I don’t know what came over me when we moved into this house 3 1/2 years ago, but I’ve added wallpaper to almost every room makeover so far! Wallpaper is back in a big way, but I never really had any desire to use it until we moved here. 

Maybe I’ve fallen in love with wallpaper because I’ve had an empty slate, or maybe it’s because once you add it once you just want to keep going. It’s addictive! 

I’m rounding up all of the ways I’ve used wallpaper so far — from little accents to entire rooms covered in it! If you’ve ever wondered about the different designs I’ve used, this will be a good resource. These examples show the difference it can make in a space!

I’ve used both pasted and peel and stick wallpaper throughout the house. The pasted wallpaper is supposed to be easier to remove if you ever grow tired of it. But I don’t put much faith in that. 😉 If you use the pasted kind (I’ll share how to install it later in the post), I would make sure it’s one you really love! I wouldn’t do anything too trendy that you may tire of a few years later. 

I used peel and stick on the built in bookcase wall in my office. Here’s how it looked before, with the blank wall: 

I used this peel and stick cherry blossom design on the backs of the bookcase shelves:

It’s a beautiful, understated accent that gives the room a little extra something. You won’t even spend $50 to add this detail!

I did the same in the basement with a gray tweed looking peel and stick wallpaper: 

I wasn’t sure about that one when it arrived — but once it was out of the package and I held it up to the wall, I fell in love. 

Wallpaper tip #1: Don’t judge it while it’s rolled up! Take it out and hold it up to the wall. Take a picture of it against the wall, it will help you visualize the space.  

My first go at peel and stick wallpaper was in our powder room. It was pretty bland before: 

Since I was adding the board and batten wall treatment I only had to cover the top part of the wall, so it was a good beginner project. 

I used a pretty navy and gold design that adds drama in this little space: 

I found the wallpaper I wanted, but because it was the pasted kind, I waited it out to make SURE I really wanted to move forward. 

Thankfully the pretty pinstripe design will stand the test of time. I LOVE how this little hallway turned out!: 

It’s so fresh, clean and classic. 

Wallpaper tip #3:  Avoid stripes. At all costs. 😂 Vertical or horizontal, it doesn’t matter. (There’s a popular shiplap look that I think would be a nightmare to install.) These stripes weren’t horrible, but that’s because I have a decent amount of experience installing wallpaper. But it was the most difficult one I’ve hung. 

I love dressing up small spaces like powder rooms and hallways! They are the perfect spot to go a little more dramatic, since they are so small. I did just that in this little hallway off our kitchen: 

I thought the only place to buy this blue and white floral wallpaper was at Anthropologie, and it was seriously expensive! Thankfully I was able to find it under a different name online for much less. 

This is my favorite wallpaper project to date! I adore this one: 

Wallpaper is a great way to “fill” up walls…it just flows! Our bedroom walls were pretty basic before I added wallpaper: 

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I don’t share recipes around here often but when I do you know it’s going to be either really easy or really good or really easy and good. This two ingredient dessert is both!

I don’t have a source for this, (a friend reposted it on Facebook) so I don’t even know what to call it. Pineapple angel food cake? Pineangel food cake? Pineapple fluffy goodness? 

I’d dare say that even if you don’t love pineapple, you’ll probably like this one. It’s light and sweet and easy to dress up with simple additions. 

It’s also stupid easy to make. You just take a box of angel food cake and a 20 ounce can of pineapple:

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I’m sure you could use fresh pineapple (just keep the juices!) but wow…this is supposed to be easy remember? 😉

You just dump the pineapple in with the cake mix: 

And that’s the only ingredients! When I first saw this I thought, wow, that’s crazy easy! And then I remembered you only need water with the angel food cake mix anyway, but I digress…it’s still easy. 

**Do not add water to the mix per the directions. 

The pineapple juice will react with the mix and make it super frothy and fluffy – it was fun to watch:

The more you mix it the bigger it will get!

Then you just pour it into a pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, (follow the directions on the box for the pan you’re using!) That’s it! (I ended up using a 9 by 13 glass pan the first time but since I’ve used an angel food cake pan like this.)  

I starting eating it right out of the pan and it was SO GOOD warm. Wow. YUMMO.

I soon realized I could make a little parfait:

OK, if you add whipped cream or fruit, it’s more than two ingredients. But I promise it’s delicious on it’s own. (Find similar mini trifle bowls here!)

I layered the pineapple goodness and whipped topping and it was SO. good. The cake was just fine at room temp but like I said, I loved it heated up a little.

So there you go – a super easy, really yummy dessert. It’s perfect for this time of year with the pineapple and great for when you have people coming by and need something fast:

Or when you’re home alone in the middle of the day. Whatever. 😉

Have you tried this easy dessert? Any other simple sweet recipes you’ve tried? (Some readers on Facebook said they have tried it with cherry filling too – doing that next!)

