Painting the Guest Bedroom

My blue dresser has a home!  Remember this guy?…

Well, his living arrangements were determined early on.  I knew I wanted him to live in our guest bedroom.  We desperately needed to kick our old entertainment center to the curb and find a better solution.  This little blue dresser was my solution!

So, I dragged the old entertainment center to the road and moved the blue dresser into it’s place.  I stepped back, and took at the room, and I thought booo.  I wasn’t digging all of the blue hues going on in this room.  It was blue overload.

So, I painted.

I went with Colorplace Autumn Haze.  It is a pretty neutral tan color. I figured with all the blue going on in here, it would help tone things down. P.S. I just throw everything in the center of the room when I paint, don’t mind my mess. Once I was finished painting, I brought the dresser back in.  And, what do you know? It looked much better with the neutral wall color!  Woot woot! Of course, Charlie helped keep an eye on my work.   And he also digs the new color. I think it looks bigger in here now, even with more furniture.  Weird how a color will do that. One last thing before you go.  A before and after…

 

Dresser Love

A while back (were talking months ago) my friend Gwen gave me a small antique dresser.  She told me it needed some love, and thankfully I always have extra love to share with an antique dresser.  Here she is…

I know, she’s a beaut! I got her home and guess what?  …  It sat in my garage for about 3 months.  Justin threatened to bring it to the curb multiple times.  Of course, I retaliated, that I would be moving out if he did. Gotta do, what you gotta do for an antique dresser.  Fast forward a few months, and I decided it was time to get to work.

There were a few things I wasn’t jazzed about.  First the color.  Don’t get me wrong, red can be amazing, but I have no place for a red dresser in my house.

Next up, this broken drawer…

All of the drawers were in great condition, except that lower one.  It had seen better days, and was missing the bottom.  Kind of defeats the purpose of a drawer when you can’t store anything in it.  Lastly, I wasn’t in love with the drawer pulls.

The first thing I did was give the whole piece a good scrub, inside and out.  I used a few old rags with some diluted vinegar.  Did the job perfectly, and I swear the vinegar smell wears off.

Next, I wanted to sand all of the surfaces down with my palm sander.  I have a Ryobi detail sander.Before starting, I removed all of the knobs from the drawers, then removed the drawers from the dresser completely.From there, I just made my way from right to left using the palm sander.  I started with the lowest grit sandpaper I had, which was 80.  With a little pressure on the palm sander, I was able to remove most of the paint in the first shot.  Some areas were harder to work with, like the slats in between the drawers.  But, overall the paint removed pretty easily. The palm sander wouldn’t quite fit in the top slots, where I had removed the top three drawers.  So, I used a low grit sand paper to get in those areas by hand.

Lastly, I had to get the paint off of the drawers.  This was pretty straight forward, just sanding some more flat surfaces.I gave all off the surfaces one more good sanding with 120 grit sand paper.  I made sure to work with the grain of the wood.  This last sanding removed any remaining paint, and evened out any scratches on the wood.  As I previously mentioned, I was not planning on reusing the same hardware that came with the dresser.  So, I needed to fill the holes in the drawers left from the old pulls.  I used DAP painter’s putty.  You just fill the hole with the spackle, then pull a trowel across the area to remove any access putty. Once I had all of the holes filled, I let them dry for a few hours.  I, then, gave the drawers one last sanding with my palm sander to remove any remaining putty around the (now filled) holes.  Here she is holes filled and free of paint…I had planned to give this dresser a painted distressed look, and I wanted to have some darker wood tones showing through.  In order to do so, my next step was to stain the wood to a darker tone.  I used Minwax stain in English Chestnut.  I just used a foam brush to paint the stain on, going with the grain of the wood.  I, then, took an old rag and wiped any access stain off of the surface.  This is one step where you have to move a little quicker, since you do not want the stain to dry.Please don’t judge my poor dresser at this stage, it looks a bit rough.  As you can see, I didn’t completely get the red paint off of the ledge where the top drawers sit.  It was a tight area to work with, but I made sure everything was smoothed out, even if there was still paint remaining.Also, the top of the dresser had been spackled by a previous owner and those spots did not take the stain.  I was not worried though because I knew I would be painting over all of these issues.  Perfection wasn’t what I was going for at this point.   Then, it was time for paint.  This is a make or break, color is a big choice, and I was thinking about going a little more bold than usual.  I decided on a blue, specifically Olympic’s Celestial Blue.  Once I had my paint, I got right too it…Let me tell you, I was really worried about my choice at this point.  I was not digging how bright this blue was turning out. I figured I made it this far, I might as well slap a second coat on and see how I feel about it.

