Bathroom Painting

Nearly 2 weeks ago (Oh my God, time flies) I spent all night taping up the guest bathroom and painting, barely able to move my arms the next morning.  It looks darker than it is because there is no window and the lighting in there isn't ideal, but it's a beautiful pale cream (like the color of heavy cream), and though I want to put up some botanical and floral art work in there (I've been collecting pieces for the last year), for now it was so nice to have it done before my best friend came to visit.

All taped off:

 The stick figure door sign I painted while in England and it now finally has a home again!

 Bare counters, but the pumpkin soap turned out to be better than a candle, it scents the whole room deliciously!

I love the clean look with the white towels and shower curtain.  It's a tall, tall room (there is a foot above the shower even), but small and cozy. 

Monograms

Using paint I had on hand and a wooden plaque we got for maybe 30 cents somewhere I've been making a monogram to decorate our home.  I painted the blue grey color this winter. Tonight I saw it staring at me, so while I waited to turn the oven back on the quiche I free-handed the monogram on it.  It's not perfect but will look great either on the art wall in our living room or in our office.  Simple, quick....I literally painted it under 10 minutes.

Having A Marie Antoinette Moment

I bought a mirror at a thrift store maybe a month or so ago.  It was slightly hideous, gold paint, with someone at one point seeming to consider spraying it silver, but quit very early on.  But it had amazing potential.  I considered painting it gold, but tonight decided black was the color of choice.  I love how it turned out.  When it's held upright it's so chic, and glamourous.  And you wouldn't ever guess that I paid $10!  
The Before:

The After:

                         

Detail:  (sorry, the sunlight was a little odd....it's a flower pattern)

                                      

This weekend I am painting my desk.  It's been a huge debate, because I wanted to sand it down and stain it, but it's just too big of a project for now.  I should be able to strip in later if I decide to and do all that, but for now I think (I'm indecisive, so this could change) that I am going to prime, paint and gloss it.  Deep Breath In.  


It's my great-grandmother's desk.  It's nothing hugely nice, just a piece I loved enough to wrangle it away from my parents in college.  It got beat up in the move to England, and needs some love.  But I've been afraid to touch it.  Afraid I would screw it up.  Afraid that my mother would shoot me if she found out what I'm gonna do to it.  But alas, I need to make it mine, a space to write.  A space to correspond.  A place of my own.  I've got the paint for the desk, the chair is going to be different, and I need to find fabric to recover the seat.  (and hardware, but that could take forever for me to make up my mind!)

I like these simple styles in chrome (to go with the lamp).

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that after this weekend I will actually have some decent things to post.  I've got painting galore to do, lots of sanding down of some furniture, and cleaning (which thank God G will be tackling part of now that his schedule is back to normal).   We've got a timeline of events for the next few months that should really liven things up around here (the blog, not my life, my life is crazy enough already).  

So, let me have it:  hate painting wood furniture?  Think it's a great way to revitalize old damaged wood?  Tackled any fun project lately?  I know some of my readers don't have blogs, but was also wondering if any of you have any projects you might want me to post?  This could be exciting!

Coming Up

Things That I Need to Do and Show You:

1. Paint furniture:  I have a tea trolley, 2 side tables, 4 chairs, a desk, a dresser, and a coffee table to paint!  The weather has really hindered my getting this done, but hopefully the sun will keep on shining!
2. Make a pair of curtains for my office area for less than $5!  (you are gonna want to see this!)
3. Organize my kitchen drawers:  Drawer space is at a premium here, so I need to buy some organizers and make it work.
4. Make my living room work for now.  Yes, my furniture will be here in April (and then I need to have the chairs completely refurbished) but for now I just need to make the room look presentable.  Currently it looks like a tornado went through and blew a lot of things that go elsewhere into there.  It's kinda been our drop off point after shopping.  
5. Organize my closet.  
6. Paint the mirrors I have lying around my house.  Yes, plural.
7. Unpack (sadly this might be on the list until we move out).
8. Buy or make a queen size bed and move our bedroom furniture down to the guest room.  
9. Paint the walls
10. Not panic because this list is crazy long, and there isn't even half of the things I need to do on it!

Have you been making lists and checking them thrice?  Do share!

First Painting Project

I want to preface this by saying that I have never spray painted anything really, ever, so after doing this project I went about the house looking for things to paint.  I might be a wee bit obsessed, but had to give it up until we can take the can of spray primer back to Home Depot, because the thing broke on me, mid spray, and all I had covered was the frame.  Damn.  


The Before:

I love the painting (G really loved it, we saw it at a thrift store in England, decided we had no idea what to do with it, and then 4 days later were back to pick it up.  It was meant to be, it really fits into our home now.)


The After:  

So there you have it.  A simple little project, but daunting.  Especially since we did it inside our living room, because I was too eager to wait until daylight outside!    In the end we ended up with paint on my hands, but nothing was ruined.  

Have you painted anything fun lately?  

Candlelight

G and I are closing on our house on Thursday morning.  It's going to be a whirlwind, we head to the house after closing to meet with ADT who will be installing a slightly upgraded security system.  Then Friday we will have the movers with our things from England coming and unloading.  Oooh, a weekend of unpacking and slowly making our house our home!  


