The Cassa- Hall Gallery Wall

Well, it’s been awhile since you got an update on things over here at the Cass household (Cassa, if you will). One of my goals this year was to decorate with some of our wedding photos so that we could use those expensive things after all! And I really do love them, SO! Here’s the first gallery wall i did of our family wedding photos. What’s more interesting than the photos itself, is actually the quick and easy process I used to hang them straight, using wrapping paper! (I did not think of this, by the way, I saw it on Pinterest somewhere a few years ago.) Here’s how I did it!

The frames I bought are from Hobby Lobby if you are interested.

STEP ONE: Lay Out Frames on a Piece of GRID BACKED wrapping paper.

Lay out a roll of wrapping paper on a level surface. And here’s THE SECRET- You have to use wrapping paper that has a grid printed on the back (I get mine at Kohls). Lay the grid face up and arrange your frames on the grid however you would like them.

STEP TWO: Trace the outlines of your frames

Use a pen or a pencil to trace around the outsides of each frame, making sure to use the gridlines for guidance and keep everything straight. Mine frames were all laid out symmetrically because that is the way I wanted them, but this will also work if you are doing a gallery wall with frames that are more staggered instead of even.

STEP THREE: Mark Nail Holes on the paper

Turn each frame over and make an “x” where you’d like the nails to go for each frame. I slid my frame down a little bit from it’s outline so I could mark it best and used the center of the wall hanger as the guide for my nail holes. Remember to use the grid lines to help you keep all the nails aligned. WORD TO THE WISE- even if all of your frames are the same, measure each one individually. Some of your wall hangers may be slightly off than the rest.

STEP FOUR: Hang your sheet of wrapping paper on the wall.

Once you’ve marked the outlines of all of your frames and nail holes, take your sheet of wrapping paper and hang it on the wail where your frames will be hung. I used painter’s tape so it wouldn’t leave marks on the wall.

STEP FIVE: Put nails into the wall

Using the marks you made for your nail holes, hammer in your nails for each frame over the wrapping paper. My husband did this for me, but he said the wall template worked perfectly for him! Once all of your nails are hung, pull the wrapping paper off of the wall and TA=DA, you’re ready to hang your frames!

Super simple, right?? I mean, at least it’s waaaay easier than just guessing and hoping for the best. I’m really happy with how it turned out! I will be doing it again on a bigger gallery wall for our master bedroom, so stayed tuned for that! If you try out this tip, let me know how it works for you!

Hey, I’m Meghan

I’m here sharing content all about pursuing your own version of more and loving how you feel doing it. If that sounds good to you, stick around and let’s be friends!

The Cassa-Kitchen

I’m back with another house update for you, and this week we are moving into the kitchen. The kitchen of this house was one of the big sellers for us because of the open layout to the dining room and the ample storage space. I hope you enjoy another little peek into our home!

The wall color is Oyster Bay by Sherwin Williams. We also carried the same color through to the dining room since the spaces are so open to one another.

I utilized the space above the cabinets to display some cute decor pieces that matched the color scheme or fit the subtle coffee motif I have happening in here.

I pulled in a shade of navy blue with matching rugs in front of the sink and the patio door in the dining room from Kohls. That is also where I got my kitchen towels from.

Eventually, I would like new light fixtures in the kitchen and to replace the bar stools with a set that’s a bit more decorative, but I’d say round one on the kitchen is complete!

Hey, I’m Meghan

I’m here sharing content all about pursuing your own version of more and loving how you feel doing it. If that sounds good to you, stick around and let’s be friends!

The Cassa- Living Room

UPDATE! 9/3/2019- I realized, after looking at these pictures, just how bare the wall by the TV looked. I was always planning to add something on either side of the TV, but finally found the perfect thing and I wanted to share. I got these wooden windows from Kohls and I think they’re the perfect fit : )

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Hey guys! Welcome back to the blog and welcome back to the Cassa this week. It’s been awhile since I shared a house update, so I thought I’d give you a peek in at the progress we’ve made in the living room. It’s not DONE done, but it’s at a great stage of completion for now. Check it out!

The wall color in the living room is Breezy by Sherwin Williams. I will keep it real and say I am not 100 percent in love with how this color turned out, but we hired a painter to paint this and so we’re far past the point of commitment. I’m not repainting it (or paying someone to do it again) so it’s here to stay for now. I do want to get us a new front door that lets in more light that I do think will help soften the color.

The wall art above the couch is from Kirklands and it was perfect because it has all of the colors I’m using in the house right in it. The throw pillows are from Target, Kohls and Gordmans. I tried to choose pillows that had physical or visual texture to them. Eventually, I would like to find a good teal throw pillow to bring out that color in the wall frame, but this is a good start.

