Annie Sloan Chalk Paint

I can upload! Hooray!

I got my Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in the mail on Saturday. I ordered mine from Classic Wall Finishes out of New Jersey. I was so giddy to see it on the steps. But I couldn't paint anything because there were 11 yards of mulch to spread, a small section of sod to lay and a brand new vegetable garden to plant and figure out how to make it grow. AND,  I wasn't sure about this paint because of the high(er) price and the fact that it needed to be ordered....I was a little nervous.

I painted a few things on Monday with it. I couldn't resist painting nearly everything in my house....and a new piece to sell.

I ordered Old White (duh) and Duck Egg Blue. I love each color.

Here's a couple quick before and afters:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

This one, I don't have a before of, I don't know why....but it's the one that's available at White Butterfly Furniture....her name is Daisy....

Needless to say, I really like the paint! It's easy to use and goes on nicely. I did find that two coats worked best.

I wouldn't say I'm a convert from my easy to use Rustoleum spray paint, but I sure do love the colors that Annie Sloan has available!

Photo Gallery

I used to have nine photos on this wall. All the same frame. All lined up perfectly in a 3 x 3 configuration. I liked it, then I didn't like it, cause I thought I was being kind of boring....

I've wanted a gallery wall forever. We had one growing up, maybe I'm imagining it, nope, I remember, it's where I had my first kiss...that's right. Sorry, Dad. His name was Aaron, he's now in the army. I don't think there is a correlation....Tom's family had one too. I remember the first time I went there and saw all the pictures of him and his family....so much fun to look at those old photos!

So, I had this wall of photos and since hubs in away for a few days, it was time to change something....because if you've read for awhile, you'll remember that while hubby is away something has to change....

So, I took this ho-hum wall, that you can see a little of here:

And I changed it to this spectacular display of crooked photos.....

The photos will never be straight, they just won't. I'm slightly okay with it. Except that right now I want to go over there and tip each photo, just slightly. I hope I can sleep at night. Please don't be the person that says, say if you could just move that photo three in from the left and two down, to the right a little....

I love it. It makes me happy looking at all the photos in the room we spend the most amount of time.

Oh, that white frame behind the lamp..it's just a frame. It surrounds a light switch.

I was tempted to paint all of the frames white...I know! Can you believe it? Instead I just threw in the white ones I had whether there was a picture or not. And now my mantel is bare nekked.

I did not have a plan. I did not lay them all out and figure out which fit best where. I just started on the left and worked my way over. Things worked. I got lucky. I only had to re-nail three photos. And only one photo fell down while hammering into our flimsy walls....I call that a successful project.

Now. Let's see how long it takes hubs to notice....unless of course he reads this...

If you give a girl a drill.

If you give a girl a drill....

She will take take down mirrors.

If you give a girl a drill....

she will then decide to paint.

If you give a girl a drill, she will change out a few lights.

If you give a girl a drill, she will have to put up new mirrors.

And so, If you give a girl a drill, she will have a brand new bathroom in a day.

YEAH!

Okay here's the lowdown. 

I didn't get in trouble for taking the mirrors down. In fact, he barely bat an eyelash at it. I'm pretty sure he is quite used to coming home to change. I'm so glad because, to be honest, clowns scare me, and the circus, I'm pretty sure, has clowns.

Bathroom deets:

Wall color: Behr "Cumulus" in Paint plus primer. It took almost one gallon.

Mirrors: Martha Stewart for Home Depot. $49.99 each.

Lights: OUTDOOR wall lights. THAT'S RIGHT. Outdoor lights. Awesomeness at it's finest. $35/each.

Medicine cabinet: last year Goodwill purchase, for $7. THAT'S RIGHT. SEVEN DOLLARS! Oh, that's my half marathon schedule on the mirror....ugh.

Seashells: Bahamas.

Rug: PB, last year.

Cabin fever at it's finest.

Pantry Makeover Session 2

You'll laugh. I know you will. You'll think I'm a total nut job. I'm okay with that.

I had the intention of making our pantry look more organized and more like this:

 

Such a great idea! So, on Saturday morning we started measuring and we realized that it wasn't going to turn out the way I had envisioned because in reality it is this tiny little closet that really doesn't amount to much. So, instead of wasting a bunch of money on trying to make our pantry look like this

 I shifted things around. I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out. So far. 

Here's what we have:

In our kitchen we have two doors. Behind door number one on your left was a bunch of pans and glassware and cookbooks on some really deep nice shelves. Behind door number two on your right was food on some wire racks.

