Master Bedroom Shelf Re-do

It's been awhile since I've shared any house DIY/re-do's. Partly because I haven't been doing too many. Partly because I have before pictures but no after shots. So this afternoon I took advantage of a bit of sun and snapped some after shots of a project I finished up just before Christmas.

There aren't very many rooms in our house that haven't been touched by me and my paintbrush. And our master bedroom had the privilege and honor of being changed twice already! The first time around I was finally warming up to grey being such a popular color in the decorating world, and I was determined to "grey-ify" our bedroom. The walls ended up a medium grey, the tone being matched up to the plain grey duvet cover we purchased from IKEA. I found curtains I loved (at the time). But then there was this wall:

I tried. 

I tried to be frugal. I tried to 'shop my house'. I tried to be creative. I did purchase a couple more frames to work with a frame we received as a wedding present 8 years ago. But no matter how I tried, I couldn't love it. Not the collage. Eventually, not the wall color. And eventually-er, not the room. 

The poor master bedroom. 

And so I painted it. Again. I headed back toward a neutral - a light, light neutral that wasn't grey but wasn't beige either. I found a forest-y green quilt on super clearance at Target and it launched my imaginary "mood board" into light and neutral. Lots of white. And wood (but not the yellow pine category of wood). Simple. 

The original plan for this yellow pine shelf was to paint it. White. But as the room slowly took shape - light walls, light curtains, and so on, I found myself craving something other than green. The ever present battle in my head between loving completely neutral and loving color started up again. (does anyone else out there have this decorating issue?!) And I couldn't do it. I couldn't paint it white. And so it stood. And waited. Patiently, I might add. It waited while I figured out what color it should be. 

As you can see, in the meantime, the shelf became more useful with baskets. And it was adorned with a canvas print I found and loved at Winner's. (what would I do without Winners in a HomeSense-less town?!) Loved and still love, I might add. 

Finally, one day it came to me. Navy. I have a small can of it leftover in the basement, so it wouldn't cost a thing - plus, I like Navy. Blue in general is my favorite color. Navy? Love. (In fact, if I think about it, every single bedroom I've slept in since I was 19 had navy involved in the decorating scheme, until my attempt at grey. Meant to be, right?) 

Away we go. 

Ah. Much better! The leftover paint is from the front door, so it had a bit of gloss to it, but 'tis all good. The corners and edges received a bit of sanding down and roughening up, followed by a Q-tip or 7 of walnut stain over the sanded area. Paint and stain were followed by a couple coats of poly and yeah! Done and loving it.

No more knots. No more yellow wood.

Here's an angle that gives you an expanded wall color view . Look closely in the mirror and you'll see my curtains with the chevron pattern that I was leery about at the store, but now love because once their hung up, they're far less in-your-face chevron. Oh, and you can also see how I made one tiny corner of the bed in case it appeared in the after shots...which it does...and how I ignored the rest of the bed. There you have it. I didn't make my bed this morning. Giving away my secrets...!

There are a few things that need to finished up - kijiji purchased side tables to paint, a lamp to hang and there's some DIY art that's been on the back of my mind for awhile. Once done, expect a full bedroom reveal. In the meantime though, I'm so happy to have this shelf done!

Thanks for checking out my...

Chalk Paint Rookie >> A Dining Table Redo

It started with an innocent round of garage sales one spring Saturday. I saw her. Loved her. Bought her. Arranged to take her home in my parents van. Terrible color. Lovely shape. 

Such potential! 

And a great opportunity to try out Annie Sloan chalk paint. There aren't very many dealers in Canada, but one happens to be in St. Thomas where a decorating soul mate of mine just so happens to live. She helped feed my addiction to painting wood and picked me up a quart of French Linen.

Here's what she looked like before:

Terrible color, right? So orange! But I just loved the corners and the legs. I knew paint would do wonders and after hunting down a couple of YouTube tutorials on using Chalk Paint, away I went! Soon she was looking pretty beautiful. 

