Clover House's Top 15 Posts of 2013 - A Year in Review

WOW! What a year 2013 has been! We've done so much but still have so much to do! It took a bit of gathering of information, but here's our top 15 project posts of 2013.  Just click on the link below each picture to be taken to the original post and all the good information!  Enjoy! :)

#1 HOW TO CLEAN AN HE WASHER

#2 A CLEAN SINK'S FRIEND

#3 RV FLOOR UPDATE

#4 RAISED BED GARDEN PART 2

#5 RAISED BED GARDEN PART 3

#6 RAISED BED GARDEN PART 1

#7 LAUNDRY ROOM REVEAL

#8 RV CABINET UPDATE

#9 CROCKPOT CREAM CHEESE CHICKEN CHILI

#10 FENCE PICKET A/C UNIT COVER

#11 TILING THE KITCHEN FLOOR

#12 DIY TACO SEASONING

#13 ORGANIZE AND BEAUTIFY YOUR CABINETS

#14 KITCHEN CABINET PART 3

#15 EASTER EGG WREATH

I hope you've enjoyed browsing our past year of the top 15 posts!  Did you get some good ideas?  I hope you pinned them! Thanks to all of our readers for making it such an awesome year!  Keep watching in 2014 for more great ideas, recipes, tips and tricks!  :)

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:
Sunday
Under the Table and Dreaming by Stephanie Lynn
The Self Sufficient Home Acre 
The Chicken Chick,  Sew Can Do
Monday
Craft-O-Maniac, 
Between Naps on the Porch
DIY Home Sweet Home
Keeping it  Simple 
The Dedicated House
Skip to my Lou
Home Coming
Tuesday
Not Just a Housewife
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Sugar Bee Crafts 
New Nostalgia 
It's your Life
BeBetsy
Fluster Buster   
Confessions of a Plate Addict
A Stroll Thru Life
Wednesday
Clean and Scentsible
Lady Behind the Curtain
Family Home and Life
Ducks n a Row
VMG206
Herrban Momma 
Family Home & Life
Oh My! Creative
Thursday  
Bloom
The Taylor House
52 Mantels
Domesblissity
4 You With Love
Sweet Haute
Artsy Fartsy Mama
From My Front Porch To Yours
Friday 
Lil’ Luna
Tatertots and Jello
Five Simple Things
Craftionary
Diana Rambles
I Heart Nap Time
Crafts a la mode
Saturday 
Angels Homestead
Positively Splendid,
Or So She Says
Your Homebased Mom
What's Cooking with Ruthie
Made From Pinterest

read more

Clothespin Christmas Tree

Do you decorate your laundry room for Christmas? Well, I don't' either...normally!  But this year I did because I came across THIS cute tree (thanks Brandi!) and I had to make one for ME too!

It really brightens up the little space!  It keeps me company while I fold and hang our laundry!  So adorable!

To re-create my tree, you will need the following items:
One empty paper towel roll
Clothespins (I used 64)
Hot glue gun
Spanish moss
Red Burlap ribbon (about 36")

First, disassemble your clothespins.  Next, using your hot glue gun on the low setting, start gluing your pins to the paper towel roll like so.  Place the glue on the little flat slanted area of the pin and then hold it against the roll until its stuck.

There is no exact gluing directions, just glue them on until you like the way it looks.  If I ever make another one, I will do this bottom part differently.  I think its spaced too far apart along about the third row of pins, but that just me and my weirdness!

After I got all the pins glued on, I added some Spanish moss in the bare spots for filler.  Next I used a few of the springs for ornaments on my tree!

It's so sweet in all its clothespin cuteness!  It matches our Clothespin Chandelier too!  I'm thinking about making some clothespin snowflakes that I thought may look cute on the walls too.  Oh Pinterest, I'm so addicted to YOU!

I wonder how I can decorate it for each holiday so I can leave it out all the time?  Is that too much? Yeah, maybe!  Hmmm?