Much better! Thank god for second coats.  Just check out the difference in these drawers.The top drawer is one coat and the bottom drawer has two coats, in case you can’t tell.

Here she is, in all her blue glory…Woo to the hoo people, I am stoked about how it turned out!

Now, this is where the distressing comes in to play.  I debated how I wanted to go about distressing this dresser, and I ended up deciding not to do anything at all.  I love it just as it is, and I figure if I want to distress it in the future, I can do so at anytime.

Since there would be no distressing, I just had to get some new hardware and this puppy is done!  So, I let the paint dry for a few days, and while I waited I came across a sale on these knobs at Pier One…$0.98 each!  Which is amazing considering I needed 8 of them!  The metal matches the antiqued gold key slots on the drawers and I love the hand painted leaves.  Before I drilled my new holes for the pulls, I measured and marked where I wanted them to go.  I measured twice, just to be sure. Then, I grabbed Justin’s Dewalt drill, and I found the drill bit that was just slightly larger than the screws that came with the knobs.  I placed a piece of painters tape over my marks (I saw somewhere that this will reduce the chances of splintering your wood or damaging your paint).  Then, I just drilled right into the tape.  Once I had all of my news holes, I plopped the new hardware in place and voila…If you are wondering, I did not forget about the broken drawer!  I brought the whole bottom drawer to Home Depot, and one of the guys in the lumber section cut me a piece of wood that fit the slot in the drawer perfectly (yes, they do that for FREE).  Once I got the wood home, I just nailed it in place, so it wouldn’t move around.  The wood piece only cost about $4, and this dresser now is in full working condition!

And just for fun, a slideshow of the process…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

There you have it, our new/old dresser.  Can’t wait to show you where it ended up, but that’s a different post for a different day.

Portrait of Home

I have not been painting a lot lately, and the other day I had an itch to make something.  I remember seeing a post on my fav blog, Young House Love, a couple fun little portraits done of their homes.  I liked this idea, and thought I would take a stab at a quick portrait of our home.  Nothing too detailed, just a quirky little painting.  I also thought, why not show you my process of making the portrait while I was at it?

I started with a generic 8×10 canvas from Michaels.

Then, I sketched out our house from a photo that I had on my computer…

Next, I just added the main background colors.

From there, I just slowly added some details…

I also was sure to paint all of the edges, since I don’t think this painting will be frame worthy.

What do you think?

It’s def not perfect, but it’s just the quirky little painting I was going for.

And for fun, here is a slideshow of the process…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Let’s Get Some Paint on Those Cabinets, Wahoo!

As you know I have been making some changes to our master bathroom.  I decided that it was time to do something about these…

I am not a fan of these 90’s style maple cabinets.  I know we are going to eventually get some sort of free standing double sink vanity that we are in love with, but why can’t we like this one a little more in the meantime?  Amiright?  I have also been dying to give painting cabinets a shot.  I have never dabbled in this type of DIY project and I don’t think I am going to get a better opportunity.  Before I could get started I went to my good friend pinterest and asked her to find me some info on painting bathroom cabinets(yes I consider pinterest a girl).  From there I found this blog,  I chose this one because she goes into detail on the steps she took to make her cabinets have professional looking results.  Also she was taking her cabinets from a similar maple wood tone to white, which was also my goal.  Here is the list I went to Lowes with: 1. sanding wedge 2. deglosser or liquid sander 3. spray primer 4. white paint 5. foam roller.  This is what I came home with 1. sanding wedge 2. liquid primer 3. white paint 4. foam roller.   Do you see that I didn’t pick up the deglosser and my spray primer became regular liquid primer?  Well the guy at the paint counter at Lowes told me that if I rolled Zinsser Bulls Eye Primer on my cabinets first I can skip the deglossing step.  I was skeptical, but Lowes employees rarely steer me in the wrong direction, so I took his advice and skipped deglossing.  Once I got home I needed to take apart my cabinets…

I unscrewed all of the doors from the hinges, then took the hinges off the cabinet frames…

I put all of the hinges and screws in a baggie and set it aside for when I needed to reassemble the cabinets, didn’t wanna lose any of those suckers.  Then I was left with this…

It was now time to get to sanding.  I used a medium grit sanding wedge…

I sanded all sides of the doors including the edges, then I sanded all of the cabinet framing. I then wiped everything down with a wet cloth to get all of the sanding debri off.  This would be where the deglosser or liquid primer would have come into play if I had decided to take that step. This is what I was left with after sanding…

I know it looks the same to me too, just a little less shiny.

