I think it’s safe to say spring is here to stay. We’ve had our fair share of rainy days, but the beautiful, sunny afternoons make up for it. We finally pulled our outdoor furniture out of storage this weekend and have been trying to spend as much time hanging out on our deck and front porch as possible.

We decided to knock an easy DIY project off our to-do list earlier this week while the sun was out. Our porch swing is in great shape, but it was unfinished. We’d been wanting to paint it since we moved into the house last summer. It was an easy and fun project to knock out in an afternoon. And I was happy that it only cost about $40 to do — so much cheaper than buying a new swing!

A couple of notes about how we tackled this project. Because our swing was unfinished, this was a very quick process. If you’re repainting a swing, it will take a bit more sanding and possibly more coats of paint. We used some leftover white, exterior paint that’s an all-in-one paint and primer, which also eliminated some steps. If you’re painting your porch swing a color other than white, I would recommend doing a coat of traditional primer, then putting on several coats of exterior paint in the color you desire.

We were able to find replacements for all of the hardware on our swing, except these hooks that help hold the arms in place. We took all of the hardware to a local store to make sure we got the correct size replacements, but the clerks there had never seen these before. We removed as much rust as possible with steel wool and then spray painted these with a rust-resistant metal spray paint. You’d never guess they are so old now! The rest of the hardware was replaced using a standard porch swing hanging kit that you can find at most hardware stores.

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how we upgraded our swing.

[ingredients title=”Supplies”]

• Sawhorses
• Porch swing hanging kit (includes chain and hardware)
• Sandpaper
• Rags
• Exterior all-in-one paint and primer
• Medium angled paintbrush

[/ingredients]

[directions title=”Directions”]

1. Remove the original chains and any rusted hardware from the porch swing. Place the swing on two sawhorses and sand all sides.You want to scuff it up just a bit to give the paint something to cling to.  Once the swing is sanded, wipe away dust using a rag.
2. Using a angled paint brush and broad strokes, apply a thin coat of paint to all surfaces of the swing, except underneath the seat. Allow paint to dry according to the directions on the can before applying a second, slightly thicker coat.
3. Once second coat dries, you can apply a third coat to the top of the swing, if needed. Once you’re satisfied with the look of the paint, allow it to dry completely before flipping the swing over and repeating the process with the bottom of the swing. Allow paint to dry completely.
4. Once paint is dry, install the new hardware from the porch swing hanging kit and hang swing up at desired height.

[/directions]

I’m so happy with how this project turned out! Our porch swing certainly pops a bit more with its new paint job and fits right in with the white trim we have on the front of the house. I have a feeling we’ll be getting a lot of use out of it over the next few months!

The post How To Upgrade Your Porch Swing appeared first on The Broadcasting Baker.

I’m super sore today after spending most of yesterday tackling some house projects. My amazing in-laws came to town to help us continue upgrading our garage, which was in dire need of help when we bought the house. James and his parents knocked out much of the work while I was in Europe. They added new wood to reinforce the structure (it was wobbly when they got on top to do some work) and re-shingled the roof. The last things left are repainting the garage to match our bright, yellow home and installing a garage door.

I helped a bit with scraping the peeling paint off the sides of the garage, but James and his dad did most of the heavy lifting on this project. They got the garage door track in and the door up, working late into last night. James primed much of the garage while I was at work today and it already looks so much better. Just having a door on the garage is such an improvement — now we can actually use it!

I quickly realized my skills weren’t much help with the garage, so I tackled some of the leaves in our backyard. Raking is hard work! But there’s something about owning your own home that makes simple chores seem kind of fun. You feel so much more ownership when you put some sweat equity into your home.

Our backyard is huge, so I only got about one-third of it done over a few hours yesterday. My mother-in-law helped me bag up some of the leaves and we filled ten bags! And there were still some piles of leaves left over. Maybe next time I’ll just mulch them all? I need your strategies so I don’t become a slave to my backyard! How do you tackle fall yard work?