This strawberry pretzel dessert is always a hit! Absolutely delicious: 

**Check out my other easy recipes here!

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Hello my friends! Sometimes I find a product I love so much, it deserves it’s own blog post. Whether it’s a cleaning product like this super inexpensive vacuum that I LOVE, or the gorgeous cooking set I found (that still looks great by the way), or even furniture like my most favorite sofa ever. 

This time we’re heading outside for an item I got a few weeks ago but just recently assembled. There are many little details that I wish we had thought of while finishing this house (that started as a spec house). One of those little things that has always bugged me is how low and shallow our outdoor spigots are. 

I wish I would have had them installed higher for easier reach. They are SO low and so close to the stone, it’s difficult to get a hose attached. And as we get older, we avoid struggling with anything that requires crouching. Ha! 

We’ve always used hose holders that sit on the ground. You may remember that I spray painted them last year: 

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They’ve held up GREAT (I’ll show you in a minute), and I love the look of them, but we wanted something taller. Also, the clippings from the yard are always all over the place and stick like glue. 

I did some looking around online to see if there was a solution that would raise everything (including the spigot) up off the ground. I found the solution! 

This garden hose holder has a faucet that connects to the bib on the house: 

When the package arrived and I opened it up, it looked like a lot of pieces. I put it to the side for a few weeks till I had some extra time to sit down with it. And then when I did, it took about two minutes to assemble. That’s always the way…what I think will be easy takes 45 minutes and what I think will be difficult takes a couple. 

It’s really just three parts that snap together. It was also super easy to get staked into the ground. (Dampen the soil if yours won’t go in.)

We have a very long expandable hose that I love and I wasn’t so sure it would fit on the holder without pulling it over when filled up. It didn’t even budge!:

I love that you can place the holder wherever you want and turn on the water from where you’re at. I’ll be moving the location of the holder to another spot when I get a longer lead hose. That way I won’t have to walk across the back of the house to get to water for our potted plants. 

**I ordered this extension hose to reach to the spot I’m moving it to — it’s supposed to be flexible (our current one is not) and comes in a bunch of sizes. 

I also LOVE that you don’t have to crouch to get the hose or to turn it on. It is so easy to use!: 

We liked it so much I immediately ordered another one for the other side of the house. 

They look great! I’ve figured out a way to reuse them outside, I’ll share that soon. 

See all of my outdoor projects at our home here and those from our first house here:

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How to make simple floating shelves

It’s not a big space to begin with, so taking the door down made a HUGE difference. 

I don’t have a full before pic but this gives you an idea how much space it took up: 

Since we have a door to the main bath, we didn’t feel it was necessary to keep this one. We haven’t missed it once! 

I removed the door from our old mud room to the rest of the house and it made a HUGE difference in there: 

This was a door we didn’t close once…so it was an easy decision. 

Obviously a lot more than that happened in this room over the years, but you can see that the line of sight is so much nicer!: 

Light and bright beadboard mud room

I feel like I gain ten square feet of space in our house every time I do it! 

Removing the door was a given on the book nook I created as well: 

Bedroom closets are a great place to remove a door — especially if you can only access them through a bathroom. (They won’t be seen by anyone but you!) 

I removed the door on our old closet and we loved it: 

You don’t physically gain that much space, but visually it makes all the difference in the world!

We removed the door to the basement in our last house just a few years after moving in: 

I don’t have a before picture, but just imagine the door swinging open to the right…after I took it down we really did gain space in the family room.

I remembered that for our new home and didn’t have one added to our basement stairs: 

See this pinstripe wallpaper makeover here

I also kept the doorway between our mud room and the kitchen open as well: 

See how to use the empty space on the side of your fridge here!

It’s all up to your preference and how you live in your spaces!

Our upstairs bath is segmented into two smaller rooms, so I had the door removed and the opening framed out instead. Otherwise the door would have been open all of the time and blocking the natural light from a window. 

**If you are building a home, keep in mind you can have pocket doors installed instead! Those require structural changes you need to make early in the process, so they are difficult to add after the fact. 

I know you’re thinking…what do I do with the holes after the door is down? You can just live with them if they don’t bother you. (I still haven’t covered the frame in our master bathroom!) 

Or you can use inexpensive trim to cover where the door hung: 

Are there doors in your home you never use? Remove one and see how you like it! All it takes to remove a door is a Phillips screwdriver, and perhaps a flat head screwdriver to pry the hinges off. 

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I’ve been working on this wall molding project for almost four months and it’s finally done!! Geesh. I started it right after I finished the HUGE wall of bookcases in the basement but I kept getting distracted by other projects that were brighter and shinier. 😉 

The mud/laundry makeover and the garage clean out and organization took up a couple of those months. And then I was just…well, tired from all of that. A couple of weeks ago I finally started up this panel molding project again. 