I've heard mixed reviews about chalk paint and after working with it, I must say that most of the process is great. No sanding/prep work is so great!! The waxing is another story altogether and after working with on this table, I've come to the conclusion that I like wax for low traffic things. Such as the legs of this beauty. But for high traffic surfaces I definitely prefer poly as a finish. Within three weeks of using our table, I knew that I'd have to re-do the top. The wax simply wasn't holding up to daily dining room/office use. (Tim turns it into a desk several hours each week)

One thing I found curiouser and curiouser was that in almost all of my googling, I couldn't find a quick and easy answer to "Can you poly over chalk paint instead of wax?" Still not sure...?? Any insight on this one? 

And so...round two.

I sanded down the table top, originally thinking I would stain it a medium tone walnut. But! Once I saw it finish-free, I decided that I wanted to try and keep that look. The grain was interesting, although high contrast. So after googling "white washed wood", I gave that a try to keep the tone but lessen the contrast. And I loved the result!

We used this French Country looking dining room table for a couple of weeks. I sold our old set that I re-did several months ago. And although the paint vastly improved this garage sale find, Tim was never sold on the shape as much as I was. What endeared her to me, turned out to be a big flaw to Tim. So with the following pictures plus a couple more, my French Country chalk paint experiment made its way to kijiji.

A week or so later, my table was sold! It was quite a great experience - buying and selling with a big of profit involved. May have to try it again sometime! I enjoyed the painting process - find it somewhat relaxing, in fact - and in the end, it was probably good that it went right back out the door. Otherwise it would've launched other tweaks in the dining room to match the style! (yes, that was an audible sigh of relief you heard from my husband's direction! ;) 

Next chalk paint project lined up: The coffee table in our shed.

Linking to Jennifer Rizzo's Fabulously Creative Friday

Chalkboard Paint Strikes Again

There are several projects on the go here at home. The front porch needs finishing - we're getting close! The side yard needs re-arranging. The main floor closet has been pulled apart for a paint job and things have yet to get put back in.

There's the weeding. Gardens and driveway both.

And then there's the main floor bathroom. Technically we haven't started that one yet beyond the purchase of a mirror, but I've got big plans for it!

In the middle of all the chaos, what does Jen decide to do? Keep plugging along at one of those projects so she can officially check it off as complete?

That would make far too much sense. Way too practical. And smart.

Instead, she pulled out the chalkboard paint. Started another project.

Good thing this was a quickie! And...it's complete.

Two doors in this house remain un-lovely. (as in flat and boring and not original or added later by us for the purpose and reason of character)! Both of those doors have bathrooms on the other side of them. And so in the spirit of feeling like I've at least started on the main floor bathroom, I gave the front of the door a couple coats of paint, bought a new knob for Tim to install and called it a day.

A good day! 'Cause I like it...

I'm gonna have fun changing it out, folks! I've already thought of a couple ideas for fall. Perhaps a "To-Do" checklist for autumn? Like this. Or perhaps a wordsearch. Like this.

While we're on that topic - is anyone else getting the itch to decorate for fall? I'm thoroughly enjoying the end of summer, but hot apple cider, colorful leaves, pumpkins and mums are sounding more and more delightful.

Leaving you with a link to the story behind the quote I chose this time around. Here.

And - since I listened to the story with Hadassah and she of course asked about the song - I looked it up on YouTube so she could hear it. While searching I discovered Dave's Highway. Love their Mississippi accept! And the fact that they're singing in front of their fireplace. So...thought I'd share that too...here.

A Peek at Paint

Hey there! Dropping in with a quick note on paint. Exterior paint, to be precise. And I want to say that I found the whole picking-exterior-paint-color thing a terrifying and unsettling experience.

Also. I ignored y'all. Remember when I had a poll a while back, asking for help on picking a color? Most of you voted for the browny-grey color. And for several weeks I agreed with you. But my gut, and then my sister, said "Green! Go with green!" So when the painter's asked for my final decision, I said ..... "green?" Yes - question mark and all!! ha!! Because oh how I was unsure.

I'm not 100% sure my gut was correct. Because our house is painted (yay! pictures soon...) and I really really like it. But I'm going to give myself sometime to fall in love with it. Maybe once I take some after pictures to show you? Anyway...I have a peek.

