Spooky Scary Entryway

Halloween decor & fun is in full swing at our Casa. The first Halloween project we talked so far is our entryway. Normally our entry looks bright and cheery with our wedding pics on display.

For Halloween we wanted our entryway to look more spooky and scary. So we replaced the sweet and upped the creep factor. Our inspiration for Halloween entryway makeover came from the Arachnophobia rug tiles from Flor. It's the first rug I've purchased from Flor and it won't be the last, its so simple to together. I used six tiles for the rugs and the six tiles fit the space well. I didn't even use the stickers it came with Mr. CLH and I had fun taking turns placing a bunch creepy crawlers on our walls.

Here's how our Halloween entryway looks. From the moment you enter our house, your greeted by a web of spiders on the floor oh and rats.

I bought some Martha Stewart spider and bug silhouettes on sale at Joann's. I love the size of the bugs and spiders, they look so creepy. I also mixed in a few 3D spiders to balance out the flatness of the silhouettes. The black spots on the floor are some roaches I picked at the Dollar Tree, so really and creep looking icky.

A glittered skeleton rounded out the look on the ledges. Our son was at his cousins house while we were decorating and liked how spooky scary our entryway looks. Next up we'll be adding a little spookiness to our dining room.

I love how the the spider silhouettes looks in the panel of our front door. It looks so cool from both the inside and outside.

There's are spooky scary { have you been noticing my reference to 30 Rock? } entryway. Have you started decorating for Halloween yet? If so what did you decorate?

Craigslist Made Easy

As you probably know by now I'm a huge fan of Craigslist, I bought our dresser on there, an old coffee table, our dining room table and even our wedding photographer!! Yep I'm a huge fan, living finding unique pieces for our home, and sometimes just go on there to look, lol. What I'm not a huge fan of, is looking though every single post { after narrowing down my search } to look at every single page, to find icky items and no gems. Well, I pretty sure my Craigslist dilemma is finally over. I was recently contacted by the founder of CraigsEasy, which helps people like you & me avoid wasting precious time { looking though countless pages to locate the gems faster } he thought I would enjoy using this FREE tool to make my searches easier. I should also note this is local company based in Palo Alto...which is cool so close to our hometown of Sacramento.

They offer a free tool called a booklet from their site, Craigseasy takes all the images from the listing and places them all in one page, so you able to see all the pictures upfront and then click on the listing your interested in purchases the item.

It was so easy to add to my computer, since its only a booklet { no need to download anything } for more information on getting a booklet for your pc click { here } I did a simple search using CE - aka Craigseasy, looking for a dresser for under $75.00 in less then a few minutes, I found two dresses. The first one is for $70 the second one is only $50!!

Isn't this an amazing dresser for only $50 bucks, look at the detail. This dresser would look amazing painted a pretty shade of blue or Kelly green.

Nest I did a search for mid century under $75 bucks. I found this cute mid century modern side table for $ 55 bucks, over priced yes. Next I came across the super cute mid century modern desk, for $60 a little steep for me for such a simple desk, that I often see at Thrift stores for h much less

My final search was for coffee tables under $50 bucks, I came across two the have promise. The first one is $35 dollars and would amazing spray painted - white or black. The other coffee table I like was only $30.00 and was practically screaming out to be painted a crisp clean glossy white.

For those of you out there that are new to shopping on CL - remember to look past the ugly and so the potentail your find has.

Do you use Craigseasy, to make your Craigslist searching easier? If not add the booklet and let me know what you think.

** I was not compensated for my review on CraigsEasy, just glad to spread the word and hope you find amazing pieces for your home.

Thrifty Loot

On Saturday my mom and I decided to do a little thrift store shopping. We only stopped in two thrift stores { Goodwill & St. Vincent }, but walked away with some thrifty loot. That's one of the biggest reason I love shopping at thrift stores, you never know what gems you might find. I found this great ceramic bird, that just needs a coat of primer and white glossy spray paint. The little bird was only 2 bucks. I also bought the little wire basket for fifty cents to go in my garages laundry area { a simple way to keep my laundry products together} 

I love this little lion I found at the register while buying my stuff, I got it for my husband for his nightstand. Not only is it cute, its a nod to his astrological sign in the not so obvious way.

I also found a wicker and glass vase, perfect for the summertime and fall decor. I also came across a little stainless steel berry colander. One of the quirkier finds of the day was the little black bull head, that I plan on leaving as is.

Out of all my thrifty loot, the biggest score of the day were the vintage looking Halloween plates that were $1.00 each. Oh and they were from Pottery Barn, and I think brand new because they still had cardboard divider between each plate. I love these plates, they are super cute.

 

I'm glad I found a some fun items for our house, because the last few times I've gone thrift shopping, I left empty handed. Have you been thrift shopping lately and found some great loot?

Inside Job

Our kitchen redo has been on my mind for quite sometime, were planning to redo our kitchen over a time span. I how now idea how long that will be. But I've been wanting to tackle a few mini projects in our kitchen. So I decided to give the inside kitchen cabinets a mini makeover. The cabinet where we keep our everyday dinnerware only had two shelves. Which created a huge problem trying to fit our everyday dinnerware on to two shelves.

Not to mention, Mr CLH would put the dishes away in a way that would bug me, big dishes on top of little dishes. Please tell me I'm not the only one who shoots evil glares at the one they love after opening cabinet doors! The easiest solution for my problem, was to add another shelf. I did some measurements of our excising shelves and stopped in Lowes and had a new shelf cut, the new shelf was only $5 bucks. As you can see the new shelf stood out and helped the extra storage.

Along with our new shelf, I also wanted to do an inside cabinet makeover with some paint. The inside of the cabinet looked like laminate faux bois and not in a good way. Plus I wanted the inside of cabinet to look pretty.


I got some color inspiration from the September issue of Martha Stewart Living. I love the pretty color of her cabinets and went to Home Depot to check out her new paint collection.

I instantly I fell in love with her shades of grey. I had four grey contenders top left: Driftwood Grey, Flagstone. Bottom right: Bedford Grey and Sharkey Grey. After looking the the colors, we decided to with Sharkey Grey, its a perfect greige { grey + beige } it also compliments our wall color Woodrow Wilson Putty by Valspar. It's just a little darker which good. 

After removing the shelves, I sanded the inside of the cabinets and then applied two coats of oil based primer { I let each coat of primer dry one hour before applying the second coat } I did the same thing with the wood shelves. I painted the inside of the cabinet sides and top and the shelves with Delicate White by Olympic paint the back is where I used the Sharkey Grey by Martha Stewart Paints. I liked the subtle contrast of the Sharkey Grey next to the white.

Here's how our first mini makeover in our kitchen turned out. The subtle grey back of cabinets looks so pretty against our white dinnerware. I kept our basic Ikea glasses on the bottom shelf along with our coffee cups. Then our plates on the second shelf, then our various size bowls. The tippy top shelf looks all dressed out with our cake stands, teapot, pitcher etc.

With the inside of the cabinets getting a mini makeover, our everyday dinnerware is feels much more Martha Stewart. Which as Martha would say is a good thing.

Soon the doors on this cabinet will have glass panels, which will make this mini project more complete. How do you like our little mini cabinet project? Do you have any mini projects your working on?