Peel and Stick

Haven’t done a laundry room update in awhile, so I thought it was probably time!

We tackled the floor last weekend!  Wooooo Hooooo!

(Also I may have discovered Instagram and forgot to take this picture with my real camera too…)

Steve has finished the mud room bench!  We brought it in (it’ll still get painted) so we could fit the tile around it.

Finally, we were ready to go.  We measured out a perfect angle in the center of the room, made our chalk lines, peeled off the cover on the back, and then got ready to stick.  Once we got started, we were on a roll!  Peel, stick, line up, stick.  Super simple.

Our favorite way to make sure they were good and stuck?  Some sweet dance moves.

We need to get the threshold and the trim in, but here’s a fairly accurate picture of the color of the floor.  It plays off of the paint fabulously.

We brought the sink in so we could get a feel for what the space will feel like.  The bench will be white and we’ll have the mudroom built up.  So far, we really love it and are excited with how well it’s coming together!!

So, once we were stuck, we needed to seal it up before we could move the washer and dryer back in.  We decided to seal to help keep the floor cleaner and keep junk from collecting in the seams between the tiles.  We bought a kit at Lowe’s, followed the directions, and it was pretty simple.  Be sure to wear a respirator mask for this, it’s REALLY stinky.  You can find it in the vinyl tile at Lowe’s.

It’s hard to see the difference, but you can see the unsealed lines on the left are white looking while the others and filled in and glossy.

The only other thing we added?  A new light fixture!  I’m kind of obsessed with it.  I love the geometric shapes of it and it provides quite a bit of light.

All in all, I’m happy with the progress we’ve made so far and can’t wait to get the mudroom section painted and installed so we can get this room wrapped up.  It looks SO much better already!

Anyone else forgotten to update their blog lately?  Play with stickers?  Stand in your laundry room and admire how pretty it is??  do tell!

Sink Hole

Last weekend, Steve and I decided we needed to get out of  town for a bit.  We headed up to Minneapolis to explore (and of course, check out Ikea).  We had a sink picked out that we were hoping would work for our laundry room.  I also had a long list of picture frames and other accessories to help get our house feeling more pulled together.

We got to Ikea and were greeted with this sight in the marketplace:

Yeah…apparently they are doing some renovating of the marketplace.  Quite the let down to this girl…so, we didn’t pick up any fun things to decorate with.  Boo.

They DID have our sink and cabinet in stock though (I checked that before we went), so we brought this lady home with us:

Our new sink love is the LILLÅNGEN from Ikea.  It has a very slim profile and as a bonus, comes with 2 hooks to hang towels on and has a small shelf inside to set hand soap on.  While we were there, we also spotted a faucet that complemented perfectly:

GRUNDTAL faucet from Ikea.

We took our purchases and headed home…where we got started with the worst part of buying ANYTHING from Ikea…

Luckily, we weren’t missing any pieces, we didn’t get in any fights, and we got it assembled in under an hour.  Win.

Here it is sitting in our laundry room.  You can see the outline of where the old sink was…this really helps you get the scale of how much smaller this is than our old sink.  We have a bit of an interesting situation since our hot and cold water pipes come up through the floor instead of out of the wall like usual, but we’re brainstorming ways around it.  Details to come once we are at the sink installation point…

Anybody else have the  LILLÅNGEN sink?  Embarking on an European/American plumbing conversions anytime soon?  Sink stories to share?  Let’s start the week off on a good note

Valentine’s Day Lite

You all know my policy by know of pre-holiday decorations purchases…however…I’ve been doing a really bad job of going after the holidays to score some clearance deals.  I was at Hob Lob this week with my sister and I could not resist picking up a few pink valentine’s decorations in anticipation.

First up —  A pink glitter heart.  I debated for a long time about this because I knew I could easily make it myself, but ultimately the “you COULD make it, but WILL you before Valentine’s day?”  The answer was no, so I spent $5.00 instead, came home and hung it on my door.  I love it so much I might just leave it up year round.

Sorry the picture is so dark…it’s absolutely never daylight here during weekday “home” hours.

Random Valentine’s Day purchase #2 — I could NOT resist a metallic hot pink frog wearing a little crown.  I am a little obsessed with him.  He’ll probably be on display year round.

He’s just hanging out on the kitchen counter for now, but I think he’ll hang out on the mantle where I can wink at him every day…you know, if I could wink.

Anyone else buy a few fantastic pink items and call it good for your Valentine’s Day decorating??  Have you been to Hob Lob to see their fantastic Valentine’s display?  I highly recommend it

The Entry Way Facelift

Sunday was Steve and my 1 year anniversary (yay!) so we’re celebrating all this week (double yay!).  Our one rule is that our celebrations could not involve any house “stuff” because we are on vacation.  Well, late last week, our painters called.  See, we had them bid to paint our inside — Entry way, ceiling, front room, ceiling, hallway, ceiling, and the living room/kitchen ceiling.  Since the weather was so nice here last week, they asked if we minded if they did it a week later.  Fine by us, so they showed up Monday to give us a belated anniversary present….a clean and fresh 1st floor!!!

