Paint Color Samples

For all of those wondering how much wall one small color sample will cover, well here ya go!
Our next project is the living room. We want to have an accent wall where the fireplace is, and the rest of the room will be some other complimenting lighter color.
For the Behr color samples, you get about 7.25fl oz or 215mL's. The Lowe's color samples will give you a little more (7.5 fl oz).
Here is the before:

 

And here is right after I finished painting. Because the wall is already grey, I will literally only need to roll on a light coat over it. So, under 10 bucks to paint an accent wall? I'll take it!

 

More to follow

 

Ready for a New Year

First of all, let me say that this blogger is making me irate because I started typing and when I went to add a picture, it decided nope, I'm just going to make your computer freeze and not let you do anything each time you click on this logo. Perhaps they are working on something? Anyways, I'm going to continue to write this and add in pictures as soon as it lets me..

     Before the new year begins, I figured I should at least update this at least once. To be completely honest, I have been becoming so drained from my job it makes it hard to motivate myself on doing anything around the house. I know it's not an excuse to slack off on the home improvement area ( not that I gain or lose anything from not doing anything), but sometimes making changes to your surroundings improves your mood and makes you motivated to continue onto other projects around the house.
     We wanted to start off slow and ease our way into putting our own personal touches on the house. The dining room seemed to be the way to go. Why? Well, because we have never had a dining room therefore, we had no furniture making it just easier to work on.
     After you have decided on what room you want to give a facelift to, you need to decide on what color you would like. If you have no idea or are completely new to the world of painting, an easy thing to do is to go to Google and type in "dining room" or whichever room you are interested in. You will get a wide variety of images at the tips of your fingers.
This is what we wanted to do:

     Go to Lowe's or home depot and spend the 2 bucks on color samples. Believe you me, the colors on those swatches are almost never ever even barely remotely close to the actual samples you paint on the wall. Take for example, the following pictures followed by links to the swatches and judge for yourselves.

Left: Behr: Oriental Eggplant

http://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-Premium-Plus-Ultra-1-Gal-PPU17-2-Oriental-Eggplant-Flat-Enamel-Interior-Paint-175301/204105516#

 

Middle: Martha Stewart: Eggplant

 

Right: Behr: Deep Aubergine

http://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-Premium-Plus-Ultra-1-Gal-PPU17-2-Oriental-Eggplant-Flat-Enamel-Interior-Paint-175301/204105516#

 

On the left is Valspar: Purple Prickly-Pear:

http://www.myperfectcolor.com/en/color/30010_Valspar-243A-4-Purple-Prickly-pear

 

On the Right is Martha Stewart: Eggplant:

http://www.myperfectcolor.com/en/color/316911_Martha-Stewart-MSL182-Eggplant

                                      

     After playing around with the two colors that we thought we would use, we thought that both hues of purple would darken the room. We decided we would like to use a lighter cream color on the bottom and add in chair rail. These colors remind me of Monet's use of color in his water lily paintings which I absolutely loooove.

     The ceiling also had to be repainted. I chose a very light color, it was almost white with a splash of purple in it. By doing this, it seems that the light reflects better in a way that makes the room look lighter than it really is.

    That ugly plastic stained glass looking light fixture? Gone! And replaced with a much more modern brushed metal fixture.

 

     I got the curtains from Bed Bath and Beyond on clearance for 50 bucks (originally $50 for each panel). The curtain rods are from hobby lobby. They were $25 total.

     The final step will be to install crown molding. Unfortunately, the hubby's truck needs a new starter and is stuck in the garage so that is going to be put on hold for now.

Finishing our Platform Bed

I know that it has been quite a while since I last updated but with it being busy season at work, I really haven't been up to working on many projects let alone have the time to sit down and write in my blog.
We did finally finish our platform bed for our master suite upstairs =)
On my last entry regarding the platform bed, I led you all up to step 4 but we couldn't very well assemble the base of the bed until after it had dried for a day or two.

After the 2 x 10's have dried, you can assemble them. To add extra support to them, we decided to add some bracing at the corners.

 

We used two wood screws at each corner to put the base together.

 

After all of the boards were held in place, we added some extra bracing with wood for more support.

The second level is going to be pretty much the same idea as the first level, except we used 2 x4's, which are going to be larger. We used the dimensions of a king size mattress and added 1/2 an inch to each side.

