More examples of my obsession

So now that I've explained how to add molding to your home, I thought I would share more ways I think it has transformed our house.

Our master bathroom is one of my favorite examples. We have extremely high ceilings that I painted with a mossy green color. After a while I realized how dark it was in there, but there was NO WAY I was repainting those walls again. I thought about adding tile around our tub, but figured it would be at least $1000 to do that. So I ended up using molding around the tub to lighten up the space.

Here is the before:





And here is it after, with the magic of molding! :)






I added rectangles to the walls around the tub with molding, a chair rail around the top and painted it all out white. Then I used beadboard around the marble base of the tub and painted it a shade darker than the walls.

The BEST PART! This whole project was $40! The molding is the only purchase I had to make -- the beadboard was leftover from another project and the paint I already had. You can't beat it! We'd still like to change out the tub fixtures, but that will be later -- for the plumber. :)

Before and After Party!

It's a par-tay people!!

I feel like I should title this post "Lamp Pass and Lamp BIG FAT FAIL." I recently redid two lamps and only one turned out like I had hoped. The other...well...notsogood. The first started when I found this cutie little drum shade at Goodwill for $2.99:

I am quickly becoming obsessed with drum shades. I just think they are uber cool. I had been wanting a new shade for the lamp on my self-made sofa table in our living room for ages. The shade I had there was just so GINORMOUS:I was just going to cover the denim, but when I went to remove the trim, it all came off pretty easy. Then I realized I could just peel the fabric right off the shade. Who knew?:

I had some extra fabric from try No. 2 with our dining room drapes years ago, and I covered the shade with it like I showed you here.

Drum shades are easy peasy to cover, no angles to worry about. ;)

For the unfinished edges on the inside, I always add a little trim (also from another project):

A little hot glue does the trick!

The trim also helps to cover the uneven fabric that you wrap around the top and bottom. The fabric looks fine without trim covering it until you turn on the light -- then it shows all the edges.

Loverly!:

This one is a pass, right? I think so. I absolutely love it!

The next one...well. I'm not so sure about. I wanted a new lamp for our dresser in the bedroom and was on the lookout for something with a cool shape at Goodwill. I found this one for $7.99, brand new with tags:I LOVED the shape and size. The color of the wood, not really. I already have three spray painted lamps in our bedroom, so I was really hoping to stain this one instead.

I sanded this sucker down with my electric sander because the finish would just not. come. off. otherwise:

I was so stinking excited, thinking how GORG it would be with my walnut stain!

Uhhhhhh....no. It looked like total butt. It was so uneven and just grody. I didn't even take a picture because I was so totally annoyed I had just spent all that time sanding the blasted thing.

So, once a spray painter, always a spray painter I guess:

Oh yeah, I know it looks OK from afar. I sprayed it with my oil rubbed bronze paint, and it's OK. But oh my goodness, the finish is SO uneven. It's a Mona Lisa -- you know the type. Looks good from far away but when you get close...ewwww...

It's not the crack that bothers me, I like that. Dang it! The pictures don't do this thing justice. For the first time in eternity, the picture looks BETTER than real life. How often does that happen? Usually it's the other way around. I am OK with it...it's staying so when I get over my tiff with this one, I'll work on it more... ;)

So what before and afters have you got to show off today? I can't wait to see!

You know the drill -- use the link from that post, not to your blog, to link to the party. (I have to delete those -- and I don't like bein' mean!!) :)

How I paint.

**The paint color I used is Cinnabark from Behr. Sorry about that! :)

I've been teasing you so bad with my dining room redo. I know, I'm a big meany!! Totally! Because of the holiday sale on paint at Home Depot, I thought this past weekend was as good as any to start redecorating our dining room:
This has been the one room in our home that I cannot get settled with. I've struggled with it from the beginning. This is because of a couple things -- the furniture is the first. I absolutely LOVE it, don't get me wrong. I love the curvy lines of everything, love the wood. But it was a rushed purchase to try to fill the space. Now I wish I would have taken my time and filled in the room one piece at a time, mixing and matching furniture.

The other reason it's been giving me issues is the window wall is shared with the living room, which is the space with huge ceilings. There is a cardinal rule in decorating -- supposedly you are not supposed to break up a wall that runs through more than one room with a change in paint color. There was just no way we could paint the WHOLE wall without paying someone $500 to come in with a scaffolding.

I was so stinking tired of not loving this room, and I am never one to necessarily follow the rules, so I went ahead and started my redo. (Which included ignoring that cardinal rule -- buhwahahahahahaaaaa!)

I will share the steps it's taking to redo this whole room as I get through them, and then I'll show you the result at the end. Don't worry, I'm almost done, so it won't take too long. For now, I thought I would share how I paint a room. I bug y'all all the time about how much painting a room can change the space for very little, and this room sure is an example of that.

You need very little to paint. I use a decent angled brush, a 3/8 nap roller, blue painters tape, an old sheet and the paint. (Well, duh.)

