Category Archives: Hardware

The Pot Rack in Our 100 Year Old House

Finally!! I am going to show you the pot rack in our 100 year old house today! This was a DIY project that we accomplished with minimal tools and skills. Here’s what we did:

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DIY Picket Fence Wall Hooks

Here is a fun and easy project, picket fence wall hooks, made from literally some junk that could have just as easily wound up in the garbage… a piece of scrap wood and a few odd pieces of junk. I’m calling it a ‘picket fence’ wall hooks project, but we didn’t even have any old pickets on hand, so here’s what we did…

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A Brief Guide to Restoring an Old Wooden Door

 

A Brief Guide to Restoring an Old Wooden Door

There are many beautiful, older wooden homes scattered around the country that need nothing more than a little bit of loving to restore the extra shine that they once had in their prime. When undertaking a project like this, restoring an old wooden door is something that you’ll have to learn how to do.

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DIY Button Magnets

Buttons, Buttons… whose got buttons? Boy, I sure do… I’ve had a button ‘collection’ forever! In fact, I somehow absorbed my grandma’s tin of old buttons when I got married, and have added to it over the past 35 years. I’m so glad to have used a few of the vintage buttons I have, on this easy and fun craft, DIY button magnets. With this super strong glue, I’m hoping these button magnets will last a long time.

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Kitchen Before and After

Reading about kitchen transformations are always so much fun, especially when you get to see a kitchen before and after! So I’m going to revisit, in a manner of speaking that is, the kitchen in our former house. So get your hard hats out! I’ll be showing some of the things we did to transform this kitchen. Even though we kept the cabinets, and basic floor plan, we revamped or altered in one form or another, basically every surface of this space. We added new cabinets and built in a couple of pantries, added a 2nd sink, and opened up a few walls or doors, replaced all the appliances and plumbing fixtures and light fixtures. In other words, by the time we sold this house last year, the kitchen looked very different from what it was when we originally purchased it back in the mid 1990’s.

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Adding Labels to the Linen Closet

We were fortunate that our upstairs hallway, in our new 100 year old house, had a huge linen closet in it, but it didn’t always look quite like this. By changing the hardware and adding labels to the linen closet, we added some greatly needed detail, thus creating this spot at the end of the hall to have some character.

Here’s what it used to look like:

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DIY Window Treatments, Step by Step

HometoCottage.com DIY window treatments in Breakfast Room

I made the window treatments in our Breakfast Room with just simple sewing techniques. The styles of window treatments I’m about to show you, are some of the easiest to DIY… it is just basically stitching a few rectangles.

Since I just found out the Waverly fabrics I used for these are 50% off through March 21, 2015, I wanted to get this out to you ASAP! (I have the links to all the fabrics and materials needed for this project listed towards the bottom of this post)

Here are some tips of my techniques and details about my style selection for these window treatments: Read the rest of this entry

Powder Room Renovation

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After we first bought our 100 year old house and started to renovate it a little over a year ago, it had a very spacious powder room on the main floor, but everything about that powder room was a problem! I designed a new floor plan to actually make the powder room smaller in order to make it much more effiecient and function so much better!

Take a look at the original floor plan: Read the rest of this entry

Downton Abbey Doorbell

HometoCottage.com Downton Abbey Doorbell

I actually didn’t start out… or even finish with the goal in mind to have a working Downton Abbey doorbell… it just sort of happened unexpectedly. But I must say, now that we do have one, I love it, and it’s a fun conversation piece too! Here’s what happened… Read the rest of this entry

Carpenter Trick to Repair Furniture

HometoCottage.com Old Carpenter Trick

Why would I shove toothpicks in a hole in my antique cupboard door, you may ask…

Well an old timer carpenter taught me this trick, and it really works fantastic! What’s the trick? Read the rest of this entry