I have received a few questions from readers lately asking for DIY kitchen update ideas that provide a high end look without a renovation budget. Painting kitchen cabinets is always a good option (and I've got a tutorial to help you get a professional, even finish), but another of my favorite tips is to update kitchen counters on a budget with paint to create the look of high end stone.

A while back I wrote a post about how to use a Rust-Oleum Countertop Transformations Kit to DIY granite look countertops, but my tutorial was buried in the middle of a post about my upcycled bar cart, where you would probably never find it. The recent reader questions about kitchen updates made me realize that it was finally time to create a separate post about how to paint laminate countertops to look like granite.

How to Protect Your Family From Carbon Monoxide

Thank you First Alert for sponsoring this post. Don’t let the beep steal your sleep.

We do so many things to keep our families safe, but sometimes the simplest precautions are the most likely to get overlooked. Take carbon monoxide detectors for example. Do you have them throughout your home and are you certain they are in good working order?

I'm ashamed to say that, until recently, this was a NO for us! Our home was a built a year before a law in Colorado began requiring carbon monoxide detectors went into effect, so none were installed when we bought the home. When our first baby was born three years after we moved in to our house, we finally bought a CO detector for the nursery and for our bedroom. But six years later, these were still the only rooms in our home that were protected. 

I won't even pretend to make excuses for this... it's just a flat out bad decision! Even if you are a step ahead of us and already have carbon monoxide detectors throughout your home, there's a good chance they could be expired or expiring soon. I've committed to take the simple step necessary to keep my family safe, and I'm proud to be partnering with First Alert to make sure that your family is protected as well!

Clean Up After Painting: How to Clean Paint Brushes and Get Paint Off Hands

Any day is a good day to paint! Whether I'm creating art with the kids, painting furniture, or changing the color of your walls, I'm always having fun, but I used to dread the clean up. That is, until I learned a couple of simple tricks that save me lots of time. Whether you're using acrylic paint for arts and crafts, latex or oil-based paint on your walls, or wood stain, I'll let you in on my secret for how to clean paint brushes and how to get paint off your hands.

How to Choose the Right Moving Glass Wall System For Your Home

Summer is in full swing and we are practically living in our backyard. I work out there in the mornings, the boys play all afternoon, then it's time for dinner on the patio, and we've even been reading the boys library books under the glow of our patio string lights before bed. I absolutely love the outdoor room we've created, but the one thing that would make it better transition between indoors and out. My dream is a wide open moving glass wall system that looks something like this...

Making the Kids' Room Safer and More Fun With Onelink Safe & Sound

Thank you First Alert Onelink for sponsoring this post. Onelink Safe & Sound - Meet Your Family’s New Best Friend. #ONELINKSTORY

Last summer, we started adding some smart home features to our house, including keyless locks, light bulbs we can control with our phones, and even a smart garage door opener. I love the convenience each of these adds to our lives, but more than that, I love the ways in which they make our home a safer place for our family. 

Recently we added one more smart home addition that has quickly jumped straight to the top of my favorites list. We installed the First Alert Onelink Safe & Sound smart smoke detector and carbon monoxide alarm in the boys' room to help keep them safe, which mom and dad love! But it's more than just that... it's also an Alexa enabled premium speaker and nightlight, which the boys are just crazy about!

How to Properly Store, Dispose Of, and Recycle Paint and Paint Cans

As a serial DIYer, I'm always repainting the walls in our house, and painting just about everything else in sight with spray paint. That leaves us with a lot of leftover paint and, in time, a lot of empty paint cans. We have a very small utility room and a detached, unheated garage, so I had a lot of questions about how and where I could safely store my leftover paint, and how to properly dispose of paint and paint cans.

I did a lot of research regarding both paint storage and disposal options, and learned that we could recycle some of our leftover paint, as well as recycling all of our empty paint cans. Today I'm sharing all the findings of my research with some helpful tips for how to store leftover paint, how to dispose of leftover paint, and how to recycle paint cans.

Small Utility Room Shelving Solution & the Best Way to Organize Paint Supplies

Having a fully finished basement adds a lot of livable square footage to our house, but it also means that there's almost no storage space. But you know I love a good challenge, so we worked our magic and managed to squeeze in some much needed utility room shelving and organized every available inch of space.

How to Store Leftover Paint + Free Printable Paint Labels

Saying we have a lot of leftover paint might be an understatement! When we bought our home, the builder left us a touch up kit with 2 quarts of each color of paint used throughout the house (including all the original wall colors, the trim, ceilings, and closet interior paints). Since that time we have repainted many of the rooms in the house, resulting in even more leftover paint. In the boys' bedroom alone, where we painted ombre stripes, we have five different colors of teal paint to store.

Plant Recommendation: What to Plant Behind a Garden Bench

When we moved into our home, the small backyard left a lot to be desired, but over the years we transformed it, little by little, into our very own oasis in the city. One of my very favorite parts of our yard is the planter bench that provides seating on one side of our patio table. But finding the best plants for this garden bench proved more challenging than I originally expected. After weeks of online research, and a trip to just about every nursery in town, we finally stumbled upon the perfect solution. I've talked about the planter bench on the blog before, but I decided this soft and tall plant recommendation for behind a bench really deserves a post all its own.

Closet Clean Out: Donating & Recycling Clothes

As a mom, it can be tough to take time for yourself. There's always something to be done for someone else, and in those rare moments that the house is quiet, it's hard to think of much else other than your never ending to do list and how tired you are! With Mother's Day right around the corner, it seems like the perfect time to remind ourselves that to be the best moms for our kids, we also have to make our own well-being a priority. Thank you to Hefty® for sponsoring this post, and for helping me to support other moms as well!