Feature Friday: Emily from Sawgrass Home

Today I am happy to introduce a new blogger, Emily from Sawgrass Home.  She just started blogging recently, but you can tell that she has been bitten by the decorating and DIY bugs!  Be sure to visit Sawgrass Home to learn more about the projects below and for some great tutorials as well. 

Buenos Dias everyone! My name is Emily and I am so excited to be
feature here on Saved by Suzy (it's my first featured post!) I
recently started a DIY blog with my hubby Jon (a.k.a Don Juan). We
purchased our first home in South Florida about two years ago. It was
both an exciting and overwhelming experience. The house had been in
foreclosure and needed a good amount of work. After we got the
essentials up and running, it was pretty much up to me to well, make
the house feel like a home. Don't get me wrong, Don Juan does his
share, but this little señorita is apparently very picky when it comes
to decorating... yet I have NO decorating experience or "know how"
whatsoever...go figure.

I found myself venturing out to places like Ikea, Target, & Homegoods
to try and transform my home (on the cheap). Instead, I circled these
stores for HOURS, developed MASSIVE migraines, and left with NOTHING.
I eventually just gave up. But thankfully there was still hope.
After all, I had also learned at the time about a little ol' blog
known as Young House Love. If you're a blogger then you know who I'm
talking about. They were just like Jon and I. Young, on a budget,
and with a dream of living in a beautiful home.

So after two years of reading, learning, and building confidence, I
have finally decided to give the whole decorating thing another try
(and blog about it through the process). My first real moment of
success came this past December when I dared to paint stripes in my
hallway. That's not something the average Joe does but it's definitely
something that bold, courageous, and confident bloggers/DIY-ers would
do! So here's our hallway before...

Talk about lack of motivation eh?

And here she is after!
 

HA! It can be done! I'm NOT a decorating failure! Thank you blog world
and Pinterest!
 

 That's a tiled mosaic mirror made by yours truly! And here are the
shelves I made too!

Ah yes, it's been quite the adventure getting to this point. But
there is no going back now. I have the confidence, I have the
internet, and I have that decorating itch that just wont go away. Up
next, the dining room. Onward!

MUCHAS gracias Suzy for allowing me to share my story on your blog. It was fun!

Striped Success!

I have been working on painting stripes in my hallway this week.  Here's my inspiration picture:

Source: google.com via Suzanne on Pinterest

Cassie at Primitive and Proper was also inspired by the same picture and this is her dining room:

My hallway before:

And after!

Painting the stripes was much easier than I feared.  I can't stand when lines aren't crisp and the paint bleeds through.  I thought this might be an issue since my walls are so heavily textured.  However, I didn't have any problems.  I used the green Frog Tape on part of the hallway and the blue Scotch Edge Lock on the other part and they worked equally well.  I just made sure to press the tape down and then I scraped down the edges with the edge of a credit card to get a good seal.

 The kiddos enthusiastically painted some canvasses for the hallway.

 Don't they say, "Never work with kids and dogs?"  They never listen and always try to steal the show!

 This is looking from the hallway into the bathroom I just redid.  I used the same color on the stripes as I used in the bathroom.

All that's left to do is paint the trim a nice, crisp white.  I also have to decide if I'm going to add a chair rail or leave the wall as is.  I painted the stripes a little higher on the wall than I initally envisioned, so the added trim might be at a strange height on the wall.

With trim:

Without trim:

What do you think?

The artistes hard at work.

Our neighbor Shanelle came over to help.

Have a fabulous weekend!  We are heading to Denver for a gymnastics meet and my parents from Minnesota will be meeting us there.  Then on Monday, we get our new Goldendoodle puppy, Emma!

Please Help Me Decide!

Now that the bathroom is done, the project has spilled over into the hallway outside of the bathroom.  The walls and trim of the hallway are looking a little dingy compared to the bright and shiny newness of the bathroom.

The hallway is a bit dark.  Right now it has light khaki colored walls and white trim, the same as almost every other wall in the house (boring!).  The hallway leads to the kids' rooms, so I want it to be light and bright.

I have three choices for the walls and I need you to help me decide. 

Choice #1:
Do the same thing as the bathroom: white beadboard wallpaper, white chair rail, and blue-gray paint above.

Choice #2:
Paint horizontal stripes on the wall using the blue-gray color and a slightly lighter (or maybe darker?) color on the paint chip.  I like this wall from Ten June:

Choice #3:
Choice #3 is a combination of the previous two.  I would paint the upper walls a super-light grayish white, put up a white chair rail, and then paint the light gray and darker gray stripes below the chair rail.  It would look something like this:

Source: google.com via Suzanne on Pinterest

What do you think?  Do you have a favorite?