Building a Ryan Homes Mozart (Detached Garage): diy

It's been a long time and ...of course...there's been projects but I've just been to lazy to post them...but no more! Today while my daughter enjoys a bath I'm going to share my projects with the world : ) So back to my being lazy...I really should put these in 3 seperated posts with step by step pictures and in depth explanations ...you know like the blogger pros do it....but I just don't have the motivation and I'm pretty sure everyone's just gonna look at the pics anyway. So without further ado.... PROJECT # 1 (The Cabinet Remodel) So I had a baby recently. He's great btw. And while I was at home on my maternity leave I started going a little project crazy being at home all the time with not much to do. I love my florence kitchen buy I miss the light of a in kitchen window. So with all the whites and blacks in my house I started to feel the kitchen was a little dark and stuffy. Cue idea. I did some googleing on diy glass inserts for windows and came across a blog of a woman who used plexiglass instead of glass...following her instructions the project was relatively easy (I did it all except for the jigsawing), inexpensive (spent about $50 minus the jigsaw) and quick...took 1 day (had to wait for glue to dry). Here are the results

PROJECT #2 (Stairway) So this one I actually came across while looking for something (art,shelves whatever)to put on this one crooked wall in between the family room and the kitchen. We had floating shelves on that wall but they weren't stable since the wall was crooked. Anywho while looking for that I came across sticks and saw dust (?) Or something close (sorry) love her house and love her style. She had a post about board and baton walling her stairs...I loved the clean white look and the added character annnnd the low price high impact so I went for it....2 days and lots of sawdust later I had the below.. I used pretty cheap half inch wood from Lowes. I belive it was 3 dollars a piece. I used half inch because it matched my existing base boards and I didn't feel like upping my complexity level by trying to replace the base boards. I used finishing nails to put the boards in the wall and eyeballed all the cuts. It took longer this way because I had to cut some of the boards 2 or 3 times before the angles were right but somehow this was still the easiest route for a math-a-fobe like me.

PROJECT #3 (My Favorite) I'm most proud of this project because either was the hardest and also because I've always been in love with window seats and never thought I'd be able to have one....and have done it myself! So as I said this one was the hardest but after completing the other project I noticed a lightness in the rest of the house that wasn't in the office especially after we added the bamboo curtains.The room had a different vibe then the rest of the house and it was upsetting me greatly so I set about wasting valuable hours of my life starring at the office until I got the idea to do a window seat. It allowed me to do an element of white without having white chairs (a no no with my 3 kids). It also allowed me to play with pattern which I love with the pillows and lastly it was a window seat...enough said. I was very intimidated and almost quit before I started but in the end it wasn't so bad thanks to Ikea...A lot of blogs have the take an ikea bookcase flip it on its side and put pillows on top window seat. I like those but for the look I was going for I wanted something that looked truly built in and a little higher scale. So I took some details for truly building a window seat from scratch and hodgepodge them with an ikea window seat. I built a frame from 2x4s and then bought boxes from ikea and matching doors. I bought 3 boxes due to a miscalculation but I'll tell u how I fixed that later. The boxes were approximately 15.5 inches high and 18 inches deep and 33 inches across. I placed the frame in place. Put the boxes together and drilled them together and sat the connected boxes on top the frame. This is when I realized my space was 79 inches long and not 72 : (.....so I had to create filler boards to fill the 3.5 inches on either side. I then connected my end boxes to the filler boards via the inside of the boxes and voila...I had a base. Next I bought plywood from Lowes and had it cut to fit my base. I also bought foam from a fabric store ($100!!!) I bought a few yard of balck fabric and upholstered my plywood. Then I jus had to put the seat on the base and it was done....much simpler than I thought it would be and I absolutely love it!!!!

And as a bonus I also painted all the doors on my first floor black...I'm a believer :)

If you guys have any questions about any of the projects above just leave me a comment...if not hope you enjoyed the inspiration!!!

So my husband and I (mostly my husband) worked very hard over the past couple of months to add a couple of patios to our backyard. Our yard wasn't that big and we are right next to a huge green space next to the community center so we thought to maximize the entertainment potential for the yard. That meant less green space but we were fine with that.

Most of these materials came from Lowes. Some of the pavers came from Home Depot. Furniture came from Target. The pergola was from Lowes.

I cant say it was easy but the process of doing the patios was not difficult just time consuming. Same with the flower gardens. We are very happy with how it turned out and I think we saved a lot of money by doing the labor ourselves.

Some before and afters below. : )