Craft Closet: Built-In Desk

It's been a while since we have made any improvements inside our home. Ever since we gave our home office a makeover, I have been wanting to also create a craft closet in that room. Lucky for me, I have a handy husband who was more than willing to build me said craft closet as a Christmas gift!

I've been scanning Pinterest and he's been "researching" the best way to put everything all together.

I feel like I should preface this by saying that I know nothing about building cool things, such as desks. I'm a crafter through and through, but don't ask me to use a saw, or a kreg jig... that's Adam's job. So, while I was doing homework all weekend, Adam was busy making me a built-in desk for a craft closet. Here's what he did:

First, he measured the closet to ensure a perfect fit. I didn't want anything slipping through gaps between the closet walls and the desk, so he cut everything to fit exactly. The closet measured 60 inches wide, 26 inches deep, and 50 inches tall (from the floor to the top opening of the closet). 

He purchased white Melamine wood (that I requested) and used a 60 tooth blade to cut the wood smoothly. The desk ended up being 20 inches tall and 23.75 inches deep. He allowed 24 inches in the middle for me to put a chair, and then placed shelves on both sides of the desk, about 16.5 inches wide. I haven't quite decided how many shelves on want on each side, it will all depend on the baskets I find to put on the shelves. Currently, the shelf is smack dab in the middle, about 15 inches off the ground. 

Once all the wood was cut, he used a kreg jig to make pocket holes to hide all of the screws. 

To put it all together, he anchored the exterior panels to the wall and into a stud. He then placed the shelf and the inside shelf walls. The last step was to add the top part of the desk.

And as simple as that, my craft closet has a work space! Easy for me to say, since I didn't do any of the work.

I love the way it's coming along so far. Now I just need to decide what to do with the rest of it. A peg board, a bulletin board, shelves? The possibilities are endless!

I guess you'll just have to check back soon to see what I decide! Any suggestions?

Happy Friday!

Fall Home Tour: 2014

Welcome to my long overdue, ever changing 2014 Fall Home Tour!

I'm not sure why, but I always struggle with decorating for fall. Although it's my favorite time of year, I never feel like my fall decorations measure up to what I had in my head. Christmas is so easy to decorate for because you just throw ornaments into every bowl, vase, and canister in the house. But shouldn't fall be the exact same only substituting ornaments for pumpkins? 

Despite my difficulties, I am finally satisfied enough to show off my fall-ified home. 

When decorating the living room, I tried to keep all the blue and just add pieces of orange where ever possible. I started with the orange pillows and just continued from there. 

 fall inspired fabric balls

wooden pumpkins 

I always love to bust out some of our fall photos during this time of year. These two have been used for the past few years: one of our engagement photos and Lucy as a puppy laying in the leaves.

Next up, I made my fall vignette, trying to stick to using mainly orange. 

"fall in love" printable 

CONFESSION: DIYer fail, I didn't actually make anything included in the vignette (besides the printable), but what can I say? School has been keeping me crazy busy! I did get creative and fill some vases with popcorn kernels and a fall scented candle, though, doesn't that count? 

fall mason jars. gold glitter ribbon garland.

For the dinette, I decided to use gold instead of orange. I really like how all of this came together. The shelf, ampersand and vases were all things I had in the house and I just added the garland and mason jars to make it look more complete.

I was hoping to crochet an orange blanket to use during the fall as well, but there are just not enough hours in the day. I guess there's always next year!  

Want to see more?

Check out last year's Simple Fall Vignette here. 

Want to skip Fall and head straight to Christmas? Check out my Christmas Home Tour here.

Happy Friday!!

"Fall In Love" Printable

It is mid-October already, and I am still adding to/changing up my Fall decor every other day. I feel like no matter what I do, I just can't seem to get everything just right. This is really getting to me since Fall is my favorite season, and throwing a bunch of pumpkins around the house should be a piece of cake. 

