In Which We Paint Every Room in Our House a Different Color

I don't think I got on the computer at all yesterday.  And not much today or the days before that.  One of the projects we decided to do this summer while we had help here is to paint the ceilings, hall, & Jordy's bedroom.  Of course, we decide to do all the rooms at one time.  Here Lauren shows off the lovely "before" photo.

Everything white... boring!  First, scraped paint off handrail.  It's going to be black again when we're done.

I didn't see this myself, so I'm glad Lauren took a picture of this.  Jordy's working!  This is what used to be Lauren's room, then Glenn took over it & painted it more manly colors.  This summer it's Mark & Lauren's room again.

And, AFTER...

Now every room in our house is really a different color.  The other colors didn't show up as well.  And I couldn't take a picture of the hall 'cause it's full of all the dirty clothes we couldn't wash the last four days since everything was covered in plastic!  Glenn is going to Orlando this week for a conference so we're going to work on the handrail again.

Our Latest Home Project & The Next DTDDT Member

I'm not sure exactly how this project came about.  I told Glenn I'd like a pegboard in our storage shed so I could find things easier.  He bought one & brought it home.  Somehow it ended up upstairs & Jo & Glenn came up with this.  Then they went to our favorite thrift store and got some record albums.It's starting to look like a music room.  We even used the record sleeves as frames.  I love how the photographer posed the girls.  It's such a "little girl" pose and it was last year!

And now, for my next Duct Tape and Denim Design Team member... my own daughter, Jordann.  She has a completely different style than my other members and used some different techniques.  She painted acrylic paint on an 8.5 x 11 piece of canvas paper, then tore the pages from my vintage paper pack and painted them with watercolors.
She used several of my vintage paper shapes in her design, too -- the 3" scalloped circle, butterflies, birds, Love in Many Languages, and some others I don't have listed yet.

Sunday

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!  Isaiah 52:7

I took some pictures of some of our favorite ornaments to share with you between now & Christmas.  This year we're using our white tree with red & lime green decorations.  And guess who's lime green???We also started painting Lauren's room tonight.  A good thing, since she'll be home next week!  

And here's the first coat of the new color:

lol.... No, Lauren, you don't get to see what color it actually is until you get home!  

Thankful for Home

Tonight I'm thankful that we own a home instead of renting, especially so we can paint our walls whatever color we want without asking anyone else!  We sold Lauren's bed yesterday and told her we'd show her pictures of her old room, which is becoming Glenn's office.  It will have a futon in it so she'll have a place to stay when she comes back.  And the closet is still hers, and a few other things.

Notice the new curtain.  It's a light blocking curtain and keeps the room much cooler in the afternoon.

So, we're going to pick out a paint color... or maybe go to the paint store & buy someone else's mistake, buy a futon, some artwork, maybe some shelves.  Any suggestions on paint colors?  Lauren, we'll listed to your ideas since you'll still be living in the room at times.

This wall still makes it look like Lauren's room.  Her curtains from Africa and her artwork from her class last year.

I Need More Light!

I've been thinking about light fixtures lately.  Not the most exciting thoughts I've ever had, but as the evenings are getting darker I'm realizing that we need more light around here.  Plus the fact that our dining room chandelier looks like a Halloween decorations.  (See photo above.)

I know several of my readers are in the process of building or remodeling homes so I thought I'd ask your opinion about lighting.  I want to do more than just stick lamps around.  

Last week I found a website called ShopWiki.  It's a little different than most shopping websites.  Traditional shopping sites show you stores that have paid for ads, ShopWiki collects data from all the stores they can find on the internet so they have more info for you.  I'm all for that.  Especially since I'm a 'small business owner' myself!

I like that I can just move my mouse over the item shown and see the list of stores that carry it -- and the prices.  Oh, and if you're not shopping for light fixtures, they have lots of other categories.  I searched books, movies, music, clothing, accessories, toys & games, video games, and health & beauty while I was there.  A really fun category right now was "Trick or Treat."  Cute costumes!!!

