The “This will be easy” curse

Today’s tale is one that started out with, “This will only take a few minutes…”

Dangit, I know better to say that – out loud or in my head. It’s the kiss of death my friends. From now on I’m just going to start out every project with “Oh this will take five times longer than I think it will!” and I’m sure it will be the opposite. It’s how I do.

This is one of those projects I wouldn’t have even blogged about but when it became a pain in my butt I figured I would share. It started with a mirror. I’ve been looking for one for our basement staircase for about six months. You may remember the wood planked wall I installed there last summer. I loved it as it was for a long time, but finally decided I wanted to put something on there. Specifically a white mirror in a fun shape.

So I looked for said white mirror in a fun shape for months. Finally found it about a month ago (at HomeGoods), brought it home, then realized there was a crack in it.

Wahhh wahhhhhhh.

I’d seen another one while there, so I took it back to exchange it but they didn’t have any more in white. They did have pink!:

And I had to pay an additional ten bucks for the pink version! (Cat not included.) Pink is worth ten dollars? But now I was hooked and I wanted the dang mirror, so I got it.

This is where the “this will be so easy came in” – I saw there were little screws on the back, so I figured I could just remove them and the mirror would come out. Then I could spray paint the frame and have this sucker hanging 20 minutes later.

Well, 20-something screws later:

I realized the back was glued on. Wah. WAHHH. So why the screws I ask you? WHY.

So…I had two options. Spend an hour trying to tape off the curves and details of the frame so I could spray paint it, or just paint the thing. I went with paint. I should have just taped it off. :)

It took forever. I used white chalk paint so I didn’t sand or anything (just cleaned it well), but it took at least three coats:

I stopped counting at three anyway.

And oh yeah, he’s not helping. I think he thinks he is.

OK, chalk paint is great, I’ve used it many times and love it. But the one draw back is it dries so quick. I think it dried even faster over the plastic. So you have to work quickly. Another thing about this paint is it leaves brush marks (which usually don’t bother me), but I wanted this to be smooth and shiny. Not happening:

My paint kept “pulling” – I would go back over a spot to try to smooth it out and the paint would gunk up, even thought I had just painted it. It was a little frustrating. I did sand lightly between coats to get rid of a lot of it.

The good thing about this paint is that it is easily wiped off with just a wet rag. So no razor needed to get it all off the mirror when I was done – I just wiped it off. That kind of rocks.

All in all what I thought would take 20 minutes took an afternoon. I’d do a coat, go do something, sand it down, do another, go do something…you get the idea.

I’m not thrilled with the finished product either – it looks a bit messy to me close up. But from far away it looks great!:

And in the world of DIY sometimes that’s all you need!

I love the white pop on the dark wood! It makes me want to add more white things, but I’m keeping it to just this. We have enough going on down there with the gallery wall:

After I hung it my husband went down the stairs and told me how much he loved the new mirror. When my husband notices a project I feel like a get a gold star or something. (In his defense, things tend to change a lot around here.)

I think my favorite part is when I’m talking to my kiddo or husband I can see them either at the top of the steps:

Or at the bottom:

You can see the big map art there at the bottom of the stairs too. :)

I still have a few things I’d like to do this staircase – beef up the handles a bit and install thicker baseboards. And after that I think I can call this little area done. Wow. Can you believe it??

Do you have the “this will be a quick project” curse too?

Quick mantel redo

Hey hey! Well, the birthday week continues with a little something for a couple of you. From HomeGoods. Whaaaat? (Said in minion voice.)

Yes.

HomeGoods asked me and a few other bloggers to share how a few small changes can change up a space in our home. My challenge was in the bedroom – their survey found the bedroom is the No. 1 room in the home that negatively impacts people’s mood. Interesting! They challenged me to change up a spot in our bedroom just making small changes. This was hard for me – no spray paint, no tweaks. Just decorate.

Thing is, I love our bedding (from HomeGoods, shock) so I needed to focus on a different area in our master. I walked into the store and found my inspiration right away!

