Grey-ddiction

Happy September!  Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Wow, is it Fall yet?  Growing up in Pennsylvania, this weekend always signaled the end of summer and the beginning of crunchy leaves, long pants, and football games.  Living in the south... it was 90 degrees last night while we watched Alabama beat Michigan.  Roll tide.

It has been a busy last few weeks - ten days of school are already under our belts!  Wow!  So far, the year is going well.  Nothing very little bloggable has happened, unless you would like to hear about how this year we have enough seats in the cafeteria for all the sixth-graders *and* the teachers, so I can actually eat lunch now.  I guess I could talk about how I kind of went Pinterest!crazy and neon!nuts in my classroom.  It's bright and fun.

Here on the homefront, the only projects since the dining- and living-room wall art has been a new duvet set (thanks Target + Tax Free Weekend) and lampshades in the bedroom.  Woo!  I've been eyeing this duvet set for awhile - the mustard color goes well with the art and the dresser... and the cover reverses to a grey that is sooo close to the wall color.  Amazing!  To keep it lightweight for now, I put the purple and white quilt inside instead of the down comforter.  To balance out the look, I picked up two grey king-pillow cases, too.

The grey lampshades were on sale for $4 each at Lowe's.  I love Lowe's.  For those of you with eagle-eyesight, don't hate on the books on the nightstand.  Yes, the top two are Twilight and Harry Potter.  They are in French, though, so it's okay...  Below is a close-up of an identical shade hanging out with my perfume collection.  Accent art: paint chips in a Goodwill frame.  Classy.

Speaking of my bff Lowe's, I got an email yesterday that they are having a rebate special for $5 off a gallon of Valspar Signature paint, which is pretty much my favorite paint ever.  Seriously, it covers ridiculously well.  Anyway, one of the walls in the bedroom needs some touching up and I made an executive decision to paint the downstairs powder room in the same shade (Bay Waves), so I stopped by Lowe's yesterday to get a third gallon of this delicious grey.  While I don't like rebates (coupons = instant savings), I was able to submit the info online so hopefully it will process without a hitch and then I can stare dumbly at the $5 check I get in the mail.

The neat part is I think the gallon is going to be more than enough for a small wall in the bedroom and the powder room... so at 1am, I started eyeing up the paint for the kitchen.  Hmm.  Subtle yet anything is better than the flat, dusty contractor beige the kitchen still has.  Note: someone really needs to hot glue the laminate strip back onto the face of that counter.

Apple cider, pumpkins, what are your fall dreams?

Daddy Do List

After I flew home for my delightful visit to Pennsylvanialand, my dad and I drove back down to the South C.   That was fun. :D Actually, the drive was long (13+ hours) yet a pretty good time!  Did you know the driver is allowed to sing as long as it's not Van Halen?  :D  The drive was also a good time for us to catch up about things.  For instance, I had no idea my dad was once in an elevator with JACKIE CHAN.

Anyway, my dad was here for about a week (my mom flew down Thursday and spent the weekend with us) and I kept the poor guy very, very busy.  I did not take pictures of everything because no one wants to see the two toilets he fixed... however, he also put in a peephole in the front door and pegboard/baskets/hooks in the garage:

My pop also helped me install a new-to-me washer and dryer - my friend Eileen moved and I got some of her appliances, including these darlings and a giant French door refrigerator:

We also put on a new seal on the patio door... Yay!  However, I think my favorite projects were when we replaced the clunky, giant old white ceiling-fans-with-boob-lights in the living room and master bedroom with sleek modern nickel fans.  They are identical, except we chose to put the light wood out in the bedroom and the dark wood out downstairs.  I'll share a picture of the downstairs fan later - I'm in the process of sewing new curtains and will share all at once.

Do you notice anything else going on in the bedroom?  The walls are painted!!!  When my bestie was here two weeks ago, she kindly agreed to help paint the room!  I chose Bay Waves by Valspar.  The room gets the afternoon sun so the color is juuuuuuust light enough and juuuuuuust dark enough.  Gorg.  <3

Speaking of my bestie, today is Alison's Birthday!  Happy Birthday, Ali!  


Who are your celebrity run-ins?

Eat Your Veggies!

Most of you who know me know that when I get started on a project, I don't like to stop until it's done.  So with the great room finished and looking mighty fine, I was anxious to repaint the dining room because once again, it looked like Perkin's restaurant.  Once again, sorry Perkin's.  Let's have a moment of silence for the awful carcass colors of the dining room before:

I once read a blog where the girl painted five different shades of the same color on her bedroom walls and it took them seven months to decide which one they wanted.  I'm too impatient and too economical for that, so once I chose a green I liked on the card (Valspar's Spring Meadow), I bought it and slapped it on the walls that day.  No arguments.  I chose green because 1) it's my favorite color and 2) it reminds everyone to eat their veggies.  Subliminal messages now in your very own house!

Fun fact - the old owner's left these two giant pieces of plastic in the garage.  Thanks!  So, before painting, I put down plastic on the floors and over the table.  Always make sure you protect your pets from paint, too?! Haha!  All joking aside, Poly crawled in there on her own and I removed her twice... she kept going back.  You can't fight with a cat and I will point out she didn't get a single drop on her.  

