My Gallery Wall

  Gallery walls are one of my favorite things to see in people's houses. We have been in this house for 3 1/2 years now & have wanted to do one for quite a while now. I actually had one in our apartment before this house. I guess being a photographer & obsessed with taking/displaying pictures is most likely the reason it's one of my favorite things. I knew I wanted to do it on the wall going up our stairs to the second floor. I actually had started it like 5 months ago & finally just finished it a couple weeks ago. I decided to have all the frames be either black or white. We have tan walls so those 2 colors really pop. Most of the frames I already had except for a few which I just picked up at the Goodwill. Most of the black frames were already black but as far as the white ones I had to spray paint those. Have you ever tried to buy white frames? They are definitely not as popular in the stores as black ones. It's ok with me though because I love to spray paint! And now for the pics! I took a lot but it's because of the wall on the other side it can be tricky to take pictures.

 

I LOVE how it came out! My kids love to look at all the pictures too. Sooo what do you all think? Hope you enjoyed checking out my gallery wall! Have a good night!

 

 

Allison

Dining Room Buffet Makeover!

Hello all!

Tonight I will be sharing with you all my buffet makeover. We used to have this huge hutch in our dining room which I loved but it was just way too big. I decided about a year ago I needed a change and decided to sell it. Well we finally were able to sell it about 3 weeks ago. Yay! I was so excited to be able to have more room in our dining room. I immediately started looking for buffets. I lucked out last week & found one. On Facebook there is a group I belong to called Berkshire Tag Sales. It's a group started by a local man for people to buy/sell instead of always having to have an actual tag sale. Anyway, last week I was going through the page & found a woman trying to get rid of an old buffet. And the best part is it was only $20!! I pounced on that deal as fast as I could that's for sure! I picked it up that day. Here it is, the BEFORE.

When I told my husband he was just as excited as I was! I told him I wanted to try stripping the top of it, stain it, paint the bottom white & paint the handles black. He was cool with whatever I decided to do. Here is a pic of the top all sanded down. My FIL brought me an electric sander to use, let me just say I love it! So much easier then doing it by hand.

 

Sanded down even more & bottom all primed.

 

I ended up doing 1 coat of primer & 3 coats of white paint on the bottom. For the top I used a red mohagany stain then did 4 coats of poly. The handles were obviously the easiest part because I just spray painted them black.

And here it is the AFTER!

 

Here are a few more views...

 

 

I finished it yesterday morning and the hubby & I carried it last night. Once I got up this morning I filled it right up with my tablecloths, napkins & china. So then of course I needed to decorate the top of it. This is what I came up with:

 

 

 

 

I am very happy with how this turned out! This project was so inexpensive that I can't believe my good luck with this find!

Buffet - $20

Wood Stain, Poly & brush - $15/20

White paint - free, already had it

I'd say it's a steal for being $35/40!

 

One more time the BEFORE:

 

And the AFTER:

 

 

Let me know what you think!!

Have a good night all!

 

 

Linking up to:

 http://missmustardseed.com/2014/07/furniture-feature-friday-favorites-link-party-29/

 

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ALLISON

I'M BACK....FINALLY!!

         Well hello out there in blog land! Is anybody out there? I know I've been MIA for two years now. I can't believe it's been that long! These last few years have flown by! Last time I was on here I had just given birth a few months before to our fifth child. Let's just say that my life got REALLY hectic & crazy with 5 kids and unfortunately I just didn't have much time to blog. But I miss blogging so darn much and now that my littlest is 2 1/2 years old now I figured I would give it a shot again! I'm hoping to be able to take some time to myself by writing this blog & keep up with it. I won't promise to post everyday but hopefully at least a few times a week!
         Quite a lot of things have happened in the last 2 years so I will definitely have to catch all of
 you up on our lives! I also look forward to catching up on all of the blogs I follow. I have to say I've been working on changing a few things on mine for a few days now and things are definitely different from the last time I posted! I updated all the pictures on the blog. I have also been doing a little blog hopping & realized I wasn't the only one who had stopped blogging. Life just gets busy sometimes I guess...
         I'm on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter & Instagram. How many of you are on as much social media as I am? My link to my Pinterest is on my blog but haven't figured out how to get the other 3 links on my blog. Any advice on how to do this would be much appreciated!! And please feel free to follow my Pinterest boards & I'll return the favor!!
         So, I thought I would post a couple pics of the kids so you could see how much they have grown.
                       This is my oldest Lauren. She's 17 now, going to be a senior in high school Sept., she dances & plays Lacrosse.

 

 

This is Laci, she is 10, going to be a 6th grader in Sept. and she dances as well.

 

Braedon on the left is 7, he will be 8 in Sept. and is going into 2nd grade.

Rylan is 4, going to be 5 on the 16th of this month and is going into Kindergarten this year.

And last but certainly not least is our baby girl, Leah who is 2 1/2.

 

 

I don't have a recent picture of the hubby & I or else I would post it. I am too busy taking pics of my cute kids. We will be celebrating 12 years of marriage & together for 19 years in Sept. We did some house renos this past winter so I will be doing some posts on that as well. I also just refinished my first buffet for our dining room & can't wait to show you all the before & after of it! So, I hope you will hop back on over to my blog again, follow along & share our journeys together with us!! I need to go for now, it's almost 2 in the morning & this mama needs her beauty rest!

 

Allison