Blog - at home with Ashley

How to Paint Stairs without a Ladder or Scaffolding

Today’s post is about painting my stairs. It’s also about doing hard things. I have been avoiding painting my stairs because it is hard work. And painful. If you have a project like this (since we all do, right?!) my advice is to break it into small steps, don’t over think it and just dive in. Sometimes your brain is awesome and sometimes it holds you back thinking about what a pain every step will be. So get started with an open heart (and listening to a good podcast) and just do it. If you came here for tips of painting a stairwell without a ladder of scaffolding, here’s where those tips begin. Let’s begin with how things were looking:

before

I had dark grey walls with a dated gallery wall that I didn’t hate and so I wasn’t sure I should update it. But let’s be honest as I took it down, I felt freedom and relief that it was done! Ha! #honesty [Read more…]

Entry Lights

Every night, in the middle of the night, this really fun thing happens when my dogs need to go outside, but we don’t want to turn on all of the lights in our house because we don’t want to fully wake up or wake up baby Don. We’ve used our phone flash lights, but it’s not as effective at keeping the dogs from crashing into things as they run ahead- haha [Read more…]

Stairs Before and Plan

image via

Hi guys! I have been busily working on my stairs- I decided to do them for the One Room Challenge. The last you saw of my home renovations was my entry. We have decided to continue the wood floors up the stairs. That means that I need to paint the stairwell (which is an overwhelming task!), scrape the rest of the old paint off the stairs, and repaint the stairs (also, so much work! I’ll be using the process I started months ago but never finished). The above image is what is carrying me through all of the hard work. Isn’t that gallery wall beautiful?! It’s going to make all of this worth it! Before we dive into my plan, let’s visit how the stairs are right now: [Read more…]

Fall Bucket List (free printable!)

Last fall I made our little family a fall bucket list. I’d never tried one before and I really felt like I got more out of the season. Every Thursday night we made it a point to cross one item off the list and we had SO much fun! This year I thought I would make a cute printable for my fridge and then I thought I would share it with you too!

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Entry Final Reveal

Drum roll please…….. My entry is complete! Today I will reveal my final entry design and take you through the before and after. First off, I have to say that I still walk into my house I think “I love this! It’s SO classy!” Haha! I feel like the space is welcoming, is functional, and reflects the style of the rest of my home. It just makes me SO happy to walk through the front door and see this:

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Bar Cart Styling

Let me tell you about a dream I have always had- it is to own a bar cart. This is a little weird simply because I don’t actually drink alcohol- haha. But a well styled bar cart is just gorgeous! The sparkling glass, some pretty flowers, beautiful metal serve ware- it just gets my little designer heart going.

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How to Choose Wood Floors

A few weeks ago my husband and I went to our friend’s new house. It was so pretty and everything was perfect. And we were jealous- haha. We love our tiny house- our friend’s house is too big for our taste, but he installed the floors himself so I convinced my husband that we could do it too. We have been saving since February for new floors, but hadn’t pulled the trigger. Once we decided to get the floors I was excited- and then scared. I’ve never picked out floors for myself before. What the heck do I do?! Well, I figured it out and am thrilled with my decision so I thought I would put together a guide for everyone out there who has a dream of beautiful floors but doesn’t quite know how to do it. Let’s start- here’s how to choose wood floors that you will love.

Step One- Measure

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A Mini Desk DIY

When the Pillowfort collection came out at Target, I fell in love with the kid mini industrial chairs. But I had no room for them. We live in a tiny condo and I just couldn’t rationalize the space two chairs and a play table would take up. But creating is so important to me and I really wanted a place where Don could sit and color and so I started brainstorming how I could make a mini desk DIY for Don. I was pinning away on Pinterest one day and BOOM! The perfect inspiration photo popped up in my feed:

Image Via

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How to Style a Flat Lay for Instagram

Hi Guys! So I have a secret addiction- it’s called Instagram :). Seriously, if I could take pretty pictures all day I would be a happy girl. I love posting over on @athomewithashley (come join the fun!) and always get questions on there about styling and growing my following. I attempted to write a blog post about how to create a flat lay and it was way TOO long! So I made it into a free ebook for you, my amazing audience :).

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How to update your front porch for $50

For a long time I have been wanting to update my front door. I live in a condo complex and to put it lightly, my curb appeal is a snooze. I can’t do any structural changes, but I do believe some small changes will make a big impact! Here’s where we are at now:

Let’s break this down- here are the hard parts:

My door is white and it has to stay that way.
Just to the right of my door is my neighbor’s door. Fun! (sarcasm :))
The white circle is where my door number is- edited for a bit of privacy
The beige blah siding has to stay.

Now here’s what I can do to fix it up! Let’s start with some front door inspiration photos:

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Very cute, but more cute because of the color of the door. In my head I have always wanted to do a door like this one:

via (no longer available)

I did a TON of googling and couldn’t figure out what that kind of molding is called (if you know, please leave a comment!). But, I found this and used it for my inspiration:

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Her little square indents are 3″ wide and I thought it was too small, so I decided to do 6″. I was also nervous to cut much smaller pieces with my miter saw.

I set-up my saw in the garage while my baby was napping and went to town cutting. I use some quarter round I bought when I was doing the molding in my hall. We accidentally bought two pieces of a slightly bigger size than we normally use so I decided the front door would be a great place for them to not go to waste. When I usually cut trim, I make a list of which sizes to cut and go to town. Because I had never done the inverted corners, I cut a piece, laid it down, and then cut the next piece so I was definitely cutting the right angles. It took me about an hour to cut all of the pieces.

Next, I set up my nail gun in my entry and went to town nailing. I have figured out a few shortcuts with this that I thought I would share. I only do a little bit of measuring while install the trim on the door. For the first piece, I mark the spot it will go on the door- I find the height and center and draw that on the door. I then find center of my piece of trim and match those up. Finally, I use a level to make sure the trim is up straight and nail it to secure it.In the past, I have drawn the pattern on the wall first, but it saves SO much time to just use a level and go to town. In the past I have also used liquid nails to attach the trim. We had to take a piece down and it left SUCH a mess on our wall. So now I just skip the liquid nails step and attach with my trusty nail gun and then caulk and paint. Believe me, it’s on there just fine. Plus it’s not supporting any weight so I’m not worried about it.

So now the trim is up! I still need to caulk and paint and add some more finishing touches, but we are one step closer! I actually think my inverted corners are a little big. It’s fine, but I probably should have gone for 4″. So learn from my mistake :). I still love the doors, but the trim is a tiny bit exaggerated.

Next, I pulled out my caulk and filled in all of the nail holes and seams.

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