DIY
April 25, 2011
April 19, 2011
the paint...it spreads!
Current state of the living room:
current state of the Dearest, looking at the living room:
Poor guy....he has been super patient with me in the QUEST FOR THE PERFECT PAINT COLOR...
believe it or not, I might have found it!
See the circled swatch in the photo above? That's Behr's Graceful Gray, and it might just be the perfect greige neutral to complement our sofas and still let me go crazy with color here and there.
Graceful Gray
At first it looked too dark and 'putty-like' when I painted the swatch on the wall, but it's been a couple of days and now it's growing on me. The color changes a bit with sunlight to a softer gray-brown, and at night it lightens to a warm gray.
The Dearest has given his approval, too, so the maybe I can stop buying sample jars of color. They are multiplying in my garage like rabbits. I thought I only had five or so but yesterday I opened a cabinet and a whole bunch of them were hiding in there. Yikes!
April 13, 2011
I give up
Current view of the living room:
Yeah, it's giving me a headache, too.
I was hoping to go with a completely different color scheme downstairs but it's just not working. None of the blues are playing nice with our sofas, so it's back to the yellows and taupes.
I found this Laura Ashley color at Lowe's:
Deep Cowslip 4. You can actually see the paint chip on the wall under the mirror..it's a little darker and more saturated than what we currently have (the color here on my screen is more peach-y than the actual color chip).
So I'm off to buy another paint sample....
April 10, 2011
waffling and a POLL (come vote!)
In my DIY zeal, I've decided to repaint the entire downstairs of our house.!!!
:o
Yeah, that's about the same look that the Dearest gave me when I told him of my plans. But, being the Dearest, he willingly promised his help with the cutting in (my LEAST favorite part of painting) and furniture moving.
However this was before I started doing crazy stuff like this:
pretend you don't see all the crap laying around in my poorly staged photo
Poor Dearest...he does NOT like half-completed projects and his eye starts twitching every time he walks by this wall. Not to mention I think he's heartily sick of me asking him about which color he likes!
Currently, we have a yellow/tan color on the walls, but I think if I'm going to repaint, we need to go a whole new direction. The big hurdle is our sofas- as you can see, they are brown leather and they're not going away any time soon so whatever color I pick needs to complement the brown. (I would sooooo love to have white slipcovered sofas because they are easier to decorate around but these leather ones are 10 years old and still look brand new so they stay)
Even though I LOVE LOVE LOVE strong colors (see the deep red wall in the photo? It's the wall that goes up our staircase...), I think I want to paint the walls a more neutral grey/blue and use accessories to bring in color. With that in mind, I painted all these swatches....my favorite three are the numbered ones. #1 is Behr's "Light French Grey", #2 is Benjamin Moore's "Woodlawn Blue" but mixed in Behr paints, and #3 is Sherwin Williams "Reward". What do you all think? Vote below!
And just for fun, here is a peek at Mr. Mean Owl, who I found at a thrift store for $5.....I might have to try some metallic paint on him because he gives me the heebie jeebies as is.
ETA: someone asked me if we were keeping the red wall...at this point, probably not! I just painted it about two years ago but I think we will need to repaint to the same color we pick for the living area...or maybe a slightly darker/lighter shade of that color. Also, all of our trim is white, as are the doors and window blinds. Here's another photo of the living room so you can see we have pale tile floors, too. (that carpet will probably go, and ignore the snake cage on the left side of the frame, that's gonna be moved! LOL)
March 28, 2011
Granny must've had a skinny bum
So I was hanging out with my new boyfriend, Craig, the other day and found this adorable vintage chair for only $10:
Aside from the fact that the cane seat was busted out, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it! I even got a whole complementary layer of dust, spiderwbes and a few dead daddy-longlegs for my $10. The seller said this chair has been in her family for many years- owned by her Granny, mom and then passed on to her. She guessed it was probably at least sixty years old.
Look at this amazingly detailed wood work on the back and top...
This morning I gave the chair a quick dusting (bye-bye mummified daddy-longlegs) and started pulling out the left over caning:
Check out my awesome work bench- I know Bob Vila would love to own one like this.
