The Banister!!!

Finally Done!! (ok it's been done for awhile, but I hid the camera so Harrison couldn't get to it. And I couldn't find it. Until he brought it to me today.)

I'm pretty happy with how it came out. We stripped and stained the top part and then painted the bottom part. The surrounding area really needs to be painted a slightly darker color because it looks pretty stark although better than the sea of white it was before.

I don't know if I recommend anyone take on a banister. Let's just say it takes a LONG time. So if you have free time and you like polyurethane, give it a go.

Step One-White White White...and some tape.

Step Two--somehow get all that paint off the top of the banister...in pieces...started with me and some eco friendly gooey stripper, ended with Cory taking them off and sanding them down in the garage. It's nice when you can say--I can't do this, can you???
Then we painted. That part was actually a pretty fun late night project.
DONE-stained and put back together. YAY!! I promise it matches better than it looks in this pic--the lighting just messes it up.
Banister!!!

For my next project I've decided to take on a bit of a beast. I've got an OLD OLD bedroom set that has been handed down to me and has been hanging out in the garage. I thought about painting it white but decided that would be defaming an "heirloom" so I'm going to try to stain and fix it up and see how it goes. It's super old fashioned and not in the best of shape, but I think it could come out cool in the end.

Here's the vanity after a little bit of sanding.

Wish me luck!

Happy Little Bedroom Chair

I know it's been awhile but I actually have a part time job now (so perhaps I should change the title from unemployed to under-employed...) so I don't have quite as much time to spend on this stuff. I recently finished covering an awful orange striped, cat ripped chair in our bedroom. I about bought out the phoenix area's supply of this blue and brown polka dot fabric, but luckily it was enough plus a little more that I'm going to use to cover a couple of the pillows on our bed (those ones with beads hanging off them that Harrison loves to pull off and try to eat and choke on).

Here it is

This project definitely taught me the difference between "covering" a chair and "re-upholstering" which is a much longer and more tedious process and cannot be accomplished with just fabric, hot glue, and a staple gun...my version definitely looks more slipcovered...but, I'll take it :)


now--as soon as I stain the furniture a darker shade and paint the walls blue we might have something resembling a color scheme going on here--yee haw.

I'm also happy to report that the banister makeover is FINALLY ALMOST DONE...pictures to follow soon (I hope)

cutest headbands EVER!!!!

My friend Angela recently blogged about making these cute bows for her cute daughter. I wanted to get in on the fun but don't have a cute daughter. On the same crafty blog I found a tutorial for these headbands. I started at the hadband tutorial for about five minutes but had no clue how to turn a strip of old t shirt into a flower.....I'm a little slow.

So--I decided to combine the two projects and make flower headbands. I cut a strip off an old tank top (don't really need it...) for the headband and then glued the flower to it. I made two of them and was really excited about how they turned out. YAY for fun projects that don't require crafting skills :)



See my cat's shadow?? hahaaaa

It's been awhile....but...

I promise I'm not slacking. I've finally got the guest room in good enough shape to take pictures. I'd still like a rug, or really, wood floors, but that's probably not happening. Putting up crown molding proved to be much harder than I (and by I, I mean Cory) thought. He measured and measured and figured out angles and then cut and it still didn't fit quite right so we had to do some filling in and what not. Decorating too is not just about throwing stuff together--I did that and I'm sure it could look better. However, I like it. At least it'll do given my budget. So come visit us and stay in our romantic hideaway guest room :) :) :)
We had those two prints in other places in the house and the colors just fit--maybe not the "style" so much, but what can you do?? You also see my refinished dresser and $12 mirror. Plus an old pic of some ancestors. And of course the leaf-inspired bedding that made me change this from blue and orange and yellow to green and orange and yellow.
pillows, prints from Michaels in spray painted frames I had lying around. And of course there are a lot of candles in this room. I actually took all of these pictures with just the candles. Those flash thing-a-ma-babbers sure do amazing things...

I also refinished this odd shaped table --I've realized that with the antique glazing LESS is more when it comes to the brown glaze.

This picture on the little bedside table is of me when I was three. In Tijuana. On a donkey. It's one of my favorites from my dad's house.

Curtains! Yay for no mini blinds showing!!!! One of these days I'm going to replace all of our mini blinds with roman shades and have a stinky plastic bonfire.
And the crown molding that looks surprisingly awesome shrunk down and from far away.

We've also rearranged some furniture in the downstairs three major living areas. With the front area being more like a library/front room and the middle re purposed for living/watching TV. The area by the kitchen will eventually be a dining room so I can get a big table and have parties that don't involve people's husbands sitting in camping chairs...
Our new front room with Cory's Christmas present to me. One of those nifty shelves from Ikea!!! We saved $70 by packing up the perfect one he bought me and disassembling and then reassembling one from the as is section. (and again by we, I mean cory...like I can dis and re assemble a shelf :)). I love this shelf because it has 25 spaces--so plenty of room for toys on the bottom two rows. As you see our home has been overcome by toys and stuffed animals. After Harrison cleaned up at Christmas there was no turning back.
Marshalls was having a going out of business sale and we snagged two leather ottamans to use as a coffee table--they also each have two mini ottamans inside. Which of course Harrison likes to push around the floor. Just like he does with his two walkers, fire engine, truck of blocks, kitchen chairs, boxes that are lying around, baskets of shoes, etc.
This room would look much better with new couches. I've been looking on craigslist for the perfect barely used sage green microfiber......

