Blog - The Lilypad Cottage

October 2, 2012 By Kelly 18 Comments

Boo To You!

It’s been a busy weekend around here, I finally tackled the outside Halloween/Fall decor. I say tackle because this is a BIG job. When we were building this house I thought it would be soooooo cute to have window boxes on ALL the windows. My architect asked me about 3 times if I was sure about the 2nd story ones..

Me: “Oh yeah no problem, they will look so charming!”

Cut to 6 months later and planting them for the first time and picture me 8 months pregnant hanging out our 2nd story windows with a bag of potting soil…you get the idea.

I still do love them though, sometimes you just have to go with good design over practicality!

But back to fall, I don’t like to just leave the window boxes empty during the cold months so this year I tried a combination of fake leaves and about $12 worth of dried corn stalks.

They are fun and wild looking and have a scarecrow kinda vibe.

Sorry for the bad photo the “nap time” sun was not working with me this afternoon!

I did the same thing in my planters, and popped some pumpkins on top.

After tackling the window boxes I was ready to head over to the front door. I picked up one of those inexpensive branch wreaths, some black feathers and ribbon, and this cute sign.

whooooooooo could resist this owl? groan :)

I thought this would make a cute, quick and easy wreath, and it did. Except for the fact that my front door is stained a walnut color and the branch wreath totally got lost.

Time to break out the spray paint! I always keep at least 10 cans of spray paint on hand (who doesn’t?) I sprayed it orange, then red, then black white, added the sign, feathers, and a few fake pumpkins. I also made this burlap and black bow (I’m horrible at making bows, any tips out there?).

TADA! Cheap and easy wreath, bonus – I can take the Halloween stuff off and use it again with Christmas decor.

To complete my Halloween look I got out the spray paint one more time. I sprayed some fake pumpkins black and white, and drew some fun Halloween decor on them.

Drawing on pumpkins with paint pens was a lot trickier than I thought but it came out OK.

I may spray them over next year and try again but at the rate I was going they weren’t going to be ready til New Years!

I got the ‘Trick or Treat” idea from the new Pottery Barn mag, they show this on a chalkboard and it looks sooo cute, but I couldn’t bring myself to erase my Fall Chalkboard (see here) just yet so I put it on a pumpkin instead.

Oh and I almost forgot I quick sewed this burlap pillow and took my black sharpie to it!

Hope you all are enjoying decorating for Halloween! Next up costumes :)

I linked up here at the Craftberry Bush

and here at One Creative Mommy

and here at Finding Home

September 27, 2012 By Kelly 22 Comments

Welcome Fall

I love this time of year! On the lake things are quieting down, and the leaves are changing.

So it’s time to break out the Fall decor! My house is full of blues and cool colors so sometimes mixing in the bright reds and oranges of fall can be challenging. I decided to try a neutral pallet this year, which of course gave me the excuse to use my favorite design tool – SPRAY PAINT!

This is the entry to our house. This table used to be a dark walnut table until I distressed and whitewashed it so it would fit in better with our casual cottage vibe.

The rattan vases are always hanging out here but to make them a little more fall-ish I bought a big bundle of dried corn stalks for $3 from the farm stand down the road.

I mentioned spray paint earlier, I can’t say enough good things about spray paint! My hubby could not say enough bad things about it, you should see his garage floor…

Let’s just say that I was spray painting some chairs red this summer when it was a bit windy and now it looks like an episode of CSI in our garage, oops!

I promised him someday when I’m finished with all my projects I would refinish the garage floor for him. This is a pretty safe promise, I mean, really, me? done with projects for good? HA!

These pears were a pop of color in our dining area but they were starting to pop a little too much. I still liked the shape of the pears so thru the magic of spray paint they are now white. Then they were a little too white (I know I’m ridiculous) so I applied a little brown glaze to tone them down a bit.

BEFORE apple green.

AFTER ahhh! Much better!

I picked up the “love you more” tea towel at an antique store and I have big plans for it to be a pillow but first it’s making a pit stop in the entry until Christmas. I used a staple gun to tack it to a small blank canvas for some instant art.

So that’s what I’ve gotten going on the inside of the house for fall, I’m excited to work on the outside this weekend!

I linked up at ThriftyDecorChick, love her blog check it out!