Before you tape anything off, take your dry brush and clean your baseboards with it -- it gets all the cat hair dust off the boards so the tape will stick well:
It's always a good idea to take a duster around the top of the walls too. There are usually lovely little goodies up there you really can't see from below. Not fun when they get in your paint. Uck.

I always use painter's tape for the baseboards. The other areas I've learned to cut in, which I'll show you in a second. This is the brand of tape I use and it's always worked great:
I paint baseboards and cut in areas around the ceiling and moldings first. That gets the tough stuff out of the way, and then filling in with the roller is easy and quick. (By the way -- take your blue painter's tape off as soon as possible after you paint. When it's WET. If the paint dries it will create a seal with the tape and may take up some of the paint when you peel it off.)

Cutting in is a term used for taking your angled brush and, without using the painter's tape, painting right up against molding. I still don't know if it saves much time, but as you get better at it, it does make painting a room a little bit less of a hassle.

I was cursing the day I put so much blasted molding in our dining room. Argh! Fists shaking in air!! Although, as I got into it more, I found it oddly relaxing. I know, I'm a complete fruit loop. I try to do things right, but often I rush through painting a room because Iwantitdonerightthissecond. Cutting in so much in this room made me slow down and do it right, and it was kind of nice.

To cut in, dip your brush in the paint just a smudge, on the side that you are cutting in. Then wipe off some of the excess like this:


I like to start away from the molding first, then work my way closer to it. You have to have a steady hand and take your time:



After you cut in, filling in the rest is easy peasy Squeezies. Professionals always do two coats, but I always do one and then wish I had had the patience to do two. :) If you take your time and use plenty of paint on the roller you should be fine with one coat.

The result? Do you want to see?

Huh?

Do ya?

I'm such a brat. Here's a peek:

Oh yeah, and I totally broke the decorating rules and split up the rooms with molding. I didn't even take out the baseboards, I just did it. And guess what? I like it, and it WORKS. So there, cardinal-rule-creators:
Sticks out tongue.

The color is to die for. It is so dramatic, so warm, I am in luuuuuuurve...

Next, I'll show you my new window treatments, the new centerpiece, the ceiling, and the change I hope to make to the hutch. And more, I HOPE! We will seeeeee...

Do you paint? Do you hate it? Never done it? Are you too scared? Why? Share with the group, talk amongst yourselves!

Before and After Party!

If you've read this blog for one hot second, you know how much I lurve before and after pictures. I mean, I could just spend hours pouring over magazines full of just those pictures. I love to pick out both the big and teeny tiny changes that were made. Kind of like a Where's Waldo of decorating.

I have a whole tab of before and afters, but I thought I would share a before I've never shown you (the after you've seen).

As I've mentioned before, our living room used to be one of my biggest decorating pain-in-the-rears. The ceilings are high, there aren't many walls in the space, and it was just overwhelming to deal with.

I was decorating UP:

I got up on my tippy toes on an eight foot ladder to hang that stinkin' art up there. Yeah. Risked my life people!

The little itty bitty shelves up the wall with the itty bitty accessories weren't helping anything. (In my defense, I had just put them up when I decided I was taking them down, so I never finished decorating them.)

The light drapes were doing nothing for the space -- even though they were lined, you could only appreciate their pretty stripes at night:

Soon I understood the power of bringing it all down...I know I've said it a million times, but it makes such a huge difference! It instantly made the huge, tall room a cozy, warm space:

A new, taller table, with taller accessories, chunky shelves (see previous post) and deep red drapes added the warmth I was looking for. And oh yeah, you don't have to tilt your head back to see the art. ;)

Speaking of that art -- I wanted to show you another before and after I worked on last week. Did anyone recognize the art on my new shelves? (If not, just look at the before pic above.) I loved the poppy print, but the frame was a mess. I bought it on clearance and had to fill in all the scratches and dents with a Sharpie. It was just feeling dated to me.

Sooooo...I decided to cut her up! I used my L ruler thingy (no clue what it's called) to make squares around the poppies:

And my big bad self used the jigsaw to cut them out! And when my arms and hands stopped jiggling, I touched up the sides with some black paint and they turned out like this:

Lurve!! They are so super cool, I just love them. And they were FREE!

This weekend, I worked on taking this before: Into a super cool, sexy, warm after. I can't wait to show you!! I'm so stinkin' excited about this room. Yippeeee!!

So now, share your befores and afters!! It can be anything you repurposed. Or a room redo. Or a messy closet decrapified. Anything! The ONLY rule is you must have a before picture! Because seriously, that's half the fun.

Remember to insert the link to your POST, not your blog. I will have to delete links to blogs, and I hate being the meany. Have a great Labor Day and enjoy!

(I'm trying out a new Linky. Please, dear God, let it work!!)

I can tile?

I pose that title as a question because the answer is questionable. The walls haven't come down yet, so I think I was successful. Maybe, YES, I can tile.

