Proof

Olive hates balloons. You’ve all seen it in pictures. Well, I have something even better for you, today: cinematic proof of her utter fear and disapproval.

This was right in the middle of putting away our new nightstands, and all of the banging you’ll hear is Steve installing the chandelier in the bathroom. It may not have gone quite as smoothly as I portrayed yesterday, which explains him spouting off halfway through the video. I could’ve edited it out (no I couldn’t have) but would rather just keep it real.

My favorite part is how she comes and sits by her mama at the end. Don’t worry Olive, I’ll protect you! Oh, dogs. Silly little guys.

10 Dolla!

Remember when I told you guys about our garage sale finds? There was one particular treasure that I purposefully kept from you. I’m sorry, but it had to be done.

We scored this baby for 10 measly dollars. The gentleman who was selling it plugged it in right there on the spot, so we knew it worked, and then we promptly handed over a 10 dollar bill. Ya’ll.

Can you guess where it’s going? OH THE SUSPENSE. You’ll have to wait until the end of this post. NO CHEATING and scrolling to the bottom.

This weekend Steve rigged up this lovely contraption that our neighbors were surely thrilled with. It was the only way we could paint every nook and cranny.

You give my husband a pitch fork, a nail, and a cereal box and he’ll build all kinds of things. And yes, our grass looks like straw. I am not ashamed. It’s supposed to be 103° here tomorrow. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is? Oh, my grass knows.

After a few coats of primer, Steve rigged a second “drying” contraption to be displayed in the shade of our garage.

After a few more coats of paint it was time to move inside…. TO THE MASTER BATHROOM. Ta da! That’s where this is going. I think I already told you that yesterday. Oh well.

We picked up this “can converter” kit from Mendards (for some reason Lowes and Home Depot didn’t carry it) and got to work.

After removing the can light, this is what we were left with:

And this is a before and after of the can converter installation:

I asked Steve how he always knows how to do this stuff and he just batted his pretty eyelashes and told me he just follows the directions on the package. It’s just so simple, isn’t it?

After a few curse words and huffs and puffs the chandelier was installed! (We still need to get a dimmer switch on this bad boy so excuse the blinding light.)

Doesn’t she look gorgeous? This bathroom hasn’t been visited by the decorating fairies yet so this was a welcome change. It really adds so much personality to the room.

I’d still like to switch out the vanity lights some day, and perhaps the faucets. Sigh. So much to do, but we’re definitely making progress!

Here’s my view from the tub, because I’m sure you’ve always wanted to know.

Now we just need to re-caulk around the tub, get some artwork on the walls, and this room will be close to done! It’s a lovely, serene place to start my day, and I love it oh, so much.

I’m on a teal kick these days. I want this room to feel very open, light, and ocean-y, so it really made sense. You can’t tell in this horrible lighting, but the walls went from dark green to light and bright antique white. I never thought I would purposefully paint a wall white, but I love the openness it brings to the space.

Now to brainstorm for some artwork…

 

Mirror Mirror and the Nightstands

Hello! And a happy Tuesday to you all. This weekend was a blur so I’ll try to wrap it up as cohesively as humanly possibly.

First and foremost I took my lumberjack out for a surprise date on Saturday, where we visited Traders Point Creamery. For all of you Indianapolis people, I highly recommend checking it out! It’s an organic farm with this gorgeous and rustic “loft” that serves as the restaurant. All of the food comes straight off the farm and I don’t have enough good things to say about it, and what they’re doing over there. Bring your wallet, and perhaps your neighbors. It’s a wee bit pricey (READ: IT’S WHOA EXPENSIVE) We love supporting local, organic farms, so for a special treat it’s totally worth it.

After dinner we went and saw Snow White and The Huntsman, and IT WAS AWESOME. Another high recommendation from The Harpsters. (We also watched Win-Win on Netflix this weekend, and we think you should watch that one, too.)

Ok, ok. Enough with the weekend updates. You probably want to see those doggone nightstands that you know I was working on. Remember those little rascals that gave me so much trouble with the whitewashing?