After 30 minutes of clipping and pulling and tugging, all the caning was gone and the chair was ready for a new seat. I went to the local Lowes and asked the guy in the wood section what type of plywood I should use: 1/2 inch or 1/4 inch. He looked me up and down and asked, "So are a lot of BIG people going to be sitting in this chair?"
I explained that the chair was vintage, so a bit smaller than modern chairs, and that it wouldn't be used for seating very much...he laughed and said the 1/4 inch plywood would be fine. Then we had a 20 minute conversation about how vintage furniture often seems much smaller than new stuff and how all our grannies must have been tiny little things....Can I just say that I *heart* my local Lowes people? They are always super helpful and willing to spend lots of time answering my crazy questions!
So the next step is to cut out and upholster the chair seat. Here is the combination that I'm thinking of- the paint will go on the chair frame and the fabric will go on the seat:
What do you think? My other thoughts were to use this fabric and either leave the chair frame wood or paint it soft white....I'd love to hear your ideas!
March 20, 2011
DIY candleholders
It seems I'm on a decorating kick. After finishing our new coffee table and rearranging the living room, I realized that it had been YEARS since I had updated any of the decor in our home. That's mostly due to the fact that we had two small men running around underfoot. When your decorating style includes rubber baby bumpers on all the tables, Goldfish crackers crushed into the carpet, and plastic/unbreakable furniture, it seems a bit foolish to go out of your way to prettify things.
But the small men are growing up and it's now safe to leave a pair of scissors laying around without worrying that grubby boy hands will use them to make lace curtains out of silk drapes. I still wouldn't put glass items down low (these boys have an unholy love for super-bouncy balls in the house), but I think we are at the point where we can start putting pretty things out without having to worry about them getting gnawed/drooled on.
One of the places I'm trying to dress up a bit is our mantel. It's VERY plain unless it's Christmas time. Most of the year the mantel is completely bare. I thought a good place to start with the accessorizing would be candle holders. I found these Turned Wood Pillar Holders at Pottery Barn:
And these Calais Candleholders at Ballard Designs:
The only problem was the price...they were all between $30 and $50 a pop, OUCH!
Since I'm a cheap bastard and love me some DIY, I dragged Monkey Boy to the local Lowes and started wandering the woodworking aisle (remember that photo of MB I posted a few days ago?). I found table legs several different sizes and settled on these:
Country Pine 29 inch "traditional leg": $12
Ash 27 inch "french provincial leg": $16
I also grabbed a couple of these redwood fence caps (they were in the lumber/fencing aisle):
Then I went next door and grabbed some small 3 inch rounds of wood from Michael's (sorry no pic but you can find them in the craft wood aisle...mine were $1 each).
When we got home, I grabbed a bottle of Gorilla Glue and started gluing things together like a crazy woman. Here's one candle holder in progress. 
I turned the table leg upside down, glued the redwood fence cap to the base, and finally glued the small round to the top. (see my little green owl??? and also see the Dearest's trophy from his Las Vegas Hockey Tournament where he enjoyed himself [not sure I want to know all the hows and whys of THAT] for four days while I stayed home with the wild monkey boys and nursed an incipient sinus infection???? No, I'm not bitter at all! Hence the place of honor on our mantel!)
Ahem. Anyhew....here is the other candle holder, all glued together. I switched up the cap and little wood round so the holders wouldn't look too identical. 
Next I took them outside and donned my oh-so-sexy respirator for some spray painting:
(see that WIP in the background? There's a whole post coming up on that!)
Yes, I know I look like a dork but I like my brain cells intact and I can't hold my breath long enough to finish spray painting a whole project. If you don't have one of these repirators, GET ONE. They are the best ever- no worries about inhaling fumes and besides, it gives you the sexiest Darth Vader voice!
One quick coat of this to seal and prime the wood:
And two coats of Krylon "Ivory", plus a little distressing and glazing gave me these gorgeous knockoffs:
I love how the glaze settled into the nooks and crannies:
So final tally: two knock off candle holders for approx. $28, compared to $29 for ONE from Ballard Designs...not too shabby! I guess that leaves me about $50 for the pillar candles!? ;)
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