Our New (old) Front Door

In the midst of a few other projects I had going on, this one got done first!

I, like so many out there in blogland, am loving bold front doors that add a pop of color to your entry.  I have had this in the back of my mind for months, but finally took the plunge with a less “in your face” color that I think will transition through the seasons well.  I loved this front door on Emily A. Clark’s house,

(source)

but since we don’t have a brick façade I wanted something a tad more bright.  I started a Pinterest board with all kinds of green door pins to show my husband what it might look like since initially he was a little skeptical.  He ended up being pretty neutral about it after seeing some of them which was great progress so I went ahead and painted it when he went to visit his parents last week.  : )  I had Benjamin Moore’s Avocado color matched in a Behr exterior semi-gloss…with the tiniest bit of black added after I thought it was a little too bright olive-y. 

After the first coat it looked pretty darn awful.  And this next picture is actually after the 2nd coat so it looked slightly better, but still…

EEEEK!!

And I was really questioning my color choice since it looked positively neon in the sunlight!!!

But after 5 coats, done over the course of 3 days, it now looks like this:

I think our lion is liking his green surroundings…

though as always he doesn’t show it.  . 

I found it is difficult to make the green not look flat in pictures.  It looks much more vibrant in person, but oh well!

And here is a comparison--

Before (this spring when all the plants were new):

And now:

I think it looks a lot more welcoming and a lot less stark now!  What a difference a little paint and some lush plants make!

Old-School Metal Desk Re-do (Tutorial and Afters)

I mentioned a while back that I was working on a desk I picked up at a garage sale (for $2) for our 5 year old who is going into Kindergarten this fall.  (How did that happen!!!!) 
I was almost done with it…and then disaster struck.  When I sprayed the protective clear coat on at the end, the white paint on top bubbled up and peeled away.  Lesson learned---always, always use primer on a laminate surface.  :)
However, I am done with it now!! 
To refresh your memory, this is what I started out with:
It was kind of rusty, rather dirty, and was a little beat up, but it is going to be for a 5 year old who cannot for the life of her keep her room clean for more than 10 minutes…so I didn’t want to get something for her that I would freak out about if she colored all over it or scratched with her pencils. 
First I wiped it down with a clean rag to get all of the dust/grime off (and had to scrape away some gum and dried up glue too).  Then I taped off the top.  Now, this is where I start to go wrong.  I should have just primed the whole thing except for the blond wood stripe…but I am here to help you learn from my mistakes people!

I primed the base of the desk with Rustoleum white flat spray primer, then recoated after it was dry.  Then I spray painted the base with Rustoleum white gloss paint and again recoated.  Nothing most of you haven’t already done!
I took the tape/newspaper off the top and I noticed that the edges of the laminate top had some gouging in them so I filled them with wood filler and sanded when dry.

I grabbed my blue painters tape and eyeballed some lines across the desk.  I wanted some stripes but I didn’t want stripes all over the top of the desk, so this was my compromise.

Then it was time to paint the edge.  I got a sample size can of Pomegranate Pucker (I think!  I forgot the paint chip at the paint store and they didn’t put a sticker on top!) and I just brushed it on the edge, being careful not to get any on the underside of the desk top where I had already painted it white. 

The next couple of steps I don’t have any pictures of, but this is where I started to realize that I made more work for myself.  In order to paint the top white I had to re-tape the edges that I had recently painted.  I had run out of primer and I was mad at myself for not just priming the whole thing (sans stripes) white to begin with! 
So, I spray painted the whole top white.  Then, I decided I wanted a pop of gold to be the third “color” in the palette so I grabbed a can of old metallic bronze that I had sitting around (since our wedding!) and sprayed the area between the painter’s tape on top with that.  I did a couple of coats. 
 
While I was at it, I decided the feet of the desk needed a little prettifying so I taped off and painted the bottom of each leg with the same metallic paint. 

Looking better! 

I then covered the gold stripes on top with more tape and sprayed the whole top again with white. 

(I was doing this on a rather sunny day under a tree so the dappled shade makes strange shadows on the desk top!)

I couldn’t wait any longer so I went ahead and peeled off all the tape to reveal the stripes/slight plaid pattern below!

Much better, don’t you think? 
And this is where I messed up bigtime.  I sprayed the clear-coat on top and the white paint bubbled up in the lower right corner of the desk.  I was so frustrated, I took a break from it for about a week.  Finally I got some more spray paint (I got Rustoleum paint+primer this time!) and sanded and re-taped it and re-sprayed it.  Lots of lessons learned in this re-do!  Finally I put another coat of clear polycrylic on it and this time it worked great!  I really like how the natural “wood” of the desk top shows through in a couple of the stripes and the metallic adds a little drama to it. 

The metallic paint has a shimmer to it that is really hard to capture in the photos.    This photo probably shows it best:

I decided the desk needed something to hide the tantalizing crayons/paper/art projects inside from curious younger brothers, so I found a piece of fabric in my stash that was a similar coral color and I cut it to a size that would fit in the opening, then hot glued the edges under 3 sides (2 short and 1 long). 
I wanted a little pleat in the center so I pinned that, flipped the whole desk over, and hammered push-pins in to secure the fabric flap to the bottom of the desk top.  I was originally going to staple it but I couldn’t fit the stapler in that small of a space. 

