This post brought to you by TIKI Brand®. All opinions are 100% mine.

For the last 3 summers that we’ve been in our house, I have longed for an outdoor living room.  I’m not sure WHY it has taken me this long to make it happen, but I finally have the outdoor living room I’ve been dreaming of! I guess all I needed was a little motivation, and when I received my TIKI Brand Fire Sculptures, it was just what I needed to visualize my perfect space! 

Two summers ago I bought two outdoor chairs, at the end of the season, but without a couch they just always seemed awkward and out of place.  It’s embarrassing to show you this before picture because it is SO bad! 

Here’s Matt’s running stuff, it’s starting to take over the patio stairs.

Malea’s toys scattered all over the place.

Our make-shift living room with scattered chairs and toys.

Obviously I needed some organization on our patio, so I went to a local antique mall and found this metal cabinet. 

Someday I’ll make it over to look cute, but for now it does exactly what I need it to do… organize my stuff!  Once all Malea’s toys, and my gardening things were organized (post on that coming soon), I got to organizing the living room area of the patio.

I arranged my 2 chairs and my new TIKI Brand Fire Sculpture, but the living room space was still missing something… more seating.  I headed to Walmart and found wicker couches for less than $100 so I snagged one up, and bought a few plants to make my living area feel more homey. 

When I got home I pulled out some old pots, for the plants, a few side tables I had laying around, and decorated my new outdoor living room.  I absolutely love it!  Why did it take me 3 years to do this??? 

 Matt and I are out here every night now, enjoying the cool summer nights, sipping on a glass of wine, and having good conversations that we never have when we watch TV in the evenings!  The ambiance is awesome with the TIKI burning bright but the best part about sitting out in our new living room is that there aren’t any mosquitoes!  The first night we used our new TIKI Fire Sculpture I was watching and waited for the mosquitoes to come and attack.  We live close to the river so we usually have a ton of them and get eaten alive!  But Matt and I sat out there for 2 hours and neither of us had a single bite!  I watched as they tried to come in for the attack but I literally saw them turn around when they got a wiff of the TIKI, it was awesome!  Not only does the TIKI fire sculpture create a great ambiance, it also fights off unwanted guests!

If you have been wanting to created an outdoor living room at your house, and just need a little extra motivation, the TIKI Brand Fire Sculptures are available at The Home Depot.  Once you’ve created your perfect outdoor space share your photos with the TIKI Brand on Facebook! 

It’s summertime, let’s get outside, fire up the grill, light our TIKI sculptures and sit and laugh for hours! 

The post Our New Outdoor Living Room appeared first on Ask Anna.

It’s a very simple design but I think when it’s done the rich textures and romantic lighting will be perfect!  Every makeover is a process but I’ve already started purchasing items and here’s what I have so far.

Threshold Pinched Pleat Duvet from Target

Teardrop Crystal Chandelier from Overstock.com

Songe Mirror from IKEA

I also have a headboard from TJ Maxx and the wall color, from Dutch Boy Paint.  I am having an electrician come out next week to install the chandeliers and I can’t wait!  Having a chandelier on each side of the bed will provide great reading light, as well as the perfect “mood lighting”. {wink}  We have a lot of painting to do, and we still need to install the wood paneling “feature wall” but hopefully I will be back soon with an update! 

Have you done a makeover in your house recently? I would love to hear about it, or see your posts!

The post Design board ~ Master bedroom makeover appeared first on Ask Anna.

Before I show you the after pictures I want to remind you of the before.  This was taken last December, right after my husband finished building it.

Here’s what it looks like now.

She loves sleeping way high up in her princess bed, and I love that the stairs provide so much extra storage!  I added these vinyl numbers to the stairs, just for fun.

I also made her some new curtains for her room and the play house.  They are coordinating patters, with all the colors from her room, in the fabric.

I love all the little cafes on this print.

Under her bed is her play house.  I love that she has her own little play area down there and she and her friends have so much fun playing in it.

She also has her very own closet for all of her princess dresses.  When she’s older this will be a great spot for her to have a little TV and a bean bag, or something like that.

On the other side of her room is her huge Barbie house that her grandparents got her for Christmas.  She is good about keeping it nice and tidy, in fact the other day she told her babysitter, “I have to put everything in the right places so mommy knows I’m a good cleaner.”

To the right of her bed is her recently customized closet.   I honestly didn’t think she would really care about it that much, but I was wrong.  She absolutely loves it. She shows everyone that comes over and she tells me all the time she loves how pretty it is.  I love that she appreciates cleanliness and organization.  Makes my heart proud.

Above her closet is her name and some plates from my grandma.  I used to have them hanging in her playhouse but one day she decided this was where she wanted them.  She’s very particular about where things go, wonder where she get’s it from. {wink}

On the opposite side of the room is her dresser.  I love this quote because I truly believe that someday she will do great things for the Lord!