Then came priming, here is the Zinsser Bulls Eye Primer, which is basically like gold according to man behind the paint counter….

Looks like gold huh?  This is also when I grabbed all of my cabinet doors and brought them out to the patio, didn’t wanna let the fumes suffocate my little Charlie bean and Zack man!

I first used a 2 inch paint brush to brush the inside crease on my cabinet doors, then I rolled the remaining area with a foam roller…

The foam roller can’t get into all of the small creases on the cabinet doors, so I have to use the brush for those areas.  But I prefer the foam roller because it leaves a more even coat with less streaking that a brush would leave.  (You know I am all about painting, so of course I need to give you my preference of painting tools.)  I painted the back of the cabinets first, I did this so once I had painted both sides, the front of the doors would be able to dry over night facing upward.  Just in case some tackiness is still occurring when I flip them to paint the front, any possible problem areas will be on the back of the doors.  Here is the complete coat of primer on the doors…

That long skinny board is the front of the single drawer we have in the bathroom.   Next up I headed inside to put a coat of primer on the cabinet frames, unfortunately this has to be done indoors considering it’s attached to the walls, darn.

As you can see before I primed the cabinets I taped off the walls and floor where it meets the cabinets.  I let this dry for about 4 hours(the can recommended 2, better safe than sorry right?).  Then it was time for the paint…

I went with Valspar Signature in Ultra White.  I painted this on the exact same way as the primer.  Here is after the second coat…

I had to do one coat of primer and 3 coats of paint in total.  It took me about 3 days to finish since I really wanted to let each coat dry thoroughly, I really didn’t want to deal with any chipping issues.  Once everything was completely dry it was time to put it all back together!

I think I did a bang up job and these cabinets are now a little easier on the eyes.  Oh and in case your wondering about the inside…

That’s all painted too.

I also picked up some new hardware from Lowes while I was there and I attached those to the cabinets after measuring where each should go.  Want some before and afters? Okay!

Before:

and now…

Before…

yes, the cabinets had black kick boards.

and now…

Before:

and now…

Before:

and now…

I’m pretty jazzed about the outcome.  I think it was a success.  It makes the whole bathroom feel different, the shade of blue on the walls even feels like it has changed a shade or two.  I am thinking some darker decorations may help balance the lightness in here.  As for painting cabinets, it is quite the job but I think it is worth it in the end.  The only suggestion I have for a project like this is to wait a day in between each coat of paint and give it another day or two before reattaching the doors to the frame.  Do you have any preferences?

Painting the Master Bathroom

As you know I have prepped our master bathroom for paint. Now that it is all set to go, I got right to it. I decided to go with Lighthouse Shadows by Valspar, it is the color of our master bedroom. I had a bunch left over from painting our room, so I thought that would be a good choice. Since we will eventually be demoing this entire room, I didn’t want to purchase new paint. Here is what I started with…

Here is what we have now…

I love that it makes the bathroom feel like a continuation of our bedroom now…

I unfortunately did not get any photos of the painting process, but I do have some before and afters!

I also put a fresh coat of white paint on all the doors…

We still have big plans for this bathroom, but for now it feels a lot cleaner in here. I still need to do some more caulking and I would like to hang some art and change a couple other things. Thanks for reading folks!

Who doesn’t love a good pot?

I picked up a couple terracotta pots from walmart the other day. I didn’t get a before picture but they looked something like this…

They are not the normal rust color that you see most clay pots in.  This is a brown.  I got them for somewhere around $3 each, pretty cheap.  I had previously seen painted clay pots on pinterest like this…

and this…

I thought these looked pretty killer, so I had to make some for my office.  I decided on these colors…

White and light green. PS I already owned these paints. So this project was a total of $6. Woot Woot!

Once I had chosen my colors I just got to painting…

I wanted to leave part of the pot unpainted because I really liked the brown clay they already had going on.

Here is the white guy all finished.  I painted the perimeter of each pot at different heights because I wanted them to each be unique.

Here they are finished…

Since I now had my sick pots, I needed something to put in them.  I headed to lowes and picked up this guy…

This is called a pothos, I do not know much about it except it is neon green and requires low light, aka I love him. I also got this guy…

This one is the pothos friend, but he is called golden pothos. I liked them because they are both viney leafy plants, but they are not exactly the same.  Here they are in their new home…

and

I love how they pop out amongst all the white in here.

It’s not a big change, but it makes me happy to have some life in here.