The space I wanted to focus on is the mantel – earlier this year I changed it up with some Goodwill art:

Soooo. I like it at first. It was dark and moody and it reminded me of a special place for my husband and I. But within a few weeks it just got…well, dark and moody. ;) And I love those floofy things off to the side but they were kind of weird up there.

Soooo. This is the spot I changed up. Instead of floofy things I went with classic candlesticks:

I saw that beautiful box with the navy blue accents and knew it was perfect. (You can see my navy blue lamps here.)

The other side is filled with items that were already up there – I just pulled in a navy blue book to bring some of that color to that side:

I changed out the orchid pot too to a darker one (just switched it with another orchid). By the way – see those blooms? Yes, I successfully grew an orchid that rebloomed. GOLD STAR for me. Although I have no idea how I did it, I just noticed one day it was blooming again. Soooo.

I’ve talked about my method for accessorizing a space before and I followed that here – variety in heights and pulling similar colors in throughout. It seems to work.

I also picked up a throw because I clearly don’t have enough throws as it is (that’s sarcasm if you can’t tell):

Isn’t that beautiful? It’s so soft! By the way, the settee and the pillow, both from the HG a while back.

Oh, and I almost forgot the most important part! The part that inspired the whole redo, the big mirror:

Ack! So much better! Eventually I’d like to place some DIY art above the settee but for now I just removed a few of the frames that were up there and love it simpler like this – it can breathe now. :)

By the way, a smart designer once told me not to use mirrors above fireplaces, (because they reflect the ceiling) and for years I fought hard to follow that advice. But I’ve since realized that they’re fine – quite lovely actually. It’s hard to fill that space above a mantel and sometimes a mirror is the very best thing for it. I take it all back – put a mirror up, it’s OK. :)

You’ll notice that these walls aren’t the new wall color yet. That’s because 1.) I’ve been lazy and painting the tall walls sounds as fun as walking on hot coals 2.) I’m still not 100 percent I’m going with the color I picked out.

So there’s my update with a few accessories – it took me all of 15 minutes to change it out. For me that’s a record.

The best part? Two of you get $50 to spend at HomeGoods. I’ve got them right here burning a hole in my desk. So to enter just comment here – have you been to HomeGoods? Did you hear singing the first time? (Every time?) What’s your favorite purchase? Answer any or all or none, just leave a comment (with your email address!). :)

AND if you are so inclined, you can repin from this link and if I get the most pins I’ll get another FIVE $50 cards to give to you all. YES. So there you go. HomeGoods happy, it’s a thing.

P.S. I am having issues with the photos on my blog – they are so crisp and clean for me and then I load them into Blogger and they get dark and blurry. Trying to figure out what the issue is, bear with me!

Disclaimer: I received a gift card to complete this redo. Love of the HG is my own.

Information here

Hello and how are you? I got a TON done this weekend – it’s a great feeling! My goal is to get a few of these totally productive weekends under my belt so I can spend the fall ones picking apples and pumpkins. (YAY!)

So I mentioned Friday that I stopped by one of my favorite antique stores last week. “Store” doesn’t really fit this place though – it’s really a warehouse with two floors of vintage goodies. Huge! (You can see more about it here.) Like I said last week, the prices are higher than I remember last time, but I did find a couple goodies.

I saw this sign and loved it:

I thought it would be a funky addition somewhere, I just couldn’t think of a place to put it. (It’s big!) When I posted it on Instagram someone mentioned using it in the dining room turned library, which I thought was brilliant – but there wasn’t a spot for it in there because it was so big.

So I left it there and kept thinking. And the next day I came up with the spot! Our laundry room turned mud room is awaiting it’s redo and I’m finally pulling my plan together. We needed a good spot to put school papers and other important stuff so I had an idea to use the sign. I went back and got it. ;)

Awhile back I hung my DIY magnetic board in here:

It used to hang in my office but it was looking out of place to me there. It looked just as out of place here. ;) And the thing was, I never changed stuff out on it. Most of those papers on it have been there since the Bub was in preschool.

