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Love and Specs

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DIY, DIY Home Decor, Holiday Favorites, Home, Lifestyle

DIY Gilded Wood Christmas Ornaments

We’re sharing another fun (and super easy!) holiday DIY project today that’s perfect for adding that gorgeous, cozy glow to your Christmas tree this year – DIY gilded wood Christmas ornaments! These adorable, rustic wood ornaments are a breeze to make so you can even get the kiddos involved in this one, and they fall right in line with that Scandinavian-inspired, natural holiday decor vibe we love. So what are you waiting for? Come make your house merry and bright with us this season!

DIY, DIY Home Decor, Holiday Favorites, Home, Lifestyle

DIY Winter Citrus Garland: How To Make Faux Garland Look Real

Today’s easy holiday decor DIY project is one that I’ve been dying to take for a spin for a few years now, and I’m excited to say that the execution was even easier and the result even more fun than I’d imagined it would be! The DIY project du jour? How to make your own DIY winter citrus garland using cute little kumquats! This same fool-proof approach works on real or faux greenery and garland or wreaths, so there’s plenty of room to get festive and play!

DIY, Entertaining, Food, Holiday Favorites, Home, Lifestyle

How to Host a Winter & Holiday Season Bucket List Party

We’re taking this whole winter and holiday season bucket list idea up a notch by throwing a fun bucket list party for family and friends with the help of Chinet® so everyone you love can get in on the action! We’re showing you how we threw our own easy, fun-for-all-ages bucket list party complete with holiday decorations & tons of tasty treats, plus all the info you need to throw your own bucket list party with the ones you love this season, no fuss required!

DIY, Home, Room Makeovers, Tour Our Cottage Style Home

Our Entryway & Guest Bedroom Decor Refresh Ideas Made Easy

Today we’re sharing our super simple, cottage-inspired entryway and guest bedroom makeovers full of easy decor ideas. Even better, we’re sharing the recent home improvement revelation that has been a total game-changer for us and allowed us to kick the “hangxiety” and hang anything and everything with ease – High & Mighty! Seriously, friends, if you’ve ever hung anything or plan on hanging anything on your drywall in the future, you need this in your life!

DIY, DIY Home Decor, Home, Room Makeovers, Tour Our Cottage Style Home

Easy DIY Wood Kitchen Cabinet Hardware Makeover

Today we’re talking all about our journey into wood kitchen cabinet hardware, including all of the trials and triumphs that happened along the way when swapping out our old black kitchen cabinet hardware for wood knobs and drawer pulls. This is such a fun, easy way to give your kitchen a cool, cottage-cozy DIY makeover, and we’re giving you all of the inside info, tips and tricks for how to get it done!

DIY, Furniture Makeovers, Home

A Cottage-Perfect Natural, Pickled Wood Dresser Makeover

I’m SO excited for today’s DIY pickled wood dresser makeover tutorial because this is a project I’ve been dying to tackle for a few years, and I was so happy that I finally found the perfect piece to try the pickling technique on! We’re giving you all of the details on this beautiful antique wood dresser’s multiple makeovers, breaking down what the pickling technique is exactly and talking you through how we took this dresser from pink to pickled in just a few easy steps!

DIY, DIY Home Decor, Home

How To Make Easy DIY Wood Floating Frames

We’re showing you how to easily make these super fun DIY floating wood gallery frames in just a few easy steps, on a budget! Bonus: this project can be completely customized to fit your own style and needs with minimal effort and max impact!

DIY, Home, Room Makeovers, Tour Our Cottage Style Home

Our Backyard Patio Pergola Project: The Full Reveal!

The moment is finally here and we couldn’t be more excited to show you our backyard patio makeover and the reveal of our beautiful new pergola space with Leisure Time Products and Home Depot! With tons of cozy, inviting cottage design details and decor, our slightly boring backyard was transformed in just one day to become a magical little backyard oasis we’re completely in love with. Come see the incredible before and after pictures!

DIY, Home, Room Makeovers

Our Exciting Patio Pergola Project: Details, Design Ideas & More!

We have been absolutely dying to share this backyard project with you guys and now the moment is finally here! Including a pretty pergola on our backyard patio has always been a dream of ours, and now thanks to Leisure Time Products and The Home Depot that dream is finally becoming a reality! Come hear all about our plans, the project and pergola details and see our design and decor inspiration!

DIY, Furniture Makeovers, Home

A Perfectly Pink DIY KILZ Chalk Paint Dresser Makeover

We could NOT be more excited to show you this pretty in pink DIY dresser makeover we tackled using KILZ® paint and primer because not only is the finished result one of our favorite furniture makeovers of all time, but we’re giving you all of the details on how you can enter to win a $1000 prepaid Visa giftcard in the KILZ® Street to Sweet Sweepstakes!

