I am dying to get a chance to try chalk paint. I've done some work on one of the bedrooms, and should post pictures, but probably won't.
Anyway, my sister and law gave me the recipe that she uses for chalk paint:
1 cup water based paint
1/4 cup plaster of Pairs with a little HOT water mixed in
We've started working on the house again. It kind of started when the hot water heater started leaking. All under my Pergo flooring in my hallway and carpet in my living room. Of course, it molded. Then I got pneumonia, which, for me, is almost always triggered by allergies. So Todd took up the Pergo and cut out the moldiest part of the carpet. That was wonderful of him. However, there was then a huge swath of cement floor exposed in all its nastiness. The cement had drywall compound on it as well as other surface irregularities. We almost stained it anyway, but ultimately, having to move out of our house for the three days it would take to stain and seal the concrete was more than we felt that we could handle.
We ended up buying light duty commercial flooring from Sam's Club. It is really thick, so it doesn't feel as "clicky" as some laminate. Obviously, it is not hard wood, but we are pretty pleased with it. We still need to finish up the trim and the thresholds, but we're really pleased with how things have turned out.
I've decided that we need to paint a couple of room. Our bedroom, for one. It is a pumpkin orange color, and is depressing. I'd like to paint it something lighter, like Purple Lace.
Also, I want to paint the bedroom that my son had before he moved out. It is a really dark brown with patches in the wall because our son is not exactly careful. But even if the paint were in perfect shape, the dark brown kind of makes it feel like a cave. I am thinking about a light teal or pale green for that room. Maybe one like this? Or I could take the coward's way out and paint it Montgomery White like we did our youngest daughter's room. Regardless of what color I paint it, I'd like to turn it into a craft room. To that end, I've been collecting images on Pinterest to inspire me.
We've hit a bit of a slow spot on the renovation. This summer, I've ended up working, which slows progress. Then there is the dissertation that demands attention.
We are determined, though, to do a few projects before summer is over. All involve a mad desperate trip that we made to IKEA last week. We now how a load of flat-pack shelving sitting around in the way.
Highest priority is painting my daughter's room. Her walls currently have the inexplicable wall treatment that you can see to the right. The lighter green goes about 3/4 of the way up the wall. Part of the wall paper border was gone by the time we bought the house (probably courtesy of the male college-aged renters who occupied the house before we moved in.)
We'll be painting her room Benjamin Moore's Montgomery White. The color looks pinkish online, but is much more creamy yellow in real life. Miss O is not thrilled about such a plain color, but I am looking for a neutral that I won't need to re-do in a few years as her tastes change. She is, after all, nine years old, which is heading toward that "tween" age, and no matter what she likes now, she won't like it in 3-4 years.
After we get her wall painted, we are going to install the Pax wardrobe that we bought at IKEA as a house for her American Girl dolls, similar to this one. When she gets older, if she tires of the doll house, we can buy doors and she can just use it for storage. *IF* we ever finish, I'll post pictures. :)
In the process of trying to renovate/decorate our home, I need to be able to do things like paint and upholster.
My sewing machines (just a regular machine and a serger)have been in the great room, which is not a great look, to tell the truth. Close by, just through the double doors, though, lies a sunroom. A sunroom that my husband had told me was not going to be a "dump" for my scrapbooking and sewing. Instead, it was going to be where he and the kids watched tv made art projects. And, I put cable in our bedroom, and he never went in there again.
So our seven year old daughter took over. And completely trashed the place.
So, now, a year later, we (he and I) are going to share the space. He'll take part for art, and I'll take part for sewing and scrapbooking.
Now, though, we need to do something with it. It is half painted, with remnants of former leaks peeling off some drywall paper. It has windows everywhere, eating up most of the wall space. There is no closet, no storage.
I need ideas. I'll post some links a pictures here, and then maybe I'll make a decision. Perhaps that is a bit ambitious... Maybe I'll at least pick a paint color.
