Mini transformation + Updates 4/17/11

Happy Sunday! My husband has been on vacation so I haven't had much time to blog lately! That and all my crazy projects. Here is a mini transformation I did recently;

 Above is the 'before.' I found this sad little stool at Goodwill for $6.99 and it just begged for me to take it home. And here is the after;

What do you think? It's not perfect, but it was the first time I did this kind of project and I think it turned out pretty cute. Legs were sanded, primed and painted black. Next, the old fabric was removed and the new fabric (bought with a coupon from JoAnn fabrics) was put on with a staple gun. I haven't decided for certain where it will go, but it has been floating around and has been quite popular with cats and kids alike.

As far as updates go;
Nursery: Nothing much new here. I have one project left, unless I come up with more, but will need a little help from my husband. I also need to get a couple furniture pieces and then the room is set!

Girls Room: After the major cleaning overhaul, the room has been staying pretty nice and clean. There are a few things to hang up and a couple other little odds and ends. I did do the major project in there that I was not looking forward to. I went through ALL the clothes, pulled out the stuff that doesn't fit, went through buckets of clothes from storage, and got everything arranged and put away. It took a looooong time, but I am relieved it is done and over with. There is still a large overflowing box of clothes to get rid of. My husband said he will get them all nicely boxed and taken to a resale shop for me, but I am not going to hold my breath on that. I will wait a couple days just because I can't bear to look at any more clothes right now! I think we may also hold a rummage sale, but if I can get the clothes out of here before that, I am not waiting!

Playroom: Also spent some time cleaning/organizing in here as all the toys previously in bedrooms needed a new home. I removed 4 large bags of toys. I am running out of places for all this stuff!

Bathroom: Not much here either. I believe all the boards are cut for the board and batten, but I need to do a little more painting before the boards can all go up.

Living room: Decided to repaint and have begun the primer to cover all the dark red paint! Stay tuned!

Weekend Update

Happy Sunday! The weather here today has been dark & gloomy - even a brief hailstorm! The above picture was an ugly pail from a thrift shop that I spruced up with some paint! I mostly spent my weekend with the family : ), but there are some exciting things to note on some things I have been working on.

* Nursery- With the tree complete I moved on to finishing up another nursery project. Stayed tuned for details/pictures.

*Bathroom- Remember how I said I wasn't going to paint the bathroom....um, oops. Maybe I changed my mind. Changed it big time. Since I last mentioned the bathroom...I painted the lower cabinet a color called hand cast pewter which is a charcoal gray color. I had thought about painting it black, but chose this instead and I am so glad I did because I LOVE it! The top of the walls and ceiling I painted a beautiful soft gray called partridge gray. The upper cabinet and trim is being painted a white color called cream mist. I absolutely love moulding and was recently inspired by two awesome blogs, Infarrently Creative & Thrifty Decor Chick. They had both done board & batten spaces. I am attempting board & batten in my bathroom space and hoping it will turn out! I have run into a small problem which is that my walls are slightly bumpy which may give me a different look than what I am after. I have a couple ideas so maybe I can correct this problem! I will keep you posted on the progress- keep dreaming design!

The Tree in the Room

It is done! If every time you handle a brush & paint it looks like you've been in battle this project isn't for you. However, if you have some level of painting skill this is a relatively easy, inexpensive project. To do this project you will need 3 quarts of paint; 1 base color, 1 tree trunk/branch color & 1 leaf color. I purchased my paints for approximately $30 total from WalMart's Glidden Better Homes & Garden paint (hey, as often as I paint things I had to stop being fancy with the paint.) For the base color I used In the Garden from their Mixed Greens collection. You may or may not need more than a quart for the base depending on your wall, how many coats you need, etc. I primed the wall in advance and had enough of the In the Garden color for painting a 10 foot wall (there is a small window) once, plus minor touch ups and enough leftover for another project I am working on. My leaf color is Loose Leaf, also from the Mixed Greens collection. Tree color is Tierra Brown from their Savory Spices Collection. First, of course, paint one to two coats of your base and let dry. Second, paint on your tree trunk and branches. You can draw it on lightly with pencil first, if you like, however I just painted it right on. I was going for a look that wasn't too perfectly symmetrical, but not off enough to bug me. I painted two coats for the trunk, one for branches. Don't worry about making the branches perfect as they will mostly be covered up by leaves Next, begin painting on your leaves. I recommend first painting a general outline of leaves and then filling in. I made a alternating pattern of vertical and horizontal leaves in the same shape. The tree at an early stage- Make sure you step back and look at your tree frequently so you make sure it is turning out as you intend. I had to squeeze in time when I could and wasn't checking my work often enough. At this point I was very unhappy with the tree and wanted to paint over parts of it. Everyone in my family was very positive about it so I decided to leave it as it was and begin filling in leaves to see if I liked it any better.

More leaves. I was using a finer brush to outline leaves and filling in just to see how it would look. My intention was to go back afterwards with a second coat on the leaves with a different brush.

A few more leaves...

and a few more leaves....

