The Last 3 Weeks {In Review}

I can't believe it's already almost the middle of October. 

The past month was so busy and seemed to fly by at warp speed. 

The last few weeks have definitely been an adjustment as I've eased myself into the role of preschool teacher.  It's been a lot of fun, but a lot of work too.  Sadly, the ole bloggy has taken the brunt of my neglect, but I'll do my best to still post as regularly as possible.

Now that I am limited to only a couple days a week to devote to "my projects" I've had to be very deliberate in what I choose to do.  The projects have become less "experimental" and more "necessary".

One of those recent necessary projects was cleaning up a little spray paint mishap that occured in the laundry room.  My washer seems to thrash about during the spin cycle like a caged beast. Well, a couple weeks ago, during one of the "destructive" spin cycles, I inadvertantly left a can of yellow spray paint sitting on top of the washer {you know where I'm headed with this...remember the laundry room light debaucle?}.  When I went in the change the load out, I encountered my {semi} newly painted floors desecrated by the yellow paint can which had fallen from the washer and exploded all over the ground.  I was a little irritated {to say the least}.

I didn't take any before pictures because of the incident because, frankly, it's not an event I really cared to remember. But no worries, everything is good as new now.

Another project on the to-do list was to paint my kiddos's bathroom counter top.  For whatever reason, the little dears have been on a kick of drawing on things which should not be drawn upon.  The following of which include:  their bodies, other people's bodies, exterior brick, walls, doors, floors, clothes and now...countertops.

  Granted, the countertops were hideous to begin with, but adorning the hideousnous with even more hideousness did not negate any of the hideousness...only made it worse.

Chiseling off the tile and retiling or buying new countertops altogether wasn't really an option, so I resorted to my old friend...garage floor epoxy.  It's the same stuff I used on the tile floors in my laundry room.  I decided to conduct a little experiment to see if it would work equally as well on tile countertops as it has on my tile floors. 

So far it's looking pretty good...but then again it's only been three days.  I'll give it a little more time then update on how it has help up. 

Here's the before and after again, just in case you forget in the last three seconds how it looked...before and after.

And since I already had the paint out, I decided that I might as well freshen up the disgusting tile floors.  Just looking at them could easily bring on a severe case of pink eye.

I made it easy on myself this go around and just simply painted wide, horizontal stripes {rather than tape out a complicated/time intensive pattern}. 

I think it turned out great.  Now I don't have to worry about contracting a case of foot fungus if I accidentally step on the floors sans socks/shoes.

The next project just sorta happened by chance.  I came across the steal of the century when I found this gorgeous couch at the store for $279. 

My front room, up until now, has housed a piano, a shelf, two Guitar Hero guitars and accompanying drum set and drum pedal, an unused side table and a couple lamps, several awol Lego pieces and an army of dust bunnies...not the most aesthetically pleasing room in the house.  With my newfound purchase, I was inspired to create a living room worthy of actually "living" in, and not "storing" in.

I spent a little over $100 on accessories, about $50 on window coverings and draperies, and about $80 on frames for artwork.  All in all, I ended up spending just over $500 to completely transform this room.  

I think it has just the right amount of funkiness, freshness and funness, no? 

Can I also just add that the artwork itself cost me all of $2.  I found a really cool art book on drawing animals at the thrift store and simply ripped out some pages I thought were intersting.  The end result:  chic, custom artwork that looks pricy but in reality cost mere cents. 

You should totally try it.  Cause if one of your cute, little darlings happens to come across an awol marker and uses it to "enhance" your artwork, you won't have to "go to your happy place for three days" to cope with the incident.  You can just remind yourself, "hey, that picture only cost a quarter, no biggie".  And that, my dear friends, is priceless.

I don't usually close my posts with a question, but today I'm feeling daring.  Do you ever feel like all of your free time is spent touching up/re-doing projects you've already done?  Or is it just me and my gaggle of crazies.  I certainly hope not.  Til next time...

Painted Floors- A Tutorial

I thought I'd repost my painted floor tutorial from my Lovestitched feature, just in case some of you missed it.  It was a time consuming project, but I think my efforts paid off.  My floors look a million times better.  I really love how they turned out.  Read on if your curious to see how my floors when from pig sty, to totally fly.

Okay! How many of you out there have a room in your house with hideously unattractive floors? Sadly, I have a couple of them. Here’s number one on The World’s Fugliest Floors list.

A couple weeks ago, I finally decided I had had enough of the “life sucking” laundry room floors and I decided that I was going to do something about it. I considered my options.

Option 1- Actually try cleaning it…like really cleaning it, with a pressure washer and the works. Yuck! Seems like a lot of work and the floors would still be the same drab grey color…just a little cleaner {well, a lot cleaner}.

Option 2- Rip out the tile and replace it with something uber attractive {the David Beckham of all tiles is what I’m talking about}. I liked this option, but since I would most likely be going solo on this little project, I didn’t really think my delicate hands and back would appreciate all of the manual labor. Plus, this option would most likely make a significant dent in the ole pocket book.

Option 3- Paint over the existing tile. No chipping, chiseling, pressure washing needed. Done! My decision was made.