I still need to find a chair for it (I’ve been scouring garage sales and thrift stores but so far nothing) but I’m calling this project done!
Here it is in her room, ready for schoolwork, homework or art projects or whatever creative thing she might think up!  (Which might be coloring directly on it…who knows!)

Shhhh…don’t tell the toddler what’s hiding inside!

I’m getting a little nostalgic here now…

All done!! 

  Now on to the next project…have I shown you the tufted chair I picked up at the thrift store???  ; )

Linking up at The DIY'ers, and  Not Just a Housewife

Bathroom Reveal

I’m finally ready to share pictures of our 2nd floor bathroom that we remodeled!  (Only a few months after it has been done…oops!  I’m blaming it on this 9 month old and moving.)
So, without furthur ado…

Before:

After:
  
Before:

After:

As you can see, I haven’t done much decorating in here.  Since our house is on the market, I figured there isn’t much point in personalizing this room much as who knows if the future owners will have the same tastes or not.  Plus, no real point in making nail holes in the freshly painted walls!  So, no window treatments (I would have used bamboo/reed blinds like in the kitchen), no shelves, few pictures, little decor.  We weren’t going to spend a lot of money on fancy finishes since we have no way of knowing if we’ll get that money back out of the house when it sells.  It looks pretty bare, I know!
Here’s a list of what we did with this room:

• Removed old floral wallpaper (yay, it’s gone!!)
• Re-tiled shower/tub surround
• Tore out old blue plastic tile on wall
• Installed beadboard paneling where plastic tile was, installed trim
• Removed old medicine cabinet, installed new one
• Put in new groutable vinyl tile (post to come on this)
• Repainted and trimmed out old vanity
• Installed new sink, towel bar, and lighting

We ended up doing it all ourselves (my father-in-law helped with the shower surround) and it took about 2 months.  We worked on it bit by bit rather than doing it all at once, which is why it took so long.  As anyone who has remodeled an old house knows, there are always, always things that come up that you didn’t forsee.  Walls are not square, plumbing is strange, radiators make it difficult to install flooring. 
Although our time in this house is limited, we are enjoying our “new” bathroom for now!  Our 2 year old demands to “go upstairs to the bathroom” whenever he has to go, so we’ll take that as a sign that our whole family is happy with how the bathroom turned out. 
 
 


And as for what we did with that old laundry chute…well, let’s see!
  
A secret storage place for (yep!!) toilet paper!!  I love when design can meet function.  :)

Within easy reach of the toilet.
 
I love this free printable (from Simple As That) that I printed and popped in a Ribba (Ikea) frame for instant art.  Plus, we’re big G.K. Chesterton fans so this is perfect!

We think our new bathroom matches the rest of our “cottage-y” house so much more than it’s outdated previous self.  I apologize for the lack of photos that show the whole bathroom at once--it is a small space and I don’t have a wide-angle lens for my camera!  The room is much much more pleasant to be in now!

You can read other posts about our bathroom project:
 60's Bathroom Gone Wrong
Bathroom Inspiration
Tiling the Bathroom Shower

Kitchen Renovation Reveal

Finally. 
This has been a looonng time in the works.  It was almost a year ago that we started destructing in the kitchen in order to renovate!  Better late than never, I say.  In defense, it has been finished for about 6 months, and taking pictures of our efforts wasn’t a top priority in the months after our six-month-old baby’s birth.  (Imagine that!)
We poured a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this renovation.  I have to say, I love it!  It makes me happy to be in the kitchen, which I think is what you should feel when you are in a room in your home. 
To refresh anyone’s memory (including my own), a before:

And then, because it is fun, a before with reasons why we were remodeling (in case you had any doubts as to our rationale):

And now, an after (from the same viewpoint):

Before:

After:

Before:

 

After:

Before:

 

After:

And now I’m just going to throw in a few of my favorite shots from around the kitchen..  We worked soooo hard on this and finished just in the nick of time about a week before our youngest was born.  It was a grueling remodel, but I am so happy with how it turned out. 







A happy smorgasboard of color:


I’m writing a post about the specific details of our kitchen but here are a few quick ones.

• We gutted the entire kitchen to the studs (you can see that here)
• We had an “in-between kitchen” for about 2 years (we tiled the floor and painted the paneled walls right away and then waited a couple of years before completely remodeling)
• We would have loved to change the layout significantly but couldn’t due to major plumbing in walls and the location of the powder room right off the kitchen (which we were not willing to sacrifice!)
• We did most of the work ourselves except for some wiring by our electrician brother-in-law, some of the drywall installation by my carpenter dad and brother, and cabinet retrofitting by my carpenter brother.
• We went green and re-used cabinets from my in-laws kitchen remodel
• It took about 4.5 months
• It cost under $2500 (yay!)

I love it.  It is my favorite room in the house. 

Did I say I loved it???

One more quick picture to finish…

 

This sits on the windowsill in our kitchen.  All of this wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for this man.    Thank you honey for all your hard work! 

(And I love that we found Josh wine!)

If you  have any questions about the process you can ask in the comments or email me and I would be happy to answer them.
Blessings,
Liz


Linking to Thrifty Decor Chick, That DIY Party(the DIY Showoff), Sugar Bee Crafts, Get Your Craft On, Hooked on Houses