Oh dear! I'm already thinking of what other decor I can design with clothespins!  Leave me a comment if you decorate your laundry room for the holidays too.  I'd love to pop over and see it!

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:
Sunday
Under the Table and Dreaming by Stephanie Lynn
The Self Sufficient Home Acre 
The Chicken Chick,  Sew Can Do
Monday
Craft-O-Maniac, 
Between Naps on the Porch
DIY Home Sweet Home
Keeping it  Simple 
The Dedicated House
Skip to my Lou
Home Coming
Tuesday
Not Just a Housewife
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Sugar Bee Crafts 
New Nostalgia 
It's your Life
BeBetsy
Fluster Buster   
Confessions of a Plate Addict
A Stroll Thru Life
Wednesday
Clean and Scentsible
Lady Behind the Curtain
Family Home and Life
Ducks n a Row
VMG206
Herrban Momma 
Family Home & Life
Oh My! Creative
Thursday  
Bloom
The Taylor House
52 Mantels
Domesblissity
4 You With Love
Sweet Haute
Artsy Fartsy Mama
From My Front Porch To Yours
Friday 
Lil’ Luna
Tatertots and Jello
Five Simple Things
Craftionary
Diana Rambles
I Heart Nap Time
Crafts a la mode
Saturday 
Angels Homestead
Positively Splendid,
Or So She Says
Your Homebased Mom
What's Cooking with Ruthie
Made From Pinterest

read more

Laundry Room Art

As promised in last week's post, I have the details on how to make your very own laundry room art.  After we remodeled our laundry room I wanted to decorate it with some of our vintage collection as well as a few new things.  This little piece is one of the new things that I created.

You may have all the things you need to create this little piece of art in your stash right now.  It only took me a few minutes to put together and of course it didn't cost me anything since I already had all the items on hand.

You will need:
1 empty tomato sauce can
17 clothespins
craft glue
baker's twine
scrapbook paper
2 wooden skewers.

To create your laundry room art:
Cut you scrapbook paper to fit your can and glue it securely.  Pin all the clothespins around the top opening of the can.  I used my Cricut Expressions machine to cut out the little triangles and letters and then glued them all together, then I glued them to the baker's twine.  Lastly glue the twine to the wooden sticks and then add them to the can. Arrange until you like it and your done!

I think its adorable and I'm thinking at some point I will stash the banner and add a small plant or some wild flowers to the little clothespin can. Now that I think of it, the possibilities are endless.

What better thing to use as art in a laundry room than a few clothespins.  By the way, have you seen our Clothespin Chandelier? I have a few more things I've pinned on Pinterest that I want to try soon as well.

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:

Sunday
Under the Table and Dreaming by Stephanie Lynn
The Self Sufficient Home Acre 
The Chicken Chick
 
Monday
Craft-O-Maniac
Between Naps on the Porch
DIY Home Sweet Home
Keeping it Simple
Thrifty Decor Chick
The Dedicated House

Tuesday
Not Just a Housewife
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Wednesday
Lil’ Luna
Clean and Scentsible
Green Eggs and Goats
Lady Behind the Curtain

Thursday
Bloom
Two Yellow Birds Decor
The Busy B's

Friday 
Tatertots and Jello
Joyful Stamper
Craftionary

Saturday
Positively Splendid
I Heart Nap Time
Or So She Says 
Your Homebased Mom 
What's Cooking with Ruthie 

read more

Our Laundry Room Reveal

Finally we are revealing our laundry room makeover!  We (the DIY rookies) could have never guessed that we could make something so ugly into something so pretty!  Just look at our new laundry room! 

I truly enjoy doing laundry now, heck everyone in our household wants to do their own laundry now! Woohoo!   With doing this tiny room makeover, we feel like now the other remodeling we will be doing in our home will be easier than we first expected.

This is what our laundry room looked like when we first moved in. Yuck!  It doesn't even look like the same room any longer.  Good thing huh?

