Summer Home Tour 2018

Thanks for coming to tour my home with my Summer decorations

(finally) displayed. I've made and painted many of the items so I

will include highlighted text that takes you to the tutorials so you

can make similar items for your home if you would like.

We're friends so come on in the back entrance.

As you enter the carport area there is a baker's rack with

my blue bottle collection topped with shells.

Just a dot of hot glue holds the shell on the bottle's opening

then it is easy to pop off at the end of Summer. 

The back door area has more shells.

New galvanized olive buckets have been painted to look

old (tutorial here). I'm pretending that the buckets are holding

burlap bags full of shells from the ocean. 

In reality, most of the bucket is full of crumpled newspaper and

plastic bags. The burlap is hiding the stuffing so you can't see

it through the holes. Then only the very top layer is shells. 

The basket hanging on the back door has shells in it too.

To fool the eye, a piece of foam core was cut to fit the basket

then wrapped in burlap to hide it through the basket's weave.

Then shells were hot glued on to the top edge of the foam core.

If you would like to see more details on how these back entrance

shell decorating projects (and more from inside the house) were done, please click over to "Secrets of Decorating With Shells" post.

Come on in to the kitchen dining area.

I just love me some shells. Most of them have come from

the bags you can buy at the craft stores (and use a coupon to

get them for even less).

Now we will move from the kitchen dining area to the more 

formal dining area. If we had come in the house through the

front door, this room also acts like a foyer too.

(I moved one of the chairs so you could see the table better)

A large urn holds shells and has shells hot glued on it.

I got tired of all the dark wood furniture in this room and got

up enough nerve to paint this dresser/display piece with

two shades of chalk paint (for tutorial click here).

It is an older piece with wavy glass so I'm going to open the

doors so you can see part of my coral and sea fan collection better. 

(Excuse the mess in the bottom)

The wave coral reproduction came from Target. 

The faux corals were made from items in the floral section

of craft stores (coral tutorial here). The faux sea fans were

made from cedar clippings (sea fan tutorial here). 

Also in the dining room/foyer is a buffet.

For summer it has a shell motif also.

My "beach boy" stands on a skirted pedestal between the dining

room and the living room. I found this funky "ribbon" at 

Hobby Lobby. It reminded me of a fishing net.

The last room on the tour is the living room. 

The coffee table holds a bowl of pretty Summer items.

I like to change out these pillow coverings seasonally.

For Summer I fell in love with this octopus print fabric.

(turkish corner pillow tutorial here).

I also like to change out the picture over the mantel seasonally.

It is not expensive to have different artwork during the year

because I just get art prints and use a technique to make them

look similar to a painting (from print to painting tutorial here).

The wood pilings on the end of the mantel are actually pool

noodles wrapped in wood-look contact paper. A diluted coat of

paint gives them that whitewashed look.

(faux wood piling tutorial here)

Bookcases on either side of the mantel hold more Summer items.

The seahorse, faux turtle shell and octopus on this bookcase

were not colors that I liked. I painted them with a DIY chalk

paint. (small batch custom color chalk paint tutorial here)

(Sea fan tutorial here)  (Faux coral tutorial here)

I used the more colorful items in the double bookcase.

The buoys on the top shelf had a color change to make them

look older (tutorial here). I've tried several times to make glass

fishing floats. To me they never look as good as the ones you 

can purchase in stores but I use them anyway.

Buoys, mirror, shell vase all painted with DIY chalk paint.

This mirrored console holds our radio and CD player.

Over the console are two frames with chicken wire that

are easy to change seasonally. (framed chicken wire tutorial).

These are two Summer sayings that I like:

I tried to make these saying boards look similar to the pilings

on the mantel so I covered foam board with the wood-look

contact paper to write on. I might have used too much water to

dilute the paint (to give it a whitewashed look) but then I 

liked the way it beaded up on the contact paper so I left it. 

Thanks again for visiting!!!

Here's a good "pinnable" image if you want to come again.