It took longer than expected because when do a project like this, one thing always snowballs into a million other smaller projects. Every. time. But I’m REALLY loving how it turned out and I’m also really happy I added all of the smaller projects. 

When I finished the wall of built ins down here, I knew right away that the other walls needed something: 

I’ve planned to do these molding boxes for a long time, but knew I needed to wait until after the built ins were done to determine the size. 

We LOVE the dark, moody gray we have down here (Westchester Gray), but painting the walls made me even more sure that the wainscoting would look REALLY good:

I had to decide on the design first — I only had three wall sections that I wanted to add trim to. I took a photo of one wall and then added lines using my phone editing. 

The traditional two boxes was what I initially wanted to do: 

But I thought I’d try out adding one more at the top and loved it: 

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I used the simple decorative trim I used in our dining room as well. It’s simple but elegant, and not crazy expensive: 

You can find it at Menard’s, Home Depot and Lowe’s. It was harder to find this time though! It feels like everyone in the world is working on DIY projects right now. 🙂 

I painted our walls in a flat sheen, but I always use semi-gloss on trim. I painted so many of these eight foot pieces…with brushes, rollers, and then with my favorite find, this little paint pad: 

It was great because I could just dunk it in the paint in the can — no need to pour into a tray. It got into the little groves easily and made quick work of the painting. I think I got mine at the dollar store, but this is a whole set! I usually wait until the trim is on the wall to paint, but since I was doing a different sheen I painted before. 

I installed the crown molding and then cut scrap pieces of wood in the sizes I needed to space out my boxes. Each box was 3.5 inches away from the nearest wall (except for around the window where I did twice that to accommodate for the drapes). 

I spaced each panel two inches from the top, bottom and between each box:

Having those cut helps tremendously…you can easily check to see that everything is spaced out the way they should be. I also checked for level as I was installing them as well. 

I finally bit the bullet a few months ago and bought this battery-powered nail gun and it is a game changer! I’ve been carrying around a compressor and fighting the air tubing for 15 years. The cordless nailer is SO much more convenient, but definitely heavier. 

The molding needs to be cut at a 45 degree angle because of the detail:  

This is why I usually paint after the trim is on the wall — after caulking and filling holes, you have to do more coats anyway: 

I love this space most at night when we have the recessed and bookcase lights dimmed and the art lights turned on:

The molding is the perfect finishing touch down here. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times…trim work makes SUCH a big difference for not a lot of money. I spent about $150 for the molding, but it usually costs less than that. (The trim has gone up $2 each since I bought it a few months ago!)

I used a lot because of the three sections and large size, so this project could easily be done for under $100!

Here are a few before and after pics…this space has seen so many DIY projects over the past four years!: 

We are spending more time down here than ever! It’s definitely our favorite spot in the house lately: 

I’m so happy to have another project crossed off the list. Now onto easier items like some organizing! 

Questions? Here are the projects and items in our basement family room:

Built in bookcase how-to

DIY olive tree tutorial 

Crown molding cutting and install tutorial 

Changing out the recessed lighting to brighter/more efficient fixtures

Read all about out sectional here

Round wicker wall hangings

Similar floor cushions 

Battery-operated art lights 

Painting pads 

Most of the pillows on the sofa here

Slide in sofa table 

Drapes and giant map are from IKEA

Dresser is vintage

Rug was a HomeGoods find years ago

See how I added this panel trim to our dining space here: 

And ALL of my wall molding projects over the years here! 

See more of our home here. 

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EASY and inexpensive ways to clean gunk out of a drain

My inexpensive black and brass cookware is still looking great! 

Pour about a half of cup of salt (any salt will do) down the kitchen drain: 

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This where it gets gross my friends. REAL nasty. I am sparing you the after pictures from the last time I did this in our bathroom. 

Overall I find the Zip it brand lasts longer than others. 

These little doodads are long plastic drain cleaners with little threads that grab all the hair on the way down and back up: 

You simply thread it down your bathroom drain as far as you can. No need to remove the stopper. 

If it doesn’t easily slide down one side of your stopper, try again in another spot:

Pull it back up and then try not to hurl. If you’re a decent human being who doesn’t let any hair down the drain you won’t notice much. But if you’re like most of us, you’ll need to be prepared for what will come back up the drain. 

If it’s been awhile I usually have do this a few times to clear all the hair from the sink. But that’s IT! You’ll be shocked at how much faster your water drains. 

And there you go…a clean drain that lets water move freely: 

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It’s strawberry season! This crunchy and sweet strawberry dessert is a hit EVERY time I make it! It’s one of my favorite desserts ever. I’m not a big cook so when I share something here you know it’s going to be good and easy. This is so yummy! It’s a perfect combination of sweet and salty, my favorite. 

