Console-ation Prize

Finally! I finally finished painting my bargain console table for the den.  I primed it way back on the 4th of July weekend and it took me until recently to get around to painting it.  Here's the after shot right up front!

We really needed a long console table behind the sectional in the den.  The way the room is laid out is such that there is really no room for an end table next to the one side of the couch.  And those who sit in the middle have no place to put their drinks.  Because one of my favorite things to do is sit on the couch with a cool delicious beverage or a yummy hot cup of coffee while blogging or surfing other blogs, I absolutely needed to take care of this and bring in the right piece of furniture.  When we moved in, I just put the small buffet that used to be in our old dining room.  It served a purpose but was way too small for the space.  See?

So I trolled Craigslist and happened to find a console table that was perfect: perfect size, perfect lines, perfect price ($40).  I totally forgot to snap a before picture, but the color was a medium oak.  Here is the piece with a coat of primer.

It took me a few weeks to get around to it, but I finally did and painted a few coats of high gloss Dover White by Sherwin Williams.  This time, I tried something a little different and added some Floetrol to the paint.  

I've read about Floterol on a bunch of blogs and liked that it is supposed to reduce or eliminate brush strokes.  It works great! I notice a definite difference.  I just used the yellow bucket and poured my Dover White into it, then added a little Floetrol to it, stirred and painted.  I did three coats of the Dover White (two was ok, but I like to be sure the finish is perfect).  Once it was painted and once I gave the Polycrilic a few days to cure, I brought the piece inside.  Here it is now!  It is perfect!  I love the chunky lines of the piece.

I need to get some lamps with white shades for the top of it - it's looking a little bare right now.  But for now, this works.

What do you think? Painting any furniture soon? I am!  I will be painting two tables for my living room in the near term!  They are my coffee table (a West Elm number scored on Craigslist for about $50 with awesome chunky lines but in need of a paint job) and my side table ($19 from IKEA). The coffee table will get a coat of that same glossy Dover White and the side table is probably going to be a little more glam - I'm thinking a brushed metal, maybe nickel, maybe gold!  I'll have to see how that room evolves. 

See you swoon,

A run for my money

I have the perfect spot in my house for a Pottery Barn inspired organization wall.  My kitchen had a strip of wall that was covered with a bulletin board installed by the sellers, good idea but not quite what I had in mind. This was my inspiration, Pottery Barn wall organization system.



This is what my wall looked like with the cork boark and then after I removed it:

It wasn't as easy as just buying the PB organization system because the width was one inch too wide, just my luck.  So my neighbor, Andy, said he would help me build the framed cork board, chalkboard and linen ribbon board.  I was excited at the thought of building this but always kept an eye out in case I stumbled upon a framed wall system and it finally happened!  I just happened to be in Home Goods and came across this:

Which I planned to hang like this:

And because of all the scratches I was given a little discount so I bought the frame home for $27.00!  Building this would have been fun but after materials and labor I would have spent more than I did buying it and fixing it up.

Nothing is ever as easy as it seems.  I ended up sanding and paint this four times before I was able to get the scratches completely covered.  I first tried wood filler which worked but did not cover well with the spray paint, so we tried again with spackle:

And priming again:

But after a week of sanding, spackling, priming, and painting, I present to you my wall organization board!

As always the work I put in was worth it but this little frame really did give me a run for my $27.00!  Have any of you bought something from a home store knowing from the start you would have to fix it?  Please share!

See you swoon,

The *Perfect* White Wall Color & HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMIE!

Before I get to the nitty gritty of my post today I want to wish a very happy birthday to our lovely, sweet, amazing Jamie!  Today is her 30th birthday! We celebrated over the weekend with lots of good food, wine and cake (chocolate cake + chocolate frosting per her request).  I hope today is a marvelous day - just as marvelous as she is!

image found here

Last week, you saw my white and cream test squares on the walls in my living room.  I know a lot of people prefer to paint their test squares on white posterboard so the paint is not right on the wall, but in my case, I find painting the squares on the wall motivates me to make a decision and paint the room faster.  So last Friday, I decided it was time to start on the big transformation in the living room.  Here are the before pictures:

The color on the wall wasn't bad at all: it was Wool Skein by Sherwin Williams (and that color is in almost every room in the house).  It's a nice neutral and very much reminds me of the Parisian Taupe (Behr) that I had in our first house.  But I wanted a change and I really want a soft tone-on-tone living room with lots of white and cream and oodles of texture.  I decided to give Lowes a try for paint and once there, I went with Olympic One (paint and primer in one).  I was a little nervous: I know that taupe paint can be a bear to cover and I was going white ... but I hoped it would be a two coat job.  The color on the wall was matched to Sherwin Williams Alabaster.  Here's a shot of the room in progress.

I am happy to report that Olympic One is terrific!  It took just two coats to beautifully cover the walls.  I like my paint to feel a little thick, and while Olympic One isn't quite as thick as Sherwin Williams, it has a good consistency.  I'm beyond thrilled with the end result  - both the paint and the color I chose.  Alabaster reads a little grey in my living room, which is just what I wanted.  I wanted the room to feel white but not stark white. And, as I hoped, the Alabaster makes the taupe furniture feel cooler and greyer in tone, which will add to the flow of the house once I paint the entryway, hallway, kitchen and den varying shades of my favorite grey.  In person, the color is a little lighter than it appears in these pictures.   Enough chatter, here are the after shots of my living room!