That’s the tour of Malea’s princess room.  There are still a few things left to do, like paint the chandelier and paint inside the playhouse, but other than that it’s finished!  What do you think?  Have you ever thought about building a loft bed for your kids?

Where to find items shown above:
Boxes in the closet

Loft Bed Plans (stair plans)

Chandelier

Kitchen

Rug

Custom Closet

Dresser knobs

Barbie Castle

The post A Princess Bedroom with a Loft Bed appeared first on Ask Anna.

Today I have a new, and really awesome, product to show you.

I first saw AirStone on the DIY Network’s “I want that” show, and then I was ecstatic when they emailed me and asked me if I wanted to review the product.  Last year I made over my brick fireplace by staining the brick, but I love the look of stone and knew it would look great in our living room.  AirStone has 2 colors to choose from and I chose the gray color because I thought it would match our living room perfectly!

It was simple figuring out how much product we needed, using their online calculator.  There are 3 different types of stones, to give you the most natural look possible.

My husband wanted to even out the brick to make it a more level surface, so to start the process, he added a layer of mortar on top of the existing brick. {This is not a required step to install AirStone}.

Once the mortar was dry we started adding the AirStone pieces.  The “stones” were so easy to apply, all we had to do was add a layer of the AirStone adhesive to the stones and then stick them on the fireplace.  We started with the front of the hearth and then worked our way up and back, then we covered the sides of the fireplace.

AirStone is a fabricated stone and it’s really easy to make cuts using just a hacksaw but because of the age, and abnormal size of our hearth, we had to make a lot of cuts so we ended up using our table saw.  The process was simple and quick, it only took us about 4 1/2 hours to complete the whole project and totally transform our fireplace!

I can’t believe the transformation!  It looks so much more modern and fits our style so much better!!!

The best part about this project was how affordable it was!  The entire project cost about $200.00 and we have left over stones and adhesive, enough to do another small project.

What do you think of the transformation?  Have you been wanting to do some stonework but can’t afford the high cost of real stone?  AirStone is a great product for a fraction of the price, I’ve already talked 2 friends into making over their fireplaces but just telling them how affordable AirStone is!

The post Fireplace surround makeover with AirStone appeared first on Ask Anna.

The most important storage space, in our living room, is this dresser I recently made over. The dresser is in the living room but also right next to the front door so it stores tons of stuff for us.  The top left drawer is organized with baskets and holds all of our running accessories: headphones, sunglasses, headlamp, etc. The right drawer holds my small camera stuff so I can grab it and throw it in my purse if I need to.

The next drawer down holds our Bibles, our notebooks for church and our binders for the classes we are taking.  I know the living room might seem like a strange place to store these things but for us it’s perfect because they’re right by the front door so we can grab them when we’re heading to church!

The next drawer down is where I keep all my Scentsy bars.  My Scentsy burner sits on this dresser so when I need to add more to the burner, the bars are right there! {BTW Scentsy is one of the prizes for this challenge!!}

The other key piece of furniture in our living room is the TV stand {of course}.  Inside the TV stand I have our DVDs nicely organized {post on that will be coming soon} so they don’t take up a lot of space.  Would you believe there are 40 DVDs in there!?  It’s true!

Last year when I did the living room makeover  I took all of Malea’s toys and put them in her room.  I was tired of having lots of toys in the living room so I moved them all out, with the exception of this one bin.  The bin kind of hides next to the couch so it doesn’t bother me, but it holds a few of her games and some books.

I love having a “cozy” living room but I love even more that it’s clutter free!

Now I want to show you a few ways I’ve organized Malea’s playroom, aka her bedroom. In her awesome loft bed, that my husband built, we have open storage under the stairs.  The bottom stairs store a few of her toys and the middle stair hold her plethora of stuffed animals.  The third stair is actually a closet underneath, you’ll see that in a sec.

Under the bed is her playhouse, which is also very organized.  Her kitchen is organized with labels on each of the shelves so she knows where to put everything.  She is very particular about it so if you put something on the wrong shelf she gets mad at you {wonder where she got that from}.

Here’s a look at her Princess dress closet.  All her dresses are hung up in the closet and all her tutus and accessories are stored in the pink and purple bins next to the kitchen.  I love having this little closet for her because it has taught her how to be responsible for picking up her own clothes.

The rest of her toys are stored in her closet.  I’ve used lots of bins to separate them all and it helps keep her toys tidy and easy to find.

Now it’s your turn!!! I can’t wait to see what creative organizing solutions you come up with for your living room and/or playroom!!!

The post Family Room and Playroom Organization appeared first on Ask Anna.