Victory! I did add a few leaves to adjust what I didn't like, but I never actually painted over anything. Also, I never did a second coat on the leaves. My husband really liked how the green leaves looked over the base coat and said to leave it with the one coat. Since it would save me an hour or so of painting, I went with it.

The work in progress thus far. Sorry about the crummy pictures, the room is only 8x10 and it was had to get a good angle.

The Little Man likes it!

News From the Nursery

I am really trying to get as much of the nursery done as I can. There is a wall behind the crib and I was trying to decide what to put there. Lots of ideas came to mind, but none seemed right. I wanted it to look nice, but not stick out much or be too heavy, keeping in mind the fact his crib would be right there. Also, that the little man will grow and eventually try to rip whatever I put there down! The nursery has kind of a forest theme going on and I had these leftover wall stickies of tree branches from a different project and I tried putting them there. No good. So, somehow I came up up with this idea of painting a tree on the wall. It makes a big impact and can't be ripped down! I will share the how-to and pictures tomorrow. I worked on it in spurts over a period of several days and just finished this evening, so I will take some good pictures tomorrow when the sun is up.

I am also finishing up another project in there, but weather is not cooperating! I have some things to spray paint outside and every time I have a minute to spray paint it is either raining, snowing or windy.

As far as my 'progress' goes, I feel it will be never ending! I've gotten little done over the past several days other than the basics laundry, dishes, etc. My daughter had dance practice one night & the next she performed in the halftime show at a Bucks game. Then, she had a four day weekend, so we tried to spend time doing fun things with her. Here's my minimal progress update!

Tuesday, Day 4

I tried to get back on my old cleaning routine. The way this worked was I had areas of the house divided into sections and would doing a thorough cleaning of a area on its designated day-this fell to the wayside towards the end of my pregnancy with the Little Man. Anyway, Tuesdays would be the bathroom and the hallway between the bathroom and two main floor bedrooms. This actually went quite well. Bathroom was a piece of cake. It was already clean from the minor updates and was quickly cleaned. Next came the hallway. This also wasn't too bad. There were a couple boxes of toys to sort out from when I cleaned the girls room and since I have already started sorting/separating went pretty nicely. Now all that is left there is my oldest daughter's headboard. She had her own room and had a big white scrolled metal bed. I was going to sell it, but my husband told me not to. It is very pretty and he said his mom was going to keep in her spare bedroom turned playroom and then if we needed it back we could get it back from her. I'm pretty sure this arrangement was made a couple months ago and it is still here. I've decided my husband has through his next set of days off to move it or I'm going to attempt to sell it.

Wednesday, Day 5 I was so tired this day I barely remember it, other than the Bucks game. I did work on the tree in the nursery a little bit.

Thursday, Friday Days 6 & 7 Mostly just out with the family.

Saturday, Day 8 Mainly worked on nursery projects as time allowed.

Sunday, Day 9 Same as above.

Well, check back tomorrow for my nursery pictures and until next time keep dreaming design!

The Princess & the Diva

So...I have been very busy the past several days on top of the usual busy. Lots of things going on, both good and bad. Friday I had a mini meltdown. I was exhausted because I never get enough sleep lately and from the day before.
St. Patrick's Day my oldest daughter participates in something called 'School's Day' for her Irish dance. We drive her all over and she and her group dance at the various locations, mostly schools. We had to be at the first stop at 7:30am, plus we drop the two other kids off at Gramma's first. We normally also serve dinner at our house, but there was no way. To avoid the kids being overly upset about it, I stayed up late preparing food so we could eat at Gramma's after the dancing.
Friday I had more things to do than I could ever get done which has become a common theme. I was sincerely trying my best. Then, my oldest got home from school and was crying and freaking out because she had a loose tooth and she didn't want it to fall out before her big cheerleading celebration she was going to-for what it's worth it did fall out, but not before I felt the start of a migraine coming in.
Being in the house is more and more stressful and it is harder and harder to get ready. I am ashamed to admit that it is almost -if not- Clean House worthy. As a hard core neat freak it absolutely makes my skin crawl. At this point trying to clean is is like trying to do a rubix cube. You shuffle things from one place to the next, but nothing gets accomplished, and there is someone constantly behind you undoing what you have done. It makes me feel horrible and feel like I'm 'not doing my job.' So, anyway, as time allows, I will let you know how I attempt to resolve this. As I said, I am ashamed to tell people these things, but I feel like maybe there are others like me and maybe we can help each other.
To start off, I will let you know I generally have very little time to work on this. My husband has been working alot and at odd hours leaving me to care for the kids which takes the majority of my time. Friday I had a major stress induced migraine which carried through till Saturday. I will begin charting my progress as of Saturday.

Saturday, March 19: As I said, major migraine. Unable to do much all morning and the husband had to work at night. I was able to get some done. I worked on a mural I am doing in the nursery (the nursery is by far the cleanest room in the house, so no major cleaning needed there, just making it pretty.) I decided to concentrate on one section of the Princess & Diva's room at a time until whatever could not reasonably fit would have to go. They share a 12x10 room since the youngest had to give up her room for her baby brother. Day 1 did find me some progress there. It sounds wierd, but for my purposes I started at the wall furthest from the door. Most of this wall has their bed against it. I had recently washed all their bedding, so I got beds cleared off and made, cleared out under the bed and then got to the dresser. I completely cleared off the top. It is a tall dresser that is being used for the Diva's clothes.

