One Month Down...

It has officially been one month since I started this blog. I really want to thank everyone who has been reading. So far I have had 1,287 viewers. Not too bad for my first month! Like I said when I started this, I can't wait to see where I am in a year from now!

Anyway, once again it was gross and rainy out today, and tomorrow is supposed to be too. Unfortunately, that means I can't finish up my desk. My living room is so disorganized, it's driving me crazy. Nothing I can do about it though. 

It has been three days now though since I painted the chalkboard paint, so the little ladies were able to draw on it for the first time. They were sick all day, and pretty lethargic, but they had a blast doing this. It's frustrating though, because I have to wait a week before I can wipe it clean. (They love wearing daddy's shirts, especially when they are sick!)

While they were working, I worked on a small project too. I don't know how the chalkboard paint is going to hold up against water, and whatnot. I figured we needed some coasters. I rummaged through our house to find something that would hold up nicely. Given the fact that I hate to waste, I found the back to the frame that I used for the framed branches project. There wasn't too much to it. I started with the backing, a ruler, and an xacto knife.

I measured them out, and sliced. Including my finger. If you have never been stabbed or sliced with an xacto knife, let me tell you, it's not fun. You bleed like crazy! Once they were all cut, the edges were a little too rough. I busted out my beautiful sander and made them nice and smooth. 

I decided I would use one of the materials that I used for the wall pieces, once again, to tie everything together. I laid it out and Modge Podged all the pieces. Then I placed them on the material, and flattened them out, making sure there were no air bubbles.

Once they were all dry, I used the xacto knife again to slice the material around the edges. I then flipped them over, and did a coat of the Modge Podge to the top.

After it dried, I put on another coat. I didn't get a chance to fix up the sides the way I want, because I had to get the little ladies to bed, then watched a movie with my man. I will figure out what I want to do with them tomorrow. I do like how they have come out so far though. Incredibly cheap, and easy to make, but it's such a nice little accent to the room.

It's been a very long day, especially since my babies are sick and not sleeping well, so I am about done on here. I once again really want to thank everyone who has been following along, I'm really excited about this year, and where it will take my family and I. Sweet dreams....

Oh How I Love Purple....

Today is just one of those days when it's wicked dreary, and you really don't want to do anything. For the first half of the day the little ladies and I just hung out playing and watching movies. When my man woke up, it was time to get things going before he had to steal the van for work. Once again I ran to Home Depot to get more paint. I was worried because it was extremely overcast all day, and it started to rain a bit as I left the house. 

I stocked up on more purple, but I was worried I wouldn't be able to work on anything because of the weather. It would have driven me crazy not to fix up the top half of this desk. I am the type of person that if I start a project I am going to go and go and go until it's done. 

After my man left for work I got started on the second coat, well actually, I had to finish the first coat. You should see me, I am absolutely covered in paint. I think its crazy how splotchy the spray paint looks when it's all wet. I took it in the house to dry, because turns out, when you use spray paint in more than 75% humidity the paint starts to crack. It wasn't too bad and I figured it would just add more texture to the whole thing. Here it is drying, don't worry though, when it dries it doesn't look this horrible.

After it was all dried, I went at it with the glaze. Like I said yesterday I planned on using more glaze on this than I did on the tables because I didn't want it to be bright purple. I really like how much darker it made it. It's almost so dark that it looks black, but not quite, I love how the purple is definitely there, yet it's subtle.

While that was drying I figured I would work on the knobs. The little monsters closed the cabinet and the drawers so many times today, it was driving me crazy. So rather than wait until tomorrow I figured that needed to be done right away so I don't lose a little more of my mind. These were the knobs my mom picked out for one of my little siblings when it was theirs.

Those just wouldn't do. There was no way I could go any longer having little rainbow knobs. They would have to become silver. After those dried I screwed them in, and viola! The top half is officially done.