Just no green. :)

You've all seen my yellow front door, but I don't believe I've introduced you to my side entrance.

Wanna know the cool part? That odd little 'door' to the left of said side door? It's our mailbox! Love that our house is "so old" that it has a milk door. Love even more that someone had a genius moment and turned it into a mailbox. I don't even have to step out of doors even once on any given winter day - not even for the mail! Love that.

So there she is. I thought we'd use her often when we first moved here. I even strategically hung our key holder halfway between this door and the front door - it was one of the first things on our walls! But it eventually got moved since we only used the front door.

Anyway! My main motive for getting the exterior of our house painted was to pull things together a bit more. There's field stone, brick, siding, barn-like vertical siding, cedar shakes, two different siding colors, three trim colors. Phew! A lot happening on our house. So...I wanted to unify things a bit with color. And that also meant having all exterior doors painted the same color. The yellow front door had to go! And this door needed a paint job as well. My color? A delicious dark charcoal-y blue. After picture? Sure thing!

Isn't she lovely? I can't wait to show you the front door! I love it even more and that's saying a lot, because I certainly love the end result over here on this side of the house. How about a side-by-side...

Also notice the white trim around the door is no longer white! That was one of my paint choices I am 110% happy about - painting out 95% of the white around the house. The window and door frames blend much better now and I love the look, especially when looking at all of our here-&-there windows together. Pictures of that down the road...

And, since I was on a door painting kick one day, I also gave our shed a couple coats. Take a look:

Admittedly, I like the before too. It already received a refresh from the original-when-we-bought-the-house color. But I'm happy that things are 'coming together' in the color department.

Thing is, now that the painting is done (and I'm so grateful for our wonderful painters! They did a fabulous job!!), there are so many other things around the exterior that are screaming for help. But we're getting there. And like my sister reminded me - it'll never be done, (somehow she knows me well...) so we need to learn to be content with the journey and enjoy the process. So true.

What about you? Any exterior work done this summer?

Wide Open Porch: Wide Open Poll

This summer's task: Front porch update!

And we've made lots of progress already. Wanna see?

You're tilting your head with scrunched up eyebrows right now, aren't you? Because it probably doesn't look like a whole lot of progress without a reminder of what it looked like before. Here's that reminder:

An entirely screened in porch. Two cottage-y screen doors on either end. But after strolling our street several times since we've moved in, I one day realized that my favorite houses were the screen-less ones. Pinterest is full of homemade solutions to un-attracting mosquitoes and flies, so surely we don't need the screens, right?

Absolutely right!

How about a comparison shot?

Do you see how big and open it is now? We're loving it. Even Tim, who is always a bit leery of my "brilliant" ideas is loving it. There were thoughts of not wanting to sit out there because the screening gave a feeling of being closed in a bit -and there's always some comfort in that. But this is such a quiet neighborhood and de-screening has opened our view up so much that Tim has sat out there a lot already.

A couple of Mondays knocked "remove screen frames" and "remove carpet" off our porch update to-do list. The last couple of days we've welcomed flies and cool breezes into our house as the freshly painted door dried. My dad installed a new light (notice that above? Fan on the left, new light on the right...) The rest of the list looks something like this:

• remove screening
• remove screening frames & half wall
• remove (really ugly browny-pink) carpeting
• paint front door & new hardware
• re-screen storm windows & paint them
• replace some board on wide steps (the set of steps shown in picture)
• rebuild porch steps on other side of porch & finish off exposed edges of stone wall
• paint floor & stairs
• new light fixture
• add some shade loving plants in decorative pots
• paint plant holder (from yard sale two years ago) 
• new house numbers

(I think John & Sherry have something going with their blog lists. It feels like quite the accomplishment to cross things off 'online'...!)

So here's the thing - I'm in need of some help! I can pick paint colors for the inside of my home with joy. With gusto. With delight. The exterior? Eek! That's difficult stuff! I've come home with a few sample pots of paint and can't decide which one I'd prefer or if I should start over again. 

Help! 