SO. I had a plan in mind for this vintage sign (not sure how vintage it really is but bear with me). The only issue was that one part of it had been painted over (sloppily) and then someone wrote over that:

It was just written in pencil but it wouldn’t come off. So I did a little DIY and sanded it down just a bit:

Then taped off a large rectangle with my delicate Frogtape:

I used delicate just in case the lettering or paint wasn’t on there well, but there were no problems at all when I pulled it off.

I have a color scheme in mind for the room and it comes from a rug I bought months ago. Now I can’t find the rug, which is awesome. I know it’s here somewhere, so I’m going ahead with my color scheme. If I remember right (gah), there are deep blues and I’m pretty sure green in the rug, so I used a blue to fill in the tape:

I used a sample of a chalk paint I had already – I got it free somewhere and can’t remember where. (I’m on a roll. Decrapifying is sucking my brain.)

Anyway. The paint is an Annie Sloan color called Napoleonic Blue and it’s a lovely deep blue. I loved how it looked with the green on there!

Next up was the part of my plan that would make this sign functional for us. I picked up some bulldog clips:

Initially I used an epoxy glue to secure them to the board but the back of each one wasn’t flush – so the glue wasn’t holding it on. Then I noticed there was a hole through the clip so I decided to just use screws to install them:

I just put a small screw under the clip part and then used my drill to get it in there. It worked great! I wanted to age the clips to look older like the sign, but when I did a search online I realized I’d have to buy crazy industrial gloves and use eye protection and I wasn’t in the mood for all that. So they are new and shiny – for now anyway.

I gotta tell you – I hung it up and stood back and giggled because I loved it so much:

Ignore the paint samples on the wall that have been there for years. I’m not going with either one. ;)

OH, and try to ignore the bright yellow walls. I know, it’s hard.

I am using this for school papers that come in the door that I need to address – homework packets, forms that need to be filled out, etc. I’ve also clipped some receipts for returns up there so I know where to find them:

I was able to cover up the not-so-pretty spots and make it functional – a double win!

Fun, eh? I think so. Totally dig it. I’ll dig it even more when the rest of the room is changed up.

I took down the large magnetic board that used to hang at the end of the room, and finally took down the laundry room wording on the wall too:

 

You know, cause it hasn’t been a laundry room for about a year. ;)

Next up – paint! Now that I’ve figured out what I want to do in here I’m SO excited to get moving. Paint will go on the walls and the beadboard and then I’ll be installing new molding throughout the room (around doors and baseboards). THEN…the built ins – I can’t wait to get started!

I’m ready to be done with the yellow and black, that’s for sure. It’s kind of bittersweet for me though, because this was the first room redo I ever shared on my blog almost exactly five years ago. :) So cool.

Staircase nook

Hey hey all! Well, it’s about that time! I’m off to Atlanta today to prepare for the Haven Conference that starts tomorrow. It’s been a year of planning and I can’t even believe it’s already here! SO excited to see everybody.

So I finished up a quick little project this week that I’ve been meaning to do for months. Or a year. A year and a few months.

We have a little ledge/nook/cut out spot in the basement staircase that has been sitting half way done for that year and a few months:

You may remember that I installed a wood wall on the main wall in the staircase about this time last year. I still LOVE that wall. So very much.

Before we had the basement finished the wall next to it going down the steps had a weird cement wall bump out thing. Instead of drywalling all the way up I asked them to make it a little ledge instead. They installed a wood piece that I was planning on painting later, hence the stain spatter I didn’t worry about:

But since then I’ve decided I wanted it stained instead. I’m kind of obsessed with the look of the dark wood against the gray blue walls (Marina Gray by Ben Moore) and white trim down there.

So I needed to sand off that stamp and the stain dots:

It just took a few seconds and I was ready to go – then I taped everything off with my Frogtape really well. I find it’s hard to keep stain from going everywhere since it leaks easily and spatters all over the place. (It could be the operator, who knows.):

After I wiped everything down well (and let it dry), I grabbed my dark walnut stain and went at it:

Remember when you stain to work quickly and to keep the “wet edge” – if it dries at all during the process you’ll see where you left off. OH, and wear gloves!! Trust me – no matter how hard I try I always end up with stain on my hands.