Since we haven’t talked about those rooms lately, here is the foyer (from the top of the stairs) before.

After

I painted the trim on the upper window white before the painters came so I wouldn’t have to worry about being on the ladder and balancing myself.  I’m working on the trim in the rest of the 1st floor to get the same clean look.  Also, I’m seeking a replacement light fixture for our entryway….because the fresh paint makes this one look even worse!  :-)

Here was our front “sitting room” (our game room) before paint.  The color wasn’t bad, but with zero overhead lighting in this room, it was just a really really dark box.  Plus the paint was incredibly beat up.

We decided to go with the washed khaki for a uniform look for now.

View from the living room before

and after

and my favorite…the upper hallway before

and after (I also love that the dog changed….Lucy is modelling the after for you)

It was amazing to come home to this…we’re going to be back to painting our own rooms now to save $, but getting such a large chunk of our house feeling like home is truly priceless (and we didn’t want to be precariously perched trying to do the entryway ourselves anyway).  We went with the Baer Washed Kahki (that we used in our living room as well).  Is the perfect neutral for our space and really gives us that “clean slate” feeling that we’ve been going for.  I am still amazed by how much a fresh coat of paint can really do for a space!

How about you?  What’s your favorite color make-over?  I’m thinking about tackling our bedroom next and without some intervention, it’s probably going to be gray…

Happy Dance

We’re doing a happy dance over here and we can’t stop!  Why?

Our house is painted!!!  That’s right, 2+ months of blood, sweat, frustration and tears, all for our brand spankin’ new gorgeous house.  Enough talk.  More pictures.

In case you forgot…day we closed.

BAM!  There’s my gorgeous house now.  Hey hot stuff.

Want to see more?

Hum drum blah back of house before

Dis-regard the “need to be reattached fence” and the pile o’ pavers.  They are next up on the project list (as is the planting of a bigger tree than this stick).

We got some new white peaks, fresh white columns, brand new windows, and painted over the weird “fan” thing over the bedroom window.

Seriously, it so beautiful I can’t stop staring at it.  Love x 1000.

House body — Eagle Rock by Benjamin Moore
White color — I swung by the window store and got a piece of the vinyl to have color matched so all our white is the same.
Door color — Pacific Sea Teal by Baer

I am so glad it turned out!  We’re going to sleep GOOD tonight, it’s done-zo!  Next up, landscaping.   Anybody else have a gorgeous paint makeover you love?  I’m obsessed with what a good ol’ coat of paint can do!  Back out to the patio I go…more house staring for me.

I’m such a tease

We’re putting the finishing touches on the bathroom and, if I do say so myself, it looks AWESOME!  I’ll give you the full breakdown very soon, but for now, I leave with you this peek (the multitude of Engineering Textbooks are responsible for holding up the newly attached mirror)…

When is a door not a door?

…when it’s ajar!  hahaha

While we’re working on the bathroom, we have some “down time” while we are waiting for things to dry in the bathroom so I decided it was a good time to paint our 1st floor doors white.  Having never painted a door before, I headed to Lowe’s first and purchased a 4″ foam roller and tray.  I had read online that foam rollers were best to not leave streak/roller bumps.  I had a gallon of paint mixed in Behr paint + primer, color matched to Valspar Frost, semi-gloss finish.  We took off all the door knobs and hinges and then set up my door painting line in the basement.

Like the sawhorses?  The process I followed to paint the doors was pretty simple.  Before I started painting, I washed the doors down with warm vinegar water.  Once I was ready to paint, I did the outside area first, then moved to the main panels, did the detail work, and finished up with the small panels.  I used the 4″ foam roller for everything and it worked pretty slick!  I’ve ended up doing 2 coats per side, just to make sure it’s all covered.  The prior owners had small kids, so the bottom of the doors are pretty banged up.  Most of the doors have never been painted but they decided to try to paint the door that goes to the basement using a cream off white.

Here’s a bit of the new paint and the yellowish door…I can’t wait for these guys to dry to I can hang them up and see the 1st floor brighten up.

I have followed the very conservative role of one coat of paint per day.  I want to make sure it can thoroughly dry so they don’t become dinged up when I flip them over.  I am finishing my last coat tonight…more to come on my mini-door project soon!

We’re floored

While we were at Lowe’s this weekend perusing assorted bathroom items, we wandered our way to the rug aisle.  I had vaguely remembered reading this post on Decorchick’s blog.  At the time that I read it, we didn’t really need a rug and I didn’t think much of it….but in the aisle of Lowe’s, it suddenly dawned on me…our kitchen dinette (as Steve calls it) area has a pretty worn wood floor.  Refinishing it is on the agenda someday, but definitely not any time soon.  I decided to take a closer look because $17.00 for a 5×7 rug isn’t too shabby.  I couldn’t make up my mind so I grabbed 2 different designs (the only other design was a mostly brown pattern with a few flowers, it was pretty cool, but I was afraid it was too brown for our wood floor) of rug and anxiously came home to spread them out.

Steve was on team zebra the entire time, but I was thinking the green might be a nice pop of color….well, we laid them on the floor and it became quickly apparent, the zebra print just popped.