 Hopefully, tomorrow the weather will be better so I can work on the bottom half. I actually have to run outside in a minute and bring it back in since it's like misting outside. I really love the fact that this desk is about 20 years old, and that it's the first desk I ever had. It's about time that it had a makeover, and so far I'm loving it. I think all the furniture is looking great in the room with the red. With all the purple being dark it makes the couch pop even more. I am off to bed for tonight, I really need some sun tomorrow, so cross some fingers, and say some prayers, I really want to get a good days worth of work in!

Oh the Grossness....

Today for some reason I was wide awake early, and ready to get started on my next project, even though I had wanted to wait a few days, and maybe tackle my closet first. I decided to get some opinions from friends on facebook, as to what color I should paint my desk. Ultimately, it came down to a golden yellow. Holding up some yellow in front of the other colors in the room didn't look too bad so I figured I would go for it.

The little ladies and I took off for Home Depot, which is becoming like a second home now. I was very weary of getting the yellow when I was there. I don't mind small accents of yellow, but I am not the biggest fan of the color, especially as a focal point if mixed in with other colors. I took a leap of faith, and got it anyway.

I got started right away. This desk is so heavy, it's my first project where my man has to move it around for me. The top isn't too bad but the bottom is just solid. I really love this desk, my parents bought it for me when I was about five, and it has gone through most of my little siblings. It even has our names written in the drawer. It has some dents and scrapes on it, that not only adds character but all have stories behind them. One big scrape down it is from my little brother going at it with a screw driver. These pieces obviously stack on top of each other, but here are the before pictures.

Since I wasn't sure if I would like the yellow or not, I decided just to try it out on the top. It took more paint then my two purple tables combined, and still wasn't completely covered nicely. It started to get too dark out so I figured I would let it dry then bring it inside to see how it looked! I was excited, but slightly nervous since I wasn't really feeling it outside. Be prepared, because here it is.

All I can say to that is, GROSS! It reminds me of like a Fisher Price yellow, and even more so with the red couch. Being that bright, it was way too much of a focal point, which is not what I wanted for this room. I want my gorgeous couch the focal point. Immediately, upon seeing its grossness, I grabbed my last can of purple and went crazy. I couldn't stand to look at it anymore. I was able to get most of one coat on but couldn't finish one of the sides. So here it is, keep in mind, the purple isn't finished, let alone any glazing. I am going to do a lot more of the glazing on this than I did on the tables, because I don't want it crazy bright purple. The glaze will dull the color, add some black to it, and I am going to give it a lot more texture.

At least now, the color ties into the room. I literally couldn't work on this anymore, between a headache from inhaling so much paint, and not having any more purple. So I decided to move onto the next project!

The ladies and I finally went out and got our little sticks for the frame. I ended up putting a light coat of the purple on them, just to darken them up, and obviously to go with the room. I love it. It might not be everyone else' cup of tea, but I think it looks great with everything else in the room!

There you have it readers. That's it for today. I wish Home Depot was open 24 hours, but unfortunately it's not. I officially understand why growing up my mom always complained about there not being enough hours in a day for her to accomplish everything she wanted to. I can't wait to wake up, and head off to my 'second home' to get more paint, and keep working. Hopefully, tomorrow I will have all this finished! 

Awesomeness Continued...

Today was day two of really working hard on some of our living room furniture. To be honest, I will definitely be taking a big project break for a couple days. I think it's funny that my right arm is hurting from sanding, painting, and glazing so much. 

I have already explained that I was really excited to work on this table. The design is so beautiful, and elegant, but it wasn't in the best shape. It has some scratches, the door didn't work, the material on the inside was in pretty bad shape, and it was pretty dirty. It didn't matter though, I could still see that she had potential to be gorgeous. Yes, she. My man is making fun of me for it, but the table is definitely a she. This is what she looked like before I started.

The very first thing I did was wipe it all down, making sure nothing was on the wood. Then I got right into taping the glass. There are five sides to the glass, and let me tell you, it wasn't super fun taping, especially the inside. The whole process took me well over an hour. I wanted to make sure it was perfectly lined up, so it definitely took me a little longer.