We got a great deal on the area rug from Home Depot and was the first big decor piece we picked up. The gray color is neutral, but the pattern gives it some texture. I am using that pattern in several different rooms in the house (you may remember my shower curtain in the main bath) to tie all of the rooms together.

The TV stand we picked up at Colders a year or so ago and the little faux plant is from TJ Maxx. I tried to incorporate greenery (fake, because I kill the real thing) into each room in the house. I couldn’t find it on their website, but the galvanized metal candle holder on the coffee table is Better Homes and Gardens brand from Walmart and the tasseled placemat is from Hobby Lobby. The light mat helps break up the dark wood of the coffee table and the tray where I keep a remote basket, some photo books and magazines.

The light gray curtains are also textured with a diamond pattern. I got them at Gordmans for $16.99 and then had a upholsterer add blackout fabric to the back of them to make them more opaque and give the thin fabric some weight. I love our little pewter floor lamp from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

On the wall with our wood burning stove, I have the cutest square clock from Hobby lobby. On the other side of the stove by the front door is where I’d like to eventually put a coat rack of some kind on the wall with hooks for guests. The house doesn’t really have a formal entry of any kind, so I would like to carve out a little corner of designated space for that.

One of my favorite parts of our living room is the little niche cut above the wall to the kitchen. The previous owners installed an outlet up there so I have a set of cafe lights plugged in up there that I can turn on at night from a light switch and it looks SO cozy at night! We hung a wood square wall art from Target that will stay up year-round, but I do plan to change up the decor a few times of year. The spring/summer set up that I have now is like a “flower market” type theme. The color of the flower canisters match the colors of the house PERFECTLY and I just put in a variety of fake plant stems from Hobby Lobby and TJ Maxx with a little wood crate I got at the Target Dollar Spot and a metal basket.

Hey, I’m Meghan

I’m here sharing content all about pursuing your own version of more and loving how you feel doing it. If that sounds good to you, stick around and let’s be friends!

Routine Redo: My Cleaning Routine

One of my goals this year was to revamp all of my routines. After moving to a new house and getting a new job with a completely new schedule, the structure of my basic habits were just a hot mess at the start of the year. When it comes to keeping up with chores around the house, I wanted to find a system that was simple, easy and attainable. We’re all busy, and somehow on top of everything else we do in our lives, we’re supposed to be a functioning human that has clean clothes and clean dishes and clean toilets. (Hands in the air emoji). Here’s what’s been working for me:

IDENTIFY ONE NON-NEGOTIABLE: I decided to choose one area of the house that would be my priority for keeping clean every single day. For me, and probably for many of you, that area was the kitchen. Let’s face it, food and dirty dishes can get gross and somehow, if my kitchen feels clean, my house automatically feels cleaner. So, the kitchen gets my attention every night. Loading the dishwasher, wiping the counters, sweeping the floor, etc. There are definitely days where I come home late and tired so I wait till the next morning, but I am keeping up with the kitchen on a daily basis.

FIGURE OUT HOW OFTEN YOU REALLY NEED TO DO SOMETHING: I took out a piece of paper and just wrote down all the specific cleaning tasks I like to do in each room, like “dust living room”, “vacuum master bedroom”, and “clean master bath shower”. And then I made a choice on how often I wanted to do that task- Weekly? Bi-Weekly? Monthly? Quarterly?

I personally find that I don’t have one huge chunk of time on a given day to just clean my whole house in one shot. It’s much more common that I have little pockets of time available here and there. I used this handy free printable from Day Designer to plan out and schedule a day of the week for each cleaning task..

GO DIGITAL: Now, I’m a paper nerd, forever and always. I have a paper planner that I use every single day, but I do use Google calendar for a few things, including my cleaning tasks. What’s great about digital calendars is that you can set a task to repeat according to your schedule. So when I want to remind myself to clean our master bath every single week, I put it in on my calendar for Wednesday and set it to repeat every single Wednesday. It’s set and I never have to remember! You can set an item to repeat, daily, weekly, monthly or even every few months. What’s especially great is if you push an item off to another day, you can move the calendar appointment and then it automatically shifts every following appointment back to stay on with your schedule.

That’s the routine that’s been working for me lately! How do you guys clean your house? In small pieces like me? Or do you blast some tunes and have one major session a week?

Hey, I’m Meghan

I’m here sharing content all about pursuing your own version of more and loving how you feel doing it. If that sounds good to you, stick around and let’s be friends!

Spring Clean Your Life Challenge! Four Easy Things

Ah- there’s nothing like a new season to make you feel refreshed and renewed and excited for the months to come. There’s definitely something special about spring, especially for us Midwesterners who have just survived winter, that makes you feel motivated to get life moving again.

