I’ve been spending some time organizing our archives (over 4oo posts!!) over the past few weeks, and I realized that October 5th was our three-year anniversary at 11 Magnolia Lane. That’s when Amy launched our site and published our very first post. Wow!
Amy and I are both on our third houses since we started blogging. Terry, the lucky girl, is still in the same house. She’s added a baby boy to her family, and Amy and I have added three dogs to the mix between us (fur babies, right?). So between the three of us, we now have 8 kids, three dogs, a cat, and a hamster (oh, and 3 husbands, we can’t forget them!). If you don’t know us yet, you can visit our Who We Are page for the backstory.
In honor of our anniversary, I thought it would be fun to use our site’s analytics to rank our ten most popular posts of all times. I’m kind of stunned to tell you that almost 1.5 million people have stopped by our little blog since its inception. So many of you have become real (not just virtual) friends via social media, and we treasure each and every one of you. Thank you! So, without further ado, here’s our top 10 list, and it will start with #10, as any proper list should do!
10. My Dining Room Table & Chairs–Painted White (April 2013)
This was one of my favorite projects. I painted my damaged cherry dining room table and chairs with white chalk paint in a “oh-no-she-didn’t!” moment, and have never looked back. The chairs were slipcovered with canvas painter’s dropcloths and then I monogrammed them with a “B” on the back.
9. Kids’ Bathroom Makeover (February 2012)
I love the colors Amy used when she re-did her children’s bathroom in horizontal grey stripes and bright yellow. What a great color combo for the girl and boys who use it! She built a board and batten wall and also included a sweet printable in her original post.
8. BIG, BIG News {!}, Plus My Pantry Redo Reveal (April 2012)
In this post, I showed off my corner pantry in my Nashville house. I got fed up with the white wire shelving, ripped it out, and built solid shelving. Along the way, I added nifty storage and a chandelier. Oh, and I also announced the news that my kitchen redo was going to be featured in a magazine (stay tuned, that post is coming later).
7. Stair Redo With Painted Treads and Beadboard Risers (June 2012)
Our friends Steve and Robyn took on a serious DIY project and ripped all the carpet of their steps, painted the treads, and added beadboard to the risers. For about $150, their results were absolutely amazing, and were featured on HouseLogic (the blog of the National Association of Realtors).
6. Who We Are (March 2012)
It would make sense that you’d want to know whose blog you were reading, right?! This post tells you just what you’re dealing with here at 11 Magnolia Lane. Complete with some wonderful photos taken during our getaway weekend/photoshoot in Williamsburg, VA, in March 2012, this tell you the story of how 11 Magnolia Lane came to be.
5. Laundry Room Redo–Making the Most of a Small Space (September 2011)
After originally hating my tiny, cramped laundry room, it became my favorite room in our old house. I added a painted wallpaper treatment, cafe shelving, a chandelier, and lots of vintage touches to make it a fun room to be in (well, almost–there was still laundry to be done in there!). The redo caught the eye of editors at Cottages & Bungalows magazine, and it was featured in the January 2013 issue.
4. Painted Tile Backsplash in My Kitchen–A Year Later (March 2013)
At first I was kind of surprised that this post is so popular, but then I realized that it’s really useful to know before starting a project just how it will hold up over time. A year after I went nutso and took a paint brush to my ugly brown kitchen backsplash, I reported back with how it looked (great!).
3. Kitchen Redo Reveal–Part 2 (December 2011)
Painting my kitchen cabinets, backsplash, walls, and exhaust hood was probably the biggest project I’ve ever undertaken, but I love how it turned out. I think lots of readers are interested in the how-to’s of painting cabinets, and that’s why this post continues to be so popular over time, although you really have to read it along with Part 1 to get all the nitty-gritty details. This post caught the eye of Bonnie Broten, an editor at Better Homes & Gardens Kitchen + Bath Makeovers magazine, and so we got to experience our first (and hopefully not our last!) photoshoot at 11 Magnolia Lane in May of 2012. By the way, it’s absolutely amazing what enormous lights and a professional photographer can do to a room!
2. Tour Magnolia Lane (November 2011)
This is the house we lived in (as renters, believe it or not!) back when the blog started, and it was the inspiration for the blog’s name, thanks to the enormous magnolia tree in the front yard. Taken with a very old digital camera and before I knew anything about staging a photo, it’s still our second most popular post ever–simply because the house was an amazing, one of a kind beauty. We had the privilege of renting from friends (also in the Army) who had worked for years to remodel their 1915 colonial revival in historic downtown Fayetteville, NC. As soon as they finished the job, they received orders to move. We lived there for two years and it was absolutely amazing, with hundred year old trees and hardwood floors, but a gorgeous, modern kitchen (Sub Zero fridge! professional gas stove!). It was such a privilege to live there, and I would move back in a heartbeat–maybe one day!
And, drumroll please…our #1 post of all time is…
1. Pantry (Re)Organization (January 2011)
Who knew that a January organizing project would go viral on Pinterest? But for some reason, the floor-to-ceiling cabinets that were my pantry in the North Carolina house really resonated with people. Maybe because it was a normal sized pantry, instead of a huge walk-in? I put chalkboard Contact paper inside the cabinet walls, glue-gunned polka dot ribbon to the shelves, and tried to get organized. If only I could go back and “stage” the pantry for photos, but what you see is what you get–remember, we’d only been blogging for three or four months at this point. DIYnetwork.com featured it in a series on chalkboard ideas for the kitchen, and HouseLogic.com wrote a nice article on how I turned $50 into this:
Now, those are just the top ten. There’s lots of great stuff to read here, and if you use the menu bar at the top, all of our archived posts are pretty well organized (if I do say so myself, since I just finished that!). We’re so glad that you’re here, so please hang out for awhile!
Thanks for stopping by~
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