My Ladder Shelf

A while back I decided I wanted something new for my living room. I wanted some shelves, something to display some pictures, a few little pretty things I'd picked up or been given and a place to store some blankets in a decorative but functional way.

Naturally, I searched Pinterest for some inspiration. It took some scrolling but I fell in love with the idea of a ladder shelf. What a unique way of getting my fish tank up to eye level, storing blankets and displaying some of my favorite things. And, with my living room essentially shaped as a boring rectangle, I could put this pretty much anywhere and it wouldn't completely divide the room.

I took my idea to my DH and asked if he could build it for me. Really, having him build me something is the best way to get exactly what I want, usually for less, and it makes him happy because he gets to play with his toys. Everyone wins.

It took some figuring and planning, but he built me this beautiful shelf! I love it. Knowing we would have a ten gallon fish tank on a certain shelf, we were able to reinforce it. And there was plenty of room underneath for E and A's project trays and a cloth bin that holds their coloring books and crayons.

The biggest compromise was came with whether or not it would be painted or stained. He loves the wood grain and I like light colors to keep it from feeling heavy. Yes he won, and we stained it. But only because we had stain left over from when we did the floors.

I still have a long list of things for him to build me - including a pretty console table for under the mounted TV just so I can get rid of the blah store bought media stand.

Something Frosty in the Warm Fall

I love the look of frosted glass. I've done lots of projects with glass etching cream and love them. The problem is that can get expensive and would large projects a little more challenging given the budget I'm working with.

So I thought it would be a good time to try the frosted glass spray paint. I found a couple of cheap framed mirrors at Walmart and taped off what I wanted to remain clean glass with masking tape.

Following the directions on the can of paint, I sprayed the mirrors and  waited for it to dry to see how it would turn out.


I really liked how the smaller mirror turned out. The diagonal lines are interesting and can help draw the eye to other pieces around it when hung on the wall. The larger mirror was ok, but a little plain. So I wasn't too bummed when I learned of a major drawback to the spray frosting paint. It can be scratched off.




I found this out by leaving the smaller on top of the larger and it obviously got moved around and scraped some of the paint off. (The picture doesn't show how bad it was actually chipped, but it was all four corners where the smaller mirror was set.)

But, this dark cloud does have a silver lining. If the paint gets scratched or you just plain don't like how the thing turned out, you can scrape the paint off! I used the razor scraper I use on my glass top stove and it came right off, no issues. I was so relieved. Now I know I can easily change how these mirrors look and that means changing my decor for the cost of a can of paint!

Personalized Space

My two little granddaughters share just about everything - toys, clothes, and room to name a few. Right now they are young enough to still be ok with that much sharing, but I'm sure it won't be long before they want their own space.

To help their shared room feel like it can be a bit more personalized and they each have some space of their own, I made them each a name banner. There is one for each girl so her name can be hung above her bed, maybe giving her a feeling of having some space of her own.

They both just got new bed linens and comforters that were black and white with bright pink flowers. My step-daughter wanted their room to be fun and colorful, so when I saw this material I was ecstatic! It fit the theme of the room perfectly and the flower buttons at each end gave them that extra little pop of color.