But Thursday night it will be me, G and takeout (no pots, pans, plates or utensils).  We do have enough things to make some stovetop coffee, so I am sure that will be part of the plan.  But mainly, we'll hang out.  And the first thing we're placing in our home is this:

It's a stainless steel serving platter from the kitchen area of Target.  What are we doing with it?  Placing it in our fireplace, which is non-functional (the second story floor actually blocks the chimney, so it won't even affect our heating bill).  I figure this tray, and some white pillar candles are just what we need for our first night in our house!

Did I mention that G and I, who have never painted before, plan on maybe trying to paint a room this next weekend?  We're going to be new homeowners, and a tad bit giddy!

Changing It Up

Over the next 6 months or so G and I really want to switch up our bedroom style.  Before it was light and airy, very hotel like.  And while we like the hotel-ish look we want to move into more of a darker, relaxing space feel.  So the light and airy bedroom items will be moved into a guest bedroom (which we're excited to have one for friends and family who visit!) and we will be stepping it up.  

The best part of the the new house?  The entire 3rd floor is our suite!!!  You walk up the stairs into a hardwood area where there will be a sitting area and the desk, although I am still figuring out how to work it.  Here is the area outside our bedroom....it's quite a bit bigger than it looks in pics, especially by the bathroom.  This pic was taken from right at the stairs.

I'm hoping to find something like this for the sitting area:

I love this chair!  Something about this type of line on upholstered furniture makes me happy.  Two of these and a little table would make the perfect sitting area.


We also have our own bathroom with a shower (no bathtub, but there is a whirpool one on the second level, easy to walk down to when I want to relax).  Right outside our bedroom is the closet where the washer and dryer will go, so I don't have any excuse not to do the laundry!


As for our bedroom, we are taking it dark, at least that is the plan for now.  We will be saving up for nice pieces of furniture, but also thrifting and finding creative ways to get the look we want.  Our bedroom is not huge, but it does have high ceilings, so we think we can get away with painting it navy blue.  These are the inspiration for it (I apologize, but these have been saved for awhile and I don't remember where from!):

I have a thing for pink peonies, so I love how they pop against the dark blue!  I have an old antique hand painted plate from my Grandmama's home that I am wanting to hang on the wall.  The roses are this color of pink and a bit darker.

We sat down tonight and wrote out what we are wanting our bedroom to be.  The dark walls makes it a little serious, even a little masculine.  We want a canopy bed, but nothing too ornate.  Something simple, like the farmhouse bed from Pottery Barn:

But to that we're adding glamourous touches, a little bit of femininity.  Perhaps a couple benches like this one from Ballard Designs at the end of the bed?

We really like these white lamps (the table ones) from zGallerie.  They're quite a bit larger than you would think which will work nicely with the height of the bed, and I personally love the shape.  I think because it's round, it helps contrast with the dark structured lines of the bed.

Our bedroom has a ceiling fan in it with controls on the light switch (it's too high up for us to reach it without a ladder).  The room has recessed lights, but the fan also has separate lights on the top and bottom that you can choose to have one or both on, and each light has a dimmer.  It's nice mood lighting I must say.  So technically we don't need the table lamps, but they will come in handy for reading in bed.  But we also want some romantic touches, so we are going to put white pillar candles in the room as well.  We're wanting a retreat, so the little touches are what will make it.  

So far I haven't found what I am wanting with night stands, but I will keep looking!  If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

But on the night stands we want a clock on one with some books, and a silver picture frame on the other with some of the white candles.  We're planning on going with a silver clock for the look.  Our iPod dock with the alarm will be somewhere else where we can hear it, but isn't a focal point in the room.  

We like this one from Target.  It's got a good weight to it, a nice older style, and for right at $20, the price is most definitely right.

For a picture of the two of us we are thinking of a silver frame.  Something simple, classic, like this one from Reed and Barton:

I really love hepplewhite dressers, and would love one like this (from Eddie Ross):

With a large mirror on top to reflect light around the room.  We really like this one from Pier One:

On top of a dresser like this I would like this mirrored tray from Target:

You cannot find it online anymore, but we've been able to hunt it down in stores.  It's got a lot of heft to it, and for the most part is well made (a few had clearly been picked up, handled and then sat down not so gently as their sides were looser than others).  

We have a couple of fun vintage glasses from my grandmama's home with frosted dots on them that we plan to use for water.  Those and bottles of water will be going on the tray.  One bottle of sparkling (either perrier or pellegrino) and one cleaned old bottle of the sparkling that will be filled with fresh water daily.  This will be a nice touch since otherwise we would be trekking down to the kitchen whenever we wanted a drink at night, and quite frankly, I don't think that would be too fun (especially after setting alarms at night with motion detectors!).

We have a nice large window that lets in plenty of light that we want to put up curtains for.  ( I love the fact that we have a tree outside our window!  It's not close enough to cause problems, just close enough to be pretty!)

I am thinking some nice grey silk curtains like these from Restoration Hardware:

Somehow I think they will really pop against the dark blue!  And with silver curtain rods and white silk organza underneath, I am hoping it will really allow light in, but still keep it from being too bright when we want to relax.

For now the floors are a berber carpet.  Nice, but not what we are wanting in the long run.  I need to remember to ask the renovators what wood they used in the house, and where to get it, so that hopefully we will eventually be able to put hardwoods into at least our bedroom.  

So....what do you think?  Any suggestions?  Leave me comments, links, and be sure to check back soon for what I plan to do to the rest of our suite!