Here’s what they looked like before the epic paint fail of last week:

(Excuse the atrocious lighting in the next series of pictures. We’re working on a new camera, I promise.) Here’s what they look like now, after priming, painting, and then ORBing the hardware:

You guys, I’m not going to lie to you: I don’t love them. I’m not even sure if I like them. But, the deed is done and if I want to change them all I’ll need is another coat of paint. They turned out way more cheerful-turquoisy-blue, and less moody-dark-teal than I wanted. They look too “country cottage” for my taste, but I’m going to live with them for a while.

We still need to ORB the lamps, and I think I’m actually going to take down the sconces. I need something less traditional above the bed to make this room feel more modern. We still need to get a bunch more furniture in this room, so once it starts to fill in I’m hoping these grow on me more. As in, I hope I don’t still hate them with every fiber of my being.

So, basically these $5 nightstands have turned out to be the bane of my existence, which makes me want to try EVEN HARDER to make them work. Now it’s a personal challenge. I MUST MAKE THEM WORK.

One other small, yet functional change we made to the master bedroom this weekend was the addition of a full-length mirror. You didn’t think “Mirror Mirror” in the headline was only alluding to the movie we saw, did you? My headlines have to work around here; but they receive insurance options and 401K benefits so don’t feel too sorry for them.

This $37.90 purchase was THE BEST BUY EVER. Seriously. I haven’t had a full-length mirror in the bedroom since we moved in (our apartment had closet-mirrors – classy, yet functional). You guys wouldn’t believe how much easier it is to get ready for work now. I’m sure my coworkers are relieved, too. No more awkward, “are you wearing that on purpose?” conversations.

Tomorrow I’ll show you guys the chandelier we installed in the master bathroom. It’s a real hoot, so stick around!

 

 

 

Happy Almost Weekend!

Just dropping in for a quick “hello.” HELLO! I hope you all have a glorious weekend. Doing anything fun?

I’m excited to tackle our to-do list, and take Steve on a surprise date. Nothing is better than the weekends we’re home together with no real agenda. I can’t wait for the weekend to start!

I will leave you with these mystery photos, foreshadowing a project plan for the weekend:

Have a great weekend, everyone!

 

Oh, and P.S. Don’t tell Steve I opened up a gallon of bright turquoise/teal paint on top of his table saw. K? Thanks.

Gallery Wall – Revisited

Something is bugging me about the gallery wall. I can’t put my finger on it, but something is definitely bothering me. It might just be my obsessive compulsiveness to want to constantly change things, so as to not do any permanent damage I decided to invite my good friend Photoshop to play.

Here is the wall as it stands today:

Should all of the frames be painted the same tone? Possibly white or ivory?

If our house was filled with crisp white trim I might go along with that idea. But it’s still not working for me.

Perhaps they need to all be ORB’d (oil-rubbed bronze)?

That certainly matches our ORB’d hardware in the house, but it does feel quite heavy.

Maybe I just need to pare it down to three tones: ORB, white, and wood tone? (I have a few random turquoise frames in there, along with a couple of dark wood ones.)

So far, I think I like this one best.

But I have always been curious about painting them a yellow tone to match the wall color. That way the artwork really stands out and the frame recedes:

I don’t know. That could either look totally amazeballs or it could completely bomb.

After looking at the gallery wall in its simplicity like this, I realized the one thing that’s REALLY not working for me: that yellow Chicago print. The color is oh-so wrong for our new gold slash chartreusey wall color. It clashes bad. Real bad.

I reached out to the artist behind UNITEDTHREAD about a month or so ago about getting one of her prints oversized (currently she only offers the one I want in an 11×14) but no word yet. With the powers of photoshop I decided I will hold my breath until I hear back, because I think having My Favorite Print ever would really change the dynamic of this wall…

I think with the combination of a new print and painting the random gold/blue/dark wood frames, this wall would totally do it for me again. It would be the peanut butter to my jelly and the cheese to my pickles.

We’ll see. I will keep you guys updated on any gallery wall decisions, though. We are home this weekend (THE WHOLE WEEKEND!) and have a list of projects to tackle – this one not being one of them. It will just have to sit in my queue for a while longer.

Ye-HAW, it’s almost Friday!

