Seeing Red

  Our powder room has been a thorn in my side, for a few years now, because of the unsettling red.  No offense to the spouse, he picked it and I really was too busy being pregnant for 3 straight years to care!  Fast forward to the present,  on the mornings that I have to work, I get ready in there to avoid waking up any of the offspring!  Because it was red, I literally could not see what the heck I was doing!

 

In keeping with my theme of "using what ya got," I had some leftover paint from the family room and used that. 

 

 

Oooooh! Lookin' better already!

 

But, I am not the best painter, I'll admit that.  So when it came to the wall-meets-ceiling edge, I decided to put up some crown molding, rather than worry about a straight edge.  Sounds easy right?  I mean, I've cut the angles for crown on furniture, how hard can it be for the ceiling?  Not so.  It's worse.  So off to Lowe's for corner blocks, (I really don't care if you think I cheated) it looks cute I might add!  I won't pretend to be some "crown molding expert," it's a whole different scene than adding it to a piece of furniture.  Tips for the first time installer:

 

-Put the corners in first. I used Liquid Nails and white finishing nails to keep them up while the liquid adhered.

 

-measure the space in between, be sure to do each wall separately, even a square room isn't perfectly square! I only have a miter box to cut the trim with, it does the job.

 

 

-I applied a small amount of Liquid Nails to the molding, as well, and tacked it up

 

-I let this dry for a day, only because I had to work! 

 

-Using painter's calk, I filled in the cracks, gaps, and nail holes. 
 

 

 

Happy so far, but I need to finish sanding and painting the trim next, and then the fun part: new accessories!

 

Check back on that one!

How To: Longer Legs (on a bench that is)



I bought a storage bench from Overstock, that I intended to use in the dining room for additional seating.  (You can cram 4 kids across that thing!)  However, it came up a little short, and all of the little people couldn't really reach the table.

 

Source

See?  Stubby legs.

I filled it up with table linens and candles, all of the junk in the dining room that I had no room for, and forgot how useless it was.  Until I was browsing around the home improvement store and stumbled upon these...

 Longer, leaner legs...

and the hardware to screw them into

I unscrewed the old legs, took the new ones outback and sprayed them black, while they dried I did this:

 Screw on the hardware

 Screwed in the new legs when they dried, I added these rubber anti skid pads, so that the bench doesn't ski all over the dining room.

Now when we need it, we can just pull it up to the table.

Updated Hardware for Lucy

 

Our huge china cabinet, a.k.a. Lucy, (for the elephant- it's a Jersey thing, ok, click here if you feel left out) anyway, it needed updated hardware.  I bought this thing for a steal at Restore, the Habitat For Humanity store, before the blogging days and didn't take any pictures of the "before."  It was gold, solid gold, like the 70's.  So horrible. 

This isn't mine but it's similar

source

 

 When it came home (behind the spouse's back, I might add), he was not happy. I think he was even a little mad. He didn't have my vision of this beaut in our dining room.  

 

I spray painted it a greyish taupe and glazed it with a dark brown, I knew it would be okay!  The spouse did not, until we put in the wood floors, now he actually admitted that he likes it.  I posted my cabinet addiction here, and have finally taken the time to find new drawer pulls for this elephant. The problem was (yes, with me there's always a problem) they were not standard sizes.  So being the impatient person I am, I wasn't willing to wait for pulls to be shipped, so I bought stock hardware at The H.D.  I had to drill new holes and filled the old ones in with wood putty.  Yes, it was easy and anyone can do this, I promise.

Remove the seventies pulls and knobs 

 

Mark where your new pull will go

 

Drill the new holes

 

Use wood filler to fill in the old hole 

 

Wipe off the putty, immediately, just trust me on this one!

 

 



The old upper knobs

 

 New ones, I had to sand down where the old one was,

see the imprint?

 

 

 

 

So here it is with a smidge of modern flair, that's really not that noticeable, but makes a big difference up close. I really want to paint it a color now, but as for the spouse... I don't think he's on board with that!

 



Petite Gallery Wall

 

 

 

I've never been a huge artwork fan.  I like something that has meaning, and in my house, that's pretty much just kid projects. 

 

See?

 

 

The only true wall in the living room needed a focal point, and I can respect the ever-popular, botanical print gallery walls, but I am just not that into plants, here's proof

 (this stick, used to be a topiary tree, a mere two weeks ago)

 

anyway, I wanted something I could change seasonally. I remembered one of the bajillion things I had pinned on my  "ideas for later" board on Pinterest, and forgot about. (what else is new) It was a link to the New York Public Library Digital Collection and it is a huge collection of images.  This link has a ton of pictures and you can just type in the search box for what you are looking for.  I was searching for something summery, corals and sea grass.  With this in mind, I bought some frames and it was my lucky shopper day, they were on clearance for $4!! Now, the Pinterest link says "free prints" but I'm sure there's a copyright...so

 

I'm not suggesting that you should right click the image you choose, copy it to your pictures file of your computer, print it out, and frame it.  Now, if a certain person were to do this, that would be okay, I guess...right?  If that person did this, it might look something like this...

 

summery prints that look like scientific specimen sketches 

 

 

$4.00 square matted frames (oh yeah!)

 

 

Use a glue stick to keep them in place. 

 

 

Done! 

 

Hang 'em up, oh and I used this $14 Target clearance mirror as the center of this petite gallery wall. (Always, always check the end caps at Target) 

 

Not bad for thirty bucks!!

 



Silhouette Wall DIY: an addition and step by step update

I originally posted the simple silhouettes I did of my kids, pictured below, but didn't provide pictures of the steps, and since the offspring have been asking why I haven't done one of Vince, I decided to make everyone happy, and provide pics of just how easy this is. 

Take a picture of your subject...here's the fine specimen, our dog Vince...

Print this picture on plain paper

Use a glue stick to temporarily attach it to black construction paper, then cut out the picture.  I cut the picture first, but you can skip that step and cut them together.  Take your time, every little ridge shows. I purposely cut around his lash because it looks cute. 

Remove the original, and use flat black spray paint to "darken" the construction paper. It gives it a "velvety" look, makes it look old. Don't saturate it, just a light spray.
(You could probably use black cardstock and skip this step, but I didn't have any on hand.)





Glue the finished product onto white or cream cardstock and frame it.



Now I guess I have to do the cat.