Home Office Gets Budget Makeover For $1000, a woman made over her space, adding lots of storage. Includes budget breakdown.
Also found a redo your kitchen on a budget article, that might work when I move on to another room...
And
Better Homes and Gardens Quick and Easy Decorating Projects
This is a great laundry/sewing room from Flikr. There is a lot of stuff packed into this room, I'll admit. But it is relatively neat and completely accessible. I could live with this level of clutter, I think, in the sunroom.
I love how this seamstress stores notions in jars, simply lined up on shelves.
And sewing supplies hung up on a pegboard. Although, I like this peg board better. Or here is another, with a thread holder attached.
This room has an ironing station on top of a credenza in the middle of the room. With drawers.
And, this one is a metal shelf from Lowe's, all kitted out.
Metal drawers from the Container Store (Lowe's has similar, for less), but overall a bit fussy for my tastes
This one is just beautiful.
And so what did I learn from this little Flickr adventure? All furniture goes together if it is painted white. Walls need color. I just need to pick one and go with it. Hanging stuff on the walls is a good way to get it off the floor and out of a drawer. And might help me use it more often.
Oh, and even really utilitarian stuff looks pretty okay.
I am loving the Shabby/Vintage Chic pool on Flikr.
I found this, and this, and this (see the suitcase as an accessory?),and this spice rack.
I also like this before and after refinished buffet.
This is an awesome kitchen.
I love this fabric storage idea!
I thought this was a framed fragment of quilt, but instead it is a mirror propped on a quilt. I think I liked it better, though, as a fragment. I have a couple of quilts that I've picked up at yard sales that have seen better days that have bits of them that could be salvaged.
Curbly is a blog dedicated to DIY home decorating. Articles range from button paperclips to The Laziest Slipcover Tutorial Ever.
My own advise for inexpensive decorating is this: fall in love with an era where people built catalog furniture out of real wood. Springs are usually shot, but often there is enough wood around the springs to lay plywood over the top. This makes the furniture feel like a padded bench rather than a spring-y new sofa. But in my house, with three kids, nothing feels new and spring-y for more than 15 minutes anyway. Almost any design ill can be solved with black paint and slipcovers.
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Being back to work, I can't really get my bathroom finished. The paint is spotchy in places, even though it is Benjamin Moore. I don't think a one-coat paint exists. Around where we had to repair the medicine cabinet, the Spackle is not as nice as it could be-- I may just texture that area & forget trying to make it smooth.
Last week, I spent $80 on bamboo matchstick blinds for my breakfast nook, so my window treatment budget is pretty tapped out.
My six year old, however, whose room is on the decorating list because she is sweet about it, needs something other than the nasty mini-blinds that came with the house. My co-worker, however, posted a link to a diy roman shade tutorial last week. I, however, am only seeing it this week since I now have to leave my home with my nearly-complete bathroom to breathe air and see the rest of the world.
I'll post pictures of both projects when if I ever get done.
As decorated by my mother-in-law the previous owners. The rental company that managed it had pictures up on their website. It does not look nearly this nice now, the carpets are stained and the walls are really banged up. But it has enough bedrooms and two living spaces.
So this is the house that we are buying. See that big peak over front door? I am thinking that could make a loft, for books. Or my sewing machine.
One of my professors had a party for the grad students. Her house was older, obviously, but had a really lovely cathedral ceiling and a loft library and a spiral staircase.
Anyway, remodeling plans are in the future. And first on my list may be the kitchen because it is tiny. Although book storage is an ongoing problem at my house...
But this might solve my problem. Amazing. This is a staircase. With books.See, that new ranch style house that we are buying has an attic that could have potential. One of my professors had a 1960s ranch house that she said used really closed in and dark. They transformed the ceiling to a cathedral ceiling with a loft. Look at all those books in that tiny otherwise-wasted space. I could so fill that up with books. Tonight, I mean. And it could lead up to the loft that I want to create. Although reading around about the process tells me that raising the ceilings might cost more than I want to spend (like $30-$40K).