 

After finishing the second level, we placed that over the base. The outside edges were stained and polyurethane was applied and let dry.

\

Finally, mdf board was cut and secured into place.

 

Well there you have it. Our very own platform bed. We decided to use a memory foam mattress in place of a regular mattress.

 

And here is a random picture I took while we were at the zoo because I was testing out my new camera.

Using Chalk Paint

                   For the past week when I have not been working, I have been working on a little side project. I have been refinishing an old desk of mine with chalk paint. If you have never heard of chalk paint before, don't feel left out. I recently have discovered it when my husband and I went to an antique co-op where one of the vendors was displaying it and some pieces she had refinished with it. Immediately I started looking at furniture in a whole new light. You can purchase the chalk paint for 30 bucks a quart or you can make it yourself which is half the cost.
So here is a list of things that you need to get started:
- The item you want to refinish.
- A quart of latex paint, your choice of color
- Mixing quart cans
- Plaster of Paris
- Water
- Hand sander
- Paint brush
- Wooden paint stirrer
- Measuring cups and spoons (ones that you can specifically designate for projects)
- Furniture Wax
- Old rags

Step 1: Clean the dust and debris off of the item so you have flat surfaces to paint on. Remove the hardware.

 Step 2: Make chalk paint if you decided to make it yourself. Now there are many recipes out there to make chalk paint. The one I used called for:
                                 - 1 cup of latex paint
                                 - 2 1/2 Tbsp Plaster of Paris
                                 - 1 1/2 Tbsp of cold water

When I started mixing, it became really hard really fast. So I had to keep adding water a little bit at a time to make sure it had a smooth consistency. I recommend working in small sections at a time. I found it a little difficult to work with and you want to put an even thin coat on. It does dry pretty quickly, and you really have to work it with your brush. You also have to continually stir the mixture so the plaster of paris doesn't sink to the bottom.
                   Once you've applied the first coat and let it dry, you can apply a second coat. Let that dry. If you are happy with that result, you can go onto the next step.

Step 3: Distressing.. This part is actually kind of fun. I basically took the hand sander and distressed around the edges of the desk and on the drawers. If you are really artistic, you can even add stencils in but the way I see it is, the more simple it is, the better it looks. I don't really like furniture when people just make it look busy. I think simple is elegant.

Step 4: Waxing. I have never applied wax to furniture before but it is pretty much the same concept of waxing your car. Some people apply polyurethane to the finished product instead, but after reading up on the pro's and cons of each, I just decided to go with wax. You can just take an old rag, get a little wax on it, and just apply it to the surface. The instructions on the product I purchased said to wait 15 minutes before buffing it. After you buff it, you sand it, and can apply another coat to it. After you are satisfied with that, you can add the hardware onto it.

            I was not a big fan of the original hardware on it, so I decided to go with some really nice antique-y hardware that I am purchasing from an architectural salvage store in the city. They are a little pricey, so I only purchased one so far to see if it would go well so I am going to have to go back and purchase the rest.

Voila! I have taken an old piece of furniture and transformed it into something new for my new office space. Now I just need to finish unpacking! Maybe another day...

   

Platform Bed: Part 1

We have had quite a bit of rain the past few days her in the ROC, which has caused some problems for us. With the break we had in it today, we cleaned out all of the junk in our gutters, sealed some of the edges, and noticed the debris sitting on top of the roof. My husband and I have decided that that huge maple tree, as lovely as it is, needs to go. We need to prolong the roof of our house, and to do that, we are going to dig deep into our pockets and have someone come to remove it. This will open our back yard up to a lot of sun and give us piece of mind that it won't fall onto our home or our neighbors home.
We decided that today we would start our next big DIY project to personalize our home. We have decided that the bedroom set that I have had for the past five years will stay in the bedroom downstairs and be our guest bedroom. We are building a king sized platform bed all from scratch to go in our master suite upstairs. It will take a lot of time and patience, and is a little costly, but it's a project that we both can work on together and spend some quality time with one another.
Today we started working on the base. If you are going to undertake this project on your own, I highly recommend figuring out where you are going to put the frame because most of it will need to be built in place.

Materials:
* Six 2x10x8's
* 1 box of deck screws (1" should suffice)
* 12 metal joints
* Foam brushes
* Stain of your choice
* Polyurethane

Tools Needed:
*Miter Saw
*Circular Saw
*Power drill

Step 1: You first need to cut the pieces of wood into the sizes you need. Simple enough. We went ahead and had the fine people at home depot make the cuts for us for the pure fact that we needed to fit it into my accent hatchback to get it home. We had two of the 2x10x8's cut to 69" and the other four were cut to 65". The scraps are going to be used for support beams.
                   