OK, so above the dining table should be easy.  I want a more modern pendant light.  Here are some examples I found.  Of course, the one I like is the $510 one.  :-)  There are a few on the website with colored glass but I'm thinking that I should stay neutral.  The walls in the kitchen/dining area are a neutral color so I can change accent colors without changing the whole kitchen.  Some of the Forte Lighting pendants are nice & in my price range.  They also had fixtures from companies that our local stores don't carry:  Thomas, Sonneman, Renoma, PLC Lighting,   Nulco, Leucos, Maxim, & others.  So... that gives me a lot to think about for over the dining table.

Now, for the kitchen.  I need some under-cabinet lighting.  This is not quite as exciting as picking a chandelier, but I'll use this much more often!  I'm thinking that I just want 'plug in' fluorescent lighting since I'm not much of an electrician.  That sounds so much easier to me.  I could probably do that while Glenn's gone this weekend.  (You know we always do home improvement projects while he's gone.)

In the living room I might just do reading lamps so we'll have light right where we need it.  Plus, we have no light fixture in the center of the room so that would be some major work.

Now I just have to convince Jo that the real spider webs on the scary black chandelier can not be considered Halloween decorations!

I Couldn't Take It Anymore!!!

We've lived in our townhouse for about 2 1/2 years now.  (That's hard to believe -- time is flying!)  The previous owners did a lot before they left including installing all new appliances.  About the only thing in the house they hadn't updated was the vent hood over the stove.  I think this hood must be the original from the 70s!  It was almond & brown.  For the last few months every time I've cleaned it pieces of paint have come off with the grease & dust.  Yuck!  It looked really bad & I decided I couldn't take it anymore.  

Today was my day off & my big project was to paint the vent hood.  I should have taken a before picture.  I remembered about halfway through scraping off the paint.

I checked online & several diy websites said spray paint was the best.  The salesman at Home Depot said the same thing so I tried it... even after my bad spray paint experience when we painted the door with chalkboard paint!  This paint didn't fly around as bad as the chalkboard paint.
Here's the finished project.  I used a hammered black spray paint.  I love it!!!  It actually looks clean now.
I also got rid of a humongous microwave in the corner.  K-Mart had a smaller one on sale this week and it blends in much better and gives us more counter space.
I think our next project will be the countertops.  I'll pay someone to do that, though.  Jordann & Glenn saw a modern kitchen in a magazine with yellow cabinet doors.  We may try that, too.

Shopping & Valentines

Wow! Y'all should have been shopping with me today. I didn't have to work and was really needing some clothes for work & church. So I dropped off Jordann at school and went to Kohl's. I'd seen some Skechers on sale there like the ones SE bought when we were in TX. They didn't have any in my size but they did have some black ones in the clearance section for $21! Then I found some pants for $8 and shirts for $2-6!!! I have some new outfits now. Then I got a haircut & went to the post office, library, Blockbuster, K-Mart, and drug store. Busy! I finished up some Valentines. Can't tell you who's getting them yet -- they may read this blog.

I finally got a picture up in the bathroom, too. In trying to make it more modern & masculine, here's what I came up with. Glenn liked it.

Glenn's Reward

I don't remember if I ever posted this but back when we had our first leak and the plumber came he gave us an estimate of $2500-5000 for the repair. What? We'd been saving for a new TV and thought we'd have to use that for the repair. Glenn said he thought he could do it himself. That's when he pulled out the kitchen cabinet, cut a hole in the ceiling, put some glue on the pipe joints, and sealed it all up. He spent about $25. He figured if he did all the home repairs himself he'd save enough to buy his TV.

The TV we had was old. Glenn's dad bought it about a year before he died. George didn't want to admit he couldn't see as well as he once could so he just bought a bigger TV. lol... It lasted through 4 moves. We even took it to church to watch movies with the youth a few times. One of those times it fell out of the back of the car! Several weeks ago it started acting up. The picture would bounce back and forth and shake a little. Well, last night it died completely! This was a good week to buy a TV. They're on sale everywhere -- just in time for the Super Bowl. So we'll get to watch it on our new flat screen! Yay!

Now for some photos. I don't think I showed you this either. I found this photo in Better Homes several months ago. I really liked it & started collecting black frames.


Here's my version. I've added a few other shapes since I took this. There are still a few empty holes in the collage frame.