It took a full day to paint two coats in the dining area (one real wall, one half-wall, one wall with windows, one half wall with a door), with small breaks for necessities including a game of Mario Cart.  

Ahh that's nice!  It is deceiving, though, because the color is a bit more radioactive lettuce in person, so I spent the next two days letting it mellow to the eyes (aka get used to it) and figure out how to smooth the room together, since it spills into the great room.  I added the mirrors (auction house finds) first... Stay tuned for more... 

Do the rooms of your home flow together, or do you prefer to decorate each area on its own?

Coming Soon: Dinner on the Patio

In between painting the Great Room and the Dining Room (upcoming post), I worked on getting the garage back to a state where Gus (the car) could fit in.  One thing that needed to be done was something with this table: 

The side was found in Tom's car!  I pounded it on with a nail salvaged from the living room wall before I painted.  While I would have preferred to use a wood stain on the bare wood, I'm nothing if not resourceful, so I just used white paint from a can of flat (ew) paint the old owner left in the garage (big surprise).  It works for now.  I may seal it later... or paint it a different color and consider the white to be primer.  I literally just slapped two coats on in about 30 minutes and I like the rough look it has.  Plus, the price ($0) was amazing.

Why not?  The original goal was to use it a prep table or something for when we grill.  However, I'm currently thinking the driveway is a better place for grilling... because the above picture shows the backyard.  It's a postage stamp.  The good news is... we got a grill!  Tom dropped one off last night.  It's pretty rusty, yet I think it will clean up.  I hope... :/ I'll show it later when it's not so nasty looking.  

...what are your tricks for cleaning rust?

Colors Colors Everywhere

As you may recall, the paint job on the first floor of my house was rather garish.  To put it bluntly, it looked like a Perkins restaurant barfed.  Sorry, Perkins.  The best word in that first sentence, though, is "was" - the bad paint job is gone!  I spent about a week agonizing over colors to determine the perfect shade for the great room (living room + foyer).  The dark and gloomy colors were making me so cranky and made me crave sunshine so after considering 45 different shades of yellow, I settled on Summer Sun by Valspar (Lowe's).

I calculated 530 sq ft for the great room, so I bought 2 gallons of the Valspar Signature so I could do two coats.  Remember, anytime you anticipate needing to use two cans of paint for one job, mix 'em together to ensure uniformity!  I poured the two gallons into a bucket and stirred.  I filled my paint tray out of the bucket on day one, then at the end of day one, poured the mixed paints back into the paint cans so I could seal them up properly.  During the day, I had the bucket covered in foil to keep it clean.

Having never painted a room before, I think my first coat was a bit sparse.  In fact, the rose and baby poo-brown showed through a bit, causing the yellow to look highly radioactive.  After rereading some online tips, I put it on pretty thick the second round.  Wow!  Coat Two definitely covered the rose and baby poo-brown very well!  My technique was simple and developed after reading several websites (This Old House and TLC, which I pinned on my Paint Board).  I cut in with a slanted brush, then rolled those bits (plus a good five inch section adjacent to it) with a small roller going as close to the edge as possible, then rolled the rest of the party with a 9-inch roller.  It took 12 hours for the first coat and about 10 for the second.  That includes mini breaks as I finished each wall (snacks, phone calls, clicking on the Pandora music site to say yes I'm still listening to Meat Loaf)...

To refresh your mind, here's a before...

And here's an after!

Poly loves to be in pictures.  What a ham.

For now, I've purchased new sheers for the window and put the red shade back on the corner lamp.  I think the walls looks amazing, if I do say so myself.  :)  Redecorating coming soon! I'm very excited to finish up the dining room, now, and then decorate with a new color palette.  Speaking of which... here's a teaser about the dining room color...

What are your dream colors for your home?

PS

Of course Lowe's didn't pay me to talk up their paint line.  I wish!

Ding Dong

Happy Summer!!!  We have just one day of school left (a Teacher Day), so I got started on my summer projects on Saturday.  Here's two:

One of the first things I noticed about my house is was the doorbell.  Crooked...yellowed...rusty... yet somehow not my thing:

Since the doorknob and deadbolt are brushed chrome, I wanted something of a similar hue.  Lowe's didn't have much in the way of brushed chrome selection (at least not in my price range), so I ended up buying a silver-tone one.  After turning off the power to my porch (I didn't fancy getting knocked on my butt just to pretty up my house), it was just a matter of unscrewing the top screws, disconnecting the wires from the old bell, and then connecting them to the new bell, and reattaching the new bell to the house.  Voila!  

While at Lowe's, I also picked up some Valspar silver spray paint.  It was under $5 and my intention is to use it on the dining room chandelier.  However, that is currently stuck on my ceiling so until it detaches itself, I thought I would use it to give the kickplate a makeover...

...because the second thing I noticed when I first saw this house was this brass kickplate:

Yowza.  Funny story - the bottom left corner was not screwed in.  There wasn't even a hole for the screw!  This happens a lot in my house.  I think the builders were lazy.  