This is likely why spring is often associated with cleaning, organizing and decluttering. Those activities are my favorite all year round, but even I’ve been hit with the extra urge to get my life and my spaces together. Here’s some things I’m looking forward to sprucing up:

1. My fridge- You know what happens here. There’s likely some expired food in your fridge, and likely some spills and stains on the shelves. If you want extra credit, you could totally organize your food into clear storage bins a la The Home Edit, but I’m saving that for another day and just discarding and cleaning it up.

2. My car- UGH my car! Sometimes I feel like I live there. You too? Spring is a great time to get your ride all spiffed up. The warm weather is the perfect excuse to run through the car wash (or wash it yourself), vacuum it out, get all of the shoes, bags, and miscellaneous junk out of the car and back to where they belong.

3. My closet- This is an intimidating one. I’m sure many of us have tons of clothes and nothing to wear. The change of season means you’ll be wearing some new items that you haven’t in awhile and maybe there’s some winter stuff that no longer fits, is in good shape or is something that you like to wear that you can donate or sell. It’s a good time to go through all of your clothes and discard what you don’t want and then reorganize all the stuff you do want.

4. My purse- I actually like to switch my purses out every couple of months, so spring is a good time to clean out my wallet, clean out my purse, replenish my hand cream, lip balm and hand sanitizer and reorganize everything. Your purse is a lot easier to carry when you’re not lugging around a ton of extra receipts, coupons and random change.

Are you ready to refresh your life for spring? Take on this challenge with me and handle these four things right along with me! I will be posting all week on Instagram with my progress on the challenge so you can follow along and spring clean with me!

Hey, I’m Meghan

I’m here sharing content all about pursuing your own version of more and loving how you feel doing it. If that sounds good to you, stick around and let’s be friends!

The Cassa- Guest Bathroom

Happy March and happy first Cass-a update! I’m kind of cheating on this first room, as the room really did’t need much. The space is small and the Smoke Infusion wall color was already there when we moved in. It is a room that gets used often, though, so it;s nice to have it fully decorated.

The first thing I purchased for the room was the white and blue medallion Shower Curtain from Amazon. I had no idea how well the color would match from looking at it online, but it was a PERFECT match when it arrived. There’s enough white in the curtain that the medallion pattern doesn’t overwhelm the small space. I bought a brushed metal curved shower curtain rod to update the plastic teal one that was there and also added some textured brushed metal curtain hooks.

The hand towels for this bathroom were a stroke of luck. I happened upon them at Kohls while I was looking for kitchen towels. I’m happy I got two of them since Kohl’s no longer carries them. The do have a Bath Towel on clearance right now in the same pattern.

The Hand Soap is from my favorite place, Bath and Body Works. This scent smells good but also matches the color scheme of our house.

For wall decor, I found white wood medallions at a Home Goods store.  Their selection changes all the time, but here’s a similar product on Wayfair. medallion wall decor.

The blue mason jar vases are from a local craft vendor, but decor like this is super popular now so you could find something at almost any retail store or make your own.

This set of wall hooks were a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law. I believe it was from Kohls, though they no longer have it. They do have many other options though-  Wall Hook Search

For the picture spaces in the frame, I didn’t want to put any actual pictures in there, so I took a close up picture with my phone of the medallion wall art, printed it off at home and cut out different sections of the image to put in the frame instead. I also considered using printed scrapbook paper, but I didn’t have any on hand that matched.

I do also have a bath mat for the floor, but since the shower is rarely used, I don’t keep it out. It takes up a lot of physical and visual space. I’m super happy with the way the room turned out. I was afraid that it was a bit too matchy-matchy, but I guess i like matchy matchy because I genuinely love everything that’s in here.

I likely won’t touch this room again in the near future as I’m moving on to other rooms, but if I did, I’d maybe incorporate an accent color or accent material for some variety or buying another textured bath mat. On to the next project!

Hey, I’m Meghan

I’m here sharing content all about pursuing your own version of more and loving how you feel doing it. If that sounds good to you, stick around and let’s be friends!

The Cassa: The Before Photos

Welcome to our new home! On the blog, I’ll be sharing a ton about our new house- how I’m decorating it, how I’m organizing it, and how I’m keeping up with it. Here’s some BEFORE photos for you! (These photos were taken before we moved in, so everything you see was the old homeowners’. ) Can’t wait to make this house the perfect place for us to call home.

Living Room

Living Room

Kitchen and Dining

Kitchen

Dining and Kitchen

Dining Room

Hallway/Laundry

Office

Main Bath

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Rec Room

Rec Room

Downstairs Guest Bath

Guest Room #1

Guest Room #2

Hey, I’m Mgehan

I’m here sharing content all about pursuing your own version of more and loving how you feel doing it. If that sounds good to you, stick around and let’s be friends!