Floor Progress

After a week of hard labour we now have flooring in the entire downstairs: living room, dining room, family room, playroom, hallways, bathroom, master bedroom. We (G and father) just need to add moldings. NO MORE CONCRETE!!!

Here is  the family room overhead view

  


Before: Dirty nasty beige barf

After: LOVE!

Wait until you see what we have planned for the fireplace!

Playroom Progress

We have been slowly pecking away at the playroom.  Which started out look like this.....

I would say it’s about 90% complete. Most of the work left is decorating and prettifying (that’s a real word, spell check didn’t flag it. And spell check KNOWS). I don’t have a reveal yet but I will show some projects we’ve done and an in progress shot.

Art Display Area

Two cork boards from a garage sale ($1 each). Left over pink craft paint. I had planned on covering the cork with fabric but I realized it would be covered with drawings and photos so I saved myself the hassle and just painted it.

Dress-up area.

The only item I bought for this was a clothing rail (the lower one). Everything else we already owned.  We have a full length children’s mirror from ikea that is mounted on the other side of the closet. No picture of that because there is also a giant cardboard box of stuffed animal. Practical but not pretty.

Wall Gallery. $2 Ikea frames. Prints from oohmoon.com

And here is the in progress shot. This doesn’t show the whole room. I also have a large bookshelf, two recliners, the dress up area, and much more but it gives you an idea of how much more AWESOME PRETTY PINK BRIGHT FUN "COOOOLLLLLLL MAMA" it is.

Side by side. Dayum we have DIY skillz.

Finally Floor

A box of ripped up wood (just the square from the entry)

77 boxes of flooring scattered all over my house

GOODBYE NASTY CONCRETE FLOORS!!!!!!

Mini Makeover

Goodbye Green

My kitchen has white cupboards (woot woot!) but it also has a white backsplash with FUGLY forest green accents and white laminate counters. They matched the green floral striped wallpaper we ripped out before moving in. New countertops and backsplash aren't in our budget right now so we are working with what we got. I was googling ways to paint tile when I came across these super slick aluminum tiles.

The come with a padded double sided tape but I also added some adhesive.

They only had one size and it wasn't 3" like my evergreen beauties so I changed the pattern. Just stuck them right over the existing tile.

BAM! They aren't bent that's just my mad foto skillz. They aren't 4" so they don't line up perfectly with the white tiles. But anything is better than green. Especially when that anything only costs $20

They are super easy to cut for places like outlets. I used my kids scissors cause I was to lazy to go upstairs and get mine.

BEFORE

AFTER

Next up hardware on the cabinets!

Disclaimer: I take all my pictures at night and they suck. 

Stencil suckiness

I have been trying to stencil flowers in my girls' room. Its not the quality of the stencil thats the problem. Its my paitn colour (a raspberry that require BILLIONS of coats), my textured walls, and probably my technique. Here's whats been going on.

I followed all the directions:

I have 8 flowers done....16-20 to go.  Stenciling has been added to the same list as wallpaper and vinyl flooring.

Unicorns

I have busy busy stenciling the wall in my girls' bedroom. Fact: Stenciling textured walls sucks. So distract myself I drew up some artwork. All my plans to be gender neutral went out the door years ago when V became obsessed with princess-pink-glitter-fairy-purple-ponies-makeup. Which is okay because I like my ultra girly household with pink christmas ornaments and the majority of people peeing sitting down.

Click here to download

Feel free to use this in your own super pink girly crafts and decor.

Washing in style

I've been busy...but not home reno/decor stuff. Mostly just pink summer goodness with my girls.

While we were enjoying the weather G was working on the laundry room. Get ready for a not so inspirational picture.

You notice that? No not our fab new HE Washer. Look lower...

Looks like a rubber floor right? But it's Tundra laminate flooring from Ikea. I wouldn't put this stuff all over my house but I'm loving it in the laundry room.  And its only 1.15/sqft! Super exclamation point time!!!!!!!!!!

Of course you cant truly appreciate it until you have seen the peeling, nasty vinyl that was there before.

Gross. 

A library...how fancy

We have a little nook upstairs and we weren't sure what to do with it. Office? Sitting area? Expand the bathroom? Then my friend Sylke suggested a library. Excellent idea! We have 8 billion kids books and now that the playroom is downstairs and bedrooms up I wasn't sure where to put them.

I'l thinking some wall display shelves like these, I will change out the displayed books each week. Like they do at the public library

via Anna White

Have you Been to Anna White's site before? AWE-SOME. I have a billion things I want to build. And by me I mean G.

Then we need a comfy place to sit and read. Loving any of these from ikea

Gonna need a plush rug for floor reading. These are all from overstock.com

I know everything's looking pretty neutral and grey but the BOOKS will be the colour and the art. There are so many beautifully illustrated children's books....

Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

The Balloon Tree by Phoebe Gilman

Anything by Eric Carle

Yellow Mellow

All the trim in my house is yellow. I think at one point in its life is was off-white or vintage white or some other fancy paint name. Now its more like dirty men's wifebeater armpit stain. My photo taking skills do not do it justice. I am slowly (as in one foot at a time whenever I can steal a minute away from my girls) painting it white.

Tonight I decided to start on the girls room. The upstairs rooms have carpet and I was unsure of how I was going to avoid getting paint on it. Not that I love the carpet, but its not going anywhere for a while so I couldn't be sloppy.

Tape on the carpet prevented drips but didn't flatted the carpet so I could get the bottom of the baseboard.

So I got a paper plate (mine was square, yeah we're fancy like that) and cut it in half. I used it to press down on the tape as I went.

 Looks pretty good!

Next step is to stencil the wall (that G paint "barely pink"). Stenciling on textured walls? Wish me luck!

Another mini makeover for my half-bathroom.

Side rant: I cant believe people still call them powder rooms.  That's so weirdly old school. "Excuse me I need to go powder my nose". I think it's extra gross because I KNOW your going in there to do your business and because you said powder now I am imagining you have some weird rash and you need to powder you butt. 

The existing light fixture was okay but didn't fit with our aesthetic. The silver tone was nice but the globes were too flowery.

Made a quick stop at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, spent $2 and spent 2 minutes at home to change them out.

Ahh much better. Although we need shorter bulbs. Gah those compact fluorescent bulbs are ugly. Function over form for sure.

Picture Towel Hook

I was featured! Woot Woot!

I don't really have time to do any decorating projects right now. Too busy ripping out wallpaper and making sure we have usable bathrooms. It was nice to take a break from troubleshooting sprinkler systems to do a little crafting.

So I dug out frame G got at a yard sale for a buck.

Spray painted it white. Realized my backyard is not good for spray paint. Bits of plants and bugs got stuck in the paint. So I distressed the frame to remove the flora and fauna. And added a hook I got at Ikea.

For the print I totally stole the idea was inspired by Three Men and a Lady

Three Men and a Lady

The final product!

I need to get some command strips. It's currently hung using the wire on the frame which is not sturdy and causes the frame to lean from the wall. Now I just need to find a way to add "MAKE SURE YOU USE SOAP" for my kids.



Oh I am a linking MACHINE!