Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts

The Best Painting Tools, Say Us

This post is a long time coming; one I should have written a very long time ago.  (Thank you Rebecca, for helping me realize it!)  We've painted a room, or a hundred, and we've pretty much got painting down to a science.  But the science of it all doesn't add up if you don't have the right tools.  That's how it goes, right?  The right tools will help you succeed!  #communitycollegeslogan

I didn't know the first thing about painting an interior room growing up (and neither did Anthony).  My dad made my siblings and I scrape and repaint our white farmhouse when I was ehh, maybe middle to high school somewhere (I hated it so much I must've blocked out the time frame) and that's the most painting I did until we bought our first house and dove headfirst into changing the color of 90% of the walls in the house...and then 100% of the walls in our second house, 100% of those in our rental, and now what will eventually be the walls (and ceilings!) in this house.


All that's to say, you don't actually have to have any experience in painting to start.  It's not that hard!  Yes, it takes a little bit of time and effort but as far as I'm concerned, the time you spend is money saved and the effort counts as a workout.  Win, win.  :D


So, without further ado, these are our tried-and-true, all-time favorite painting tools.  We've used all of them for quite a while, so there aren't any newbies here.  Just oldies and goodies.  ;)  

Removing Popcorn Ceilings - How We Did It

Popcorn ceilings!  It only took me forever to write about these but hey, the post is here and maybe you care and maybe you’ll just move on but either way, let’s talk all about them!  Specifically, let’s talk about getting rid of them!


It only took us three weeks of plugging away but our new house has 2300 square feet of smooth ceilings to add to it’s resume.  I’m going to tell you all about how we went from popcorn to smooth but first, let’s do a quick Popcorn Ceilings 101. 


What are popcorn ceilings? 

A travesty, that’s what.  Hehe…kidding.  They’re not really that bad and some people probably like them way more than we do and that’s a-ok.  To each his own, right?  Right.  Popcorn ceiling refers to the popcorn-like/cottage cheese texture that some ceilings are covered with, especially in houses built in the 70’s, 80’s, beyond.  Really, they just look like someone sprayed a mixture of teeny-tiny pieces of popcorn stirred up into thick chalk paint up onto the ceiling.


Apparently they have functional value in that they up the acoustics of a room – they make sound stop in it’s tracks and not bounce all over the place (though I can’t say that smooth ceilings really make sound in a room louder).  They are also somewhat of a short cut on the building-of-the-house side in that ceilings don’t have to be “finished” quite as much as walls if they’re just going to get sprayed with popcorn texture.  It covers a multitude of drywall imperfections and we. would. know.  We recently finished (well, almost) making amends with those imperfections and THAT will be a whole ‘nother post.

Why get rid of them? 

Well, there’s nothing super bad about them.  Aesthetically, they’re just not the most pleasing.  The texture creates lots of shadows on the ceiling which in turn makes a room darker.  Light just kind of hits them and stops instead of bouncing off them to what’s below, like it does on smooth ceilings.  They’re also great at holding onto dust and cob webs AND they can harbor allegens.  Oh, and cigarette smoke (lots of fingers pointing to our ceilings).  Let’s not forget about that.  Awesome, right?  But, here’s the thing, they’re almost impossible to clean.  Any amount of light scrubbing or on-contact vacuuming will most likely ruin them/create a ruined spot.  You can attempt to fix spots but getting them to match the original is no easy task.  The main reason that we are getting rid of ours (followed by aesthetics in a v v v close second) is because the previous owner of our home smoked inside and they were stained and held in that ashtray smell.  Case in point, our master bedroom:

How do you get rid of them?

First of all and VERY importantly, if your home was built prior to 1980, your popcorn ceilings might be made with asbestos.  Make sure you check first (you can buy test kits like this one* that note a lab fee) because if they are made with asbestos, you’ll have to leave the removal to a pro or learn to live with them.