 

 

A New Knobby Knob

Let me set up a bit of a back story here. We let Olive out of our back door, into the backyard, every single day.

Every day – multiple times of the day – we struggled to get the door open. When we turned the handle on that door, the latch never pulled in all the way, so we had to give it a few pumps before the door would unlatch. ALSO it was impossible to lock. I had to put all of my weight on the door with a hefty heave-ho and simultaneously turn the deadbolt to get it to lock. Watching me open that damn door was like watching the choreography of Swan Lake, but much less graceful. I’m a grunter.

We eventually want to get rid of our brass door handles because A they’re ugly and B we can’t stand the shape of them. Just give us a nice, round knob. That’s what she said.

Instead of buying them all at once (!!$$$!!$!$!$) we started with just this back door over the weekend. I’ll admit it’s not the most visually impressive change we’ve accomplished around here, but HOLY HELL. Let me tell you guys how happy it makes me.

Imagine me waking up in the morning to let my little baby Olive outside to go potty. I approach the door, and with a simple flick of my wrist I turn the deadbolt open. AND THEN! And then I turn the door knob and the door opens with ease.

Did you guys hear the birds as they happily chirped for me? Did you see the squirrels give me a standing ovation? It’s getting all Cinderella up in here. BECAUSE THIS DOOR KNOB IS A DREAM COME TRUE. See what I did there? Suddenly my life feels like a fairy tale.

Here’s a close up of My Most Favorite New Family Member:

I totally should’ve taken a video of me trying to open the door before we changed out the knobs, and then one after. But the before would’ve been filled with expletives and desperation, and I probably would’ve been kicked out of the internet and/or shamed into never returning.

So, my apologies to you guys. I know this doesn’t look that exciting. But let me tell you what, I suggest you all go and buy yourself a non-sticking new knobby knob. It will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Paint Fail

Remember these $5 garage-sale nightstands I was so excited about?

Yeah, well. I tried to do this whitewashing technique on them over the weekend and I ended up with a big fat FAIL. It wasn’t the tutorial’s fault; it was actually very thorough and specific. I think it was a combination of a marred top surface and the realization that they aren’t completely solid wood. The top panel is only a veneer, which made sanding a bit precarious.

And just to keep it real, here are the pictures of my disastrous DIY attempt this weekend…

See how the surface is still really shiny? It wasn’t as easy as just sanding off the poly top-coat. If I sanded too much it would’ve skinned the veneer down to the bones.

Also, because of the oh-so-many dings and scratches, the white paint filled those holes and made them more obvious than before.

Sigh. I felt slightly defeated because there’s nothing more frustrating than setting up for a project, really committing to it, and then having it quickly fizzle out. Pfffttththhp.

But it’s okay. I’m glad I tried this technique because it was something I’ve been curious about for a while. And who knows? Maybe it would work on a difference piece of furniture somewhere down the line.

The good news is that these are still very paint-over-able. I knew if the whitewashing didn’t work out I would still be able to give them a solid coat of paint so they’d still be usable.

I was thinking of perhaps going a little loony and trying the teal route:

[image source]

I love how that guy looks like he’s smiling at you with his jolly double chin.

I’m also considering painting the nightstands the same color as the headboard, for a super anchored and unified look. If I do that, then the brass lamps will be painted a glossy teal.

I threw together a quick photoshop rendering, but it’s pretty crude, and not realistic at all. And ignore everything, like the blue chair, the pillows, and the lack of anything in the room.

Get the idea? I do like how having the headboard and the nightstands the same color gives some weight to that wall. Which is good, because that wall is so gosh-darn huge. Excuse this most annoying complaint, but our room is TOO BIG and I don’t know what to do with all of the space!

I’ve been scouring Pinterest and Houzz for inspiration on how to make this room feel balanced. Anyone have any link love they’d like to share?

 

 

 

Help Me Help You

Hello and Happy Friday to my dear readers! Today I’m conducting a survey to know what you guys want to see more of. If you’d like to see something that’s not included in the survey, please leave a comment for me! (NO I will not be posting naked pictures of my lumberjack. Nice try.)

Thanks for taking the time to answer; I am always looking for feedback!

Have a radical weekend, everyone!