I also linked up over at Chic on a Shoestring Decorating check out the other great ideas here.

and over at Common Ground here .

and at Tatertots and Jello here

September 26, 2012 By Kelly 4 Comments

Girly Girl Pink

So I’m not a pink person. I’ve never really been a pink person. BUT my daughter is a pink person. Not only a pink person, but an everything must be pink person! So I put my feelings aside and gave my favorite girlie her pink.

My favorite find for this room are the colorful picture frames on the wall. I found them in a vintage store for a few bucks each. I’ve been itching to change what’s inside them but my daughter is pretty attached to her little butterflies and bugs that we picked up together at the craft store. I think when she gets a little older different printed fabrics would be cute.

I thought the big frame looked a little empty so out came the sharpie marker! This led to a long conversation about why Mommy is allowed to draw on the walls…

On the opposite side of the room is my great grandmothers dresser which I painted white. And an old mirror I found at a vintage store. I spray painted it and found some fun ribbon to weave thru it.

The pom poms are from her 4th birthday party and she couldn’t bear to part with them.

I made a growth chart for her too on a length of canvas, so fun!

Hello nightlight :)

So there it is, the one and only pink room in my house…for now. My little diva informs me up next is purple and orange (!) I may find myself missing the pink soon enough!

September 24, 2012 By Kelly 12 Comments

My Baby’s "Manly" Room

When my son was 11 months old he decided he needed a more “manly” room. Ok, so maybe I decided, but we had to pick the paint color for his bedroom the week before my ultrasound revealed him to be a boy. I wanted something gender neutral so I went with a beautiful pale green color a neonish green color that I hated (paint colors can be the most challenging thing about decorating sometimes!).


THE BEFORE, eh, kinda neon, kinda babyish (and yes I know he is in fact a baby!)

It finally bugged me to the point that I had to change it, so then the Mr. and I had a conversation that went like this:
ME: “Hey wouldn’t it look good to put some horizontal planking on this back wall, someday, like maybe for his big boy room?”

MR: “Huh?”

ME: “Here look in this PB kids catalog.”

MR: “Oh, yeah, that would be cool someday.”

So naturally the next day he came home from work to find the room had been painted grey and there were 18 1x6x12 MDF boards laying in our son’s room! WHAT? He totally did not specify when this should happen (see above statement “someday”)

*SIDENOTE : If you saw some wacko driving 25 mph down the road with 2 kids in the car and stacks of MDF boards sticking out the back window between their heads it was definitely not me…probably…

I’m smart and decided to have 5 or 6 boards already nailed up so there was no turning back at this point! Loving husband that he is, he just shook his head and laughed (he has known me for 12 years he should have seen this one coming.)

THE AFTER, see so much better?

I thought this project was going to be no biggie, and it was for the most part, although I don’t envy the Amish after this project. All I had was a hammer and a hand saw, if I didn’t think I would shoot my eye out with it, a nail gun would have been much preferred!

My son’s room is 11 x 12 so the boards were supposed to fit perfectly, turns out it is actually a few inches off so I just put up the side trim pieces to cover up the gaps.

All I did was put liquid nails on the back of each board and then nail them into the studs that I pre-marked up the wall with a pen. To get a space between each board I nailed nails just above the board and rested my next board on top of them. Repeat the process until you reach the top! Then countersink the nails, fill with putty, paint and TADA!

This was easy to do by myself until I got closer to the ceiling, then I broke down and asked my hubby for help (what a sport) hauling the boards up to the top so I didn’t smear liquid nails over everything doing it by myself.

These cute nautical flags are from Land of Nod.

My next fun project for this room was this locker I found at an antique store. I loved this old locker and just had to have it! It was all rusty (which I secretly loved, but didn’t seem a good idea for a baby’s room!) so I spray painted it grey and blue and now it serves as his dresser.

In this shot you can see the white washed “pine” floors in the kids rooms. It is actually a laminate, super affordable and I will be able to paint their rooms any color of the rainbow and it will look nice. BONUS: Purple crayon washes right off…

My last project to complete the room was a fun growth chart. I saw this print on Pinterest (the actual link was broken so I don’t know where it came from) and thought it would make a cute growth chart. So I bought a length of canvas, measured everything out and painted it. I used some cheap trim pieces to frame it on the wall.

Totally covered up the “1” with my trim, whoopsie!

That’s the tour…for now…can’t wait to put a big boy bed and some cute bedding in there, but I CAN wait for the big boy part, not ready to leave his baby days behind me yet :)

UPDATE: You can see the new and improved big boy room, complete with big boy bed here.