I got right into spray painting.

I love the detail of her.

While the paint was drying, I painted the knob for the door silver.

Next, I worked on the glazing technique. I love how it made the designs pop.

Once everything was painted, I took off the tape. Now at this point I was all excited to see how it would look, but I realized that I had forgotten to tape the inner glass, on the top. Major fail. I was so nervous that I had ruined it. After trying a few different things I noticed that a magic eraser would soften it, and a spackle scraper would scrape it all off. I love when I create more work for myself, she had to be perfect though.

Once everything was scraped off, it was time to clean off the crazy messy windows. The little ladies really wanted to help me with this part. I love having little helpers.

Since that was sitting and drying, I figured I would work on the wooden piece that fit on the inside. Here is what it looked like originally, covered in a brown, velvet material.

Since I have become a master at stapling material onto to square pieces of wood, it only seemed fitting to have to do that to this too. My man liked the black and white polka dotted material, so that's what I went with. Here she is, all finished. I am completely in love.

I absolutely love the color, and the details.

I love being able to take something that has great meaning, that may not be in the greatest of shape and fix it up. This is definitely something I will be holding onto, and would love to pass down to my babies to someday. Simply gorgeous.

Step by Step Guide to Awesomeness....

Ok, so here we go! I finally went to Home Depot, and even to Lowe's, and got everything I needed for my table. It took a while to figure out what color should go with the red, but we decided on a deep purple. Surprise, surprise. I also bought a beautiful new little Black & Decker sander, which I have a feeling might become my new best friend! I got everything I needed, and we headed home. Oh course since I am very impulsive I had to start working right away! Here is everything I bought, sitting on my canvas.

As you can kind of see in the picture there are a good amount of dings and little chips on the table, and the varnish was really worn down on areas on the top. So, the first step was to bust out my new beautiful sander! This is the first thing I have ever sanded in my life. Regardless of if I did it correct or not, it got the job done. All but this next picture were taken with my Nikon, this one was with my iPhone, you can see that it's starting to get fairly dark outside. For some reason, I guess maybe because I'm an insomniac, I work hardest at night, even if that means very little lighting. I had to put on my little patio light, and open the blinds to the living room for extra light. Here it is almost completely sanded.

The legs on the table were the hardest to do. Since my sander is pointed at the top, I could get into smaller spaces, but I ended up using just a piece of sandpaper, and getting in the smaller grooves by hand.

I then taped off the top because I was only spray painting the bottom and the legs.

Like I said the lighting was horrible, so when I was outside, I thought I had come up with an awesome technique, similar to what you do for the glazing. I would spray the paint on, then wipe it off. It looked awesome in low lighting, because it just added a tint of purple but you could still fully see the gains. Unfortunately, when I brought it in it looked all splotchy, but I figured it could be a light first coat.

I took it back outside, and sprayed an even, light layer all over, and this time I didn't wipe it off. It still looks slightly splotchy, but the glaze will cover that up. It came out much more purpley!

Once it was dry, it was time for the glaze! I have come to love the whole glazing idea, and technique. You can do it to anything, and it just gives it so much more character and texture. I started with the rim of the top. You can see how it is pretty much just a bright, solid purple.

I added the glaze over the whole area, really making sure to focus and get deep in the creases of the wood.

Now before the paint started to dry, I used a strong (Viva) paper towel, and wiped it off. If you are going to try this, make sure you just wipe across quickly so that you keep that paint in the creases. I love it, it makes it so the furniture isn't just that solid, flat color.

I then worked on the sides with the same technique. You can see that some areas aren't as evenly covered with the purple, but still it is just a solid bright purple.

Then I did the same thing everywhere else. It's easiest to work in smaller sections, that way it doesn't dry to fast on you (especially is you have a ceiling fan). Sorry, this one is kind of blurry...

