GardenChimelle's Profile

The bathroom is the one room your guests are in by themselves, with the freedom to examine things without looking nosy. My bathrooms are always the first thing I clean (every surface!) before guests come over... wipe down all surfaces, re-examine the basket of accessories, super-clean the mirror, leave only the necessities in the shower (bar of nice-looking soap, a bottle each of nice shampoo/conditioner), more extra rolls of TP than they'll ever need, etc. Also a big pile of clean, fluffy white, bleached towels. I clean my master bath, too, because someone ALWAYS ends up in there if I don't, never fail.

One other tip--look UP! I have 9-foot ceilings, and the cobwebs can get out of control up there... I ask my hubby to do a sweep of every single room with a cobweb brush before big parties. Unless it's Halloween...

Hey everyone! Thanks for all the positive remarks--we had no idea we'd been featured until a friend told us they'd seen it a couple of days ago. We'd love to do a full tour--we've done tons more interesting projects around the house, and our outdoor space is nice, too. We'd be open to a full tour! BTW, the pale color in the living room is Valspar Aqua Frost, from Lowe's. It was a risk, since I'm not really an aqua kind of person, but I love it now. It goes with pretty much anything, surprisingly, especially dark red, which we seem to have collected a lot of when we weren't looking.

I like to collect one-off beautiful dishes from thrift stores to use for bringing food to a party. Then it's like a double gift--food and a pretty plate. And the hostess can pass it along as she attends other parties.

We used to exchange gifts with our neighbors (there are 10 of us total), but it just got to be too much. Now we do a secret santa. When you find out who you get, you buy them a $5 gift (we get creative, often shopping for something funky from the thrift store or buying raw materials to make something), and then buy a $15 children's toy to donate that is inspired by that person. None of us needs more expensive stuff and clutter, but there are lots of kids out there that would get great joy from even one present.

I have cork in my kitchen (it looks exactly like the first phot), and I LOVE the way it looks and feels, but BEWARE! We installed the click-together, prefinished tiles, and then found out, after months of trying to get answers from the manufacturer, who could care less, that there was no product to seal the seams, which are extremely vulnerable to moisture. All of our seams are now swollen. It's not super noticable to anyone but us, and I can live with it for now, but it's really disappointing, since, contrary to what this article would have you believe, it was expensive. Plus, we panic every time we spill something on the floor. Not fun.

Super transformation!! Congrats on what you were able to do with your near-zero budget. (Yes, in the grand scheme of kitchen renovations, it IS near-zero. Please.) Paint really is an amazing thing. When we moved into our house, our kitchen had miles of dark-stained cabinets and apple-green formica countertops. Not a pleasant combo. We painted the cabinets a very bright cream, and now the green counters are the first thing every visitor notices. They LOVE them! I wish I'd gone your route on the floors. We overspent on cork, and it's been a nightmare.