Sunday, March 20 aka Day 2: Spent the morning at church and got to spend a little time on progress. Did some more painting in the nursery until the Little Man got hungry. On the girl's room I cleared out another section, not quite as large as yesterday. Today was a little more piddily. I used boxes to organize things that there are larger quantities of, such as dollhouse furn./accessories, American Girl items, Littlest Pet Shop, etc. I'd say at this point we are almost halfway as far as the appearance of the room, but there is LOTS of stuff left in that tiny room! Mondays are usually less stressful as my oldest has school, but no activities that day. Wish me luck!

The Pictures I Promised

Camera is back in service so here are the pics from yesterday. : )


A 'before' pic of the bathroom.



Another 'before' pic. The cat did not want to move. Note the blue formica counter and laminate floors that I'm fairly certain previous owners installed incorrectly. Also, if you know where I can find a replacement vent like that PLEASE let me know!

'Before'

'Before' The cabinet over the sink looks roomy, but in reality only one side opens!'Before'

'Before'
The door knob I spoke of.

This is when I made the final decision on paint staying.

New shower curtain and rug.

The cabinet after I started painting it. Not finished, but so far I like it. I don't know why it is so shiny in the pictures.


The wall in the nursery that is 'in progress.'

Oops! One more before pic.

Ok, so there it is! Until next time, keep dreaming design. : )

No Paint?!

Well, last night was long and I suspect tonight will be, too. My two youngest are really having a hard time with daylight savings and I got almost no sleep last night. On the bright side, they were groggy today so I was able to get more done than usual. I took lots of pictures......but, then my camera battery died mid picture, so will have to add those later. Aside from boring dishes, laundry, etc., I did make a little progress on projects. One thing in the nursery and some things in the bathroom. First, I got it all cleaned up. Next, I took pictures. I did this for two reasons. 1. To show you 'before' pics 2. I like to take pictures of rooms before I redo them sometimes. Why? When you see a room day after day you grow used to the way it looks, sometimes bored or indifferent. Taking a picture and looking back at it makes me able to look at it a little more detached, as if it is not my space.
I had decided I wanted to keep the purple accent, and today I decided to add a bit more. I have a small white wall cabinet above the toilet. It has two shelves and small closed area underneath. I painted the back part behind the shelves in the same purple as before & I love it! Not quite finished with it, but already a huge difference. Next, I was worried about the rest of the wall. I had some leftover paint from another project that was a light beige called cozy neutral, and I had thought about using it here. However, the color already on the walls was looking really nice in the pictures, so I couldn't decide. I took previously mentioned cabinet down and painted the wall behind it to decide for sure and ultimately kept the existing color. I put new rug in which is black. Next, I put the new shower curtain up. I was kind of apprehensive about it at first, but someone had already removed the packaging so I figured I might as well try it out. Pretty nice for $5 I must say. It grew on me after a bit and both girls love it, so it is staying for now. Hopefully in the next couple days I can find something to replace the wall art and get my husband to hang all the things mentioned yesterday. For now, I need sleep, so keep dreaming design!

Some Updates

Sorry I have been MIA for a bit. We have been trying to get out and enjoy the weather and been very busy with other things as well. Our curb appeal projects are on hold, I am not sure for how long. More progress was made on cleaning up the massive tree that once lived in the front yard and we enjoyed a nice bonfire the other night from the wood. As far as the living room goes, I received my Medici capitals from Ballard Designs this past week. They are gorgeous! I believe I will use them as a small side table, but we'll see. I used my coupon from there to purchase 2 dome topiaries, a punched metal mirror in cream and a mercury glass pedestal. I can't wait for them to arrive! The topiaries and mirror should come within the week, but the pedestal is on backorder until September 13. I also priced furniture (way more than I thought it would be!) There is one large set that contains couch, loveseat, oversized chair, accent chair, coffee and end tables. I would like to get all the pieces, 2 accent chairs, 1 of everything else, and divide them up between living room, LL family room and master bedroom. That way if we ever move to a better space we have all the pieces to work with. I also looked at bedroom furniture and bedding for my two year old. We are expecting a baby in October and the 2 year old will lose her crib to the new baby so she needs her own special 'big girl' bed. I am holding off buying anything for now, waiting to find out if the new baby is a he or a she. Hopefully we will find out in the next few weeks.
Mainly I have been doing major cleaning and reorganizing, setting items aside for our rummage sale. If weather and my husband cooperate this Friday should be the day. I also found out we may have to move, but will know more within the next week or two which is why some of our projects are on hold as we learn more. Today I will be trying to finish going through the master bedroom and office areas, reorganizing and finding items to add to the to sell pile.
More posts to come soon and until next time, keep dreaming design!