I set things up as much as I could.  I moved the white and cream rug from the den in here and it works much better.  I covered the taupe pillows that came with the couch with striped pillow covers from IKEA (I think I paid about $4.99 for each of these - steal!).  The large cream and blue pillow is from Pottery Barn, but I'm not sure if it will stay here. I brought in the lamps and set up the tables.  I'll also paint the coffee table white.  Oh, see the green chair?  I found him for $15 on Craigslist.  I'm going to paint the frame white and reupholster it.  The green patterned pleather just isn't doing it for me.  I know ... 

So for now, I tried to temper the green with some pillows.  I'm planning to paint the white side table next to the chair, too. It's from IKEA and I think it was about $20.  It's a little too ... something.  Boring? Outdoorsy? I don't know.  But I want to make it look a little more special, maybe with a metallic finish.  

Oh while I was at it, I tackled a small project.  The floor by the couch was a little worn in one spot.  See?

Nothing a little Old English scratch cover can't fix! Love this stuff! Here's the after.

So there you have it!  I painted the room solo and it took me from 8-12:30. I broke for lunch and then from 1-2:30 I set up the room.  Next up, I have to build my desk from the door, figure out the curtain situation and add lots of accessories! Can't wait.  What do you think? Any suggestions?

See you swoon,

We've Been Featured: Knock Off Decor

It is no secret how obsessed Shanna and I are with Pottery Barn.  Well, we have found a fellow lover of the brand (along with many of you) and many other brands but what is even better is this blogger features all knock off's from stores such as Pottery Barn, West Elm, Ballard Designs, Anthropologie just to name a few.  What else could you ask for?!

Thrilled does not even begin to describe my level of excitement when Shanna and I received an email from Beckie over at Knock Off Decor letting us know that she wanted to feature my knock off PB bartsools that I picked up at the Christmas Tree Shop, woot! 




  

So stop on by and check us out, here is the link.  WARNING, you will be sucked in and may lose hours of your day looking at all the amazing projects, this cannot be helped.  On the upside, you may just find your self inspired to do a project of your own and just in time for the weekend.  Thank you Beckie, we are so flattered that you featured us!

Happy Friday!

See you swoon,

Busy Bee

That's me!

bee art found here

Last Friday I sent the kids to school and powered through my to do list. Wanna know what I did?  I ran to the post office to ship some things, then I went to Wal-Mart to pick up my bookshelves for my door & bookshelf desk, then I ran to Lowe's to get a rug for my bedroom (it's a huge 9x12 cream broadloom remnant and was $80!) and a showerhead and a few other Lowes-ish items, then to Petsmart to get some charcoal filters for Coco's litterbox [note: people with cats: I swear by the Booda dome cat litter box with charcoal filter - no smell!].  Then I ran home, started laundry, unloaded the car, and I started my projects.  I ended up painting the console table for the den (post coming soon!), wood puttied and touched up the window trim areas where the old window hardware was, swiped a fresh coat of trim paint in the living room, lightly sanded and swiped a quick coat of Poly on the Adirondack chairs, swapped out the yellow bathroom shower head, and put together one of the bookshelves and discovered it was too tall. This halted me in my tracks.  See?

womp womp womp

So the desk project went on hold while I went back to Wal-Mart and exchanged the too tall unassembled bookshelf (I'll find a home for the one I did put together) for a shorter one, which I found and they were only $13 each!  Hmmm, maybe rather than being a "busy bee" I should call myself a "busy Taz" because I really was like the Tasmanian Devil.

Tasmanian Devil image found here

Here is a quick before and after of the window trim.  I'm so glad I took some time to do it.  See in the corners of the trim around the windows in the "befores" how the old trim color was visible? Now it is nice and white.  When I eventually get around to really doing up the bedrooms I'll probably touch up all the trim, but for now, this will satisfy me (also notice Big got new bedding and a new rug! Thank you Pottery Barn Outlet!):

before

after

before

after

 Once I finished all of the above, it was time to move on to the fun: putting up test squares of my whites and creams in the living room!  Normally, as you know, I am a Sherwin Williams girl through and through, but I'm going to try Valspar or Olympic paint in this space.  I live super (dangerously) close to Lowe's and my closest Sherwin Williams isn't so close.  I asked Lowe's to color-match several colors for me for the test samples.

I put them on the wall in diferent spots around the room: near the window and trim, behind the couch, in the back.  When I do test swatches I always put them in alphabetical order on the wall so I know which color is which.   I'll post the test swatches for you below - and they are: (1) Alabaster (Sherwin Williams ... this is a very close match to Benjamin Moore's Decorator's White, by the way); (2) Country Dairy (Ralph Lauren); (3) Creamy (Sherwin Williams); (4) Marshmallow (Sherwin Williams); and (5) White Dove (Benjamin Moore).  

As you can see there is a mix of white and cream in there.   I immediately ruled out Country Dairy (the second from the left).  It's way too yellow in person.  Marshmallow (fourth from the left) had too many pink undertones and came up a little dingy looking.  I also ruled out White Dove, because it is a little too pure white and bright. So it was between Alabaster (far left) and Creamy (middle square).  I lived with it for a few days and had Jamie weigh in.  We both agreed that Alabaster was the way to go: it looks great next to the furniture and the trim and isn't a super bright, pure white but will tone down the taupe furniture and make it read a little lighter and greyer.  Well, here's hoping anyway.  

If all goes according to plan, guess what I'll be doing tomorrow?  Stay tuned for the transformation of my living room!

See you swoon,