You can have them professionally scraped and removed…but it’ll cost ya.  We looked into this in our old house because the popcorn ceiling in our kitchen was discolored and we wanted to remedy that before we put it on the market.  It was sort of a fiasco but in a nutshell, we tried to paint the popcorn, it started falling off with every roll of the paint, and in a panic, I called a local drywall specialist to see how much it would cost to have them removed.  He quoted me $3/square foot so almost $600 for just our kitchen and dining nook.  Ouch.  We ended up scraping what we could and then spraying a knock-down texture instead so we solved our dilemma but, just so you have an idea of pricing, our house is around 2400 square feet so we’d pay $7200 to have our popcorn ceilings removed down to those smooth beauties.  Not a handful of change by any means and in our case, not worth the cash when we knew we could try it ourselves…with success, I might add.  ;)  Cha-ching…in our pockets.
Which leads me to option numero dos – scraping them off yourselves.  I’ll be honest, it’s not nearly as bad as I thought.  I’ll get more into that later.

You can also just cover them up.  Cindy did that with hers and the planks add a lot of character to her space.  (Spoiler alert, we have some covering up plans for the bathroom that had painted popcorn.  I’m dreaming of geometric tiles.)

Another option is to spray or have a professional spray them to create a knock-down texture look.  My sister and her hubby had this done to their entire home and it cost them a small fraction of the cost it would have been to get them scraped.

Let’s get to the fun part though, shall we?  DIYing those ceilings off.  :D


Tiny, Tiny Home

Hey friend!  So, uh, yeah.  I know.  I’m supposed to be revealing the kids’ room.  That’s what you should be reading right now.  But you’re not.  I gave a short explanation over on Instagram the other day but if you missed that, basically, I ordered something for their room a month ago, got an email it was shipped from Virginia (or at least that a shipping label had been created) on October 30th, and that still have not yet received it.  I know I could just go ahead and share the final result but that thing is going to be a part of a big piece of design in the room and I just can’t show the room without it.  Sorry!  Hopefully when I get the reveal up and can explain a little further, you’ll understand.  I’ve since ordered from another company (and just got a shipping notification yesterday!) after contacting the first company multiple times without a response.  SO, the silver lining in this little mess is that the new thing will be here by mid-week and a reveal will be up on the blog by week’s end.  Huzzah!  Look for it!

I know I missed the deadline for the big One Room Challenge reveal but I’m not too sad about it.  I wasn’t in it for recognition or blog fame so there’s nothing lost in the delay and only a cute kids room gained in a six-week motivational scoot to a finish line.

Enough about that though, how about this little house?!IMG_7112

I had been very casually hunting for a dollhouse for the girls for the past year or so and, while the four kids and I were traipsing through a local thrift store here at the end of the summer, our eyes beheld this little house and it’s fine $15 price tag.  It was in great condition besides being a little dusty and VERY heavy.  Phew!   

Oh, and a little too frilly.  I realize that someone once painted this sweet little thing for some little person they loved and you can tell that A LOT of love and elbow grease went into it.  But, all of that love came in the form of lots of scrolls and sponge paint and that’s just not my language.  So, I changed things up a little.

Yarn Art

Last, but not the least tweak in the living room, and over in that back door corner is a little yarn art.  I’ve seen these made on Pinterest a hundred times but took a notes from Andrea at Harlow & Thistle to make my very own. 

For a little bit, I struggled with what to hang on that door.  Since it got painted white and kind of blends in with the wall, which is great, I still liked the idea of adding some sort of wreath or hanging decor.  It had to be fairly simple and I didn’t want anything floral.  I didn’t want to add any holes to the door so it also had to be something light enough to hang from one of these magnetic hooks*.

IMG_9108

I know you can find this tutorial a thousand times over elsewhere, but hey, “Here I go again on my own...” 