While searching for a printable to put in my frame for the season, I kept coming up short. Once again, I couldn't find that one that was just right. So, I did what any other DIYer would do and decided to make my own. 

If you're interested, just click on the picture, then right click and save to your desktop to print.   

I promise a Fall Home Tour as soon as I get my decorating act together!

Also, if you have not yet liked Melanie Gets Married on Facebook, please do! I am only 2 likes away from 100!! Once I hit 100 likes, you'll have a chance to win free ad space and a guest blog post :)

White Is The New Blue

I've got BIG plans for the inside of our home this winter. There are at least three spaces in this house that I am hoping to completely transform by the end of what's expected to be a very long winter. 

One of these spaces is the guest bedroom, which I am hoping to entirely redecorate. I haven't decided if we'll paint yet, but what I do know is that a white comforter was an absolute must-have when transforming this room. For that reason, I hopped on the Macy's website determined to find some white bedding to fall in love with. Seeing as I STILL had a pretty decent gift card from our wedding, I thought that would be the smartest place to look first. 

Sure enough, I found something I am crazy about and just couldn't wait to show it off!

The white may look a little goofy now, but it shouldn't for long!

I am planning on decorating with lots of blue, yellow, and gray. 

Besides the comforter, I also have started collecting pillows and fabrics that I think would match the room. *Spoiler alert, my very first sewn pillow covers may be making an appearance (view pillows here).

I am so excited to get started on this room and show you the progress as I go along!

Now I just need to train Lucy to stay OFF the white comforter altogether, which is proving to be more difficult than I had originally thought. Yikes!

Fall Inspired Fabric Balls

These fabric balls are a great way to use leftover fabric, and after making some orange pillow covers over the weekend, leftover fabric I had. I used the orange fabric from the pillows and threw in some blue and grey as well. Because of the navy and light blue that I already have in my living room, I am trying to incorporate those into my Fall decor this year. So far, I am loving the way the oranges and blues look together. 

To get the full tutorial on how to make these adorable fabric balls, you can check out my St. Patrick's Day post from a while back (here). While I was way less than exact with my measuring and cutting this time around, I still think they turned out pretty darn cute.

I am hoping to have all my Fall decorating done by next week to show you a mini Fall home tour. :::fingers crossed:::

Happy Friday!!

Garden Update Part Two: 2014

Ladies and gentlemen, we have vegetables! Lots and lots and lots of vegetables!

The past few weeks, our garden has been giving us so many delicious fresh veggies, and we couldn't be more excited about it! At the beginning of August, we decided the tomato plants were getting too tall and the cages weren't able to support their height. A good problem to have, but still we needed a fix. We got creative with supplies we had on hand and ended up using zip ties to tie the to tall posts in the center of the plants.

Remember when I said I was excited for a salsa garden? Well, a salsa garden I got! I whipped up three batches of salsa last week, and I am planing to make even more this weekend. 

Not too much difference in August, at least not much that you can see from a distant picture. But if you look closer, there is a whole lot of growing going on in there.

It seemed to take forever for our tomatoes to redden, but now that they have, we have tomatoes growing out of our ears!

Our cucumbers are also doing great! One day I was saying how sad I was that none were growing, and then all of a sudden 8 were ready to pick. We have not been able to keep up with the cucumbers at all. For a while, every time we ate one, we picked two more!

Our peppers are also doing really well, but I decided I may need to double the green pepper plants for next year. We have had a decent amount of them, I just feel like if we have more, we would definitely eat them right up. 

We also planted red onions, and they grew, but they are very tiny. I just purchased them at a nursery and transferred them to the ground, but I am thinking they just didn't have enough room to grow. I haven't decided if I will plant onions again, but if I do I will be sure to spread them out. 

As our first garden, we are very pleasantly surprised with how well everything grew! 

We will most definitely be planting another vegetable garden next year!

How are your gardens doing?

Does anyone else have vegetables coming out their ears?