Reckon I could build the staircase anyway? Maybe just to the attic. Hmmm.
Just finished up the master bath. I had it kind of botched, really, with two different shades of green and rough drywall. And the top two feet of the walls were siding that was peeling and not very nice. So I scraped peeling paint and textured the drywall. And filled rough spots. And primed, and painted.
I hurt.
And the ceiling is still peeling. We are just going to put up new bead board and be done with it. I cannot scrape and sand 100 square feet of ceiling. Just can't. I can already hardly breath from the sanding, etc. that we have already done. Mea has been a trooper, doing what work that she could and keeping me company when she couldn't.
The color is an awful pale apricot. It looks so... boring. But it is done. And it looks more "finished" than it did before. There is some fiddly bits around the shower to sort out, probably with caulk. I sort out a lot of things with caulk.
My closet is located inside my bathroom-- not the best plan, but it is an old house. Much of it does not appear to be planned. Anyway, now all the stuff that I pulled out on Tuesday has to go back in. And the house needs to be straighted up, because I have so not been picking up since I started on the latest round of paint. So there is laundry to be done and kid stuff to hide.
And a trip to the mother-in-law's to pack for.
Yes, gentle reader, my husband has scheduled a trip to see his mother. Neil Gaiman canceled his reading in Tulsa, so he figured that it couldn't get much worse, so we are packing up the minivan with all three kids and my husband's breathing machine and heading to southeast Missouri in the heat of the summer.
And tomorrow, I must finish the tile in the other bathroom. Todd finally put the cement board around the window so I can (did I mention that I started this job in April?), so I need to get that done. Why the push to finish up all my home improvement projects? My classes start on Monday. Only six hours this summer (as opposed to nine last summer-- that was insane). Oh, and I have an article to co-write in the next two weeks.
It is after midnight, so I suppose I should go to bed. So I guess I will.
I stabbed myself installing lino tiles in Mea's room. That makes me an idiot. I stuck a band-aid on in instead of going to the emergency room to get stitches because it was still attached. (Mea laughs as I write this, but I don't think it's funny).
But, on the bright side, I found the makeup that both Clinique counters in town swear has been discontinued. Where did I track down this elusive makeup? Ebay? A flea market? An obscure foreign makeup website? Nope. The Clinique website. And what makeup product do I so diligently seek? A special shade of lipstick? A particular eye shadow? Volumizing mascara? Nope. City Stick foundation. I am feeling really boring as I write this... How lame is it to be this excited to buy foundation? (And yes, I do wear it, lots of times, especially at the beginning of a semester-- not so much after mid-term). So I'll have to wear some makeup, right?
We are making a full-out press to get the house ready for the appraiser tomorrow. I think we have every surface painted, which is the biggest thing. Everything has to be "finished" and I think we have managed to coat every surface with paint and to fill every hole. Todd wants to paint the living room next week. I am ambivalent about that. On the one hand, the house will be in order tomorrow, and I hate to take it apart again. On the other hand, my life will only get busier after next week.
I had coffee today with Becky. Really, it was more of a mad dash through Target while we drank our coffee. I found some cool toys on sale, that I put up for W's Christmas, along with a few assorted birthday gifts to put away.
Tonight, in the midst for cooking supper for my bunch and my dad who is visiting, I decided to do "something" about the open shelves in my kitchen. And what I decided to do was eradicate the plastic. So I put my baking supplies into glass jars, and put my metal canisters on the shelf and it looks really great. I did have to paint above the stove-- evidently I forgot to do that before. But it is done, for the moment. Now I just have to decide what to put on the open shelf above the stove. It gets hot enough that I am worried about putting just anything up there...