First, let me explain. In order to pick the porch paint, I need to have the exterior house colors decided. The previous owners painted the siding, the trim (on the porch only) and the soffets (half way only) for a quick spruce-up-for-selling-purposes. (that's my guess anyway - because who only paints half of the soffets?!) So I've got a light khaki paint, a pale cream yellow paint, light lineny-tan soffets and eaves, white windows and a couple of other mismatched sections around the house. Understanding my desire to paint? It might not get done this year...but I want to nail down the colors so I can keep this porch update going.

Take a look...

Option A is extremely difficult to see in this picture. It's basically what's on the siding now with a bit more punch (you'll see it far better in the next set of pictures...promise!) And the trim color is similar, but less yellow, as I'm not a yellow trim kinda girl. 

Option B is a potentially "boring" option - a browny gray with less contrasty trim. But it goes great with the stone and brick. And there's a part of me that likes monochromatic and "boring". 

Let's take a different look at it:

This is the side of the house (that you may've never seen?) and the jut-out window where our piano fits into.

Sidenote:  I just mulched for this garden I've created since moving here for the first time and although the grass looks terr.i.ble!, I just love what mulch does. 

I gave a quick one-coat of each color, so it's not the best paint job. But hopefully you get the idea? My plan (at least I think it's my plan) is get rid of all white, so the window trim will all be painted and so fade into the background a bit more. This blog post confirmed my suspicion that while I love white a whole lot, sometimes no white is a good thing too! 

Now. You're help. S'il vous pleat. 

Option A? Or B? Or C? Which is think again. And if you have any suggestions, believe me, I'm all ears. Because this process baffles me. (am I allowed to say at this point that both of these colors look way better in real life than in these pictures? just sayin'...) Let's have a vote:

Which Color Folks?

Bedroom Art Sidetrack

I left you with a view of my chaotic bedroom in the last post. It's entirely besides the point to mention that it's even messier now, but I'll just put it out there for fun. The real point of this post is to show you a little project that I did in the midst of my big projects. Bedroom art.

Our bedroom received a coat of paint, some new curtains and some rather handy reading lights this past summer. And now I've checked off one of three walls that were asking for art. When I blogged about the updates here, I had asked for some advice on what to put above the bed, if anything at all. Someone suggested a large monogram, as seen here. And I loved the idea!

The only thing was....the price. Not that they're a bad price, but add shipping and on top of that, shipping to Canada (the shipping price never, ever, ends up being 'just' the shipping price...). So I went with the next best thing: DIY.

After scrounging around in my fonts, I found a 'B' I rather enjoyed. I whipped out some leftover kitchen cupboard paint and one of Hadassah's paint brushes and went to town. Then I took a small "T" and "J" I bought at Hobby Lobby absolutely ages ago and sprayed on a coat or so of ORB spray paint. Two nails to hang our initials and two rather paint covered hands later, I had this:

Ah. Something on my walls! Tim liked it right away and I must say, I was rather loving the end result myself.

And have I mentioned that I really love these Ikea lights? $14.99 each. Steal I tell ya. Couldn't have found new lamps for the nightstands for that price. Me thinks Hadassah will be getting the same light for her bedtime reading set-up...

While I still love the look of the monograms @ Southern Nest, there's something about working with what you've got and coming up with your own version.  

Do you have any DIY's lately? Love to hear about it!

PS: I may or may not have made my bed this morning just to take these shots. And I may or may not have realized that I haven't made my bed in a number of days due to the rest of the chaos in the room. And...I may or may not have sighed a little sigh of relief for having some order in the midst of craziness. :) Woohoo for a made bed!!!!

Pumpkin Painting 2

It seems like yesterday that we painted last year's pumpkins. Back then I posted it late - as in we painted and I posted a few weeks later. Well this year, it's kinda the other way around. We painted late and I posted right.on.time. As in we did this a couple of hours ago. Not even sure if the paint is dry!!

(ok, it's dry. because i'm wearing a white shirt today. there's no way you'd catch me messing with moving around wet paint pumpkins to take pics if they weren't dry already...but back to the point...)