The post Upgrading Our Garage appeared first on The Broadcasting Baker.

While we still have plenty on our to-do list, I wanted to give you a peek inside our home. We are so dang happy here. The home is cozy, but big enough for entertaining. And we can walk almost anywhere, which is the best part about living in this neighborhood.

We fell in love with our house from the moment we saw it. We were just starting our search and happened to drive by when my parents were visiting. The bright yellow bungalow caught all of our eyes, so we turned around to take a closer look and wrote down the address to give to our realtor. I’ve always wanted a yellow house with a front porch, so it was meant to be. From what we learned from neighbors and the seller, the house had fallen into disrepair for several years and was an eyesore on the block. A contractor and investor bought the property and did an amazing job breathing new life into the home.

Of all the things on James’ list of “wants” when we were searching for homes, a front porch was at the very top. The house we were renting had a great porch where we often gathered for hours with friends. This porch is even better! The swing is long enough for you to stretch out and prop your feet up and the wicker chair my mother recovered is so comfortable I’ve almost fallen asleep on it. The porch is my favorite place to stretch out and read while enjoying some morning coffee.

Living Room

The floor plan of the house is very open, which makes it a great place to throw parties. You enter into the living room, which opens into the dining room and then the kitchen. The hardwood floors continue throughout every room except the bathroom, which makes the home feel so much bigger. I love how much light comes through the big windows everyday. It always makes the house feel so warm and inviting.

One of the things on our to-do list is replacing the light fixtures in the living room and dining room, which we understand have been in the house quite some time. I’d like to add a ceiling fan in the living room and a rustic chandelier in the dining room.

Dining Room

The dining room is one of the features that sold us on this house. It’s nice and spacious, with a large window seat on the east side. We’re going to need more chairs for our table, because this is the room where everyone tends to congregate when we have gatherings. Aside from our dining room table, we also have a makeshift bar setup on an antique buffet table sitting along the west wall.

My mom is a saint and spent lots of time sewing pillows for our new place. She also made the beautiful blue cushions we have on our window seat, making it a much more comfortable place to sit. The cats love sunbathing here.

Kitchen

No surprise, the kitchen is my favorite room in the house. When we moved in, there were only cabinets on the left side of the kitchen so a table could be setup. Because I spend so much time cooking and baking, we knew we needed more counter space and storage. We asked the seller for information on the materials he used and were able to easily order additional cabinets.

The countertop won’t be here for a couple more weeks, so James had a friend cut a piece of particle board to fit on top so we can still use the space. It’s already so much more functional with the second bank of cabinets. I spend most of my time in this room!

Study

When I’m in the kitchen, James is often in the study editing photos. It’s the perfect space for him to plug away at work when he needs to and the cats love sitting back there with him and looking out the sliding glass door. His office doubled as the guest bedroom at our previous rental, so it’s nice for him to have a room he can work in without imposing on our guests.

Bathroom

We initially started our home search with the goal of finding a place with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, but we ended up with two bedrooms and one bathroom. And, honestly, I’m so glad we ended up getting a slightly smaller place. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the one bathroom we have is spacious and beautifully done with earth tone tile. We do have guests frequently, but having just one bathroom hasn’t been a problem.

Guest Room

The guest room may be the best room in the house, to be honest. It gets the most amazing sunlight and is so spacious. We’re on the hunt for some new bedding, but otherwise don’t plan on changing much in this room.

Master Bedroom

I think our bedroom is pretty amazing, too. It’s our little zen zone we love escaping to every night. It’s super cozy — just the way we like it. We are hunting for some additional artwork to hang, but don’t have too many improvements planned for this space, either.

One of my favorite features is the white dresser that also doubles as a TV stand. James and I decided to refinish it the same week we moved. It was stressful, but so worth it! When his parents gave us this piece of furniture it was brown with outdated brass hardware and the mirror was attached horizontally to the back. We stripped it, painted it white, attached glass knobs and decided to take the mirror off and hang it vertically on the wall. I’m so happy with how it turned out!