I’m loving it (I know the whole thing needs to be centered, but we have a wide walkway going on now to get the ladder and other bathroom fixing essentials through).  I think it adds a little pizzazz to our room and it makes me smile when I see it.

Lucy also loves it, she gave it the Lucy seal of approval.

Now for the details on the rug- it’s a jute rug and is a bit scratchy to walk on, but since it’s under the table, I’m not too worried.  If this was a living room rug that I would always be resting my feet on, I think I would go another way.  I was concerned that it might scratch our floor more, but the back of the rug has a very nice, anti-skid coating on it and the edges are all trimmed with fabric so it seems to be pretty sturdy and soft.  I like the look of the jute, it adds texture to our floor without competing with the carpet in the adjacent room.  $17.00 zebra rug, you are a keeper.

Little Green Globes

Every so often, I get a weird idea and it becomes my obsession until I can see it to fruition (or failure, either one, I just have to give it a go to satisfy my curiosity).   To give you a bit of background, Steve and I were married last fall, and through the process acquired a LOT of glassware (and not fancy china or anything, stuff for centerpieces). Nathanael and my sister brought us the glassware down with our gifted fridge and now it’s sitting in the corner of our basement.  I have gifted some of it to friends and family getting married and now I am left with about 10 boxes of glassware. They are all clear glass and I haven’t really known what to do with them.

On another note, I recently ordered some paint from Valspar. They were giving away free samples, and I really wanted an awesome green. The color in my head and the color that arrived on my door step are 2 different colors.  Luscious Green is not something that would EVER work on our walls.

Last night, I got a wild hair and decided to try my hand at painting some glassware. I had seen this before and just filed it somewhere in my brain…but lo and behold, last night, it came to fruition.

I headed down to the basement to pick my first “victim”. I settled on these:

They are cute and small and I have 7 of them.

The luscious green ready to decorate

So here is the process….dump in a blob of paint, roll the paint around to finely coat the inside, and then finish the top rim over the garbage so not to leak Luscious Green on the floor (which probably happened much to my husband’s dismay, but thank you easily wiped up latex paint).  The last part takes a bit because you have to do it really slow.  The important thing to note is that you can’t touch the paint in any fashion or the marks will show up.  One jar took me probably 5 minutes, so we’re really not talking about a LOT of your life…

Rolling oh so slowly and carefully

I love the opaque glossy finish the paint/glass combo gives these little globes.

In case you wanted the color info to get yourself some Luscious Green paint too!

I haven’t really decided where they will live permanently, but for now, they are hanging out on our mantle place giving our otherwise undecorated house a little bit of springy goodness.  I have SEVERAL more paint samples I will be re-purposing this way and plenty more glassware as well.  If you are new to arts and crafts, don’t worry, this is so easy anyone can do it.  Steve helped and thought it was actually pretty fun!

Cost Breakdown of this project:
7 Globes- Free (they were originally $.25 each)
Paint sample- Free
I love $0.00 projects!

Linked up here:

Introducing…our new fireplace!!

We finally wrapped up this phase of our fireplace makeover.  As a refresher…this is what we started with…
 A lot of brown/dark hues and brass…major light suck at the end of our family room.

I detailed our painting process here and now we finished up the final touches.  These touches involved painting the entire living room washed khaki (sneak peek here) and tackling the bronze accents of the fireplace.  I did a bit of research online before starting the brass painting and I sadly discovered that our fireplace does not come apart in any way shape or form that would let me take the doors outside to paint them.  So, I waited for a nice day, opened up all the windows, sprayed REALLY quick and then we all went outside to let the house air out.
Before I started the spray painting process, I literally had dreams about accidentally spray painting my newly whited fireplace black, so I made a super duper “tent of safety” to keep the black paint contained where it was supposed to be.

A few sprays of Rustoleum’s High Heat glossy black paint and we were in business.  I ended up doing 3 thin coat because the brass didn’t want to go down without a fight and I didn’t want to use primer because I didn’t have any on hand that was high heat.  As a side note…I later discovered that Rustoleum makes a high heat paint that comes in a quart size container and can be applied with a brush.  If you are reading this, thinking of painting your fireplace, and discover yours will also not come apart, I recommend going the brush/painting on method as opposed to the spray paint.  Guess our Lowe’s was running low when I was there otherwise I probably could have saved a bit of trouble, but then, what fun would this be??

Anyway, I crossed my fingers as I peel off the tape and plastic…
WOW!  I love it already….and no black paint on the white, WHEW!
And here is a look with the tarp removed, the bookshelf arranging in progress and the washed khaki over the fireplace.  I am LOVING this…all my doubts and hesitations have been washed away.  Our new fireplace is awesome.

Long term we’re also planning to get a tv that can mount over the fireplace (to make the layout of our room make sense), do something to lighten up the back of the bookshelves, and replace the fake log insert with some awesome fire glass.  All in good time, but for now, our mini-makeover is complete.

One more look (with a sneak peek of what I’m working on tonight)!

I’m linking up with Shabby Chic Cottage today!