House Updates?

Remember when I used to post about things other than my kiddo? Yeah, kind of a time suck they are, but I've managed a few updates in the 9 months he's been alive. Not quite the pace I'm used to, but maybe we'll have crossed everything off our list by the time we move again. Maybe...

The guest bedroom started like this.

And then looked like this for 3 weeks as I painted the ceiling, trim and finally the walls. I finished just in time for my parents to visit! I was a little hesitant about the dark blue, but I love it now. Only one room and a hallway left to paint. Glenn's next det is in November. We'll see if I have the strength to start another paint job. Especially one that can't be closed off when I come in the house.

Blue Room

Glenn has been gone for the last 10 days and guess what that means? More painting! I'm finally feeling like I can accomplish more than 1. Go to work and 2. Keep tiny human alive on my list each day. Although, I'm not gonna lie, I feel pretty accomplished when I can do that and occasionally clean and cook a dinner!

I might be crazy, but I'm giving myself until mid-October to complete this since that's when our next visitors arrive!

The painting continues! So far I've only completed the ceiling and trim! I haven't even gotten to the walls...

Nursery Progress II

I've been painting for at least a bit every night after work. The walls are painted. The ceiling is half painted because I ran out of blue paint. I thought a quart would be enough for the tray part of the ceiling, but the plaster walls are so dry, they suck up the paint so quickly. I'm hoping to finish the blue and the white parts of the ceiling before my haircut tonight. We shall see! I've been running on 8-9 hours of sleep each night and I wake up at 5:15 so that means an early bed time.

Then comes my least favorite part of walking around the room like a crazy person with my tiny brush and filling in all of the white spots in the textured walls. It usually takes me about 3 laps around the room to find them all. Then I clean everything up and find more! Drives me crazy.

Should be painted and cleaned up just in time for my parents to come. Good thing since the guest room is now full of all the baby's stuff!

Nursery Ideas

We've started gathering a few things for the nursery already. I'm so excited to get started, but I've never had a room that I could just start from scratch so it is a little intimadating! We've always had a piece of art or furniture that we were working in to the room.

We purchased a dresser on Craigslist a few weeks ago. It has sat in the soon-to-be-baby's room since we bought it and I haven't looked at it much. I still need to give it a good scrub.

I also purchased a rug this week and I can't wait for it to arrive!

And somewhat unrelated, I also purchased this little guy for our little guy's newborn photo shoot. Eek! I can't wait to put it on him!

So you can see a general color scheme that I am going with. I am gather inspiration from these three designs. I plan on keeping the blue curtains that are hanging in the guest room now and adding some bright and colorful artwork. Perhaps some vintage travel posters. Perhaps fun monster type characters or a colorful world map.

Cute Little Monster

Indiana Jones

First Little Mate

I am thinking the walls will be a medium/dark gray color similar to the First Little Mate board. We might put a little nautical twist on it...I guess I'll have to wait and see what I find!

We have a book case in the room now that will remain, but I think it will be getting a face lift. More on that another time. I also plan on getting an IKEA arm charm and making it in to a rocker a la this hack. We need to buy some sort of ottoman/poof/stool as well.

Oh and I forgot to mention that our super sweet friends gave us a crib (& mattress & car seat last weekend!). It is a white spindle style crib that is going to look very sweet in the room. I can't wait!

Any ideas or suggestions for art work?

Paint Schmaint.

 I thought about leaving it like this for awhile...

my house has been a disaster for the last week. Glenn is gone on an FCLP/CQ det again for about 10 days so I decided I should probably go ahead and finish the painting job that I started in May. Ok, I need a little encouragement from Glenn, but it needed to be finished. If I don't do it now, before January, it really isn't going to happen!

I started with the ceiling. I swear, there is probably 800 sq ft of it. My arms were exhausted. I edged the ceiling last Saturday and rolled the entire thing on Sunday (it took me ~6 hrs to roll). I spent a little bit of time each night this past week and edged the walls and then spent another 6 hours or so this Saturday and rolled the walls. Finally today I cleaned up and put the room back together! I'm so happy to have that project finished. Only 3 more rooms to go and I will have painted the entire house.

I saved myself sometime and didn't paint the trim in this room. Mostly because I knew it would involve a lot of scraping and not something that is probably good for me or the baby. I did have to repair one section of the wall where the plaster wasn't adhering very well.

 

I came prepared for that mess.

I'm so glad to have this project finished. And the house put back together before Glenn got home. I'll post a few after pictures soon. I have the curtains done on three windows too so you will be able to see those too! Only 3 more to go!

Kitchen is painted!

So I've been stinking at this blogging thing, but I spent all 7 of the last 10 days working on the kitchen. I had to revise my plan because, well my arms couldn't handle it. After rolling the kitchen ceiling I decided to stop with ceilings and move on to the walls and trim in the kitchen. It was already a mess anyway. So now we have a nice jagged paint line between the kitchen and the dining room, but that will be fixed in phase 2. I'm guessing when Glenn comes home, that will be sooner than later!

This was my schedule last week:
Monday- edge the ceiling
Tuesday- paint the ceiling
Wednesday- scrape/prep the trim
Thursday- paint the trim (4 doors and a window plus baseboards)
Saturday- edge the walls and paint the trim again
Sunday- roll the walls
Monday- touch ups an clean up

For me, phase 2 is several weeks away!

Here is the best part though- the pics. I painted it a color called Ventana by Pratt and lambert, but I had HD color match it in Behr paint.

Did I mention that the old baseboards were BLACK under all the old paint?
Our house is a little piecemeal with old and new baseboards depending on where walls were removed and added. Who paints baseboards black? I wish I had a few before pictures from before the remodel.