I let it sit for a few minutes and wiped the excess off. I only usually do one coat – I find that’s plenty for the color I want.

While it dried I started hanging the frames I’ve had leaning there forever. Most of them are pics from the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade/NYC trip I showed you here, but there was one collage my stepdaughter gave us last Christmas (so sweet!) that I wanted to include too.

Here’s a little tip when hanging pics that have two hangers instead of one – just tie a piece of string or wire between the two:

Then hang that on the the nail. SO much easier. I mean, sometimes what you’re hanging is heavy enough you’ll want two nails, but most of the time I find one is just fine. And this way you don’t have to worry about measuring, finding a level, all that stuff. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Like all of my gallery walls, I just kind of put stuff here and there – yes, that meant a few extra holes in the wall but they’re tiny. The wall will survive:

I was trying to use frames that I had on hand and I liked the (mostly) matching frames, so I didn’t go crazy trying to fill empty spaces. The “S” we’ve had for years and it perfectly filled one spot that was bugging me.

The ledge has plenty of room for accessories, but for now I just left a couple candlesticks we had here before (they ended up on there because I was too lazy to take them all the way to the storage room):

They are fake candles and they operate on a timer, so it’s kind of cool to have that little glow as we walk down at night.

It was a quick project and I think it turned out pretty cute! I love how it looks with the planked wall:

Next up in this space – touch up the wall and ceiling paint and install chunkier baseboards. Maybe I’ll tackle those in another year. Baby steps.

So are you loving gallery walls? I am and I don’t think they’re going anywhere soon. It’s such a personal, easy way to fill wall space! And remember you can find frames at Goodwill for super cheap and spray paint them. One color for all of them will unify frames no matter their design. 

Where in the world have we been map

So this is yet another tale of it-was-sitting-in-the-garage-for-three-months-before-I-did-it. There are a lot of those, if you haven’t noticed. It is how I do.

I’ve mentioned like 50 times that one of the things about our basement that I LOVE is the potential for the walls – there are a ton of them. There are not in the rest of the house (open concept, few walls without windows, I’m really not complaining, it’s a great problem to have).

But I do love having a space that has expanses of wide open walls ready to be decorated in the basement. There’s this one that you see when you get down the stairs:

Gloriously empty. And big.

Months ago on a trip to IKEA (I think I got this six months ago?), I picked up one of their huge wall maps. It wasn’t necessarily cheap, but for the size (more than six by four feet), it really wasn’t too bad.

I’ve known I wanted to put it that spot but wanted to change it up a bit. At first I was going to cut the map down into three equal sizes and then mount it somehow – just for something different.

But I knew I’d need something large to mount the maps to, and I didn’t feel like spending the extra cash on big sheets of particle board and all. So it stayed in the garage. (It also lived in the dining room/library and in the mud room for a while too – I like to change up the scenery you know.)

I also had an idea I wanted to implement on the map – I wanted to make it personal and interactive for us. My plan has always been to figure out a way to note where in the world we’ve been – a way to mark where we’ve each traveled. But I didn’t want to use pins that would ruin the map and I wanted it to be safe for little visitors. I mulled over the idea for months and on the flight home from Disney last week it hit me – I knew exactly what I was going to do!

So the other night I started putting the map together…finally. It was VERY easy:

I didn’t get the map as taut as I wanted, but it’s fine. It was easy to put together but not so easy I was willing to do it all over again. :)

I got it hung and you know my middle name is Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone, so I knew it needed a little something. I got some of the cheap, thin lattice boards at Lowe’s, stained them and then cut them down to make a huge frame around the map:

I started out by trying to glue the wood around the edge of the map, but it wasn’t secure enough so I ended up just using my nail gun and installing it that way. The metal frame is so thin and lightweight I knew the nail would go through easily.

It worked great! And I was so happy I added the dark frame – it was the perfect way to finish it off!

The final step was to take a hole punch and some random vinyl colors I had around and start punching:

As I mentioned, I wanted this to be something personal and fun for our family, so the little dots represent each of us (red – me, silver – hubs, yellow – Bub) and I started placing them on the map. I don’t know why it took me so long to think of vinyl instead of push pins, duh, but it worked!