There are a few large projects in our home that I have avoided because of FEAR. Plain, good old, I-am-a-big-huge-sissy fear. One of them is the marble that surrounded our tub. It has bothered me for over a year now, since I added the molding to the walls around the tub here.

The marble is a creamy color and the walls are bright white. For normal people this would not be a big deal, but it made me twitch a bit, cause as you know, I'm not normal. I have been wanting to take off the marble surround and replace it with tile foreva.

So Saturday morning, I thought, what the heck, I'm going to go for it! What's the worst that could happen? Uh, believe me, the "worsts" were running through my head.

Sister helped me take off the marble -- I used razor and a pry bar, being careful not to dent the wall as I took off the marble:

This house was built very well, but we have found the one thing they skimped on -- all the tile in the house was glued down, instead of mortared. Makes an easier job for me, so I'm cool with it. Hubby was working downstairs and I didn't even mention this little project was going to happen -- he didn't know about it until he walked in and saw the mess. There was just a brief flash of complete panic on his lovely face, but God bless this man, it didn't last long. He has faith in me. :)

I didn't take pics of the installation part of this project, because I was working like a crazy mad woman to get it all done before my son woke up from his nap. You basically take the mortar and mix it like the directions say -- water and the mortar, mix it up -- that's it! Make sure to do this outside with a mask on.

The directions say to put the mortar on the surface and the back of the tile, but I did a couple with the backs covered and quickly found it didn't need it -- there was way too much and it was spilling through the tiles.

You know how on HGTV when they mortar, they just slap it on the walls and it goes on like butta? Yeah, it didn't work like that. I would swipe it on and it would pretty much just fall right off. It was fab. Next time I won't put quite as much water in as the instructions call for.

This is how it looked before the grout:

One thing I have learned about tiling is you can't judge it until you have grouted. Grouting just makes all the difference in the world:

To grout, you use the same mixer thing that attached to the drill and water or grout enhancer. I got the enhancer ($5) because it's supposed to help reduce the possibility of mold:

This part was much easier then the mortar:

My back was keeeeeeling me at this point, so I tried to sit for most of this part, but it didn't work out that way for long:

(See the Pepsi and popcorn? Sister was trying to give me energy food.) You'll notice I taped off the area around the tub with paper -- this was a life saver both during the mortar process and the grouting. It made for much easier clean up! The hardest part of this WHOLE process was wiping down the tile after grouting -- it felt like Groundhog's Day -- over and over and over. (And over.)

I still have some paint touch ups to do and some caulking, but for now, it is done:

I wouldn't have done it quite so tall, but some of the drywall tore of as we took off the marble, so I had to go a bit higher than expected:

I love how it ties the creamy of the marble tub, the white of the walls, and the green accent color all together! Yes, I am a happy crazy woman.

And yes, that's beadboard around the tub -- I just glued it right on the marble a while back. LOVE it! Here's the before before, from a couple years ago:

Here it is today. YAY!:

I'm going to do a little accent of this by our sinks to tie it all together, and I'll take pics of that process start to finish -- I won't be so sceered next time. Then, I want to rip out the shower surround and tile that whole thing, then the floors, then, then, then... Now, if I can just get those fixtures on the tub replaced, I'd be in heaven.

If you haven't seen my interview at houzz.com today, go here to check it out! Make sure to comment there for a chance to win the Ballard pear! (See previous post.) Your comments over there are making. my. year. by the way. I am so honored to inspire you. I can't thank you enough for your support.

Rewind: Kitchen Island

I thought it would be fun to "rewind" every once and a while and show you some of my earlier posts and projects and then the updates I've made since.

If you've been with me for about five minutes, you've seen my kitchen island. But it's one of my favorite changes rehabs I've done in our home and is also one of the cheapest and easiest.

It started way back when, when all five of my friends read my blog. I mean, I have more than five friends, there were only about five reading this blog back then.

I swear -- I have more than five friends. For real.

My very first post was about how our kitchen was turning into a sea of cherry wood -- floors, cabinets, island, table and chairs:
I really love islands that look like furniture, so I thought I would change it up and decided to add molding:

I added faux panels to the sides and back and painted the whole thing out in black. This began my deep-seeded hatred of laminate. Laminate and I are not bffs. I actually had thought of doing beadboard, but I think it was impatience that got the best of me at the time.

After the redo, all the sudden the chairs had to go (isn't that always the way?). So I went to Garden Ridge and found new chairs for the table and island for a steal -- buy one get one get one half off:
(The flash makes the island look grey in these pics.) As you know, I love me some beadboard, and I got an itch a few months ago to redo my redo with it:

Sigh. You just can't go wrong with beadboard -- really. Reheheally. The addition of corbels finished off the furniture-look I was going for:

And then cut down the chair legs by two inches with my compound miter saw (they were too tall) and upholstered my chairs to add a pop of color and cush for the tush:I lurve my beadboard island! I know many you have already redone your island or are planning on trying it -- you will love it!

Thanks for joining me on this island trip down memory lane. :)