Work what ya got

Well hello!! I got a fun little project accomplished yesterday that I absolutely LOVE. :)

It started with some house envy, believe it or not. :) Yes, even I see beautiful homes in blogland and sometimes that little green monster starts rearing it’s head. You all know I LOVE our house, so it’s not a big monster, mind you -- just a little one.

I just love little corners, niches, interesting spots in homes, and I adore how some people use awkward spots to their full potential. Like hallways – I just love a long hallway with hardwood floors, a beautiful runner and woodwork as far as the eye can see. Add a gallery of family photos and I’m swooning.

I have a recurring dream about a house we buy and are fixing up, and in each dream I find a new little nook or a tiny room I didn’t know was there before. I LOVE that dream. :)

But alas, we have no nooks, no niches. Not even a hallway. Not one hallway in our entire house. That’s the new open concept for ya – plenty of open spaces (which we love), but sometimes I do crave a little nook.

About a month ago or so, I realized we a needed a storage solution for our son’s dress up stuff. Now, not dress up like princess dresses. Manly dress up like policemen, train conductors and firemen.

(Insert Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunt here.)

So I thunk and I thunk, and I thought of the closest thing to a hallway we have – the half wall in our playroom/loft:

And the idea hit me. I knew exactly what I wanted to do!

First step was to paint the wall out in semi-gloss white:

Didn’t he do a great job?:

I kid! I kid! No child labor here folks.

Mostly because he wasn’t doing it right.

I kid! Not really.

OK, onward! You’ll notice I didn’t even paint the edges of the wall. I didn’t need to because it was going to be covered up with my next step. I took primed mdf from Lowe’s and started installing my vision:

I took some video to give some more detail, but it’s so straightforward – boards across the top, bottom and sides. Then I did some measuring to figure out the spacing between the rest of the boards.

The math went like this – the space between the two outside boards was almost exactly six feet. So I took:

6 feet x 12 (for inches) = 72 inches

The boards were 3.5 inches wide, so I figured out how many sections I wanted (five) and knew that would take four additional pieces of mdf:

3.5 (mdf boards) x 4 = 14 inches

Take the 72 inches minus 14 and you get 58 inches.

Divide 58 inches by the five sections I wanted, and you get 11.6 sections between each vertical board.

Does that make sense? Math and I are not friends, and I swear it’s easy. Once you do it one time, it’ll make more sense for the next time. :) I use that method for any spot where I’m adding molding to a specific amount of space (and I want it to look uniform.)

I took a quick video to show you a couple of my other tricks:

 

Sooo…anyhoo, after a couple more coats of paint on the mdf, some caulk (remember, it’s your BFF folks!), and hooks – I got this:

Isn’t it gorgeous? I mean, really. I want it all. over. my. house. ALL OVER. It’s just classic and pretty and yummy.

I can’t believe how happy woodwork makes me. It’s just ridiculous.

Now we have a spot for all of the make believe outfits:

I almost hated to cover it all up, but it’s for the sake of my sanity. Those hats have been laying around here and there for months because I haven’t found a good spot for them.

I especially love how it ties into the mdf I added to the staircase last year:

And you smarties will notice that NO, I have not painted that railing yet. Only the bottom section is done:

That is how I roll. :)

I just love how it turned out! I took an empty wall that wasn’t doing anything:

And made it functional and pretty:

Gotta love that!

The wood was el cheapo – I think I spent $15 on the mdf. I got the ORB hooks at Lowe’s as well. Love, love, LOVE!

Now I’m so pumped to get moving on the board and batten in the office! My plan is to get started on that this weekend.

Have a GREAT one!

How to paint laminate.

I should have known better to attack this project. I have learned over the past year or so that laminate is my nemesis. He hate me. (Check my first post to understand.)

I know how to paint stuff. I do. I even knew/know how to paint laminate. It just doesn't like me much, and from now on, I think we're gonna keep our distance. Hater.

It started with the TV cabinet in the playroom/loft:
I kept looking for something new (like, Goodwill-new) for the space. It had to had storage like this one, it had to have the open shelving like this one, it had to be this size. And it had to be black. Hmmmmm...ummmkay. Why don't I just paint this one? I know, you are quicker than me...