Body Spray to Floating Vase

Within in the past several years, our family has become an avid recycling family.  Reading statistics relating to plastic waste plus facts on rates of decomposition plus knowing our kids will inherit our waste as a nation and world have made moved us to try our best to not contribute to the throw-away society we’ve created.  We recycle every single piece of plastic (paper and everything else…) we possibly can after we use them and, when I remember, I try to use reusable shopping bags.  Every little bit helps, right?  :)

So, when I came up with a solution to fill that little piece of empty wall space above our security system keypad and next to the new, framed picture of Christ that involved recycling something used and that was FREE (in that I didn’t have to go out and buy anything), I counted myself in.

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Over the years, I’ve accumulated quite a few bottles of body spray from here and there. 

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After I emptied one recently, I realized it had a ton of decor potential…more than it had just sitting in our recycling bin.

Drumroll please…

DIY Spice Rack

Let’s spice things up around here, huh?  Literally.  We’re diving into spice rack details today.  I keep calling our new spice rack a ‘rack’ but really, I should be calling them spice shelves.

My entire, home-owning existence, I’ve always stored our spices in an upper cabinet right next to the stove.  It was habit and because, usually, I was at the stove when I needed them so it just made sense.  In this little rental though, we only have one, quite narrow upper cabinet next to the stove and it’s stocked full of other things that I usually keep near the stove – large salt and pepper refill containers, corn starch, cocoa powder…basically all of our cooking and baking dry ingredients.  There’s zero room for spices.  So into a basket on top of the microwave on the opposite wall they went.  Not ideal.  Therefore, putting up this pair of spice shelves was gloriously satisfying.  For one, I can see all of our spices without having to move any around and two, they’re within arms reach when I need them.   

Another really great thing about these spice shelves is that you only need a handful of easily attainable and easy to use supplies to build them.  I still haven’t mastered using any of our big power tools so Anthony is always holding those reigns during any of our building projects, but this one I did all by myself.  It’s that easy.  Here’s what I used:

diy spice shelves

Subway Tile Wallpaper


ORC
It’s week FOUR of the One Room Challenge and that means that I’ve been working solely on this kitchen for five whole weeks.  Maybe that doesn’t sound crazy to you but I’m a jumper – I jump from room to room with projects and never spend more than a week or two in one so this is kind of a big deal for me.  While it feels so good to have an entire room almost finished, I have to admit, I’ve been feeling a little antsy and am excited to move into other rooms.  One more week…

One more week for me and for all of the other featured designers and guest participants.  I’m really excited to see all of those final reveals!  I have a date with an ice cream bowl and a studying husband to sit and browse one night next week!  :D

This week in our kitchen, I brought the boring backplash to life.  When I say “backsplash” what I really mean was a four-inch countertop lip and a painted wall.

IMG_7897This was taken in the midst of painting upper cabinets a few weeks ago.

Here we are today:

DIY Pot Rack from Towel Bars

You say pot, I say rack…

pot…

pot…

YES!  That’s it!  Let’s get excited over here!  We are the proud owners of a neeeewwww pot rack!

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Having a pot rack hanging on our kitchen wall wasn’t something either of us has ever desired.  But then enter small kitchen, very little lower cabinet space and oh, looky here, a big empty wall.emptywall

Ikea Mackapar Hack

I’m baaaaack!!  But still not unpacked.  Ack.  It’s ok though because we’ve done a hack and hung a rack.  So hopefully you’ll give me a little slack. 

Ok, ok, I’ll stop before you feel like you wanna whack me.  ;)  The girls and I have been doing rhyming in homeschool…

Ahem…

We have a situation.  Our back door is our most used door and therefore, where we keep all of our most-used shoes…haphazardly (usually) set on this little shelf (previously a bookshelf in Sebastian’s old room).IMG_7269

It looked a mess because it was kind of a mess.  Our closets are small and lack space for lots of shoes plus I like the idea of shoes being near a door for easy access so this was our situation.  I feel like entry ways should always be clean and uncluttered since they’re the first things you walk into when you come home.  They could make or break a mood, ya know?  When ours is cluttered and messy, it really makes me happy to be home.  So inviting.  Like, welcome home to your peaceful abode…ooh!  Watch out for that little shoe!  *trip and an ankle twist*  Ok, so maybe I’m being a little too dramatic but really, first impressions do count, right?  That can somehow apply here.

