Anyone else get the itch when the Christmas decor comes down to change a few things around and freshen things up a bit?
Just me??
I feel like I’m not the only one but this time, instead of changing a few arrangements (I change my tabletop/mantle decor each season pretty regularly) I actually opted to freshen up a larger area of the house. We’ve had the same wall hangings up in the living room since we moved in several years and although they filled the space fabulously and have been well loved, I was ready for something new and updated.
Is it terrible that I don’t even have a photo of them hanging in the new house?
So you’ll have to settle with this half photo of them in the old house…
The photo signs above the couch.
So they’ve been hanging in our new living room flanked by two blue shutters and I’ve changed the photos out a couple times since that above photo.
But we took them down when we did our snowflake wall for Christmas.
I totally failed to share our Christmas home tour with you guys and I’m forever sorry about that! I feel like it would be just tacky to share it now- haha.
A post for next year, perhaps.
So when the time came to take down the snowflakes, I opted to change out the art.
I’m a huge book nerd and try to instill a deep love of reading into our kids.
Hubby has even grown to be a better reader since we’ve been together and I try to surround the kiddos with books and good inspiration from them.
Hence, the fact that we have an entire room dedicated to Harry Potter, guys.
You can check that one out here.
And most of the quotes/printables I add around the house lend themselves towards literary sources.
So I had the fun idea to do something book inspired.
Hubby, my ever gracious DIY partner, scurried over to Lowes with me to grab the few supplies we needed:
Here’s what we snagged at Lowes and grabbed from the garage:
*Two pre-cut boards from Lowes (the thin particle board type deal with pretty grain)
*A few thin pieces of cut trim pieces
*Stain
*White Paint (Snowbound from SW)
*Foam brushes
*Black vinyl & my Silhouette
As you can see above, one of the boards was a tad warped so we laid weights on them to straighten it out a bit more.
Hubby cut all the trim pieces to fit snug on the edges.
Then it’s time to stain.
I used a foam brush to stain dark Walnut Stain on all the boards and trim pieces.
I wanted my pieces to be distressed (of course) like a worn book page so I knew the stain would be showing through.
All dark and pretty 
For the trim pieces, I went over each of them with a whitewash technique- just dry brushing very very light coats of white paint on them. It gives it that subtle weathered look and takes away the harshness of the dark stain without making them white.
My favorite.
All of them nice and weathered looking.
For the larger boards, I slapped messy coats of white paint onto each of them. I did NOT worry about full coverage, I wanted the stain to show through and it was easier to do non-perfect coats than it would have been to try and sand them off and still get that pretty dark stain underneath.
So messy coats are key.
I used my Silhouette to type out and enlarge the quotes I wanted to use and cut them out onto black vinyl. The most tedious part was lining them all up and transferring them to the wood. Worth it though.
With all my lettering on and the boards all painted, just nail your wood trim pieces on and you are ready to go! I bought D hook hangers to hang from the sides for each of them.
Then they were up!
Aren’t they just pretty little things???
I’m obsessed. I feel like they change the whole look of the room with the more neutral/farmhouse coloring of them. I love love love love love love them.
With so many books that I love, the hardest part was narrowing down which quotes I wanted to use. I opted for my favorite author, Charles Martin (When Crickets Cry is ah-mazing) and a quote from his book ‘Maggie’.
Then the other is just a quote that I feel like sums up our family from Roald Dahl.
I’m always hoping to bring out the magic in life for them!
They were the absolute perfect pieces to freshen up the room. And you got a peek at the living room which I’ve been terrible at showing. Win win.
I’ll be back soon with a few other projects we’ve managed to hammer out while hibernating through winter over here.
And, fingers crossed, possibly some Valentine printables coming soon!
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