I Sweat Paint

I spent my weekend painting…. everything in the second guest bedroom.  Last I shared the guestroom was looking something like this…

It was still looking not so pretty in pink.  It was time to finally put some fresh paint on these walls and trim. I started with the trim as usual and used good old white in a gloss finish.  I know I had planned on using a shade of light purplish grayish, with possibly even a hint of pink for the walls, but I changed my mind.  I guess I am not as decisive as I thought.  Most of the office inspiration photos I am digging right now look like these…

and my favorite…

I guess I am kinda into a neutral office at this point.  I was thinking if I put a purple color on the wall that I would hate it.  So I decided to go with something more along the lines of the whitish, tanish in these photos.  I ended up using Paramount White by Valspar.  I started edging in as usual…

Charlie helped…

Next I rolled the color on the rest of the walls…

I know it looks pretty white, but I promise it is not!

Once I was done with all of the walls the ceiling was really looking pretty rough.  Once I took the border down and lightened the walls the ceiling was looking so dingy and all the paint mistakes were really sticking out.

I definitely wasn’t planning to paint the ceiling, but I felt like I needed to now. I am a virgin to painting ceilings, I knew I was in for a treat. So I headed back to lowes and got some of this…

It is Valspar flat ceiling paint that goes on purple, but dries white.  My mom told me about this paint and said that it helps to keep track of where you have already painted.  I also picked up one of these…

Since our ceilings are pretty textured I needed a better roller that would soak up more paint and get into all of the crazy crevices.

I then cleared the room out and made sure I covered everything with tarps, I know splattering is a big issue when painting a ceiling.

I also had Justin remove the fan and vent from the ceiling.

The purple in the paint really did help out when applying the paint. Here is what the paint looks like when I opened the can…

I really needed to give it a good stir before I started.

I used my usual method of edging first and rolling second.

I really didn’t think painting the ceiling would make too much of a difference and then I looked at the dried edging that I had just painted…

Look at that!

Is that not a crazy difference or what?  I guess I didn’t know just how dingy the ceiling was.

From there it was time to start rolling.  When I went to look for my roller someone had stolen it…

He’s such a little thief.

Once I got my roller back I went to town…

See the purple-ness?

This was quite the job, it really took a toll on my neck and I also had splattered paint all over my face, thank goodness for hats and glasses. Here is my room now, with every surface freshly painted.

The ceiling still has a purple hue to it in this photo because it wasn’t quite dry yet.  Can’t wait to get going on other updates in here!

She’s Mad Crafty Yo!

I was checking out etsy the other day as usual, wishing I was had butt loads of money so I could buy everything my heart desires.  Seriously, I can’t get over how talented some etsy sellers are.  I love me some etsy! Anywho, I stumbled across this by this seller…

and this by this seller…

and this by this seller…

It seems I’m really digging the burlap type pillows with awesome quotes.  I love the first one Live by the sun Love by the moon.  And the last one that looks like the whale was stenciled on.  I thought about purchasing the last one because it is actually a door stop and I think it is a really unique way to prop open your door shyaa!  I also have a rule that if I can make something myself for cheaper than it is being sold, then I should try to make it before buying it.  I decided that even though this doorstop is only $15($10 for doorstop + $5 for shipping), I think I can make it myself for cheaper.  It seemed pretty simple so I went for it.  First I purchased some burlap from JoAnne Fabrics…

While I was there I also picked up a couple stencil brushes.  The burlap was $2.30 for 1/2 a yard and $.99 for the stencil brushes.  I had a coupon and my total came to $2 and some change, I also had a gift card so it ended up taking no mulah from my pocket woo hoo!

Next I picked up some rice from Walmart for a couple dollars.  I will use the rice as filler and for weight to hold the door back. Everything else I used I already owned, so total cost for myself was around $2! Score!

Here’s how I did it…

I first had to decide what I wanted on my doorstop, I knew I wanted a quote and I knew it was going to be holding our bedroom door open.  I decided to go with “rise and shine”.  I figured it would be one of the first things we see in the morning, anything to make me a little happier to be getting outta bed is welcome in my book! I started by making a template on the computer that would be my stencil…

Here it is all ready to go.  Next I cut all the lettering out…

Look at me go!

Here’s the finished product, now I have my stencil.  Next I got my paint out.

I decided to go with a grayish blue color for the lettering, who woulda thought?

I came up with this color.  I used a paper plate for mixing, I love easy clean up!

I then decided on the placement of my stencil.

Next I just filled in the letters with my stencil brush.  I just used a blotting motion until all of the letters were filled.

Here it is once the stencil was removed.  While that dried I worked on my next step.

