FARMHOUSE IN BLOOM
Having a budget made this homeowner a DIY queen, and now her Orlando home is a delightful homemade farmhouse.
Having a budget turned this Florida homeowner into a DIY farmhouse-style queen.
While some might consider a tight budget an obstacle to creating a dream home, blogger Desiree Guy of Camelot Art Creations has turned that reality into a lifestyle. With a keen eye for farmhouse style and a knack for creating one-ofa-kind home décor, her space oozes with cozy farmhouse elements, all the while remaining functional and attainable.
A" basic interior door
is easy to find and customize to get that one-of-a-kind piece of furniture in your house.”
KITCHEN SOLUTIONS
Desiree’s home wasn’t built with farmhouse architecture, so she’s worked hard to personalize it for her family. One example of this is the kitchen. When it came time to repaint the kitchen cabinets, Desiree decided to paint the bottom cabinets gray and the top cabinets white for two reasons: First, her husband happened to have a five gallon bucket of gray paint—it never hurts to use what you have already—and second, “I have kids, so gray is better than white right now,” she says. White on white is the current trend, and that’s part of the reason Desiree loves the unique element of the split colors. “I love an all-white kitchen, but I love the two tones,” she says. “It’s something different.”
Something else that’s different? Her kitchen island is actually a sofa table she purchased from Facebook Marketplace. While it stands a few inches shorter than the counter, she can always add wheels or feet to give it additional height. For the counter itself, Desiree and her husband covered the surface with vinyl that looks like marble. The changes they made “really transformed the kitchen,” she says.
DIY ATTITUDE
One of the keys to Desiree’s beautiful home is her willingness to get creative and experiment. In the master bedroom, she fit two deconstructed light shades over outdoor plant hooks. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do that before,” Desiree says. The reality is that DIY blogs are sometimes repetitive, but being willing to try projects that may not work is the key to unique ideas. Desiree also repurposed old shutters by cutting up the wood slats and gluing them to botanical prints for an easy hanging mechanism.
Desiree’s version of shiplap perfectly finishes the dining room and bathroom. “It’s basically free,” she says. Using a level tool and a black colored pencil, she drew horizontal and vertical lines onto the flat wall. “In the old homes, they’re boards that are cut,” she says. “So I added vertical lines to give it more of an authentic look than just straight across.”