Anyway, the wall next to the door was begging to be a functional one so we had to come up with something.Image-1 (4)

Ripped Off

Hey y’all!  I have been spending all of my allocated blogging time (which translates to post bedtime once in awhile) fixing all of the links on my Projects & Ideas page!  I haven’t changed anything…just fixed the links after a technological error and user agreement change on behalf of Photobucket (don’t ever use them Baring teeth smile), but it has taken me hours and hours here and there to get them all up and running again.  Phew!  I still have a few to fix and they’ll eventually find their conclusion but I wanted to pop in quick with a tiny story and tutorial before I get back at the virtual housekeeping.  :)

I’ve been trying to up my collection of dresses recently, on a budget of course, and so you can imagine my delight when I found this shift at Dirt Cheap for $10:  IMG_6856
It adds a little pizzazz to my winter white skin and ashy knees, doesn’t it?  And the pink elastic around my wrist set for Phia’s noggin’ was the perfect accessory.  Clearly, I was made to be a fashion blogger.  A n y w a y, the dress hails originally from Target (the brand is A New Day) but it doesn’t look like they sell it there anymore.  If you likey too, you can find it here on Blinq (for $10!…though I’ve never shopped there before) and I found some ‘used’ on Poshmark but they’re almost retail price.  #dumb

Well, all was great until I slipped mine on for church one morning and noticed a big rip…right in front. 

DIY Fur Infinty Scarf

I have to give myself a reality climate check every fall down here in the South.  It’s something like - H E Y, I know everyone and their cousin is posting pixels filled with spiced lattes and covered toes but you live down where it’s still, not technically, but actually summer.  The humidity is still here to slap you in the face upon the exit of any a/c-filled abode and building and, your deoderant, yeah, it’s still working overtime.  You’d think I’d be used to it by now but no, no, no.  I actually grew up in the midwest where fall really feels like fall and summer stays back in summer.  But, I’m not complaining.  Sure, I miss the snow but I don’t miss the months on top of months of it and it’s great to not have to dress the kids up with 75 layers and then their Halloween costumes every year…you know, so they can actually go out as a little butterfly without looking like a stuffed butterfly. 

Anyway, the past couple of weeks have seen a little bit of chilly weather (chilly as in under 70) and so I jumped at the chance to finish a little project had started last fall…and by started I mean, I pulled out the fabric one day, threw up an Instastory about it and then never got around to moving it to my sewing machine.  But, with Gianna and Sebastian doing their synchronized napping thing, I was able to whip this up in a half hour and get the regularly scheduled homeschooling in with the twins one day last week.  #werkit 

Without further chatter, let me introduce my new, faux fur, infinity scarf:

IMG_6217jacket:  hand-me-down, altered // similar
button-down:  Target via Dirt Cheap // similar
jeans:  Old Navy (I heard great things about the Rockstar Built-In Sculpt jeans from ON last year and was so excited to try a pair but when I did, I was sadly disappointed.  I felt like they smashed my rear end down and were really uncomfortable.  Darn.  When I returned them, I tried their Rockstar Super Skinnies instead and LOVE them!)
wedge booties:  eBay // Amazon (I bought mine new off eBay three years ago and they are still going strong.  They’re really comfortable too!)
 

Want to make a fur scarf of your very own?  You know you do!  And guess what?  You could hand sew one in under an hour, maybe even in under a half hour.

End Table to Planter–DIY

My last post dove into my most recent thrift store excursion, as you might’ve read, and I noted somewhere in there that I had walked out with only one thing that day.  This was that one thing:planter (3)
Only it didn’t look like that as I walked out the doors of Goodwill that day. planter2 (2)

Marble Tray ~ DIY

It’s going to get real original over here today yo.  I’m not the first and I definitely won’t be the last to type about marble contact paper.  There are a myriad of pinned projects using just the stuff and mine will be just another to add to the collection.  There are a huge basketful of bloggers and DIYers who have written/talked about using the stuff and so I’ll just add my voice to the queue.  BUT, I betcha that of all the marbled contact paper projects you find out there, mine will roll in as the cheapest.  Not bragging…that’s just the fact.  You know how I do.  ;)

Internet, meet marble contact paper project…again.IMG_5576

Distressed Chandelier Diy

When we moved into our second house, one of the first things we replaced (if not the very first thing) was the chandelier in the dining nook.
dining b4
Before we moved in.