Since I'm the one who does most of the laundry in our home, I added my favorite color in here. Red!  Just a little, not too much.  This rug is so yummy I could seriously take a nap on it.  You can see how we did the floor HERE.

My guy built the cabinets himself.  The counter top is the only store bought piece to the whole set up.  You can see more details HERE.

We searched high and low for baskets that we use for storage and finally found them at Lowe's.  I found these old laundry tags on Etsy HERE and added them to the baskets with red ribbon and just for fun the tags have each of our ages in the month we completed the room.

I also found this old glass candy jar on Etsy HERE.  It holds the wonderful homemade laundry soap that we make ourselves and use instead of the spendy store bought kind.  You can find the recipe HERE.

This little old wash board was my great grandmother's.  My Mamaw gave it to me a long time ago.  The cute little "wash" banner in front of it was made by me to add cuteness to the laundry room.  Join us again next week when I share how I made it. 

We love antiques and we sometimes buy things not knowing what we will do with them, a few came in handy while decorating our laundry room!  Do you love your laundry room? I sure do!

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:

Sunday
Under the Table and Dreaming by Stephanie Lynn
The Self Sufficient Home Acre 
The Chicken Chick
 
Monday
Craft-O-Maniac
Between Naps on the Porch
DIY Home Sweet Home
Keeping it Simple
Thrifty Decor Chick
The Dedicated House

Tuesday
Not Just a Housewife
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Wednesday
Lil’ Luna
Clean and Scentsible
Green Eggs and Goats
Lady Behind the Curtain
The Pinterest Challenge Winter Edition

Thursday
Bloom
Two Yellow Birds DecorThe Busy B's

Friday Tatertots and Jello
Joyful Stamper
Craftionary

Saturday
Positively Splendid
I Heart Nap Time
Or So She Says 
Your Homebased Mom 
What's Cooking with Ruthie 

read more

Cleaning an HE Washer with Household Products

It was time to clean our HE washer and I was out of cleaning tablets. They are expensive ($12 for three tablets), it was early one Saturday morning and I didn't want to get out in the cold to go get more tablets. I turned to Pinterest! I searched up how to clean an HE washer and there were a few different ways. This is what I chose to do.

The vinegar and baking soda method was most used in the "how-tos" that I found on Pinterest and I had both items on hand so it seemed like it was worth a try and of course way cheaper!

NOTE:  Our washer is a smarty pants, it tells me when it wants to be cleaned. We switched to homemade laundry soap back in September.  You can read about that HERE.  The machine doesn't ask to be cleaned near as often as when I used liquid soap full time.  I love the homemade soap, but I missed the smell of the softener in the liquid soap.  I decided to get another bottle and use it for a while just to experiment.  I've cleaned the machine twice in the time it took to use the bottle of  liquid soap...not good!

To clean your HE front load washer you will need 2 cups vinegar and 1 cup baking soda, any brand will do, this is just what I had handy.  This method literally costs pennies to clean the washer! That beats the heck out of  $4 a cleaning the tablets would cost us! Woohoo!

I added 1/2 cup of baking soda to the drum and another 1/2 cup in the soap dispenser drawer.

Next I added 1 cup of vinegar in the drum and 1 cup to the dispensing drawer as well. See the bubbling reaction there when I added the vinegar?  That didn't happen in the dispensing drawer because there are 2 separate compartments. Whew! I then closed up the door and drawer and set it to the cleaning cycle, our machine takes a little more than an hour to go through the whole process.

These next 3 pictures are the before and after shots I took to document my experiment.  The only thing I could tell was different from the tablets and the home mixture was the scent that the tablets left behind.  It was not there, but a fresh, clean smell was there instead! YAY!
I'm sold that vinegar and baking soda works just as well as the very expensive tablets.  I have to go to Lowes to get the tablets, they aren't sold in any of the grocery stores in my little town and I can get vinegar and baking soda at the grocery store or dollar store with no problem any time.