Step 2: Figure out what pieces you want to use that you will see on the outside. These are the ones that you are going to stain. We chose to have a few with eyes and knots to give the piece some character.
             We simply propped them on top of some benches we have in the yard and put paper underneath to protect them. If you have some rough edges, you might want to sand them down a little bit, but the pieces we chose were nice and smooth so I chose to skip that step. Don't shake the stain up before you open in, open the can and stir it. if you shake it, you are going to get a lot of bubbles in the mix and it becomes sort of a pain to use. With a foam brush, distribute the stain evenly to apply a thin coat. The thicker the coat, the longer it is going to take to dry. Let that dry and then you can decide if you want to apply another coat or not. The dry time really depends on the humidity. For the first coat, it took about 2 hours. For the second one, it took about 4 hours. We actually decided to move them onto our side porch because the dry time took longer than anticipated.

                                    

Step 3: Once the stain is dry, apply a coat of Polyurethane. Again, the dry time is really dependent on the brand you use, so closely follow the directions on the can.

Step 4: Assemble. We haven't gotten this far because we are still waiting for everything to dry but I will be updating this section when we start to build it.

Cost of materials for base only:
$100.00

Finally!

We have been in our new home for almost 2 weeks and as much as I would like to say we are loving every moment of it, I am close to being a dead person I am so exhausted! We closed on the house on the 7th and it was raining every single day we had to move. We spent 2 entire days moving everything, then spent that entire Sunday cleaning our old house and moving over the last of the little stuff. The hubby took a few days off of work to work on things that need to get done so we can actually live in the house. Gutters were overflowing with debris needing to desperately be cleaned out. He moved a washer and dryer into the basement. Demo'd a large concrete laundry tub and installed a new lighter plastic tub and the list goes on.
With my job and hours, the first day I was able to do anything was on Saturday after work. I'm sure you can guess what my first project was... GARDENING! I was so excited to get my hands dirty! The previous owner had lined gardens with these wonderful rocks, which gives the backyard a natural feel.
I spent quite a bit of time weeding out a lot of unwanted plants.

We brought some of our plants over from our old house because I just couldn't seem to part with them.

 

I found out very quickly when I was digging holes to plant everything was that the roots from the enormous maple tree in our backyard were going to prove to be quite the challenge.

I was able to recreate my old garden but was able to add new components. Instead of using red mulch as I had in my previous gardens, I decided to go with black mulch this time around.

I transplanted different types of Hostra that were on the property to fill in my garden a little bit.

 

And voila! 

