. Some small, others large, but none less worthy of taking the time to share our thanks.
I’m thankful for this little corner… I love that sign because it’s what we love to do in our home. We love to fill our home with friends, family, and new acquaintances that will most likely become friends. Making space for new friends is important and keeping a rhythm of time with old friends and family is critical, life giving for us.
Our front foyer was one of the last spaces we finished in the Repurposed Idea House. I love this runner… it took me months to find one I liked and I feel happy when I see it. I know it’s a little thing, but isn’t that what a happy house is all about? Creating spaces that make you smile and making memories with the people you love?
I love this corner in my kitchen with an old post office cabinet that we converted into a mug rack. Each mug represents a place we traveled or a friend who gave us one. It also remind me of my mom; she had one when I was a kid and I loved picking my favorite mug and snuggling up in a blanket after long days in the snow. It makes me smile.
Gallery wall
This year, I added a gallery wall to our formal living room. This room reminds me that not everything can be done quickly. When we first started working on the house, we started with this room. Almost 4 years ago. I decided to spend the largest part of the budget on the couch we wanted, but that meant we had to wait on adding much more decor. It seemed full circle to be finishing up the house by adding the final details to the first room we started on. Sometimes it really does take years to make a room what you want to be. It’s ok. Do it little by little, as you have the means, and as you develop your own style.
We also added this fireplace to the formal living room. If you know me well, you know why I love this so much! I’m always cold and this really just gives me spot to warm up on the cold days. So pretty!
I’ve had this vanity in storage for over 10 years. I didn’t have a spot for it, but it was my grandmothers and I knew I’d use it one day. When we redid the foyer, it fit perfectly in this spot so we painted it mustard and I love how I get to think of her every time I walk by. That’s another beautiful thing about repurposing. So many things in our house remind me of beautiful people, places, and adventures we’ve been on. That’s such a gift!
Our kitchen… John loves cooking and having this large space, filled with history and character and it’s one of my favorite parts of our house. I love filling it with people laughing, chili competitions, cooking meatballs and huge amounts of pasta for our shared spaghetti diner.
June… I’m thankful for our new puppy in 2022. She has become a new best friend for our other dog Sadie, a pal to our kids, my faithful coworker, and John’s best friend. We love you Junie!
These three… I just can’t. John has worked SO HARD these last 4 years to take a house that brought me to tears on closing day because it needed so much into a gorgeous, historic, beautiful home that feels like something I shouldn’t be able to afford. It’s such a blessing.
Josh has learned so much about working on a house by helping John and that was one of the reasons John wanted to buy this house. So our kids would know how to maintain and redo their own houses one day if they wanted to. He also finished a tree house this year with John and his game room.
Harmony blossomed this year into her own interior design style. She and I have perused more design magazines than I can count, watched shows about house flips, and even met Jean Stoffer and her daughter Grace (which Harmony said was the best day of her life). Here’s her first every design… her room makeover.
All in all… this is my happy place.
I also love this little painting that we bought while in Paris this year. It’s the exact view from this little cafe on the market block where we stopped to eat and there was an artist painting photos. It reminds me of how blessed we were to be able to travel to such a beautiful place this year. Such a gift!
I’d love to see or hear about some of the beautiful spots in your home that you’re thankful for this year!
Would you like help redesigning your home? Let me help you with repurposed designs! There’s something special about not just buying everything new. So many stories to celebrate, so many new stories to make, and it helps create rooms that bring a smile to your face.
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
How’s your week going? We’ve been dealing with some health issues on the home front, but doing well other than that. My son, Josh, and I were able to go on a day trip to NYC on Saturday and do all the things he loves. Lego store, Nintendo store, eat lots of pizza and Chick-fil-A, and we even went to a musical.
For this week’s makeover, I wanted to share a few bedroom designs that I did for the lake house that I’ve been working on for 2 years. Each room was a blank slate when I started so there isn’t much of a “before” to show you, but here are the afters for you:
Bedroom 1Bedroom 1Bedroom 1
My favorite part of bedroom 1 is the headboard, it hangs on the wall so it would work with any platform bed you have. I love the mix of leather and fabric.
Bedroom 2
This bedroom was designed to be monochromatic. It will eventually have a large wall of bunkbeds on the wall to the back of me in this photo.
Bedroom 3Bedroom 3
This bedroom was actually made out of a storage closet. We opened up one of the walls with a French door that looks out to the lake, added a tiny closet, and made this into one of my favorite tiny spots in the house.
Bedroom 4
This room is so comfy, relaxed and sophisticated. We repurposed a headboard that came with the house, then used linens, beautiful end stands with gold accents, and light gray walls.
Bedroom 5Bedroom 5
Doesn’t this last one look just like it should be in a lake house magazine? I love the artwork, the mossy accent wall, and the bed. We also opened up the window facing the lake so when you’re in bed, you can lay and look at that beautiful view!