Basement

We have a large, unfinished basement to use for storage, DIY projects and laundry. We just bought some shelves to help us keep the space organized and will eventually probably put some epoxy down on the floor. I would love to get some TRX straps down there for days when I can’t make it to the gym! It’s great to have plenty of room to store out-of-season clothes and other odds and ends.

Backyard

Once you come up from the basement and go outside, you’ll find yourself on our back deck. Now that we’ve had a few days of slightly cooler weather we are absolutely loving this space. The deck was built with pretreated wood and not ready for staining until recently, so James and I actually knocked that project out today (after this picture was taken). I’m excited to see what it looks like when it’s dry tomorrow! I’ll let you know how it turns out.

The biggest projects we have to knock out are in the yard. James is a total beast when it comes to yard work, so we’ve already made some progress. We have a huge lot, which is great, but there were a lot of weeds when we moved in. We have plans to put some grass seed down this fall and dig up some of the scary-looking bushes that are plopped randomly throughout the yard. We also need to re-roof and paint the small garage (the white building on the left in that photo), which needs some major love.

It gets a little overwhelming when we think about all of the things we’d like to eventually do to this house, but that’s also part of the fun! We are having a blast making this place our own and we can’t wait to see what it looks like years from now.

The post Our House: A Peek Inside appeared first on The Broadcasting Baker.

Confession: I’ve had my wedding bouquet sitting in a brown paper bag on our kitchen table for nearly two months. Parts of it were molding. Gross, I know.

I saved it after coming across this awesome idea for a wedding shadowbox during the wedding planning process. I thought it was such a touching, unique way to  forever capture some of the details of our wedding day.

I finally got around to putting mine together this week and am so happy with the results. I was able to salvage some rose petals and billy balls from our wedding flowers to incorporate in the display. Has anyone else had issues with drying flowers? My bouquet looked and smelled pretty disgusting, despite following online tips on how to properly preserve it.

I’m a super sentimental person — I’ve saved every love letter and card James gave me since we started dating — so having this on display in our home makes my heart smile.

And, it only cost about $50 and an hour of my time. Here’s how I did it:

First, I stopped by Michael’s and picked up a shadowbox frame, pearlized straight pins, spray adhesive and some fabric. I chose a 16 x 20 frame based one what I set aside from our wedding to put in the frame. I also decided on a white fabric with little white polka dots because I didn’t want to distract too much from the items I was showcasing. A solid color fabric would work well, too. All of these supplies only cost me about $50 (tip: download the Michael’s and Retail Me Not apps on your phone — I use them both for coupons and never pay full price).

Once I had everything I needed, I played around with how I wanted to place all of the items. I decided to display our vows, our invitation, our Save the Date, James’ boutonniere, my hair piece, a home brew favor tag, my garter and some flowers from our wedding.

Next, I cut and hot glued the fabric to the shadow box backing. I did this by first straight pinning the fabric to the board, trimming the extra, then removing pins one side at a time and applying hot glue. Make sure to pull the fabric tightly to avoid making wrinkles.

I attached the items using a combination of hot glue and straight pins. For items that laid flat, hot glue was enough to keep them in place. I used pins on the garter, flower bunches and hair pin. In most cases, I was actually able to hide the ends of the pins underneath the items.

I ended up rearranging the items slightly as I affixed them to the board.

Once they were all in place, I very carefully sprayed the entire display lightly with spray adhesive. Everything was secure before then, but I just wanted to ensure nothing would fall out of place.

I think my favorite part of the shadowbox is our vows. I ended up re-writing mine on a nice piece of stationary because the paper I had them written on for our wedding day got lost at some point during the reception. We were too busy having the time of our lives to notice! Being able to look at those vows on a daily basis will serve as a reminder of the spouses we hope to be and how lucky we are to have found one another.

I can’t believe how beautiful the end product ended up being — and how easy it was to throw together. You can make these shadowboxes for so many occasions — a kid’s first birthday party, a fun family vacation, even to memorialize a loved one. I hope ours is something that will be passed down for several generations.