• 2 cups crushed pretzels (make sure this is two cups after you’ve crushed them — I actually use a little more)
• 3/4 cup butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 (8 ounce) package softened cream cheese
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 (8 ounce) Cool Whip
• 2 (3 ounce) packages of strawberry gelatin
• 2 (10 ounce) packages frozen strawberries (I use one 14 ounce package and it’s fine)
• 9×13 pan 

I love the combo of the creamy and crunch and sweet and salty. It’s a lovely summer dish — I hope to make it again with fresh picked strawberries soon!

Have you tried this dessert? Any twists on it that are worth trying? You can even add some blueberries on top for a patriotic look. 🙂

Pin and save this one for later with this image: 

Check out all of my recipes here! These are a few of my most popular…

Easy banana bread: 

EASY strawberry freezer jam: 

No bake peanut butter pie: 

Classic sangria recipe: 

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I’ve shared my goal to better organize our (thousands) of photos and school moments and projects a few times over the years. It’s one of my biggest organizational thorns in my side! I’ve never found a great way to store photos, especially in a way that we can really enjoy them. 

I’m sure many of you are asking why I haven’t just used photo albums, and I do plan to add them to albums eventually. I haven’t done that yet because we had WAY too many photos to even begin adding them to albums. And so many of them are too big to fit into the albums we have. 

You can see how many boxes of photos I had when I shared our organized linen closet a few years ago:

You can see how that started as my “Monica closet” here. 🙂 That didn’t include the larger boxes full of bigger photos as well. 

I’m so thankful to have all of these pictures! Most of them are from my childhood and older family photos. Unfortunately I have very little as far as mementos from my youth so these photos are a real treasure!

Earlier last year when the world slowed down, I vowed to take the time to sort through ALL of the photos. I spent many nights going through each box, sorting and decluttering. We had SO many double photos (you youngins won’t even know what I’m talking about!). Remember when you could get two of each photo developed? 

I tossed ALL of the doubles and also tossed photos of people I didn’t know. I’m not talking about long lost family members, but childhood friends I don’t remember, or photos my parents took of people I don’t remember at all. (My mother passed away last year and my Dad didn’t want them.) 

I decluttered our photos before a few years ago, but it’s definitely easier to let go of more as I get older. 😁

I sorted what I had left into decades and organized them in the photo boxes that way. I cut the boxes down from eight to four!

I still had the issue of organizing a TON of large photos — sized 5×7 and up. I threw all of them into larger boxes like this one so they were all in one spot: 

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It’s bugged me that these have been piled up in here instead of organized so we can enjoy them. A few weeks ago I came across the answer to my problems!

I’m not sure if I can adequately describe my love for these simple art portfolios. They are the answer to so many of my paper organization woes! They come in a bunch of different sizes: 

When I got them I knew they would work really well to organize paper items as well. School papers, cards, mementos — anything paper! I have books in the following sizes: 

• 11×17 for large photos and art (they also carry this 11×14 size)
• 9×12
• 8×10 for larger photos and paper 
• 5×7 
• they also have a 4×6 size (two per order)

Each one has 24 pages, room for nearly 50 photos or sheets in each album.

So far I am thrilled with these portfolios! They are super simple and clean atheistically — easy to wipe off and plenty sturdy: 

But they also give enough that you can fit a TON inside and they still close nicely. They have held the bulkier kindergarten art projects beautifully. There is a small spine that you could label as well. 

I am so very happy with these books. I started with the 8×10 size for my parent’s old photos and pics of my grandparents: 

Aren’t they a beautiful couple? 

**As I was filling these albums, I realized how sad it would be to have them closed away in these forever. I’m determined to create a wall display somewhere in our house. There’s truly nothing like these vintage photographs and I’m looking forward to showing a few off! 

I’ll update you when I figure out where and how I’m going to do that. 🙂 

It really is such a relief to have them nicely stored away where they will be protected. AND we can turn the pages like a book and enjoy looking through them now. It’s a huge upgrade from having them piled in a box!

Speaking of boxes…I shared years ago how I had been storing our son’s school art and papers in these large boxes: 

It actually worked GREAT while he was young (after elementary I didn’t keep nearly as much) because I would start a new box every school year. I had it out in our kitchen and would throw in papers I wanted to keep as he brought them home. 

But years later…I’ve realized that yet again, they are just sitting there piled up. We never, ever look at them! I wanted to be able to look through them like our photos, so I’ve been using the larger sized portfolios for his artwork: 

That 11×17 size is perfect for the big art! I’ve used one of the 9×12 albums as well. 

Or you can follow my Amazon Storefront hereand you’ll get a notification every time I go live. If you miss it, I’ll update this with a link you can watch later. (You can see it here! Thank you to everyone who joined!) 

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I could be imagining it, but daylight bulbs seem to help to brighten my mood as well. The dreariness is gone, and the fresh light looks so good! 

See more of our home here. 

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