I shifted all of the food and baking items and things to door number one and moved the pans and such to door number two. (Everyone following still?)

So, here's what it looks like now:

I'm hoping to change out the doors. How cool would it be to have a split door on one or both of the pantry doors. Also hoping it will brighten things up in this sad little area....

So, grand ideas, turned into something else. And I'm okay with it. Sometimes that happens and you just have to roll with it. Plus, then hubs and I didn't have to do any work this weekend. Yeah!

Repainting the master bath cabinets

I got a wild hair last Thursday afternoon to just quick repaint the master bath cabinets. As I lighten up my house I feel like every single room is too dark. This bathroom included. So, it took a couple of hours...quick paint, let dry, keep the kids out of everything, paint, dry, don't let Gus touch the cabinets, and final coat of paint.

Fortunately the oops paint I picked up was a quick dry paint! And when you do several very thin layers, it dries quickly.

These are the cabinets before any paint, last year about this time. I added the beadboard wallpaper to the fronts of the doors.

Here are the classy black cabinets after:

They look nice, but just really dark...Especially with dark blue/gray walls.

Here they are this morning. I grabbed a bunch of new pulls from my stash in the garage.

Much brighter and happier. Please ignore my shaky hands and non-image stabilizer lens.

So, for zero dollars, I updated my bathroom to bright and cheery!

Gotta love a quick change!

A whole lotta chalkboard.

On Friday evening my husband came home from work and was shocked.

One, he thought I was my youngest sister, Lou. On Friday I took the plunge and dyed my hair back to it's natural color. I am loving it. He is adjusting.

Two, in the spot where there was measly little chalkboard in a frame, there was this:

He freaked out a little about an entire chalkboard wall, but this is what it looks like this morning....

See the holly in the corner. He drew it. I think he's adjusting to it just fine. As are the kids. And me.

We still have this huge one, that has not gone unnoticed. It is getting used just as much.

This seems to be the learning board. Porter is starting to learn to read and write and he uses this board daily to do his "homework". Oh, and draw Mickey Mouse. And beautiful flowers. And hand turkeys....

We built this one with 1x2, hardboard and chalkboard paint.

The wall took about 4 coats to do. I even had a helper. This time Jack was napping and Porter was helping.

Here it is, 4 coats. Boy, my kitchen was a mess on Friday.

I love the drama and fun a chalkboard wall adds to a room.

Happy Tuesday. Off to wash slipcovers.

We're in the middle of some very odd weather here in Wisco. Raining, warm and tornado warnings. Very strange. And tomorrow it's not even going to get to 40. Wisco.

Saturday afternoon Tom and I took our master shower and made it wonderful.

We had a shower curtain in there.

It was a nice shower curtain. From Pottery Barn. I splurged.  (It's now in the boys bathroom, which makes it okay!)

But the darn thing kept blowing into the shower. We had a plastic liner. It blew in. No. Matter. What.

So frustrating taking a shower in a tiny little section of the shower.

And it leaked out. So that little corner outside the shower got soaked and yucky.

So we splurged and got this:

Tom put it in, I caulked it. We are good to go.

Although, it's taking a little getting used to looking over and seeing the mirrors RIGHT THERE. AND ME. RIGHT THERE.

I'm sure I'll survive.

Living Room Change-a-Roo

Guess what I found out? Go on, guess.

I went to Home Depot with the color "Classic Silver" in my head, because that was the gray that was in the can in my laundry room. What I didn't know was the color of the kitchen is actually "Porpoise". Anyone that reads the blog could probably have told me that, but I'm an idiot and too lazy to look it up, so I assumed (making an ass out of me) that the color in the laundry room was the last color I used on the walls.

Guess not. I found Porpoise in the basement under the stairs....(anyone remember that book/movie? The People Under the Stairs.)

Apparently Porpoise is just a shade darker than Classic Silver. Which would only be a problem if you touched up the Porpoise kitchen with Classic Gray.....which I didn't because I realized in time that they were different, but not in time to have painted the entire family room that attaches to the kitchen/dining room in the Classic Silver. To the naked eye you would never know. Ever. Unless you were touching things up.....which I didn't.

But, beside the point, here's my new and improved and much brighter and for some reason larger, family room.

I failed to decorate, didn't put the laundry away and a certain five year old wanted to make his presence known.

Here is a before, I hope I can find it. Okay, you can't see much of the wall color in these....

So there you go. A sucky post with some sucky pictures. But, trust me when I tell you the wall color is happy. And joyful and fun. So there.