The post Wedding Wednesday: Making A Wedding Shadowbox appeared first on The Broadcasting Baker.

Earlier tonight, James and I were talking about how it hasn’t really hit us yet that we’re finally going to be married. We’ve been talking about and planning a wedding for so long that we don’t feel any different with the big day rapidly approaching. I think that means it will hit us both pretty hard when we wake up on May 30. That day can’t come quickly enough!

We’re finishing up the last few projects we have to check off our to-do lists before heading back to Illinois next week. We are so thankful to both have jobs that allow us to take most of next week off so we can go home and prepare.

Over the past few days, I put the final touches on our table numbers, some personalized wedding seating cards and garage sale picture frames. Chalk paint has been a lifesaver for many of our DIY wedding projects because it requires no prep and dries quickly. It’s also meant to look more rustic, so you don’t have to be a skilled painter to apply a coat!

James has been busy designing a few signs that will be displayed at our reception. Thank goodness he has some graphic design skills — I would probably be stuck trying to use WordArt to make something look pretty!

As we approach the final stretch, I’m trying to take some time to focus on myself and relax. This is really hard for me, because I’m a control freak. The past couple of weeks I’ve been neglecting my own health because of all the stress I’m dealing with between the wedding and work. My goal for the next ten days is to try to make myself more of a priority — to take time to workout and eat clean and step away from wedding and work duties a bit.

Yoga has been a godsend for me the past month, so I hope to focus on my practice a lot over the next few days. If everything goes to hell, I’ll just escape into a very deep child’s pose

The post Wedding Wednesday: The Final Countdown appeared first on The Broadcasting Baker.

I can’t tell you how excited I am for the big day to get here. James and I have been engaged for about a year and a half. It’s been great because we’ve been able to spread the planning process out and really enjoy every moment. But, it also feels like we’ve been engaged for an eternity at this point. We’re beyond ready to celebrate with our family and friends!

With that said, I’m also getting to the point where I’m ready for the planning process to be over. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so glad we’re having a DIY wedding that will feature so much of our personalities. We’ve worked hard on little details that we hope our guests will appreciate. But, it’s crunch time and it seems like we still have several projects to complete.

At this point, we just have to let some plans go and accept that they’re not going to happen before the big day. That’s really hard for me to do because I’m a perfectionist and a total people pleaser. But, when it comes down to it, our guests won’t care whether or not there’s a custom photo backdrop for them to Instagram or personalized favors for them to take home.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the details of the wedding rather than the reason behind it. Over these next two weeks, I’m trying to take some time to breathe and remind myself that no matter what happens on our big day and no matter what projects do or do not get finished, it’s about the love James and I have for one another and the people who are supporting us along the way.

Friends, family and each other — that’s all we need for a perfect wedding day.

The post Wedding Wednesday: Letting It Go appeared first on The Broadcasting Baker.

We went home to finalize some details with vendors, finish up some DIY projects and do a little much-needed relaxing. One of the many things on our to-do list was reviewing the final menu for the reception.

When we started planning our wedding, there was one thing I knew I didn’t want: dried-out chicken.

I’ve been to so many weddings where this is standard fare and guests end up leaving hungry and tired as a result. We are both foodies, so we wanted to make sure whatever dishes we served at our wedding were things our guests actually wanted to eat. We also knew we’d have several vegetarians attending the wedding, so we’d need to have several options for our guests.

It didn’t take us long to settle on the type of cuisine: Italian. It’s always a crowd pleaser, so we knew all of our guests would be able to find a dish or two they like. My mom’s side of the family is from Italy, so it’s also a small nod to my family’s heritage.

While we have a handful of good Italian restaurants in town, the one we’re using is a place I’d never tried until the wedding planning process. My mother stumbled across Rosati’s at a wedding expo she attended and was blown away by their food. While the restaurant is well-known for its pizza, the pastas and meats they offer on their catering menus are delicious.