We have a new toy. Rather, Todd has a new toy. We bought a second-hand eMac today from a co-worker who is retiring. This will be *his* computer, since I swiped the desktop that I built in the fall. (I needed it for class ; >) He is ooing and awing overing it right now. It is beautiful.
I primed our cabinets in our kitchen so I can paint them. Then I need to paint the walls. I am pretty sick of renovation at this point. We are getting the house appraised next month so that we can start making payments (oh, joy of joys), but also so we can also quit buying building materials. So that will actually come out to be close to a wash. I love the way old houses look, but I am so sick of repairs that I could cry right now. When we get our closet project done, then we have to fix our bathroom. Fix is not a strong enough word, I am afraid "gut" is probably the more accurate word. We *have* to have a new bathtub and toilet. The old ones are just not salvageable, since they leak. Then of course, the new tub needs a shower surround tiled, and the floor replaced. All before the appraiser comes. *sigh*
The house needs new siding and a new furnace and air conditioner. But those are not on the top of the triage list, at the moment.
Found the cord and the resume. Todd has a job interview tomorrow at a different school in the same district.
We have bead board paneling in half of the closet. Which I have painted. And painted. No exaggeration; I have painted four coats of the same color on parts of it. And after I painted the dark green paint on, I decided there was too much green, so I repainted the part above the trim white again (hard to explain without a picture...)
The Vintage is done and as we speak being printed to be mailed out. That was more work that I thought it would be. And I have signed myself up to do it again, next fall. Aarg.
I am sewing this week when I am not painting. I made myself a wrap top and a pair of capris. I made Olivia a dress and a doll dress to match. I like sewing. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I should, however, have been cleaning out my office. That activity, on the other hand, fills me with dread.
Well, it is about time to go pick up my children, so I am off.
I need to find the cord for my external hard drive. Then I need to go to Home Depot and get some paint so I can paint the inside of my closet and my bedroom. I have a scrap of wall paper that Walker excavated from the wall during the demolition that is has a beautiful dusky green background that I love.
This weekend, Dad came down and helped us with our project to finish the second bathroom. In the meantime, I worked on getting the closet ready. We removed everything from our closet. All the clothes, shelves, everything. Now what was in my closet has exploded all over my house. It kind of looks like I am having a garage sale in my living room. This will get better soon, I am sure. Todd has promised tonight to get the sheetrock and paneling that we need to finish out the closet so we can get hanging bars back up and have a closet again. And I may have a garage sale as well, next week.
I think I am going to go eat lunch now. Maybe better blood sugar will help my outlook on life.
Speaking of home improvement... http://www.raisetheranch.com/blog.html
Love the three day weekend.
I started tiling the kitchen counter-top. Twelve inch tiles with one inch accents. Lovely. Now if I could only get the dishwasher installed so I could finish installing the tile and grout and so forth. Cutting the cement board was honestly the hardest part. Stumbling on the John Bridge tile forum was a godsend. There I learned about carbide blades and learned that no one really can cut cement backer board with a utility knife. If you see it done on television, it is evidently a special knife or a camera trick.
I really should be reading for my assignment tomorrow. At least I have the class I am teaching tomorrow planned out.
I have almost finished adding the affiliate ads to the website that I have been building. I did the style sheet, the graphics and everything.
We are not going to get the house renovated in time for school to start. There. I said it. We aren't getting done. We are going to have to refinish hardwood floors while we live there. I can just imagine the grit everywhere.
Our friend came and finished wiring the water heater and the stove. At some point, we are going to have to get him to come and rewire the outlets to 3 prong grounded outlets. But first things first. We have a giant hole in our living room floor right now, and pieces of subfloor in a stack beside it. I am not sure how much of it can be salvaged and reused (if any).
It amuses me, as I paint & drip paint on the chipboard, to think that someday wood may be scarce enough that some, in years to come, will fuss over the chipboard the way I fuss over the stained hardwood that we found under the carpets after we took them up. Or possibly the vinyl tile will be treasured.