The existing one wasn’t an electrical light but a candelabra-type thing and, as romantic as daily candlelit dinners sounded, we prefered the 21st century and a little light if we needed to wander into the kitchen at midnight.  Thankfully and in line with our hopes, there was electrical running to the box from which the candelabra hung so we grabbed a brushed nickel, $70 chandelier online, said “let there be light”, and whoop, there it was. 
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We didn’t put much thought into its style at the time because we just desperately wanted something electrical, something that jived with the metals in the kitchen, and something that wouldn’t break the bank so, later down the road, I started dreaming of something prettier.

DIY Grommeted Curtains

Hallelujah!  I got to do something “fun” whilst getting ready for this sell-our-house thing!  I’m tired of painting the kitchen ceiling, touching up loads and loads of trim paint, cautioning the kids against touching anything (“Do NOT drag your toys along the walls pleeeeease!!!”), washing siding and trim, etc…

I got to make curtains!IMG_8717


If you’ve been a long-time reader, you might remember that once upon a time, I scored a long curtain rod at Dirt Cheap and flanked our living room’s french doors with some long curtains to make the room feel more “homey”, as I put it.  I started out with some sheers and then later made some tan and white, geometric-printed curtains that I loved for a long time.  Well, I wanted a change in pattern so I sold those and found some plain white, thick fabric remnants that I thought would be a perfect medium to do knock-off these curtains from West Elm with…but then I decided that I wanted the curtains to be more subtle and blend into the walls a little more so I just kept them white.  There’s still a chance they’ll look like those West Elm curtains someday but right now, I am loving them as-is.  Phew.  That all sounded like a mind-making disaster, didn’t it?  If you’re looking for someone to pick a design and stick with it, don’t look here.  The winds of change blow quite frequently in this casa. 

The parts I love the most though, are the grommets at the top.  I’ve always used rings to hang curtains because it was the easiest to just sew a big rectangle and hang it up.  But then a good friend of mine put grommets at the top of her living room curtains and told me how easy it was and I just had to.  I mean, look at how they fall!  I toyed with them a little before I took pictures but really, for the most part, the grommets create those big folds that go from top to bottom and they hold them there.

I bought these grommets at Walmart.  They’re the exact same grommets sold at the fabric stores I looked at, only without the coupon mark-up (I’m convinced stores that always have running coupons mark their items up…these are $12.99 at JoAnn Fabrics.)  You can also find them for a little bit more on Amazon.   

So, let me tell you my grommet story.  It’s so easy.  You’ve gotta make some grommeted curtains.

Wrapping Paper Mat

Are you sick of me writing about a juvenile bathroom yet?  (I’m pretending that was a nonchalant, no…color me oblivious.)  Oh good.  Because there’s more.  I’d fill in space between these bathroom posts with something oh, I don’t know, not about a bathroom but one, two, three, four kids and they all nap at different times these days so, no.  Not happening.  Bigger fish are not being fried here…at least not right now.

Back to the subject matter though…

You might’ve read about the kids’ bathroom mini-overhaul, specifically everything that went on on the right side of the room but now let’s slide on over to the left side.  Here’s what it looked like after a fresh coat of paint several years back (the lighting and poor photography make it look worse than it actually did):Picture 003


And here it is now:
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West Elm Knock-Off Rug

I was set on a black & white rug to set down in the kids’ bathroom.  Black & white screams “gender neutral” to me and since I needed all of that I could get in this little bathroom for two girls and a boy, that’s the direction I was headed.

