Mini-me

So, hopefully if you have been reading my blog, you will remember this little guy:

There he is, my best helper, showing off his snacks during the bathroom painting project. He actually is a good helper and also has tons of enthusiasm for all of the projects we do around the house. Hardware store? "Let's go, Mama!" Garden store? "Can bring my big truck?" IKEA? Check. Fabric store? Of course....although I think my husband is suspect about that. We do buy crafts, too!

I snapped a picture I thought it'd be fun to share. The first pic shows the paint colors in Charlie's room. I am planning to take some pictures of his room and post about it...since it is one of the fully-done rooms in the house!

Well, we recently went the paint store to pick out paint chips of paint for the dining room. Charlie picked out some that he liked. I didn't really know what happened to them until I saw this:

Hilarious....cracked me UP! I really need to ask what the numbers are for! They do seem to be the same colors as the Bengals. A little man after my own heart...

A walk on the wild side

Well, sort of....I have to admit to myself that the paint color I chose for the hall bathroom upstairs is a bit of a departure for me! I tend to choose rich colors, so this color fits that description. However, the warmest color I have used to date has been a warm goldenrod.

Our upstairs bath has tile that is so-so for me....it has a bit of a peach undertone to it. I don't love it, but it's workable. I was pondering paint colors and I noticed that the shower curtain I have is a warmer beige and cream stripe. It got me thinking....terra cotta!

Without further ado, here are some pics. Before....maybe you feel like you are living in a mental institution...?

Check out the mirror-next-to-mirror action.

Getting prepped. The truck helped transport things.

Our new light fixture! The old one was one of the chrome-with-three-round-bulb jobbies. I especially like how this one warms up the CFL bulbs in there.

You will notice we took down the builder's mirror and there is no mirror! I am on the lookout for one and am weighing my options.

I like this new hook rail. One of my big pet peeves is messy hanging towels. This fixes that problem and my son can hang his own towel now.

We also have a plum colored rug on the floor. I do have a few other small enhancements to consider, but I am pleased with the progress so far! At first, I felt like the color was almost fluorescent....! Now that all of the things put back in the bathroom, it has tempered a bit and now it reminds me a little of a terra cotta flowerpot...which is nice.

Jewelry Box Redo

Several years ago, my mom gave me an old jewelry box of hers. I used to keep it on a tall dresser.  Here it is...

My mom and dad were high school sweethearts and my dad gave it to my mom when they were dating. Awww....: )

Since our bedroom furniture is white, I decided to give it a face lift. I was also inspired by the scratch you see on the front of the box, along with the price of pretty jewelry boxes in catalogs. Yikes!

I roughed it up with sandpaper.

Then we painted it. The smallish hand you see is Charlie's. Such a good helper.

I used a teeny-tiny brush to get around the handles.



After all of the white paint went on, I used the same brush to paint the handles a silvery color. All of the paint was acrylic paint I got at the craft store. The white is Antique White and the silvery color is called Silver Sage.

And here she is....

Not only does it look great, but I am really excited about a plethora of new jewelry storage space! I have been working on some more jewelry organization methods and this is helping A LOT. I'll share my other items here soon. Bathroom paint pics also on the way. It sure is hard to keep up with a blog when you don't have all of those snow days to while away...; )

Paint sample tryout

Last week on our second snow day, Charlie and I painted the hall bathroom upstairs. I am trying to make a dent in our "all off-white with a peach" undertone house. I do appreciate that it was neutral when we bought this house, but it does give me the feeling that I might be living in a mental institution.

I think we've come a long way with color in the years since Freddie and I have married. In our condo, everything was painted a warm beige.  It was an improvement over builder paint white. Quote from that era, "Why can't we have just white walls?"  See above.

In our last house, I used much more color. I also took my painting skills to the next level, since I painted the whole condo and 90% of our old house.  The only room unpainted was the laundry room....I had a color picked out, but then we moved.

So, that brings us to our current residence. I like to try to get the downstairs finished first, then take my time with the upstairs. I will soon share pics of our bathroom, but in the meantime, I tried out these new paint samples from Home Depot. I can't post a pic of the actual container....since I can't find the digital camera right now! 

These are the samples on the wall:

As you can see, I am thinking of lighter grey on top of the chair rail with a darker grey on the bottom...and might add a stencil from this site: http://www.cuttingedgestencils.com/
My one reservation is that the grey and the dark wood furniture go together....?

Do you ever get that feeling, while painting, of, "Maybe this color isn't going to turn out how I wanted....?" I think these samples help a lot with this problem! For a serious project, buying a quart of paint is not a bad idea....but I am not about to buy a quart plus a whole gallon to paint the bathroom!

Encore, encore!

We ended up with two more snow days this week...needless to say, I have not sqaundered them this time around. LOTS of projects going on in the last few days, so I will have tons to share! 

However, I was so happy to see that my Christmas cactus plant is making a bit of an encore with some unexpected late blooms!

You can see a tiny bit of the stamen at the lower right-hand side of the flower.  So interesting that it is fuschia (which by the way, is a fancy way of saying "purple," according to Fancy Nancy)!

When a plant blooms only once a year, you'd better enjoy it when it does! It reminds me of lilacs and peonies, which are like that. Some would say it's not worth it, but I think it makes it all the more special. This growing season, I am planning to start landscaping the backyard a bit to add some color and interest, as well as to screen out some of our neighbors' decks! I would love one of the big lilacs and about 5-6 peonies--enough so I can cut a bouquet and not have it show from the plants.  : ) 

Last...just so you know, you are supposed to put ONLY one space between sentences, not two (as I was taught in HS). I have been working on this to appease my grammar Nazi husband. He should also note that I used "only" properly twice in this post. Xox to you, Freddie.

My very first one

Recently, I tried my hand at making a valance. This was new to me, so I had been apprehensive about it, but I am pretty pleased with how it turned out!

I did have a few challenges with which to contend. Our bookshelves stick out in front of the window a few inches, so whatever I made was going to have to be THIN. 

It was a process to choose the right fabric. I brought some choices home and Freddie didn't like them, so I had to go back. After narrowing down my next round of choices, we decided on a striped fabric that picks up the paint on the wall quite well.

I bought some really thin wood at the hardware store and it was inexpensive. The nice man there cut it right to size for me--I do feel I get better service at this particular store since the men there probably think I don't know what I'm doing or talking about! My helper and I also bought two packs of hangers to attach to the back.

I also had bought 2.5 yards of fabric and some thin quilt batting. My biggest fear was that the wood would be too thin and the staple gun would go through the fabric on the other side.

On to the pictures....I laid out the batting and my helpers began rolling around and playing on it.

I cut the batting first (not sure why), but then I laid the fabric underneath and cut it about 2-3 inches from the edges. Then, Charlie and I used a staple gun to attach the fabric. I tried to keep the staples from going all the way through by holding the staple gun up a little bit before pulling the handle. I also tried to be careful to keep the stripes even on the sides.

Charlie and Annie adding the hangers on the back. This was Annie's first time helping!



Here is the finished product on the window.



You can see from this picture where the shelves stick out and I had to slide the valance in there.  There is another one on the other window! 

Not bad for the first time!  Today is another snow day here, so we start another window project today.  It reminds me of this time last year--we assembled all of those shelves you see in the pic above on SNOW DAYS.  : )

Two!

We had a very successful 2nd birthday party yesterday for Sweetie. Here are some pics! Our theme was pink and two.

 

And here is the birthday girl with her cupcake:


No school today for MLK....I am going to the hardware store to pick up some paint samples!