Linking up at Thrifty Decor Chic here.

September 21, 2012 By Kelly 36 Comments

Nautical Rope Mirrors

I love LOVE Pottery Barn, if I could just move into one of their catalogs I would (except that my children’s barbies and legos would look totally out of place)! The nautical rope mirrors they featured this summer were amazing and I liked how they had art displayed with rope and dock cleats. I was inspired to try and get the same feeling in my space so this is what I came up with:

The above photo is an updated shot I added so you may notice the bedroom looks totally different! Stay tuned on the rest of my master bedroom makeover in the next few weeks! Ok back to the mirrors –

I wish I had taken some “how to” photos along the way but I will try to break it down for you.

I used the largest mirror charger (you know the thing they normally put centerpieces and candles on at weddings) I could find at Hobby Lobby, they were like $8. I took some sturdy foam board, cut a larger circle around the mirror, and glued the mirror in the center.

Cut a slit in the foam board right next to the mirror on what will be the top (you will use this to slide the rope thru to cover up the unsightly ends of the rope circles). Next wrap your rope around the outer edge of the mirror, cutting the ends and taping them so they don’t fray. Continue to do this until all the foam board is covered (this ended up being 4 coils for me). Glue it all down with hot glue.

Now to cover up the ugly taped ends. I unwound a portion of the rope so I had a thinner piece of rope to work with. Thread the rope thru the slit you cut earlier and wrap around repeating until it covers all the ends.

Attach a length of rope on the back, get your self some dock cleats (living on the water we have a marine store down the road that I got them from, but you can get them online as well) and you are good to go!

There is a tutorial a bit similar to this that I saw on the Nate Berkus Show website, but they used a large mirror ($$) and glued the rope right to the mirror. That would be a good option too but I wanted to make 2 of these and not break the bank!

UPDATE: Check out update photos of my master bedroom here and the rest of my home tour here.

September 21, 2012 By Kelly 10 Comments

Easy Crate Bookshelves

I love old crates and am always on the hunt for them but for this project I broke down and bought new ones. We have a long awkward hallway upstairs that I wanted to knockdown/paint/panel/bedazzle SOMETHING to make it more interesting. So I picked up some crates from the local craft store, stained and stacked them.

I would like to say that I screwed them all together or at least used liquid nails but the truth is they are all precariously stacked there just waiting for a clever toddler to climb them! In actuality they are pretty sturdy and have survived 6 months of my 4 year old running back and forth near them but the liquid nails is on the ever growing to do list!

This project could not be easier!

September 20, 2012 By Kelly 51 Comments

Our Kitchen

I love to cook, I love to cook even more when I don’t have 2 little munchkins running around underneath my feet pulling all the pots and pans out, but they keep me on my toes! So when planning our kitchen I wanted it to be practical and work well for our family but mostly I wanted it to be pretty, of course…

I love the open shelving look and it is pretty functional for our family being able to grab a glass right off the shelf. There are some “pretty pieces” that are just for show but for the most part all our everyday plates and bowls are stuck up there.

I made the Eat sign on a piece of scrap wood I found in our garage (full disclosure this sign just fell down yesterday, so much for 3M strips!)

Our counter tops are Silestone (which is a quartz), I should have taken a better photo of them but they are white with a grey marbling running through them. I REALLY REALLY (REALLY) wanted marble in our kitchen (although I did sneak it into our master bath, stay tuned for that post!) but there was no way the Mr. was signing off on that one after hearing how easily it stains.

So this was the best option for us, it is totally stain proof, scratch proof and never has to be sealed like granite and marble. Not quite as amazing as marble would have been but it gives me the white on white look I wanted.

I also wanted a big island, and this is where we eat dinner every night, so much easier than a wiping down a table all the time. If I could change one thing I would make it all one height so crumbs would be easier to sweep up but you live and learn!

These cabinets are a result of “the evilness of Pinterest” as the Mr. calls it! If you are lucky like me and have 9 ft ceiling these babies are actually not that expensive to add to the top of your existing cabinets. And so after living here for 1 year we “remodeled” (just a tweak really) the kitchen and added these cabinets on the top. I love them! They somehow made our whole kitchen seem bigger.