I had never painted over tile before, so right off the bat, I did a little research. I knew that regular latex paint would not stand up to the high traffic. So my thoughts turned to epoxy based paint…you know the stuff you use to coat garage floors?

Before you can start this project, it is important to get the work surface as clean and grime-free as possible. Then it needs to dry thoroughly.

Once this is done, you need to prep the floors by applying an appropriate primer. There are several types of primers on the market, but the lovely paint guy at “the depot” said this one would do the job.

I applied one coat

and after about an hour it was dry enough for me to apply a second coat.

{This is a fairly quick drying primer. It says right on the back that it should be dry enough for light traffic in about an hour, but I would just make sure that the surface is in fact dry before walking around on it. Just sayin’.}

After the second coat of primer was dry, I applied my first coat of paint.

I used a 1-part epoxy paint. 

I applied two coats of this white base paint.

Then I let the floors cure for several days before starting the next step…

taping

Honestly, the hardest part about the taping was coming up with a design. I spent a lot of time pondering the right pattern: chevron stripe, basic stripe, argyle. I finally settled on a “v” pattern that I just sort of "made up".

I measured out the center of the floor and taped a large “X”.

From there I simply began taping “V’s” in each of the four sections of the “X”.

I removed every other “v” to reveal a space inbetween.

{It goes against all I believe to be wasteful, so I reused the pieces of tape I removed from the inbetween spaces in order to cut down on tape usage}

Here it is…several roles of tape later. But isn’t she gorge? And she’s not even done yet.

For the second color, I chose a greyish-blue color…I believe it was called FOG.

This is after the first coat.

And this is after the second coat.

There was a little bleeding.

{No worries though. It’s nothing a little paint and Q-tip couldn’t fix}

And VOILA! Here she is in all her striped glory.

And a little close up. See how well the Q-tip worked.

Here’s a before and after…just so you can remember the hideousness from whence she came. David Beckham hotness achieved…I think so.

I was able to complete this project for around $100. Not too shabby for a flippin’ awesome floor. Here’s the breakdown: Gripper Primer $23, 2 gallons of Behr brand epoxy paint @ $30 each, 2 roles of painters tape @ $7 each}.

Ugliest Room Ever- Make-over

Do any of you have a space in your home that you just hate? A room that every time you walk by it or go into it, you feel the joy and life drain from your person?

Well, I've got a few. But the one that I hate most right now is my laundry/mud room. This space has been woefully neglected since we moved into this house three and a half years ago. There's just something about it that feels dingy and dirty...even after I've cleaned it.

Here, let me just show what I mean, so you can understand where all of my animosity is coming from.

Okay, so having a smelly, guinea pig cage in there probably didn't help the situation.

After taking some time to build up my courage, I decided it was time conquer this eyesore.

The first thing I wanted to do was lighten up the walls to help make the room feel brighter and more open. I decided to add a some decorative B&B, which I painted white. I love B&B. It is a super easy and fairly inexpensive treatment that adds lot of texture and interest.

Even after completing this project, I noticed a definite difference in the room. It was already feeling brighter and cleaner...it could have been in large part because of the paint smell. Fresh paint has a way of making things seem clean and new. But the party did not end there.

After enlisting the help of my personal "sweat shop" to paint the walls, the floors were totally thrashed.

I hadn't intended on doing anything to the floors, except for maybe adding a rug or two. But it became quite evident after the painting was complete, that they couldn't be left as they were. There was paint all over. Since I didn't really have the budget or the time to rip out all of the tile, I opted to paint them. This little fiasco ended up being the best mistake.

I love the way the floors turned out. It was a time consuming project, but well worth the effort. They definately contribute to the open and airy feel I was going for. They also add a lot of visual interest.

I flip flopped about whether or not I should paint the cabinets. I decided that with the white walls and light floors there needed to be some warmth in the room, so I kept the cabinets wood. They were your basic, run-of-the-mill oak cabinets. Kinda meh!


So, I decided to add some character to them by taking my pent up aggression out on them.

My weapons of choice were a hammer, a chisel and a little contraption I made myself called...a worm hole maker. Pretty menacing, eh?

{and when you're not using it on cabinets, you can use it on your kiddies...I'm totally kidding!!! Please don't go sicking DCFS on me.}

I went over the cabinets in a dark stain to help bring out the imperfections.

Here's a side by side of the before and after.



Now all these babies need in some bling, by way of knobs.

I made a few minor adjustments to the space as well.

I exchanged the "boob" light for an industrial looking pendant.

I added some hooks {personalized with faux "zinc" letters} for the kiddies to hang backpacks and jackets.

Finally, I added a little sitting area for putting on and taking off shoes.

The window shade is my fave. It was made from a $3 Ikea rug.

My goal was to complete this transformation for around $100, but that was before the floor fiasco. In total, I ended up spending about $207: $100 of that was just for the floors, $30 for the pendant light from Ikea, $35 on artwork and frames, $30 on the "zinc" letters, $10 on the floor rug and $2 for the rod for the window shade. Everything else I already had on hand.

It's amazing what a few dollars and some elbow grease can do, eh?

I now lovingly refer to this space as my David Beckham room, because I find it so devastatingly gorgeous. The only thing that could make this room any better is if I actually found David Beckham in it doing my laundry.