PB Knock Off Floating Shelves

Since we moved here I have been drooling over this photo and thinking that these shelves would look great in our kitchen/dining area. They are of course from Pottery Barn and cost $75 for one 4' shelf. 

Our shelves would need to be a little longer and we weren't prepared to spend $75 + per shelf. We found a great tutorial here on how to make floating shelves from hollow core doors and began planning our project. We decided to add molding to make the shelves look more like the PB version. It took Dave a few hours to build the shelves and I painted them the next day. It's a very doable weekend project and doesn't require many tools or materials. We used two hollow core doors ($20 each), molding, wood filler, a circular saw, clamps, a drill, a nail gun, primer, and paint.

We made our shelves 5'5" long and 10" deep. The total project ended up costing around $80 and we could have made a fourth shelf or multiple smaller shelves from the leftover door pieces.

 ...and we're clearly starting our Christmas decorating :-)

Fall Decorating

We are still very much in the process of hanging things on the walls and taking care of normal decorating in the new house. We've also been excited about Holiday decorating this year, especially since our daughter is aware of a lot more this time around. This was really our first year of doing any real Fall decorating so we started out small but fun.

When I first saw these numbered pumpkins on Pinterest they looked like they had been done with a Sharpie. However, Sharpies really don't work on vegetables apparently and I just ended up using some old acrylic paint.

A cute wreath and a few mini pumpkins in the birdcage...

 A few dried twigs and such on the mantel. Notice the lovely cords and the fact that the tv is sitting on top of the DVD player.....got a little work to do there :-)

Herb nesting crates with a few Fall decorative touches...

A drop cloth runner and $2 leaf placemats from T.J. Maxx...

...and a glass candle holder filled with split peas and red beans.

This arrangement is made from two dried bouquets from T.J. Maxx. One was $7.00 and one was $10.00. I used the contents of those two for this and for the flat part of the mantel.

It's definitely fun to get into Holiday decor this year and I can't wait to break out the Christmas stuff. This will be the first year we have actually had a tree and anything more than a few stockings and garland on the mantel!

Entry

We've been in the new house for about two months and we are loving it! We've been doing a lot of projects and I'll be posting more as we get different ones finished up. 

I've been looking at Pinterest a lot and getting ideas for different parts of the house since we moved here. Our entry has a small area for a table/something and we were trying to figure out how to make it fun but not too bulky looking. I found the picture below and absolutely loved the feel of the entry.

I found a mirror on sale at Kirkland's for $150 and started hunting for a good entry table. I liked the thin profile of the table above and how it didn't obstruct the mirror. I loved the Pottery Barn table below but didn't love the $399 price tag. 

Luckily we found a knock off on Amazon.com for about $110 and it was the exact dimensions of the PB version.

I added our old wicker trunk (used as a coffee table in our last AL house) to add a little interest under the table. I got the wall hooks for $10 at Hobby Lobby and the chair was an old one I had picked up at a Re-Store and refinished.

I put a few pumpkins in the bird cage for Fall and the wreath was a house warming gift from our real estate agent.

I'm really pleased with how everything came together and what good deals we found!