Enter this little thing:
IMG_8655Not black and white (even though it could argue the gender neutral case pretty well) but a great path to getting there since the other side was a blank slate.  You probably read the post about this rug and how I sewed, cut, and frayed the edges to get fringe. 

Now enter the Torres Kilim from West Elm…aka, my inspiration.
torres-wool-kilim-iron-oI saw it first on an episode of Fixer Upper and knew it would be super easy to imitate since the lines are perfectly imperfect.  Rug.  Kids’ bathroom.  Now.

Bow Whoa Whoa

Once upon Sunday, minutes before church, we were rushing to get out the door and I had the girls dressed in the cutest of outfits that would be best topped off with a pretty little bow on their pretty little heads.  The problem?  We had no bows.  I don’t know about you but you might know this about me…I work pretty well under pressure.  Actually, that’s when a lot of my out-of-the-box ideas come loose.  So, with seconds to spare, I remembered I had some scraps of felt laying on my desk.  With a little snip here, a little snip there, a twist here, and a tuck there, we had bows. 

Lemme explain in pictures…

You’ve got a little piece of felt:
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Raise the Living

I’ve been trying to add more plants to our house…I’ve probably mentioned that before.  Luckily, they melt right in as easy decor so you really can’t go wrong with placement or type or anything like that.  I don’t know if it’s just in the past few years or if it’s always been this way and I’ve just never noticed, but I don’t think there’s a picture in any popular home decor mag or blog these days that doesn’t have a plant in it.  Aka, it’s super popular to have plants growing in your casa in the twenty teens.  But, that’s not the main reason why I’m sneaking them in to our house.  Anthony, who has always been against plants in the house (because he thinks they attract bugs…is he right?  idk) all of a sudden changed his mind when he read an article about how they filter and clean the air in your home.  I love the natural look plants bring to a space so you can bet your booty I grabbed a few to bring home as quick as I could after his change of heart.  Certain plants clean your air more than others so I’ve been trying to be very intentional about the plants I buy – I really only want those that clean the air the most.  The big Peace Lily we have is one of those plants.  In the past few months, it’s been playing musical room, going from the kitchen to the laundry room and now to our bedroom – all rooms that get a good amount of natural light.  I think it’s parked in our room for good though and I’m popping in today to show you exactly what it’s parked in.

Several months ago, I came across a couple of big planters at Goodwill.  You could tell they were pretty old and had been well loved by the plants that had once inhabited them but, well, they were stuck together.  Like, one was nestled tightly and seemingly-permanently into the other.  But, they were both marked at $1.99.  I didn’t feel like paying for two planters (even if they were cheap) if I coudn’t get them apart though.  So, I pulled and wiggled and wiggled and pulled and even had a strong male employee try for me but the planters looked like they were stuck for good.  Thankfully, Goodwill let me pay for one even though I got two, since we both figured I’d have to break one to end up with one.  And then, I got home and my amazing, incredible, fantastic, what-a-guy husband separated the two planters without breakage!  Huzzah! 

You can kind of see one of the planters in this Instagram shot and here is the other:    IMG_2957


This is after I cleaned it – it had some sort of grainy film on it that I had to painstakingly scrub off – but before I used up some old spray paint to liven it up a little.  I thought I took pictures of the process but they are nowhere to be found.  Basically, I painted everything but that little indented part on the bottom navy blue (Krylon), taped off the bottom of that big top part, and then painted that indented part on the bottom gold (Rust Oleum).  You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

Going Deeper

Updating the hardware on cabinetry makes the biggest difference in the world.  It’s kind of amazing how something so seemingly small can make such a big impact but the truth is, it does.  We learned that when we recently swapped out the drawer pulls in our kitchen for some more modern ones and we learned it again with those in our bathroom a couple of weeks ago.   
 
The existing drawer pulls had 1973 stamped on the back of them so, vintage.  Good vintage?  I don’t think so.  Back when we painted our vanity, I gave them and the door hinges a coat of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint to hide the dirty bronze they were. 

Here’s an  old picture with a better view of the vintage things:
sep242011 001