Easy DIY Planter

I have a super easy project for you today that will have your porch looking great this summer. We're going to make these sweet little planter boxes!

Check out the rest of my free building plans here.

And the bonus for me was that I made them entirely from my scrap pile! But if you don't have a stash of scraps yet, don't worry. Each planter uses just two short boards so it's still a budget-friendly project.

These planters come together super quick and it's a very simple project that's great for beginners. It just might be the easiest project on the entire blog!

DIY House Painting Tips {how we painted our huge house and saved thousands}

Last fall we took on our biggest project to date. It was a doozy. But a very necessary doozy that would have cost thousands of dollars to hire out. We painted our house! It was an enormous job but we're here to tell you that it is actually totally doable, and it can save you a big chunk of change.

We knew when we bought our old yellow farmhouse that it came with 90-year-old wood siding. Which was pretty cool. But in our new house excitement we maybe overlooked just what condition that siding was in. After our first winter, we started to notice that it was looking a little worse for the wear. Then we found out from a neighbor that it hadn't been painted it about 15 years. And it showed.

We spent the summer trying to decide if we should paint it now or hold off until next year. And then we had a hail storm that knocked off huge amounts of paint (so I guess it did some of the work for us!). Now it was painfully obvious that we needed to do something before things got any worse.

Fortunately I had spent those summer months thinking about what color paint to buy. Which is good because I used every minute right up until my husband called and said "I'm on my way home and we are buying paint tonight. You have to decide." Seriously, it took me months. (You can see all the top contenders here. Including the one Husband hated the most. Just do me a favor and don't tell me if I was wrong. M'kay? We are not repainting.)

It was so pretty in the fall!

House Painting Update!

........ We're getting there. The end.

JK. Definitely not the end, but for the most part we are husband is slowly chugging away painting this whole house ourselves. Himself. I do help some. This sounds bad. Let's move on. Today marks two weeks in and we are *almost* done with the first coat.We just have the soffits and maybe a window frame left to go. And then the second coat. But it's probably best if we don't focus on that right now.

It's blue! Still yellow trim here, though.

Now let's go back for a minute. A few weeks ago I bought sample cans of paint in our top three colors - dark blue, light gray, and a medium greige/green - and shared them on instagram and facebook to get your feedback. Blue was pretty much a landslide winner. Which was almost all the encouragement we needed (we'd been leaning that way ourselves), but I couldn't quite pull the trigger. Because I made the same mistake I've made almost every. single. time. I've bought paint. I second guessed myself at the last minute and got a sample in a slightly different shade of blue. Why, Georgia?! WHY??? *regret* I guess I tend to panic when I think I'm committing to something too crazy (did I mention I've done this before?) and as we went to pick up sample cans, I put down the dark navy-ish blue I'd had my eye on all along and opted for a more greenish hue that was slightly lighter, brighter, and, I thought, less intimidating.

Exterior Paint Debate

A couple months ago we asked you guys on Facebook an Instagram how crazy it would be to paint our house red. Verdict = not crazy. At least not too crazy. But Husband still feels a little like this about it:

Not an ideal response, right? So we're still flipping and flopping on a color scheme. But the more I look at the siding, the more I think we may need to paint it this year rather than next. It's time to get serious and make some hard choices. I don't want to put it off and make a frantic decision I regret for the next 5-8 years. So last Saturday we spent the morning hardware store-hopping (it was our cheapest Lowe's trip ever) and I grabbed another stack of paint chips to try out. This time all more neutral colors.

And now - after all this time - I might have made a teeny bit of progress. This feels like such a big decision because we are NOT going to repaint the whole house if I decide I hate it (so yes, we'll definitely be buying a few sample cans). But I think I'm starting to get there so we want to hear your thoughts again:

What do you think would look best on our house?

These pinterest houses are some of my favorites at the moment. I love using pinterest for things like this - I just save anything that really jumps out at me, then as I scroll through my pins I can start to see patterns in what I like. So I've narrowed my scope to gray, white, and three very specific colors.
Okay, let's get started.