Total Project Time = 3 hours

Total Project Cost= $115.00

5 Days Until our Move!

Moving day is so close I can almost taste it! My husband and I have been busy packing so that we can make the transition to our new home as easy as possible. We have enlisted a number of people to help us with our move and you have no idea how grateful I am to have people actually willing to help move all of our stuff from one place to another especially since it has been so hot and humid this past week!
We have run into some kinks in getting an actual closing date because our attorney's office was taking their sweet time. Listen, I know I didn't go to school and get a big fancy schmancy degree in learning how to be a douche bag, but I know that New York State is one of the only states that requires an attorney for you to close on your house, and with that, it doesn't take a genius to get the job done. I'm sorry that you take on too many clients that you take an entire month to contact the attorney of the seller to get the damn title, but if I'm basically giving you 600 bucks to do just that, I expect you to get it done in a reasonable amount of time, especially when our broker has been riding your ass! Rest assured, I will not be recommending you to anyone, ever... Ok, I think I'm done ranting for now.
We are closing on our new home this Friday, barring any other problems..**knock on wood** We will be signing paperwork in the morning, getting the keys and the first thing we need to do is order a washer and dryer. I don't know about you, but I have become spoiled in the fact that after years of having to waste my time in a Laundromat to watch my clothes to make sure no creep steals or throws my laundry on the floor, I can just throw my stuff in, walk away, and take care of things that need to be done around the house. Time is a precious thing for a lot of people, and I certainly don't have much of it at this moment in my life.
Today we moved everything we packed up in the basement up to the back porch to make things much easier so we can just grab and go. This is 1/3 of our house. The other 1/3 of the house is the attic which I have just about everything packed and ready to go. Tomorrow i have off of work and have decided to pack up the kitchen. I have purchased paper plates and cutlery to use for the few days that we will be here. I know that this is wasteful, but with my hours, I don't have the time or energy to do it when I get home from work this week..it's just not happening.
I am excited to move for many reasons. I'm not a big fan of my neighbors. After I got home from work yesterday, my non English speaking neighbors were blaring their music and yelling at each other up until 10 at night. All I could tell myself was just a few more days! Also, seeing how everyone is home all of the damn time and doesn't work and it's not just that they are on vacation and probably easily spending my tax dollars on Twinkies and potato chips and popping out kids left and right..just pisses me off and I just can't stand looking at people like this anymore...or the fact that the cops are at the rental property across the street from me every day because of a domestic dispute... It will be a relief to live in a neighborhood that cares about their property values, that is out working hard, that cares about education and cares about how there hard earned money is spent.
Joshua and I are getting some great ideas to do for our DIY home projects and I am so excited that I will soon be getting to share these ideas with anyone that actually reads this blog.
Joshua gets to have his man cave in the basement while I will have my woman cave upstairs. One expensive project that we will be undertaking it adding on an entire bathroom up in the master suite.
My goal is to increase not only property value, but increase the appeal of the entire upstairs space having a fireplace, walk in closets, and a spa like bathroom with contemporary flare. In order to get this project underway, we will hire a plumber to come in and give us an estimate on how much it would be to get water upstairs. We really don't mind doing most projects ourselves, but plumbing is not something we want to mess with and we need to be sure that everything is done the proper way so that we don't end up having leaks which can cause a significant amount of water damage and could cost more in the long run to fix then just paying someone knowledgeable to do the project in the first place.

The following are just some ideas I have found for inspiration for my dream bathroom. I love the natural stone on the walls with the wood panelled floors. I like the idea of the wood privacy wall which we can install to keep the toilet separate from the rest of the bathroom. I love the contemporary elegance of a glass bowl sink. There are many kinds of bowls that you can special order to meet your wants. You might spend a pretty penny on them, but I think it would be well worth the expense.

 

 

So below you have sort of a walk-in closet leading to the bathroom which is going to be perfect for how the entire layout is set up in the upstairs. Add in some sleek pocket doors and I think you have yourselves a winner.

 

I just love love love this type of soaking tub. I love the idea that the hardware isn't attached to the actual tub itself like most soaking tubs are. Go with something like this in place of a clawfoot tub, you can save yourselves 500 bucks. When choosing a soaking tub for an upstairs space, make sure the flooring can handle the weight of the tub and the amount of water that can fill it. With something like this, you have to be very careful in doing your research and I will be writing more about this as we get the project underway =)

 

Ideas for a Dining Room

I am so excited that we are actually going to have a dining room! Our current house is so small and the floorplan is so closed in that we hesitate to have guests over to entertain. My goal this year is to host Thanksgiving at our house, and to do that, I've been looking at ways to make our house welcoming and yet make it our own at the same time.

 

They have added chair rail to separate the top and bottom halves of the wall. The top wall they color washed and the bottom half they used a stencil and rollers to apply two different colors of paint to make the room pop.

The top part is really cool too because they added in painted wall frames to access and decorative wall art that you have.

 

Go here to get instructions on how to stencil on wall art:

http://www.lowes.com/creative-ideas/paint-stain-and-wallpaper/moroccan-pattern-stenciled-wainscot/project

 

If you want to learn how to color wash and add in the painted wall frames, you can find directions here:

http://www.lowes.com/creative-ideas/paint-stain-and-wallpaper/color-wash-walls/project

 

I also love this idea of adding the decorative painted ceiling to accent a chandelier.

 

You can find the instructions on how to do this here:

http://www.lowes.com/creative-ideas/paint-stain-and-wallpaper/decorative-painted-ceiling/project

 

I find the stenciled wall mirror adorable and it would look amazing over a little credenza. Add some do it yourself floral arrangements with a nice dining room table and maybe a wooden wine rack and you will have a very warm area to entertain.

I am not the type of person to choose bold colors as pictured here..mostly because I am not the type of person to choose pink, but on the other side, I don't want to choose colors that are too dark. Our plan is to refinish a wood table and chairs for the dining room and we are thinking with going on a darker stain. I'm thinking that I want to go with shades of blue and green but I think that I am also going to have to play with color scenarios in my head.