So I just painted it. It is laminate, through and through. I went to meet Paint Guy at Lowe's. (We're on a first-name basis. His name is Paint. Guy.) I asked him for the best, most fantastic primer he could ever think of for painting laminate. He said B.I.N. primer by Zinsser was the best one. AND it dries in 45 minutes!!

I skipped out of the store, I was so excited! I could actually get this done in Sarah-time! That would be asfastaspossiblegetitdoneNOWIhatewaitingforpainttodry time.

Well...I don't know what this stuff is but it is waaaay weird. It destroyed my rollers and foam brushes. Super weird. Like, they were melting off the handles weird.

It did dry fast though...so I was OK. Over the next few days, I did three coats of black (even though I used tinted primer), a couple coats of poly, later added some cute red knobs from Hob Lob:

Put the TV and components back on and this started happening:
That's a huge chip with the laminate showing through, covered by black Sharpie, in case you couldn't tell. (Most of the time, black or brown Sharpie is great to cover up scratches, by the way.)

Then, it chipped under the TV. In like, three places. I could have cried. Really. Told you. Laminate is out to get me.

BUT...I spent $10 on primer, a few bucks on new rollers, and only a few hours of my time. Even if it looks good for another six months or so, in the end, I feel like it was worth it. I loooove how it turned out...a new black cabinet would have been at least $250.

That's what I keep telling myself anyway. :)

Before:
After:

Worth it?

P.S. Yes, I sanded it. No, not a really really good sanding. :)
Yes, I let it cure between coats (as long as directed). No, probably not as long as I really should have. (I know better!)
Yes, I was super anxious and tired of the electronic crap all over the room and probably put everything on too fast -- should have waited at least a whole day. NO. I didn't follow my own advice. (Have I mentioned how very little patience I have when it comes to painting lately??)

Hangs head in shame...

Using Ballard Designs as inspiration (part deux)

Here I go again! I tell you what, if you really look through the Ballard Designs catalog, you can find so many items you can make on your own, for a fraction of the price!

I saw this one months ago, and I've had everything for a loooong time to make it on my own. I mean, a LONG time. I kept hesitating because of my new found fear of mod podge.

I'm sceered.

It bubbles up EVERY time I use it. It is driving me batty. I bought a fun new tool to keep it from happening with this project, but in the end, I decided to just go with my trusty spray adhesive and it worked great!

This project is SOOOO easy and will take you about an hour to do. You'll need 12x12 paper -- I got this large book on sale awhile back for $9. But this would be even cheaper if you just bought the paper in singles:

I had a ten foot MDF board cut down into one foot pieces at Lowe's:

And used a brown spray paint to spray the sides and the edges:
Then spray adhesived (my made up word) the crap outta them -- the back of the paper and the front of the board. I let them both set up for about a minute, then just placed the paper on each board:

I decided to do the nine squares like Ballard:

I nailed them right into the wall, instead of putting brackets on the back:

I love it! I bought trim to do the edges like Ballard, but now I don't know if they need it...what do you think?:

I don't know I don't know! Help! I've seen this done all over blogland, and I think most people use canvases. I was being cheap -- I think all the wood for this was less than $10. Total with the wood, paper and spray paint, this cost less than $25. The Ballard version is $200!

Many of you asked about the arch that used to be in this space (a couple posts back). It is uber-cool...I got it from Goodwill years ago for two bucks!!:
I was just reallllly tired of it in that spot, and needed something new. I was going to take it to Goodwill but I think I'm going to use it outside -- fun eh?

To see my other Ballard inspiration project, go here.

A playroom for the kids (that works for adults too!)

I know I've been talking about this space for a while, and today I realized I hadn't shown it to you yet! The playroom is our loft, and used to be just an adult space for watching TV, but we rarely used it for a number of reasons -- I'm not sure what those reasons are, but I'm sure there are a number of them. :)

We used to have our son's toys in the downstairs office, but it was starting to give me the shakes. The room was too small for all the toys, and with the addition of Thomas the Train and his one meeeellion accessories, it was just not working.