When I clean the washing machine I always wipe down both machines on the outside too just to make them all pretty and shiny for my nice new laundry room.  Speaking of that, I haven't shown you the final new look of our laundry room have I?  Hmmm, I better get on that soon!

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:

Sunday
Under the Table and Dreaming by Stephanie Lynn
The Chicken Chick
 
Monday
Craft-O-Maniac
Between Naps on the Porch
DIY Home Sweet Home
Keeping it Simple

Tuesday
Not Just a Housewife
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Wednesday
Lil’ Luna
Clean and Scentsible
The Pinterest Challenge Winter Edition

Thursday
Bloom
Two Yellow Birds Decor

Friday
Joyful Stamper
Craftionary

Saturday
Positively Splendid
I Heart Nap Time

read more

Ironing Station or Decoration?

I wanted a way to store my ironing board and iron in the laundry room and still have it be a decorative piece as well.  This is what we came up with.

We had two cabinet doors from the master bathroom remodel that we saved because we knew we'd eventually need them for something and we did!  We took one of the doors and painted, stained, added trim, hooks and a shelf on top for the iron.  The paint/stain combo matches the other cabinets in the room.  You can read more about how we made those HERE.

I needed the ironing station to be beautiful as well, so I hit Etsy in search of an ironing board cover that matched my decor. RED! I love red and it is my accent color in the laundry room.  I found my ironing board cover at a little shop called Compelled to Craft.  Paula's work looked lovely so I picked her! I'd also seen the little iron cord wraps but she didn't offer them.  I asked her nicely and she so sweetly helped me out and made me one.  She also added in a swatch of the same fabric for me to cover the light switch cover too. Coolness!

To add the hooks we simply laid the ironing board down on the cabinet door and measured where it would fit best and marked the spot with an awl, added the hooks and then the shelf.  I apologize for us not getting pictures of the shelf being added.  What we did was take a piece of 1 by we had laying in the scrap bin and cut it to size and added trim at the top to finish it off.

My honey drilled two holes in the back of the station for hanging.  After the hooks and shelf was added we were ready to hang it or should I say display it?    First, you choose the wall where you want the ironing station to live.  Second, you get a line drawn and the place for the holes marked with a level. Third, you drill the holes for the anchors, add anchors and then screws. Forth, you hang it! Easy as that!

Here's a little closer look at the cord wrap and the beautiful fabric.  Please go see Paula at her Etsy shop and I'm sure she'll be able to fix you up with an ironing board cover to fit your decor too! THANKS Again Paula!

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm linking to:

read more

Part 3: Building the Cabinets of our Laundry Room

We've finally got the cabinets built and installed into the laundry room! YAY!  It did take a little while because this was the very first time my honey has ever built cabinets. 

I'm sure a professional cabinet builder would pick them apart on what's done right and wrong, but I think he did a fine job for a first time cabinet builder! Yeppers, he's cool like that!

The picture above is missing knobs, stain and shelves on the lower cabinet, but we've added all that as well now...just keep scrolling down.  It's so nice to have a folding station again. Woohoo!

First he built the tall cabinet and then added the drawers and doors, painted it and I stained it to give it that vintage look we both love.  The tall cabinet houses my broom, mops and electric sweeper in a slide out compartment. Coolness!

Next is the folding station.  The right hand side will house two laundry baskets which I still need to get (all picked out HERE).  The counter top is from Lowe's, it is Wilsonart Laminate in Madura Gold.  It has a very slight texture to it and the waterfall finish on the front and the back splash just gives it a special look.  This is the same counter tops that will go into the kitchen as well.

My honey added a much needed light under the shelves for my clothes folding pleasure.  Ha!  Speaking of the shelf, it was one of the original cabinets that we cut down and added a crown trim to the top of and then reinstalled so I would have a place to display all my little vintage goodies as well as storage of the normal laundry room items.  He also added a new outlet above the counter top in case I need to oh you know plug up the iron and iron something. Wait till you see my ironing board storage station....coming soon!

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm linking to these parties:

read more