Remembering.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love New York City. We took my first trip there two weeks before September 11, 2001 and that is when I fell in love. We have been back so many times since, I can't count. And we got married there, not far from Ground Zero, in 2004.

I had to honor my favorite city today with some pictures...(the picture above is from Ground Zero...there are some very moving quotes written on those walls and this is one of my favorites.)

These are not some of my best pics...but they will do. It's such a fantastic, alive, amazing city and I wanted to share a little bit of it with you today.

This Thrifty Chick wants you to spend $20.

Go to Lowes on your way home tonight, pick out an American flag and fly it proudly tomorrow, the 7th anniversary of September 11, 2001.

God Bless America!!

$1.50

Ohhhh...how I can make $1.50 go on and on and on! I picked out a bronze glaze (that cost $1.50 for the bottle) for the hardware on the armoire I repainted a few weeks ago. I loved the way it looked so much, I ended up using all over the place! Here are some examples:

The hardware on the armoire was black, but I needed them to pop off the new black color:


I used stencils I already had, with the glaze, to decorate the armoire doors:

The is the artwork I made for over our master bedroom fireplace. I used the bronze glaze to highlight the texture:

I used another stencil with the glaze to add to the wainscoting in the powder room:

And used the glaze to repaint the textured parts on the powder room walls so they would pop. (I also used the glaze for the mirror!):

There are so many different options available -- tons of different metallic glazes and hundreds of colors at the craft store. I was going for the bronze look and this turned out to be just what I wanted. AND I still have some left. Believe me, I've tried to find more places to use it but I just need to put the bottle AWAY. :)

Who doesn't love a good before and after picture?

I can't get enough of "before and after" pics -- if they made books or magazines with just pictures and pictures of every little detail before and after, I would be in heaven. (Kind of like the look and find books my son is obsessed with right now -- I'm all about the details.) I found some older pictures from our house the other day, and thought I would share some of my own transformations with you.

I'm always growing and expanding decor-wise. Especially working in the decorating field, I feel like I've gotten more creative over the past couple of years. Sometimes I look at old pictures and want to cringe...I hope I don't feel that way a few years from now! :)

One of my favorites is our corner fireplace in the family room. We both thought a corner fireplace would be great and put it there on purpose. And then I realized what a pain it was to work with. My solution was (SHOCK) molding!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I'll share more of my own before and afters soon -- there are some doozies!! Yikes.

Cheap art

I needed something to fill a large wall in our powder room and came across a print I thought would work well. It was in those bins of posters/art at the back of the craft store -- the bins I haven't rummaged through since college!

I found a $10 poster...






And used frames I had to create this...



I bought poster boards, painted them chocolate brown, and then cut the photos down to the size I wanted. I placed the photos on top with double sided tape. If you want to spend a little more, you could have actual mats cut for the pictures, and then paint them. But I'm a thrifty decor chick and I'm impatient. :)

Total cost for this project was $6 for the art (I had a 40 percent off coupon baby!) and $1.50 for three poster boards. If you don't have the frames, look for them at half off. Or use a bunch of smaller frames you already have and cut one large poster/picture/image into smaller pieces. Cheap, one-of-a-kind art!

Uh oh.

This could be a problem...I may have developed a new obsession today. I decided a long time ago I wanted to redo the tile on our master bedroom fireplace. We picked out the tile when we built the house, but it's always bothered me. It had a peachy tone that drove me nuts...

I thought it would be a relatively cheap project. But after looking into it I realized it had the potential of costing hundreds of dollars, even though only about 20 square feet of tile was needed. The tiles I found (I was looking for something unusual) were going to end up at $600 or more.

So I took another trip to trusty Lowes and found just what I wanted. A tumbled stone in small mosiac squares -- it had all the colors in it that I wanted and I found slate tile to go on the hearth that worked perfectly with it. Total cost was $90 for the mosiac tiles and $22 for the slate.

I was going to try to do the project myself but my father-in-law insisted -- he is an expert at it (used to do it for a living) and I was happy to have him do it. They did the work today and I am THRILLED with the result:

Ohhhh my goodness, I am so excited. They will grout it tomorrow and then in a week I can seal it. Sealing makes it look like it's wet and makes all of the colors even deeper and prettier.

Problem is, I'm looking all over the house to find places I can tile now. I have extra scrapes of the mosiac tile and I am dying to use it somewhere! I think our foyer may be an upcoming project now that I've seen the difference tile can make. I think I may be able to do it myself too. This is not good! :)

Falling in love.

I love our home. I know everyone has affection for their homes, but I am IN LOVE with our home, like it's a part of our family. It's not surprising, as I have quite literally put my blood, sweat and tears into it. I hear about families who lose their homes to floods, fire and other natural disasters and my heart absolutely breaks for them.

Your home should be where you feel completely comfortable, where you can play with your children (and not be devastated if something breaks!), and where you can totally relax. When we walk into our home, it feels like a big hug. That's totally goofy, I know, but it's true. I wish that feeling on everyone and that's why I share ways to make your home YOURS.

As I work on updating different rooms in our house, I fall in love with it even more. The latest is our master bedroom. They say the master is always the last to get the decorating attention and that's true even of me. I have paid more attention to the master closet than the bedroom! But just by finishing up the paint, moving some things around and getting new bedding...I am falling in love. Now as soon as we walk in there, it feels so warm and cozy and US.

A little goes a long way. So far I've paid $36 for bedding from Ebay (although I'm still not sure if it's staying yet) and $20 on canvases for art above the fireplace. Everything else I rearranged or pulled from other rooms. I can't believe the difference.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- it doesn't take much to put your personal touch on your home. Don't hesitate -- you won't be sorry, I promise. Your house will give you a big hug for it. ;)