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?

Recycle/Reuse/Reduce

Ahh, nothing makes me happier than an organized space.

Last June, I organized the catch-all drawer in the apartment (a mess that was building for 2 years) and even tweeted about a discovery I made... This year's model-of-doom is only two months in the making and is already threatening a hostile takeover (something catches and the drawer won't open).  

Pretend it's like an I-Spy... can you find a Harry Potter pencil sharpener?  Two packets of flower seeds?  a Concerta stapler?  a Bert from Sesame Street magnet?  two bottles of ink from China?  a rubber ducky?  50 different customer loyalty cards from places like Lowe's, Game Stop, and CVS?  a monogrammed tape measure?  a plastic school calculator, circa 1994?

Ahh, much better. 

I reused the Malley's chocolate boxes again (1 for tablets and extra magnets, 1 for tape/pencil sharpeners), and a silverware drawer liner from the auction house (sections for extra keys, mini tools, eye glass cleaner, The Plague, and all those loyalty cards.  Between the boxes are the ink bottles and extra markers.  Of course, I delighted in throwing out unusable items.  

Also from the auction house, you may recall this little number, the plywood magazine box (one of two):

I covered those babies in contact paper and made myself some awesome magazine racks to hold some of the magazines I receive for free: Martha Stewart, Afar, Elle Decor, Coastal Living, and Health.  I also get Real Simple (thanks, Mom!) and it is kept on the tv stand.  Coincidence?

Also a questionable coincidence is that the green goes super well with the dining room green and thus continues my quest to tie together the great room and dining area.  

What makes you happy?  Organization?  Chaos?  

Dining Room Update

Welcome back!

As my last post said, I felt the dining room needed a little softening to make it flow into the open space of the great room.  So, after toiling for a day or two, I made a few changes.  I think they do wonders for the area!

First, I've been hating on the awwwful brass chandelier since I first saw this house back in September of 2011, so I was more than willing to shut off the power and rewire in a new pendant light ($18 at Lowe's) plus a paper lantern (Pier 1, $10).  

Then, I put the bamboo placemats back on the table.  I also decided the window needed curtains - both for some soft texture and also for privacy.  This is a townhouse and my elderly neighbor sits on her back porch all.day.long and I get antsy about that after awhile.  I could not find any curtains I liked (I wanted greens and yellows to pull together the two rooms) at Target, Kohl's, IKEA online, or Ross... and then I wandered into World Market and found a $30 shower curtain that is absolutely perfect.  

I hung the curtain with little shower clips from Target.

Currently, the curtain's clips are half on one side of the rod's center-bracket, half on the other, which is why it is bunchy on the left.  Eventually I may cut the curtain and hem the cut, then add a band of coordinating fabric to the bottom.  I rather like the casual look right now, though, so I am going to laissez-faire it for awhile.  

And now... the two rooms together, as viewed from the loveseat.  By the way, the temporary new "rug" is a quilt and the green pillows are the old green Pier 1 ones covered with fabric a la this Pin.  Thanks, Mom, for the idea!  

What are your favorite ways to repurpose items?

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?

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?