This is how it turned out when most of it was finished with the glaze. Personally, I love the difference that it makes. It's subtle, yet defining.

After this was all dry, it was time to tape off the top again, only this time around the rim, and then bust out the chalkboard paint! They had so many different kinds of paint like this at Home Depot, I was shocked. They have different chalkboard paints that are tintable, magnetic paint, and dry erase paint. I have a feeling, I am going to have to think up a new project just so I can have the excuse to buy and use some of them. The little ladies were so excited for this step. They were both hanging off the foot end of their beds, watching me get this ready.

I was slightly worried when I first started painting it on, it had a midnight blueish hue to it. As I thickened the layers and it dried a bit under our ceiling fan it got darker. Here is the first coat.

Once I got two more coats on there, I took of the painter tape! Here is my new beautiful table drying. The hardest thing for my ladies is going to be the fact that the instructions say not to write on it for three days. Yea, we'll see how that works out. 

I just found a 'before' picture on my phone that I figured I would share for comparison before revealing my finished project!!!

After working hard for nine hours, my beautiful table is now complete, and I think we are probably all slightly high from paint fumes. Drum roll please....

Personally, I am in love. I am so excited. In the pictures the purple really stands out because of the angles and the flash. Just looking at it in person though I think it looks even better. It's dark and subtle, but definitely adds a bit more color to the room. 

I really wanted to do this step by step, to show you how easy it is. I have never done this much work to a piece of furniture before, and to be honest, I was slightly nervous. Now I am ready to conquer so much more, but definitely not today. I think I have tackled enough for today, and I am now going to pass out! 

Everyday Lies...

It seems that everyday I lie about going to Home Depot. We also didn't find any branches that were big enough to go across our patio doors. There were lots of things on the list to do today, but it didn't really work out as planned (as usual). For some reason today just seemed to fly by. 

We had to do our tax return, which to us is always one of our favorite days of the year. I'm not going to share how much we are getting back, but lets just say it is going to help out our family so much, and it's more than we have ever received. I feel like we were just given a money tree, which has real money, instead of the one we already has, that unfortunately only produces leaves!

First off, we have to thank God because we can now send our little lady to private school, which is a major answered pray for me. Also, we don't have to worry about our Disney/Universal Studios trip we plan on going on with my family for my mom's 50th birthday present or 'party', or whatever she wants it to be. I am so beyond excited for this trip. I can't even express in words how much I miss my family!!! I wish everyone was going, on both sides, so we could get the chance to spend time with them all. We aren't telling the little ladies anything! We will just be getting in the car and going. We go on the 17th of February, which turns out is my babies third birthday. What an amazing birthday present, to just randomly show up at Disney, and have her Gramma, Grampa, aunts and uncles there. They are both going to absolutely freak out. 

The next thing I can't wait to spend a bit of money on is lots of tools, and paints just for me and my millions of projects! I was going to share a picture of my closet, but decided against it because it would be a huge embarrassment. We went from a three bedroom house that had a basement for storage, to a three bedroom house with a garage for storage, to a two bedroom apartment with only closets for storage. Cleaning that out is going to be dreadful, but it must be done. As much as I wanted a tool box I have decided against it. I have a dresser in the closet that is just sitting there. Once the closet is all cleaned out the dresser will be perfect to use for all my 'stuff'. It has three good sized drawers I can fill with tools, and a cabinet with shelves that I can stock with paints. Once again, why go buy something that you can just repurpose. 

To be honest, I really don't have any fun projects that I have worked on or want to talk about working on, since I have already explained what I want to do next, and just haven't started it yet. Sorry. It was just a fast day, and I am drained. I swear this time, that I am actually going to Home Depot tomorrow. My man promised me that if I didn't go today he would go with me tomorrow. Which is something that he dreads but I love. So how could I pass up that opportunity. I couldn't.  My indecisiveness drives him crazy, but I love having him there for his little opinions. Even though I know he really couldn't care less what I do. To be honest that is one thing that I adore about him. He gives me 100% free reign of the house when it comes to decorating it. His reasoning is "I really don't care what you do, because I always like how it turns out in the end." Every designers dream words! 