DIY, DIY Home Decor, Home

DIY Laminated Paper Placemats

Who’s ready for the most fun, versatile DIY home decor project ever?! Today we’re giving you the rundown on how to make these super easy, practical and completely customizable DIY laminated paper placemats that are perfect for your next party, holidays, catching the kiddos’ meal chaos and so much more!

DIY, DIY Favorites, Home, Home Decor

Spring Cleaning & Home Improvement Revelations We’re Loving!

Today we’re taking you through three epic new discoveries we’ve made that have been total game-changers in making it easier to either keep our home clean this spring, or maintain its fresh look and feel in general, sans signs of wear and tear, including the best robot vacuum of all time, the perfect dishwand system you definitely need in your dishwashing life and the most durable kitchen cabinet refinishing products that will blow your remodeling mind!

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Maryal Miller Carter

loveandspecs

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Instagram post 17874356132304607 Another look at our backyard home office w/ our pretty new wood French doors! I don’t know how my life took this strange adulthood turn, but I am now obsessed with doors. Had you told my teenage self that I’d spend hours scrolling through the @usdoornmore site just daydreaming about all of the cool doors I could install around my house, I would have spit out my Slurpee & laughed in your face. Yet here I am, pregnant, freaking out about the magic of doors! 🤷‍♀️ I already loved our backyard office, but now it’s about 10x more cottage cozy with these doors & all that natural light streaming in! Working from home never felt so good 🥰 You can see the before & after pics & learn all about how to order custom doors online at the link in my bio!
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Instagram post 17906274784724051 The weather is starting to get pretty perfect here in Phoenix & it’s making me V excited to start exploring the amazing spring front walkway situation around Arcadia! I look forward to riding my bike around, snapping these pretty flower-lined spring paths pretty much all year & from what I’ve already seen around the neighborhood, this year’s spring Arcadia lovefest tour is gonna be GOOD! I think I’m basically just going to focus all my attention on the walkways this year. They’re just so incredible! Are you guys as excited for this year’s spring Arcadia tour as I am?! 🏡🌸🌼💐
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Instagram post 18195918829015109 Oh man am I excited to start sharing our finished exterior remodel of our cozy cottage-cute backyard home office! This space is & has always been a favorite part of our home & tackling the exterior remodel with the help of my parents over the last year has been so much fun & such an education. We’ll be sharing more of how we tackled replacing all of the exterior siding, etc. in the coming weeks but today is all about these beautiful new wood French doors that I’ve dreamed about putting here for years. Years! And they’re even prettier than I’d hoped. Hop over to the link in my bio to see the before & after pics of the front of the office & the doors & hear all about our experience ordering custom wood French doors online, how we easily sealed them to protect them from the elements & more! 🎉
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Instagram post 17897897764829822 You know I love Valentine’s Day so I’m just gonna allow myself to stretch the love fest out a little longer 🥰 💗Chris left this morning for a work trip for a couple of weeks & I swear pregnancy has made me even more sappy for this guy than I already was! 😭 I wish you guys could all know him & have a chance to laugh with him like I do because it’s just the absolute BEST! He’s just an amazing guy. Amazing friend, amazing partner, amazing uncle, amazing everything. I’d never gone through the pics on my phone and saved the photos of us in a folder so I could look back on our relationship over the years & reminisce a little, but I finally did it last night during my typical 3am to 4am pregnancy wake-up & now I’m just over here getting lost in reliving all of the fun we’ve had! 10 snaps doesn’t even come close to covering it. Swipe to the last pic to see our very first photo together that my sister snapped on our first double date to send to my parents so they could scope him out 🤣 Hope you’ve all been able to feel a little love in some way, shape or form this week & if you find yourself needing some more, just DM me & I’ll remind you how awesome you are & how glad I am to have you here! 💗💗💗
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Instagram post 17936172811445601 Man I just 💗 this holiday! I can’t help it! 🥰 Especially now that I get to have this incredible guy as my Valentine for the rest of my life (and my baby daddy). How did I get so darned lucky? So happy Valentine’s Day, my love. You’re my very favorite thing about life & make me the happiest girl alive, day in & day out. May you always find an ocean to ride a wave on! 🏄🏻‍♂️
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Instagram post 17884006397006795 It’s my birthday! And because I love birthdays & basically any reason to celebrate anything, I thought it would be fun to finally share a little secret me & Chris have been cookin’ up for my 36th year 👶🏼🤰We’re closing in on the halfway mark &  it feels pretty awesome. It’s also getting harder & harder to hide this big ol’ belly from you guys 🤣 Everything has been a lot slower around here (well basically me... I’ve been a lot slower) for the last several months, but I have to admit that I’ve kind of loved the slow down. We’ve been in a little bubble of happy. Guess quarantine really got us good 😜 Baby boy arrives this summer & I’ll just be over here fussing over his cozy cottage nursery (which has been SO much fun to design w/ my mom’s help) & Chris will be over there stockpiling all of the kids’ golf & fishing gear he can find. It’s gonna be a heck of a year! 🎉

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