Anyway, three coats of the spraypaint - dry to the touch between coats.  Totally dry in about an hour.  

The screws were brassy, too, so I decided they needed a paint job as well.  To keep the screws stable as I sprayed the heads, I poked them into a paper-towel roll covered in foil.  The foil was not to protect the paper-towel roll (I'm not that weird), it was so the roll wouldn't...well...roll.  In the picture below, there are only ten screws... if you're counting you know there should be eleven (#12 never being installed).  I found the missing little guy on the porch and poked him into the other end later.  

Once everyone was dry, I removed the painted screws by unscrewing them (they wouldn't just pull out)...

...and reattached the "new" kickplate to the door:

 

I think it looks pretty snazzy!  Although in this picture, the peaking-out doorknob looks brassy.  :D

What have you spray-painted new life into?

In a White Room

I'm testing some color palates for the master bedroom... and I put the down comforter on so I could look at the duvet cover.  It's white with pale lavender fern-like designs.  My current obsessions (as evidenced by my Pins) are pale grey walls, yellow accents, and a few fuschia pops.  Note: the walls are not yet painted (chips are currently all over the window seat), and I am itchy to move the former owner's curtain rod up to the outside of the deeeeeeeep window.  Drives me crazy about four times a day.  It's on my to do list.  :)

As always, a work in progress:

What's your ultimate bedroom color scheme?

List Party

I really like lists.  I like daydreaming about lists, I like writing down lists on lined paper, regular paper, and especially graph paper (those boxes are so satisfying).  I like typing up lists, crossing items and tasks off lists, reading other people's lists, ranking items, grouping items, making sub-items for previously listed items...  It's all delicious.  Here's a list I've typed up to organize all the (current) projects I would like to someday tackle in my home.  Oddly enough, each list and sublist is in absolutely no particular order.  Except that #1 is the toilet in the master bathroom.

Wanted and Needed To Do's for Someday

Upstairs

Master Bedroom:
- exchange broken ceiling fan for chandelier or prettier fan
- paint walls (grey?)
- sew new curtains (hybrid from two sets I have (yellow + grey)
- new bedframe (queen platform)
- new mattress
- new duvet cover

Master Bathroom:
- fix the toilet (won't stop running)
- caulk around bathtub
- fix the broken drawer (bottom right)
- move main door to outside of frame

Master Closet:
- add extra shelves at far end

Baby's Room:
- paint (bye-bye Winnie the Pooh)
- fix master ceiling fan/install instead of the butterfly fan
- add a bed, small dresser, another bookcase
- add a table for my sewing machine and materials

Baby's Bathroom:
- caulk around bathtub
- install shower rod, curtains

Laundry Room:
- buy a washer and dryer :)

Hallway:
- ahh something that doesn't currently need anything

Staircase:
- add a shelf over the bottom window?
- add art, pictures, or mirrors

Downstairs

Powder Room:
- fix toilet (leaking?)
- remove all the little blue paint dots from the fixtures because the former owner got paint EVERYWHERE
- add shelving (pedastol sinks are form and not function)

Stair Closet:
- add another section of shelving (or three)

Foyer:
- no current needs

Living Room:
- paint (pale yellow?)
- remove the nonworking Dish cables (also remove Dishes from roof)

Dining Room:
- paint (green?)
- install a new light fixture

Kitchen:
- add knobs the doors and drawers
- update stove (I miss my glasstop!!)
- install new countertops or glue (instead of packing tape) down the popped up pieces

Garage:
- get extras out of there (the seller left sooo much junk!!)
- add shelving, peg board, anything for organization!

And hardwood floors for all!!!  Someday!!  Except the garage and stuff, that's just crazy...

What's at the top of your To Do Wish List?

Heat Rises

Before moving into my townhouse, I really only ever lived on the second or third floor of buildings - two apartments, and my parents house - so I never fully appreciated the whole "heat rises" science experiment.  That being said, the upstairs was 68 this morning!!  Brr!  Pretty sure I could see my breath in the kitchen.  Since it is now 84 out, though, I'm not eager to turn on the heat.

My homebound student canceled today, so I was able to get home earlier.  I decided to use that time to update the ol' blogger.  Since my dad said he will check it "on occasion" I want to make sure there are pretty pictures for him to see when he checks in (Hi Pop!).

Remember, this is a work in progress... :)

I think I'll start with a picture of one of my favorite parts of the house thus far: the doorhandles on the first floor:

I'm eating my words from the last 6 months - I cannot believe the (ahem) creative paintjob in the great room/dining room actually goes with my items!  I do have new colors picked out... yet these are tolerable for awhile...

And finally... here's the master bedroom thus far.  Yes, the plastic is still on that lampshade and no it's not plugged in.  I'm not sure if I like it.  The picture would be wider and show the rest of the room except someone still has not unpacked three suitcases...

Poly's so vain - she probably thinks this post is about her.  Seriously, though, she looooooooves to hang out in the baby's bathroom.

XOXO!