Sticks & Crayon Puke...

I decided today would be my 'lazy day' of the week. Other than cleaning around the house, paying a few bills, making meals, and playing with the kiddos not much got accomplished. I felt I deserved it after everything I worked on yesterday. Tomorrow however, is definitely going to be my Home Depot day. Even though I have said that for several days now, if you have kiddos you understand that certain things just flow around whats going on with them.

I am so pumped up about my living room! I can't wait to get everything that I need to work on my tables. Whenever I think of a project, I always feel that the ball officially starts rolling when I actually have in my possession everything I need to complete it.  That is why tomorrow is my sticks and paint day! I suppose you can include sander in there as well, but it just doesn't sound as good. The paint part is obvious, as is the sander, considering I have already explained what I want to do with my tables. The sticks part though is what I am excited for. The little ladies are all pumped up to help me out on this one. There nothing like little kids going on 'scavenger hunts'. I briefly mentioned yesterday that I was thinking about adding some branches into the frame that I worked on last night. I searched around online for a while to find a picture of what I am kind of going for with it.

I think it's kind of cool, and just adds an extra sense of uniqueness. When I was thinking of this project, of course another one came to mind. I hate how that always happens. I get excited for a project, then more come to mind, and I want to do all of them right away. This idea I thought was kind of out there, but would definitely play into the uniqueness factor, and would be really simple. In my living room I have double doors to the patio. Currently, there is a beautiful picture of my littlest lady that was taken when she was six weeks old, and will forever be one of my favorite pictures. Once again though, there is too much white!!! Between the white wall (technically slightly off white), white doors, and white blinds, I just go kind of crazy! 

So I thought to kind of accent and tie everything together I definitely need a curtain. I like how everything is flowing, the squares and red frame tie into my red couch, and then the branches in the red frame are going to tie into my curtain rod. I thought that it would be kind of neat to just find a big branch that is a little longer than the doors, clean it off, paint it, and hang my curtain off of that. I started looking around for idea, and realized that unfortunately I am definitely not the first to do this. If you look it up, this picture pops up on a few different sites.

I'm not really a fan of how the curtains look on it though. After painting it, I think a glaze on a branch would probably come out looking really cool too because it already has so much texture it would just be highlighted.  I might end up doing the same kind of paint and glaze that I plan on doing for my tables, once again to tie everything together in this room. I ended up finding one other picture of someone else' idea like this. This is more so how I envisioned what I want, even though you can't see too much in the picture.

I really like how the curtain is just draped up and over it. That way it isn't just completely flat, it gives it a bit more dimension. I also like the little shower hangers on it for accents. I don't know if thats something I would necessarily do, but I think something might have to be added just to give it a bit more awesomeness. We shall see. 

I also need some opinions here. I love the black, white and red color scheme that we have, but I am starting to feel like I should add hints of other colors. Basically because our living room and dining room are sort of one huge area. After the living room is complete I need to do the dining room, and I want there to be a good amount of color there. I don't want it to throw off our living room though. So I figured if I add hints of another color, or a few other colors, but keep the red the primary focus it won't look off. I am thinking maybe a purple, but then again I am partial to purple, and think the whole world should be decorated in it. I also really love green, but it would be too Christmasy. So I don't really know right now, and would absolutely love people's opinions!!! I am way too indecisive. Basically, I want my whole house to look like a crayon box threw up, just organized a bit. I am slightly obsessed with color!

Tomorrow is definitely going to be a busy day, between Home Depot (which I could hunt for stuff in there for hours - unfortunately I can't), doing our tax return, we are checking out a new church (which I am really excited about), and then the sticks! The ladies are most excited for the stick part I think, nothing like wondering in the woods to look for stuff to decorate your house with, right!?