Hubby has been to the coolest places by far:

  

Together we’ve been to some pretty amazing spots too:

 

And the kiddo isn’t doing too shabby in his U.S. travels, considering he’s only six:

That’s not even filled up yet -- I realized quickly that the dots are going to be too big. I am on the lookout for a smaller hole punch so I can keep adding to the U.S. map. :)

I love how the whole thing turned out – I stood back and realized the colors in it(blue, green and yellow with the touch of dark wood) are the exact colors I’m using throughout the basement.

Haaallooooo – perfect!

And I just love that there’s a little extra something that is significant to our family:

You don’t really see the dots until you get up close. I think it will be fun for the kiddo to show his friends where in the world he’s been. :)

If you’ve been around for awhile you know I’ve been using a lot wood tones down in the basement – I’m going for a comfy but ever so slightly industrial/funky vibe down there. I didn’t notice till I was taking pics how well the wood frame ties in with the wood planked wall on the stairs:

I meant to do that. ;)

I’m loving maps lately, obviously – I realized after it was all done that I have two hanging right next to each other down there. OH WELL. I’ll deal. Are you digging maps lately? I’ve seen them used in all kinds of new and fun ways over the past year or so. Love it!

That one room

Hello all! I hope you had a lovely Mother’s Day! Mine was just wonderful, I am a lucky woman. So thankful!.

So there are times when I feel like decorating-wise this house is doing OK and over time I feel like it’s coming along nicely. And then there are “those” rooms that harass and taunt me for YEARS.

Our living room, or “front” room, is one of them. We have a very open floor plan, which you think you want and then you get it and realize you have, like, ZERO walls to work with. (And by the way, “you” means “me.”)

So this room is one of those, with only one wall to do anything with. We put a sofa on that big wall when we moved in and it’s stayed just because it fills the space and it’s comfy, even though I (now) really dislike the color.

Years ago (in my everything red and black phase) the room looked like this:

Nothing wrong with it, just not my style anymore. And I had always wanted to kind of pull things in more to make it more cozy.

I didn’t really accomplish that in the next phase, but I did start lightening things up:

See the pink walls? Yeah. Eight years I lived with those! I deserve a gold star. I’ll take a cookie!

The dresser didn’t last too long there – I found a small bookcase at HomeGoods that put in that spot instead, and I really liked how it fit right between the windows:

But I noticed something when I moved that bookcase at Christmas last year – I really liked it in the new spot (I scooched it over by the sofa). And then I put it back and every time I looked at it just felt really busy in that spot:

I’ve been planning to tone down the accessories on there for awhile, but it’s more than that. The drapes have a lot going on and combined with the shelves and all the stuff on them, it was just bugging me. So for months now I’ve been thinking I need to try scooching it again – and I got a wild hair this weekend and finally did it.

All I did was move the bookcase back to the “Christmas” spot and then put the chair over there:

The mirror was another HomeGoods find I’ve had for months – it was one of those rare finds I didn’t really have a spot for but knew I couldn’t pass up. I love it between the windows!

It just feels like that room can breath better now, you know? That silly spot between those two windows has been one of the hardest spot for me all these years! Such a goofy thing, but it’s driven me batty!

I can’t even decide if I want the chair turned in towards the sofa (like above) or facing out to the room:

First world problems here people.

There are still plenty of things that bug me about the room – it’s got two story windows and I love all the light (we need it in there) but it makes for a hard space to decorate. And with the one lone wall (without windows) and two honkin’ pillars in there, there are not many furniture layout options.

But I do love this small change! It just feels less busy and simpler to me. Here’s a different view of that spot last year with the pink(ish) walls and the bookcase:

And here it is with grayish walls and a simpler look now:

It didn’t cost any money, which is a bonus (most of my changes to that spot haven’t, thank goodness), and after staring at it for months it took all of ten minutes to move the bookcase and hang the mirror.

For now…I love it! ;) For. NOW.

Do you have a room/spot/wall between two windows that drives you fruit loopy? Do you change it with the wind like me? Or have you found a solution that finally works?