Since the burlap has small holes in the fabric, I needed to make an interior pouch to put the rice in.  I didn’t want rice slipping out all over my floor every time we moved it. So I found a similar color fabric and cut out a couple pieces about a half inch larger on each side than I wanted the actual doorstop to be.

Next I got out my sewing machine(yup I have one of those). I started sewing the interior fabric inside out leaving one side open, then turned the pouch outside in(is that how you would say it?). I then poured in the rice filling the pouch up approximately 3/4 of the way. Then I sewed up the open end.

This was what I was left with, a white pouch filled with rice! Fancy!

I then cut the burlap with the stenciling about an inch larger on each side than i want the doorstop to be.  From there I placed the two pieces of burlap together stencil facing inward. Next I sewed up all of the sides but one leaving one end open again.

Once the three sides were sewn up, I flipped the pouch outside in? again.

Then I plopped the rice filled pouch in the open side.

From there I tucked in the unfinished end and sewed it up and I was left with this…

A pretty sweet doorstop that makes me feel better about getting outta bed in the morning.  Here it is in it’s new home…

one more…

Saved myself some money and I have a new way to keep our bedroom door open! Yahoo! Thanks for the inspiration etsy.

Painting the patio

Next on the list for the patio was painting, so that’s what I did.  Since the wall connecting the patio and the house is now textured, it was time to paint.  So we brought a piece of siding to Lowe’s and had them match the color perfectly for the outdoor paint.  We wanted the patio to be a perfect match so it didn’t look odd next to the siding on the back of the house.  Did you know you can bring anything in to Lowe’s and they can create a paint to the exact color of that object?  Pretty sweet huh?  After getting the outdoor paint home, I got going on the project.

Yes, that is what I look like/what I wear when I paint.  And… yes I am wearing two long sleeve shirts.  I think I picked the coldest day of the last few months to paint the outdoor room.

Justin even helped out(a little.)  Can’t say he is as excited about painting as I am. Although I can sometimes manage to get him to help, but he will roll and that’s it.  I do the trim, taping and edging in.  I am just grateful when he will help for big projects!

Did I mention that I have never painted an outdoor space, let alone the outside of a house?  Well as you can sort of tell from the photos these walls are textured, REALLY textured.  I had quite the time getting in all of the small nooks and crannies.  Somehow I managed.

I think it turned out pretty good.

Matches perfect. Go Lowe’s!

Can’t wait to get some tile on that floor!  But I wasn’t done painting just yet…

These guys needed a fresh coat of paint badly.

Gross.

And more gross.  That’s after scrubbing them down, yuck!

Much better!  So far the patio has come a long way from this…

Still have a few things on the list:

1. screen patio. 
   
2. replace fan.
3. texture drywall.
4. paint patio and doors.
5. tile and grout floor.
6. find patio furniture.
7. enjoy!

Living Room Art and Such

Since painting and adding new couches to the living room we have also added a few other things. Thought I would update you all on some decorations that have made their home in our home(I’m a loser.)

Remember this photo with the painting above the couch? Well here is a closer look.

Isn’t it cute?  That’s a little chocolate lab puppy in the rocking chair.  Now that I think about it that rocking chair looks just like the one I painted white that I bought off craigslist.  Anywho, Sandy and Kent gave it to us for Christmas two years ago.

Then, there’s these two, that are a couple more of my own artwork.  These are stipplings though. Check out more of my stipplings here.  Once again here is a closer look.

This is the little hall on the way to our bedroom.

And closer…

I think this is my favorite art in my home.  It is a print of a watercolor done by an artist in Vermont named Amber Alexander.  I also found her on etsy, you should really check out her shop as well.   She also has some outstanding art.  I cannot paint with watercolor, it’s just not the right medium for me.  I think that is what makes me drawn to watercolor pieces.  I am amazed that someone can create something as realistic as this with watercolor!  I also tried to dress up the TV console a little more…

I was really torn on what to put in the cabinets.  I added some of our favorite books out of our vast collection(that’s all of them.) Then I added two baskets that matched some other baskets I have in the room.  They are also functional because they are holding remotes and some sick 3D glasses(yes this sucker is 3D!) I thought about putting some picture frames in there but the shine on the glass made them hard to see.

Char watched while I took pictures.  He thinks I’m nuts.  Can you tell?

I also spruced up our end tables with some new knobs(they were blue) and some frames.

I then added some stuff to our lonely mantel.

That’s all the mantel holds for now.  A frame and a cute little ceramic mushroom.  I will add more eventually, when something catches my eye.