Back when everyone wasn't thinking about Christmas (and by everyone, I mean the stores) and fall decorating was still 'it', I bought these pumpkins with painting them in mind. Wouldjaknow until this afternoon I hadn't gotten around to it yet? In fact, my other gourds were starting to look a tad bit, er, moldy. Ew. Yuck. So as I whisked them into the garbage can, I noticed that a couple of small pumpkins were unaffected and calling out for some paint.

We answered that call.

My personal favorite? The front one. Hadassah did it between me laying out the paints, telling her "I'll be back in 5" as I scanned my sidebar for recent blog posts from my favs (is anyone else super eager to follow along with Layla & Kevin @ The Lettered Cottage as they cottage-ize their new house?!) and coming back 5.3 minutes later to paint with her. I was so proud of my girl! It looked lovely.

I'm pretty sure she was proud of it, too. She informed me that her art teacher (she had one art class at our Cultural Center a couple of weeks ago..one time deal...three hours...now she's a pro) told her to use small paint brushes and that's how to do it. And...that's how she did it! "That's why it's so pretty, mommy".

One last shot? Ok.

Reclaimed

Week #1 of our holidays was a staycation where we finished off drywalling the basement and impulsively bought a door.

I say impulsively because I believe that when you have a home to-do list a mile long and "buy a new-to-us door from the junk yard and spend most of a day trying to fit it in the doorway that heads down to the basement because we both decided we're sick of the bi-fold that's there" somehow gets on that list and makes its way to the top - it's impulsive.

But she sure is pretty. And we sure are thrilled with the results of its swing. The internet claimed up and down that fitting a reclaimed door into a door jam is next to impossible. Well ha!, Internet. If only you could see this door. Turn the knob (which still needs some OilRubbedBronze spraypaint). Open and close it. Swing it shut. I daresay you'd be impressed. Yes Internet...very impressed indeed. 

Take a look at the door we decided wouldn't do. Bi-folds. Yick.

After some cleaning, some trimming, some sanding and some chiseling, some new hinges and new door jam installation, we have...our new 'character' door.

Cleaning...

Trimming, sanding and chiseling...(as I look at this picture, I realize that there could be a variety of questions about what-in-the-world the door is sitting on. That, my friends, is a story deserving entirely of its own post, which I will get to someday).

New door jam installing...(the back of this door came painted, and will be re-painted soon-like)

And finally, our new door in all of its reclaimed beauty (or not-so-beauty? more on that in a moment):

We love her. And the fact that we YouTubed and Googled our way through installing her makes us that much more fond.

Here's the thing - and this is where we're enlisting your help - do we love it as is? Is the character of the wood what makes her so charming? Or should I paint her? She could be a bold and brilliant pop of distressed color. Such as this...

 via

...or this...

 via

...or this:

via

To find out what y'all think and to try a little something new, let's take a vote, shall we? By way of a poll perhaps? Let me know what you, o reader, think. Shall we keep it in all of its original, story-telling state? Or make her pop with lots of layers of greens and blues and help her make her own, new story? What say you...

Hi.

It's been over a month I see, since I've made an appearance on this blog. Although it hasn't been like my usual 'breaks' where I snap pictures and write posts in my head. This was truly a break from the blog and it was rather refreshing. Today, though, seems like a good day to say hi.

So...hi! How've you been?

The past few weeks I've experienced pleasant nothings, crazy busyness, heartache, great friendship, wonderful communion of saints and the love and care of a mighty Father. Especially that last one. "I will give the Lord the thanks due to His righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High." (Psalm 7:17)

Besides saying hi, and because posts aren't as fun without a picture or two, I thought I'd share some Photoshop magic on our house. With spring slowly lingering and making up its mind about what temperature it'd like to be, my mind has been switching gears from indoor projects to outdoor ones. And I have a little vision for our house that we may or may not implement this year. A couple coats of paint, the removal of some screens, a new house number and we might just turn our house from this:

Into something kinda close to this:

Not 100% sold on the color, although the door is already pretty close. Another option is a dark yet bright oliveyish green on the siding and ditching yellow on the door.

What do you think? Keep the screened in-ness? Is the white trim to stark? I'd love to hear your thoughts...

And I hope you have a fantastic week. Happy Monday!