And the TV area in the middle room. The black leather sectional that has hardly been sat on for three years is finally getting some use.
We found this armoire on the side of the road for free and it's been sitting in the garage FOREVER. I stained it black to match the coffee table. It has a lot of scratches but I like the distressed way it came out.


Oh yeah, and I painted the downstairs bathroom. Leafy green instead of cold purple grey.

green spells happy. grey equals death.
Something about fresh clean white baseboards. Oh yeah, and why put toilet paper on the roll when your kid is just going to rip it off and eat it???

And wow that was a long ridiculous post about a pretty boring topic. If you read the whole thing you are a really good friend and I should send you some cookies :) :)

hinges???

When we moved into this house one of the things I told my mom that MUST change was the kitchen cabinet hardware. Dirty brass flowers. Ick.

That was in January. Of 2007. A couple of months ago I finally got around to getting some new drawer pulls and knobs. A nice nickel finish.

The hardware was really easy to put in. Basically screwing and unscrewing. No problem.

But then there was a problem.

I realized after putting everything in that the hinges on the cabinets (that show in our kitchen, I've noticed they do not show in most newer kitchen cabinets) were the same dirty brass.


OH NO!!! I CANNOT have nickel knobs and brass hinges. Call me a perfectionist (a slacker one anyway) but every time I went in the kitchen I noticed it. Something had to give. I mentioned this to my mom and she advised me it would not be worth it to change out the hinges (57 in all..that's a LOT of screw-driving).....but I would not be deterred.

So I went to Lowes to get some new hinges.

They have nothing like mine.
Tried Home Depot.
Not even close.

WHAT TO DO???

I looked online but there was no way I would be able to choose the right ones and avoid having to drill new holes.

SO.... while at Michael's one day I noticed that they had silver spray paint and decided to buy a can--why not try it on the hinges--it would probably look nothing at all like metal, but who knows...

AND IT WORKED!!! YAY!!! who knew they had amazing silver spray paint that could instantly turn brass to nickel!!!!

Skip forward through a couple of months and the hinges are finally done. They are a bit shinier than I would like but now I don't totally cringe every time I go in the kitchen :)

Pictures: Take 27

So, awhile ago (and I mean AWHILE. Like months.) I decided I wanted to put some pictures up on one of the walls in Harrison's room. So I bought some cheap wood frames and was going to cover them with scrapbook paper like some super crafty friends of mine had...theirs looked super cute, so I could do it too, right???? Well.....eight frames and 24 pieces of scrapbook paper later. I realized that it was not gonna work. I can't cut out anything that is exactly perfect to fit on the frame. Whenever I use spray adhesive it gets all over. Oh yeah, and I decided to mod podge them so they would have a better more finished look. And that was disastorous--air bubbles all over the place. I would have just scrapped the whole thing but Harrison LOVES looking at the pictures on his wall. So I bought some cheap frames at Goodwill and painted them, and matted the pics (new ones, I had to print new ones because the first set was covered in spray adhesive, mod podge, and harrison drool..) on yet another set of that same scrapbook paper. And it's done. And really it's not that great. But I'm done with it... so...there you go.

Ridding the world of two tone...one room at a time

I know some people may actually like painting their walls different colors...in the same room, but I am decidedly NOT a fan. Not that I haven't seen it done well and not that I don't think it would be possible to two tone in a positive way but given that our ENTIRE house is two tone in pretty much every room.....I've become sort of against it. In my determination to make the world a happier, more monochromatic place...I've decided to paint our guest room yellow (to go with that antique-ish furniture I've been messing around with). The goal is to get it painted this wee. I bought some of that snazzy, primer included paint from Loews, and the dude said I could do it in one coat--so maybe it won't be so bad right?? even if it is already wednesday and I'm going out of town on Friday????

So far--the prep work is done and tomorrow during morning nap I should be able to start painting--YIPPEE!!!

Here are some before pics

Conversation that must have happened between the previous owners of my house:
"So, what should we do with this room?? I think it needs some new paint to spruce things up..."
"I KNOW!!! Let's paint it two shades of GRAY, alternating walls with a little bit splattered on the baseboards for fun!!!"
"That sounds AMAZING!!! "

So there you have it----beautiful gray walls

And the whole room--hopefully after some transformation our house will be a much more awesome place to visit--so awesome that people who live in places that have trees and water and seasons may actually WANT to leave and come to Arizona???? ya think???