To help me with this task, I have tried using both behr and valspar color simulators where you can actually upload pictures of the room you want to paint. I have found that Valspar is easier to use for me. All you have to do is sign up with an email address and you are on your way!

 

http://www.valsparpaint.com/en/explore-colors/painter/index.html?screen=painterScreen

Wall Mounted Hall Tree

One of the first impressions when people walk into your house are in the foyer. Whether its large and spacious or whether it's tiny and cramped, you want it to welcome guests into your home.
The foyer in our new house is small but enclosed which will be great in the winter because we can keep cold air out. At our current house, our foyer is much smaller with a coat closet and then you are right in the living room with no door to keep out that cold air.
I've been finding all of these great ideas on Lowe's Creative Ideas website, and I wanted to share with you one that I really want to implement when we move in.

They installed a wall mounted hall tree and mirror with a little shelf. They painted the wall around the mirror and added vertical pine trim as the border also painted the same color. They used bright and colorful wallpaper as an accent wall. Now, I might not go as bright and bold as these colors, but they actually have some very cool looking wallpaper designs.

Go here to get all of the instructions on how to create your own Wall mounted hall tree:
http://www.lowes.com/creative-ideas/organize-store-and-move/wall-mounted-hall-tree-and-mirror/project

Touching up a Dreary Fireplace

      Spring is supposed to be here, but in our area, we are teased with bouts of wonderful weather which turn quickly into winter flurries again. As much as I would say that this is a surprise, nothing surprises me living in Rochester,NY.
      With landscaping on my mind, I can not motivate myself to spend any time or money into our current house since we will be moving in the upcoming weeks. Joshua and I have taken countless trips to home improvement stores gazing at tile, lumber, crown moulding, paint etc and planning out in our heads what we would like to do with our new home once we are able to actually call it ours. But we all know that ideas always change over time, especially when you are on a budget. Just look at all of the programs on hgtv. One show that we have been keeping our eyes on is the Property Brothers. If you have not seen it, it basically is a show of two brothers, one a real estate agent, and the other is a carpenter (twins) who show a couple the house of their dreams that is move in ready then reveal to them the actual cost which is always way over their budget. They go around showing them houses, bring it down to two that the family thinks they can work with, and almost always they are complete dumps. The one brother does these amazing designs with the two final houses, and the couple chooses the one they want. If you have not yet seen the show, I urge you to at least watch one episode. You can get some amazing ideas on how to flip a space in a house, and they give some great DIY tips.
     So the one thing that I would like to do that I have never done before is try my hand at doing some tile work. Since Joshua gets to put his subway tile in the kitchen, I told him that I claim the fireplace. If you have been keeping up with my journal, you know that the fireplace is nothing special.

As you can see, it is pretty standard brick and has the same flooring that is in the foyer, which is shown below:

Kind of just meh if you ask me. So I have spent some time trying to coordinate tile which isn't too expensive, but should give the area a little flare.

As a border on the flooring, I think I am going to go with this universal deco tile from home depot which is 3x13 and runs about $11.57 for each section.

Inside of the boarder, I plan on using 12x12 Montagna Lugano tile which is very simple and ties into the colors of the border chosen. ($9.99 each, also from home depot).

 

On the mantle covering the bricks, I plan on using Emperador blend bamboo 12x12 mesh tile. ($14.74 each, you guessed it! Home depot!). These are nice because they actually have a little bit of texture and kind of pop out of you. I think that a lot of people use too much conformity and everything is so straight and boring. Because it is kind of part of the fixtures in new builds, I think we have gotten too used to it and we need to delve out of our comfort zones a bit to make our house unique.

 

As for the front foyer tile, I am not quite sure what I would like to use in their yet. Perhaps that tile that looks like wood floors? The one mistake we made in our current house was put in gorgeous black marble tile. Number one, it gets dirty really easily. Two, it's always covered with a mat in the winter time to keep people from falling flat on their face right as they walk in the door and you never really see it....Lastly, it was really expensive.

 

So, you may be saying to yourself at this point, ok great, I have never tiled before and would love to get some instructions on doing so. Me too! I will be doing some research, and then when we move into the house, I will produce a list of supplies needed with measurements, how much everything costs, and the time that the project will take to complete! For now, stay tuned!