I am thrilled today to share with you my friend, Lindsay Dean, or in our house, we just call her Frills and Drills. Lindsay is an INCREDIBLE home style blogger and is my go to for all the decoration questions I have! She patiently helped me design the kiddos nursery and sent me mock up room designs until we picked the perfect items for the room. Her heart is big and her incredible style is drool worthy. I am thrilled she’s sharing her world with us today!
Enjoy reading about what it’s like to be a “Do It Yourself” gal and home style blogger!
Besides the famous “What paint color are your walls?”, the most asked question I get is, “How did you become so handy?”. Most assume that maybe my dad is handy and taught me or that my husband does the handiwork around here. The answer is actually neither! I’m 100% self-taught and have never taken any type of shop or woodworking class. And to be honest with you, I never intentionally set out to become handy, or a builder, or anything like that. It all sort of just happened out of necessity. Because when the budget doesn’t match the wish list, well…ya figure it out!
Let me take you back to 2011 where it all started. My husband and I had just purchased our first home together and were just a couple young kids fresh out of college with our first jobs. We had a 4 bedroom home and not nearly enough funds to furnish the entire thing. We brought all of the furniture we had from our previous 2 apartments and made it work as best as we could. But like most new homeowners, I was scouring Pinterest seeing lots of great inspiration and gathering grand ideas all of which weren’t exactly cheap.
This. This is the picture on Pinterest that started it all. Some of you that know my neutral loving heart may be shocked by this photo, but this is a true story. It was the inspiration I fell in love with for our guest room. But the budget for the guest bedroom was basically nonexistent as far as furniture goes. So this is where I had to get creative. I reallllly wanted a white headboard and the cheapest thing I could find was at least a couple hundred dollars. So I decided to make one. Out of baseboards. Fourteen dollars worth of baseboard molding later and here’s what I had.
Not bad right? And yes, only $14! I used my dad’s mitre saw to cut the baseboard and good ol’ fashioned hammer and nails to attach it to the wall. Slapped some white paint up to fill it in and wah-lah! A white headboard! I had never used any type of saw prior to this, but to save a couple hundred dollars I wasn’t afraid to figure it out!
And then came the dresser. Here’s what I had:
Again, I wanted a white dresser and had no budget for that. So I bought a gallon of white furniture paint and got to work! Never in my life had I painted furniture prior to this. I bought cute new knobs and here was the result:
After each project I conquered I gained so much confidence. I also learned a lot. Did I make mistakes? Of course. Did things EVER turn out perfect? Absolutely not. But I was adding to my skill set, gaining lots of confidence, having FUN and saving TONS of money along the way.
Fast forward just 2 short years and life had taken us to another city. We sold our first beloved home and built a new one. I couldn’t wait to start adding my own personal touches to our otherwise boring, builder grade home. Just like before, there was no room in the budget to hire out any professional trades to do the upgrades I longed for. So one of the first projects in our new home that I attacked was this DIY Wainscoting in our front foyer and dining room.
It was a huge hit and thus my blog, www.frillsanddrills.com, was born. This project looks impressive right? But it’s exactly the same concept as the headboard. Just a whole bunch of headboards. A mitre saw and a nail gun (I upgraded from the hammer ;)) was all it took to achieve this show-stopping look to my home. My wainscoting tutorial remains my most popular post to this day, having been pinned thousands of time on Pinterest and I couldn’t be more proud.
I continued to try my hand at new projects around our house and documented them along the way. I installed my own subway tile backsplash in our kitchen, shiplapped my son’s nursery, and even built my own custom, glam closet from scratch just to name a few. I didn’t have any experience on any of these projects before I jumped head first into them. I read tutorials online, watched videos on youtube, and asked plenty of questions along the way. Oh, and caulk. Caulk hides LOTS of imperfections. Trust me.
The more I blogged about my projects the more I learned that there is SO much that goes into blogging as well. You almost have to be a semi-professional photographer, pretty skilled at computers and all the “behind the scenes” parts, and very organized with your time. It was a lot harder than just hitting ‘share’ on the iPhone photos I snapped along the way. My hubby bought me a nice camera one year for Christmas and bettering my photography skills has been something I’ve worked on ever since. I’ve come a long way and learned a lot about blogging, and still have so much more to learn.
My best advice for anyone interested in blogging is to do it because you are passionate about whatever it is you are sharing. Not because you want to make money or because it’s easy. It is without a doubt a full time job and the return is very small for a long, long time. Finding the time to continue tackling projects AND blog them while balancing life and 2 small babies has been a difficult juggling act. But one I am very thankful to be juggling in the first place.
I’m now 8 years into my accidental DIY hobby, and we are now in our 3rd home together. My $14 dollar headboard project unveiled a passion inside me I never knew existed. In our current home I have built our family dining table, our ever so popular TV sideboard and most recently completed this stunning DIY mirror wall in our dining room. I have plans to add a faux brick accent wall, more tile to our master bathroom, and an update to our master bedroom, and hope you’ll join me for the ride!
Lindsay is a full time wife and mom to 2 baby boys by day, and a part time handy-woman and home decor enthusiast by night. She love tools, design, accent walls, and all things DIY. Lindsay shares all her projects, tips and tutorials over at frillsanddrills.com to show that if she can do it, you can too! You connect with Lindsay on her Instagram page @frills_and_drills as well!
PS – Don’t miss a thing with this series! Follow along on Facebook and Instagram to catch each of the upcoming stories! I absolutely LOVE connecting with each of you!
Trials Bring Joy 
sounds amazing!
Great post