So one day, I was at my girlfriend's house, sitting in her loft while the kids played and it hit me like a ton of "DOY!" bricks -- why not make our loft the play room?

Ummm...I'm not sure why I didn't do this before. I absolutely, positively LUUUUURVE it!! I managed to add some kid fun while keeping it a space we love to hang out in too.

The large photo wall was already there, and it's one of two projects in this room I still want to redo. I love the wall, I'm just going to add more pics to the shelves soon:

The wall vinyl was from Uppercase Living, and it will frame out the new flat screen perfectly. (I act like we have said flat screen...we haven't bought it yet, but oh yes, it will be mine... (Am I the only woman who HATES tube TVs now? I feel like a man with my love of flat screens.)

This room has exactly one wall that is workable for any major furniture. And it's about twenty feet tall (hence the wall o' photos). We got the recliners for our wedding (thanks Grandma!!) and although any real designer would throw up a little in their mouth at the sight of them, they are soooo comfortable and we love them:

The train table was an absolute STEAL at Goodwill. (I'll share that with you at the par-tay!) I had it lengthwise against the window but the poor Bub could barely move around it to work his trains. ARGH -- dangit! Function over form in this room, begrudgingly.
The wall color is hard to work with, and as you can see there is MUCH of it. I was trying to pull in some fun, whimsical colors without it screaming THERE IS A KID HERE. I found the caaa-utest scrapbook paper at Home Depot and used it everywhere. I matted a bunch of photos:

The little container I showed you here.
This photo tray was a gift, and I had the photos-of-people-I-don't-know that came with it in there for about a year. Instead of spending the time to find pics, I just added some of the paper in the slots and spray painted the mat. I added some whimsy to the lamp with fun trim from Hob Lob for about a dollar:
One of my favorite parts of the whole room are the letters above the window. I got this idea from Kate when she did it above her window. I got wooden letters, painted the sides and covered the front with the paper. It's the first thing you see when you walk up the stairs. Love it!:

I repurposed some items in the room too -- the TV cabinet I painted black a couple weeks ago. (GRRR...that's an upcoming post.)

The art pad I took from the Bub's room (I showed it to you here first) and recovered the top:
The mirror was an extra -- I asked the builder not to install it in the powder room. They left it for us anyway and it was sitting in the mud room closet for five years. I hung it up just for fun:

Reason No. 513 why you should declutter -- I bought the hardware to hang the mirror, and wanted the flat brackets, but they were too expensive for what I wanted to spend. So I got the cheap ones, and manipulated the molding over them to frame out the mirror. So it bulges out over the brackets:

Last week while decluttering the basement, I found the perfect, flat brackets the builder left for us. Double GRRR.

I used fabric to try to lighten up the space as well. I showed you the drapes here:

The massive Thomas pillow is a family fave:

I showed you that and the plaid pillows here.

Storage is super fun in this room -- the art caddy made from a tool box:

I looked for plain magazine holders EVERYWHERE. Finally just bought some on Ebay (they are Ikea and worked perfectly). I spray painted them, added the scrapbook paper to the sides and then made some more of my cutey most labels:

I use the space in the TV cabinet and labeled everything there:

I hear you -- "Where are the toys Sarah?!"

Chillax people, here you go -- the shelves are FULL:

Target bins hold a ton of toys under the train table:

The recliners are not only comfy, the hide an awful lot of stuff:

There you go! A playroom fun enough for the kiddo, but still sophisticated enough for us to hang as well. This is easily one of the most relaxing rooms in our house, even with the toys everywhere. We love this room.

The best part, even if every. single. toy is pulled out, it still takes less than twenty minutes to get the room looking like this again:

Ask me how I know.

Remember to join the Goodwill part next week! Yes, this includes any transformation you've created from an item from a thrift store, garage sale, anything that is "second hand."

OK, the moment you've been waiting for! The winners of my one year giveaway are:

Deb from Wise Old Owl -- please pick the three items you would like and e-mail me!

AND

Yanira, I will let you know which two items you'll win when I hear from Deb!

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! Holy crap people, 610 comments! That is so cool!