We went to do a tasting at the restaurant last year and left wanting more! Everything was delicious. We were also impressed by the affordability. We knew food and alcohol were two areas where we wanted to spend extra money in order to have the best quality possible, but Rosati’s allowed us to have great food without having to spend an excessive amount. We settled on a menu including chicken parmesan, eggplant parmesan, mostaccioli, tortellini, bread and salad. There will also be some light appetizers served during cocktail hour.

Once we decided on the menu, we had to figure out how we wanted the meal to be served: individually, buffet-style, or family-style. When it came to this decision, we made it based on our own experiences as wedding guests. The best meals we’ve had have always been served buffet-style. This is a great option because it ensures everyone gets served quickly and the food stays warm. I’ve been to a few weddings where we were served multi-course meals that arrived cold or at completely different times than the rest of the tables’ meals. It all depends on your venue and what works for YOU!

One thing to keep in mind when you’re planning a menu is how easy the food is to eat. We knew pasta had the potential to get messy, so we chose noodles that don’t require people to spin them around their forks. Nothing is worse than a bride covered in spaghetti!

As with every wedding planning decision, you should also keep your budget in mind. I was amazed by how quickly food costs added up when we met with several possible vendors for catering quotes. Most caterers will give you a quote that’s a cost-per-head. Be prepared for your meeting by going in with an idea of how much you can realistically afford to spend per person on food. Throughout the process, don’t back down on these numbers. Most vendors are happy to get creative in order to make your dream wedding day work within your budget.

Happy planning!

The post Wedding Wednesday: The Food appeared first on The Broadcasting Baker.

That’s how far away James and I are from getting married. It’s hard to believe because we’ve been planning our wedding for a year and a half.

From the moment we got engaged, I knew I wanted a DIY wedding. I love hosting events and believe the little details that go into them can make the simplest of gatherings truly extraordinary. I wanted our wedding to reflect our personalities and the love we have for one another — something I thought we could make happen more easily than a wedding planner.

With that said, planning your own wedding isn’t for everyone. There are some days I wish we would have taken the advice of many married friends and just eloped. But, I know the stress will all be worth it come May 30th.

So, how do you decide whether to plan your wedding yourself or hire an expert? Here’s what you should consider.

Budget. 

Even the simplest of weddings aren’t cheap — the venue, food, alcohol, music and decorations all add up quickly. Many wedding planners get good deals from vendors they work with regularly, but their expertise comes at a cost. It all boils down to whether you see the services of a wedding planner as a good value. Will the extra money be worth less stress? Or would you rather put more money toward a certain aspect of your wedding? Some venues include wedding planning services as part of their catering or rental packages, which can end up being a great value.

Vision. 

Some weddings are easier to DIY than others. If you want an elaborate, black-tie affair, a wedding planner will certainly come in handy. But, if your style is more laid back, dreaming up your wedding and making it a reality on your own is doable. It all depends on what you imagine your wedding day to be and how much work it will take to make that happen. If you decide to go with a planner, try to find someone whose portfolio reflects your own personal style and vision.

Time. 

The length of time you have to plan a wedding and how much free time you have to do so is a major factor to consider while deciding whether to hire some help. Contacting vendors, putting together decorations and ironing out all of the details can be overwhelming. It’s especially hard if you aren’t living in the city where you’re getting married. If you plan on getting married within six months of getting engaged, hiring a planner will make life much easier. James and I opted for a long engagement to make the planning process easier on us. And, we’ve enlisted the help of my retired mother, who has gone above and beyond with her Mother of the Bride duties!

If you want to handle all of the details of your wedding but are worried about the logistics once it gets close, consider hiring a wedding coordinator. They offer packages that vary from helping setup the venue and tearing it down to just making sure the wedding ceremony runs smoothly. We’ve hired a friend to serve in this role so all of our family members can sit back and enjoy our wedding day.

The post Wedding Wednesday: Planner vs. DIY appeared first on The Broadcasting Baker.