Would you like help redesigning your bedroom? Let me help you with the design! Check out more details about our Interior Design Services.Â
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
How are you? I hope you’re all enjoyed the last few weeks of fall in upstate!
Remember the lake house I’ve been working on designing for the last 2 years? Well, today is the day that I get to share the living room makeover.Â
Here it is before:
Lake house living room before
Before I show you the after photos, I wanted to talk about a couple of my favorite things from the design. First, look up! Painting the ceilings white and adding beams made the biggest transformation in this space. Also, I don’t have a before picture but the stair area was completely sheet rocked before. So we talked through opening it up and making the stairs a focal point while also allowing company to see from the front door right out to the lake when they walk in! It made the whole first floor feel modern and open.
Next look down, anchoring the room with a large rug also brought the space together. The coffee table was my favorite furniture piece in this room (with the striped chair being a very close second). I just loved the turned legs. So check that out as you scroll down, too!
Let me know your favorite part of the design in the comments below! I love hearing from you!
I’m still hoping that my clients will add a beam to the fireplace, but other than that this room is all done! Now they can spend time with their family and friends while enjoying the view from inside their home during the colder months. đź’•
Would you like help redesigning your home? Let me help you with the design! Check out more details about our Interior Design Services.
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
How are you? I hope you enjoyed the last peak weekend in Upstate Ny! We had a beautiful weekend opening our home for the first time for tours at our Repurposed Idea House. We had such a blast! Thank you to everyone who came out to see us!
Here are some highlights from the day:
Pam showing off the new home office.The first of 6 – 1 hour tours of the day!Fire pit with marshmallows ready to go!One of my favorite spots in the house!Another tour group of special friends and customers.How our hearts felt after the day!
This week’s makeover shows how paint and new hardware can dramatically change a hutch. Hutches are one of my favorite furniture pieces to redo because the transformation is huge!
Here’s the hutch before:
We painted it with Benjamin Moore Cloud Nine 2144-60 and added new hardware.
This was done as a custom order so it’s not for sale, but I still wanted to share the transformation.
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
I hope you had a beautiful weekend! On this week’s travel blog post, I’m sharing a trip that we actually took with a group of friends this summer to the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum.
If you’re thinking about doing this trip, I would recommend going with a group of friends or a youth group, school group, etc. It wouldn’t take all day at each location if you were there with only a couple people. Having over 25 people in our group made it a slower walk through, lots of reasons to stop, and plenty of friends to chat with while you wait.
We went to the Ark Encounter first and bought the three day pass that included parking for the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum. The two locations are just under an hour away from each other so it would be tricky to do both in one day.
Here are the highlights of the ark…
Seeing the actually size of the ark in person is really impressive and awe inspiring. The petting zoo is really clean and cute. The kids loved petting the kangaroos.
If you have some people who really like to read details and plaques at museum, I’d have them start on the 3rd floor as you walk through the petting zoo. It can take a long time to read everything on the 3rd floor so I wish I had known that ahead. Small kids or friends that don’t love doing a lot of reading may feel bored after a bit on the 3rd floor of the ark. (I loved seeing the rooms for Noah and his family on the 3rd floor though.)
Seeing the 1st and 2nd floor with how they set it up to house all the animals and food was so interesting. Reading about how they got to the numbers that they did, etc, was interesting, too. We all loved the gift shops. The mom’s loved the jewelry, kids loved the toys and clothing, and dad’s loved the Christmas ornaments. lol
They also have the slowest carousel I’ve ever been on, but it’s free so go ahead and give it a go anyway! lol
Our kids loved the VR “ride” next to the carousel, too. Their iced coffee was so good and we ate lunch in the large restaurant just outside of the ark, but didn’t love it. It was buffet style and just ok in our opinion.
Harmony riding the camel. Giraffes waiting for a photo in the parking lot by where you’d purchase tickets.The whole group of friends who made this trip a delightfully soul filling experience.
After we finished at the Ark, we stopped by this Mexican restaurant (3 minutes from the ark) and they were able to fit us in with no wait. It was so delicious.
Then we went to our hotel which was the Home2 Suites by Hilton in Florence (7570 Woodspoint Dr Florence, KY 41042). It was such a perfect spot… just about half way between both locations, really clean and family friendly, had a free breakfast each morning, you could bring pets if you wanted to, and was close to many fast food places that everyone loved.
The 2nd day of the trip we went to the Creation Museum. It was a rainy day so we didn’t get to walk the gardens like we wanted to, but here’s on pretty picture before the rain started.
Gardens at the Creation Museum
I enjoyed the live teaching and reptile show the most because so much of the museum was reading plaques. John enjoyed reading through everything though. They did have a cool area inside with a creation display that I liked.
This museum geared more toward teens and adults more than children which is still good, just wanted to make people aware before paying to bring younger kids.
Overall, I would recommend going on this trip at least once! We were glad we went!
If you’ve been to the area and enjoyed another family friendly spot, please share it in the comments below for others to check out.
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Happy FunCycling Friends, Sarah ;)
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