This is also the wall that Glenn wanted to paint next but I think we're taking a break from home improvements for a while. I wanna start making Valentines!!!

Ta Da... New Bedroom

Wow, I didn't realize how bad the bedroom looked until I compared the before & after photos. We hadn't done ANYTHING to the bedroom since we moved in almost 2 years ago. We just kind of threw things in it. Our plan was to finish the 'public' areas downstairs before we worked on the bedrooms but things don't always work out the way we plan. So, here it is:

Pretty boring, huh? Since I love green we picked a light green color. It has a little blue-grey in it. We painted on a rainy day so here's how we sped up the drying process a little. lol

And now for the (almost) finished product:

We moved the Italian landscape paintings downstairs and I'm looking for a single larger painting now. We'd also like to put a couple of wall lamps over the bed. But I kind of like the lamps & bedside tables in front of the bookshelves. Kind of layered & cozy.

My desk was clean for about 24 hours. I should have taken a photo then. But I started working on Valentine goodies again so out came the 'stuff'. But now I have boxes on my new shelves to put my stamps & punches. Hopefully they'll be easier to find than the file boxes in the closet or stuffed in the desk drawers.

I took the photos tonight so the lighting isn't really very good. I took this last one without a flash. A little dark but I think the colors are truer.

Ta-Da... New Bathroom

I put the finishing touches on the paint today so we're officially finished. I don't include decorative touches because those take me so long to figure out! I want to put a picture over the toilet, maybe something over the towel racks. And we've got to put up the clock somewhere. So... what do you think? I can't believe we did all this ourselves. If you don't know us very well you don't realize how big of a project this was for us.

We did have some hooks on the back of our door. Can't find them right now. I think they got put up with Glenn's tools. So the towels are hanging on the screws that the hooks fit on right now. BTW, the different-color-towel-for-each-family-member method is working great. These towels dry quickly, maybe that's the bamboo?

Yesterday we painted the bedroom. This morning we went to Ikea for shelves. Glenn's still putting parts of them together. I'll have photos of that room soon.

Happy Valentine Magnets

I made these last week and listened them in my Etsy shop. That's about all the crafting I've done the last 2 weeks. And Glenn's still on a roll. Today he put up the crown molding in the living room. Tomorrow he's going to paint the bedroom.




I'm thinking about having a craft day at my house... anyone interested?

Here's the Bathroom on Monday

The photos in the previous post were taken Saturday morning. Here's what it looks like now. Still not finished but it is much closer. Actually the photos of the bathroom BEFORE the makeover look much better than it did in person. :-) For example the countertop that's still in it is going to be replaced because of some cracks. In the photo it doesn't look too bad. Our new countertop is in Glenn's car right now! And I bought the new medicine cabinet today. That should go up tonight. (Glenn had to work today.)

And here are my 4 new towels. I bought a different color for each family member. Hopefully that will cut down on some washing. Jordann found these in the newspaper yesterday. They were 50% off at Kohls. They're Vera Wang! I didn't even know that she designed towels. They're 70% cotton and 30% bamboo. Remember how soft the scarf is that I made for SE's Christmas present? Yep, these are almost that soft!!!! Daddy wouldn't like them... they're thick and fluffy. But we did see some thin towels at K-Mart on sale 4 for $7.00!

I'll try to upload another photo tomorrow to show tonight's progress. I have my regular day off work tomorrow. A friend invited me to go to Berkeley but if the weather's still bad we might just have coffee instead -- there's snow on Mt. Diablo right now!!!

Our Weekend Project

Here's how we spent our weekend. I wish I'd taken a before photo. I might have one from when we moved in. Anyway, the bathroom was a minty green color with white cabinets and vinyl tiling. The previous owners had put a very intricate molding on that kind of overwhelmed such a small space. We wanted something a little more modern so since the toilet leaked last week and we needed to replace the floor anyway we thought we'd just go ahead and redo the bathroom.

Who does this photo look like?


We finished the paint, floor, and molding. I'm about to go back to Home Depot and buy the medicine cabinet/mirror and counter top. Then I'm going to pick up Lauren. She just called from the San Diego airport. Oh yeah, I have to go buy new towels now, too. Our towels look old and dingy now in the "new" bathroom. :-)