It begins...

The painting project that I've been avoiding since we moved in begins tomorrow... The downstairs ceiling. We're talking over 1000 sq ft of ceiling, 9 feet in the air. Arms forgive me now. First up is the ceiling, the the trim and lastly, the walls.

I'm starting in the kitchen and working my way towards the living room. I figure it's best if I don't destroy the entire downstairs at once, but Glenn will be gone so I can live with it.

The sooner I start, the sooner I'll be done, right? Wow, this is gonna suck.

Done! (almost)

I've been painting for the last 5 days and I'm finally done! On Wednesday, I painted the ceiling and went to bed at 7:45 pm because my body was so tired. I don't plan on doing that again, ever. Well, until I muster the courage to paint downstairs.

I painted the ceiling, trim and the walls and I love it. The couch and carpet look so much better against the new wall color. I chose Sherwin Williams Halycon Green but used Benjamin Moore paint which is so dang expensive, but the store is 5 min away vs. 20 to HD so it worked this time but next time I'll stick with the H Dizzle.

Here are a few pics!

Oh and when I said almost that is because I still have to tackle the almost 20 foot stairwell and ceiling. I'll have to get the extension ladder out for that and perhaps a little supervision.

Happy Friday!

My uniform.

A job? No. Well, a job that pays nothing? Sure. I've been wearing this at least 3 days a week lately. And yes, apparently I went to bed with paint on my arm.

My new BFF

Well...painting BFF that is. Edging along the carpet is going fast! Amazeballs!

Edging

I spent an entire day edging the bedroom yesterday. Seriously, ALL day. From when Glenn left for work at 10 am until he got home at 6. I still haven't even done the baseboards or door frames yet! Yikes. My goal is to be done by the time our friends come to stay on Saturday.

I absolutely love the color though. I can't wait to be done!

Back at it...

I took the weekend off from painting, but now I'm back at it. This time it's a little more ambitious. Hopefully my new power roller comes in the mail today! That is going to help the painting go much faster I hope!

More painting: China cabinet

I think I'm going to be covered from head to toe with paint before I put down the paint brush. The painting continues!

Now I am working on the Craigslist cabinet that resides in the master bathroom.

Here's the transformation it has made so far. I'm painting it with Benjamin Moore Impervo paint in White Dove. The research I did online said that the paint dries to a hard and washable surface that I thought would be good for a bathroom. It seems to good paint so far although at $22/quart. I won't be using it for a lot of projects. And it is oil based which I hate to clean up. I primed the cabinet first in a Zinnser primer. One more coat to go and then I'll reassemble it! I've got to let it dry for a full 24 hours between coats.

This is why

I was avoiding painting the trim...

What color?

I've been avoiding painting because it is going to require repainting the trim in much of the house because the painters were terrible. The all beige is starting to get to me but even more so is the flat paint and all the marks that moving furniture and washing hands has left. There isn't any tile behind the sinks so when water splashes behind the sink, it sometimes leaves a mark. So, help me decide which color to paint the downstairs bathroom. Here is what I'm working with. Leave a comment please!

There is a small window in the shower but it is only about 12" x 24".

"New" Couch

Well, I didn't get the job that I interviewed for so....the house posts continue (cause there isn't a whole lot else going on)! Of course they would have anyway, but I was hoping for some moolah to help. Oh well, the job hunt continues. I guess I know now that the facts about military spouses having a higher unemployment rate and making less than their peers is correct. Good thing I have a supportive (financially and otherwise) hubby.

One of the main reasons I drove 6 hours in one day to IKEA and back was for a new slipcover for our sectional couch. The layout of the living room here wasn't very conducive to a sectional. Because of the doorway, it required the couch to be too close to the fireplace and with the TV above the fireplace, I felt like I was staring at the ceiling. You saw the new couch already.

We disassembled the blue sectional, crammed it up our tiny staircase and now it has a shiny white slipcover!

The white couch, white wall and white carpet are clearly in need of a little color. Hence, the paint swatches taped to the wall. I'm leaning towards the blue/green on the far right. It's a darker shade, but I think I'll only paint the vertical walls and not the angled walls. This picture shows the "Norfolk swirl" that textures every wall and ceiling (except for one wall in the living room) in the house.

Here's what you see from the other sides of the room:

Oddly enough, I think the couch makes the room feel bigger, adds some scale to the space. Last night, I folded laundry while Glenn laid in bed, it was so nice to have somewhere to sit up there.

Some paint is next, then I am thinking an upholstered headboard. Perhaps in a textured, natural fabric like the pillows with some nail head trim. I need to sign up for some coupons from Joann's before I buy that foam though. Last time I looked, it is crazy expensive!

Now we just have to figure out what to do with this section of the room. We are thinking a treadmill or maybe just a spot to do our at home workouts...which start on Monday. Eek.

Towel Hooks

These hooks used to hang next to our coat closet and held our purses and jackets, but in this house we didn't really have a place for all 3 of them. I really like them and they are surprisingly sturdy for being constructed at Hobby Lobby, but they weren't the right color for the bathroom where I was planning to use them now.

I bought a can of Lagoon colored spray paint from Home Depot as well as a jar of Metallic Glaze in Black coffee by Martha.

I liked the aged look of the red hooks so I rubbed the glaze on with a rag and then wiped more on and off til I liked it.

Then I repeated the entire process over again. Seriously. I didn't realize how easily the paint would scratch off of the metal surface so I had a few nicks where red paint was showing through after handling them a few times. 

So I repainted them blue. Reapplied the glaze and then applied 3 coats of Polycrylic spray sealant. Now hopefully they will be a little more resistant!

I think they look pretty good in the bathroom and they match my new hand towels pretty closely!