Thanks for stopping :)

September 20, 2012 By Kelly 52 Comments

Fun with Chalk

I have been loving all the chalkboard art that I have been seeing lately and it got me inspired! We have had this large blank, beige, boring, blah space at the top of our stair case that has been bugging me a for a while now. I was scrounging around in my old paint can stockpile when I came across some chalkboard paint.

AH-HA!

I must immediately go upstairs and paint a giant 5 ft by 5ft square on the wall! Which I did…while the Mr. mowed the lawn…do we think he will notice the giant sized black square on the wall? He has no vision!

I wanted a rustic looking frame to finish things out a bit so I picked up 4 1×4’s from the hardware store and had the handy guy there cut them to the wrong length because I measured wrong the first time correct length for me. I stained them with some leftover stain from another project, and now for the fun part…

I found this great print on Pinterest (there was no artist credit) and thought it would make a great fall chalkboard. What a great poem by Humbert Wolfe, Fall just automatically comes to mind when I read it. Several hours and almost an entire box of chalk later I have some cool wall art for around $20.

Bonus I can change it up every few weeks to help with my decorating ADD :)

For example it was my daughters first day of Pre-K (tear!) and I wanted to capture her personality so we could look back and see how much she changes year to year. So I made a board with all her favorite things on it and what she wants to be when she grows up (FYI she has switched from Dr. to professional mermaid).

Unfortunately my little peanut was not in a cooperative picture taking mood after bribing her with chocolate taking several photos this was the best shot I got before she wiped her hand thru the whole thing. Gotta love my little spitfire! I think this will be a fun project to do every year.

I’m in love with my fall chalkboard but I’m already thinking about Thanksgiving themes ooh or Halloween!

I linked up over at Chic on a Shoestring Decorating here.

here at Common Ground
here at Craftberry Bush
and here at Savvy Southern Style.

September 19, 2012 By Kelly 4 Comments

Pallet Art

If you ever see a broken down pallet on the side of the road grab it! I know this is hardly news, especially if you have been on Pinterest lately (or every waking moment like me). I saw a sign similar to this one on Pinterest a while back but it was a on a different type of wooden background. I happened to have an old pallet lying around, so ta da!

Pause with me a moment to curse Pinterest (even though I do LOVE it) but I did not discover it until 3 months AFTER we finished building this house! So many more ideas are coursing thru my brain now, that the only option is to knock the whole thing down and start over right? Who’s with me??

What that’s crazy? Yes, you should have seen the look the Hubs gave me…so since that is not exactly practical nor fiscally responsible, I will continue to redecorate and move things around and add ideas here and there. And in 5 years we can knock it down! No? 10? All right then back to the pallet…

I whitewashed the whole thing with craft paint mixed with water, bought a letter stencil kit and went to town. The hardest part of the whole project was measuring the letters all out.

I originally planned to hang this on the wall, but that thing is stinkin’ heavy! I’m the ultimate lazy person when it comes to hanging things, if it won’t work with one of those screw in hangy hook things, it ain’t happening . I actually like how it looks leaning now…or I’m still just lazy…

This is in our master bedroom and it gives the room a cool romantic vibe but it’s kind of masculine at the same time. It’s one of my favorite pieces in our house and it only cost me $5. Love that!

September 19, 2012 By Kelly 48 Comments

Our Living Room

Welcome to our living room. It is one of my favorite places in our house, it is so cozy and has an amazing view!

I love all our built ins in this room. I worked with our cabinet maker designing them exactly how I wanted them.

I’m constantly changing and rearranging the bookshelves (any one else do this or am I the only one obsessed?)

I made the LAKE sign on this shelf, I found an old 5 panel door laying on the side of the road (love when that happens!) and ripped one of the panels off. I used a stencil to paint “Lake” on it, and added a little drop shadow.

Our mantel features a picture taken of the church we were married in, I love that photo!

We cheated a bit in this room and had carpet in-laid in to the floor to look like an area rug. This saved us major bucks on our hardwood floors, bonus we didn’t have to buy an expensive area rug either!

These chairs were my grandmother’s, I always LOVED them. When she passed I was so glad to take them home with me as a reminder of her. I just spruced them up a bit, I spray painted them gray and reupholstered them with some light blue ticking to make them a bit more cottagey. They just make me happy to look at and bring back great memories of my grandma.

Our kitchen over looks our living room, which is nice since we are always gathered in the kitchen anyways.

So that is our living room, hope you enjoyed the tour!

Linking up at Celebrating Everyday Life

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