DIY Decor Journal
Real room makeovers, weekend craft tutorials, thrift flips, and budget decorating advice you can actually do with your own hands.
DIY Projects & Crafts
7 min readMy first planter came out of the mold looking almost right, and then I turned it over, and there was a lump of gravel sitting in the wall of it the size of a grape, and about a week later the whole rim broke off in my hand while I was carrying it to the […]
DIY Projects & Crafts
9 min readThe first curtains I made were four yards of quilting cotton with a print I’d been staring at for about twenty minutes in the shop. They went up on the rod and immediately hung there like two tea towels, with no weight at all, and by six the next morning the light was coming through […]
DIY Projects & Crafts
8 min readI’ve made seventeen things out of clay since last spring, and about nine of them live in a cupboard now. The ones still out in the house all have one thing in common, which took me embarrassingly long to notice. They hold something: keys, rings, a tea light, a fistful of dried grass. Purely decorative […]
DIY Projects & Crafts
7 min readThe first plant hanger I tied looked right for about five weeks. Then the pot sat a little lower than it had on day one, lower again after the next watering, and by the end of the summer the whole thing hung at a tilt with the ceiling hook doing most of the work. Nothing […]
Furniture & Upcycling
7 min readI needed a coffee table, and I had forty dollars. That’s why I started messing around with pallets, and I never really went back. Since then, I’ve built a sofa, a bed frame, a potting bench and a few things that were bad enough that they ended up in the fire pit, which is part […]
Furniture & Upcycling
8 min readThe first time I tried to paint furniture without sanding, three coats of good latex came off the top in one rubbery strip, the way a label peels off a jar, and all I did was pull up a bit of painter’s tape I’d stuck there to mark where the lamp would go. It was […]
Furniture & Upcycling
8 min readAlmost every DIY coffee table makeover I’ve watched fall apart did so on the top, usually within the first month, because the top takes the hot mug, the feet on a Sunday night, and the juice cup somebody left there overnight. At the same time, the legs get kicked maybe twice a year. So I […]
DIY Projects & Crafts
6 min readHalf the DIY paper flower wall decor tutorials are just party backdrops in disguise, and a party backdrop only has to survive one afternoon and a few hundred phone photos. Put those same flowers on a bedroom wall and around week three the big outer petals start folding forward like they’re tired, one or two […]
DIY Projects & Crafts
7 min readMost DIY candle holder ideas look finished in the photo because the photo was taken before anyone struck a match. Light it, give it two evenings, and you’ll find out which ones were built for Pinterest. The taper starts leaning. Twine near the rim turns a bit brown. Hot glue on a warm jar lets […]
DIY Projects & Crafts
6 min readThe first easy DIY home decor projects I tried were the ones that look finished on a phone and half-done on a real wall. A wreath I never hung. A painted jar that looked like a school project. A floating shelf that sagged because I used the wrong plugs. What I wanted was simpler: beginner […]
