First Fire of the Season!

That's right! This is our first fire of the season! Actually, it's the first fire we've ever had since we bought this house—EIGHT YEARS AGO!

That's my kitty, Smokey, checking out the fire. He's not sure what to think of this as he's never seen a fire!

You may have noticed that my mantle decor looks a little different. My little one and I dragged out some Halloween decorations yesterday to help celebrate the season! 

She especially loves this tin haunted house I found a few years ago! She thinks we ought to find a few more and have a "haunted neighborhood" on our mantle!

How cute is this ceramic skeleton? He's assembled with wire and can be gently posed. Love him!

I got this witch smoker doll when I lived in Germany. She's even got a wart on her face by her nose!

Hope you're having fun celebrating the season as much as we are!

The Red Door

Here's my front door. It could use some freshening up! Wonder how it would look in red?

Oh, how nice!**

Macy is SO unimpressed...

**UPDATE! I went through hell getting this door painted. The paint chip I found that I liked best was by Glidden—a paint I've never used before. Decided to give it a try—HUGE mistake!! The paint didn't cover worth a darn and sagged like CRAZY. It looked absolutely dreadful. Ended up having to sand it all down again and start from scratch. Went with my tried and true Behr paint and ended up with results I should have had in the first place! Never using Glidden again!

More Painting Finished Up...

WOOF! I'm Macy. I'm a good dog and I like to watch my mom paint. Take a look at what she did today!

The remaining purple paint got primed over (Note... mama was too lazy to take down the drapes! Lucky for her she didn't screw up and drip any paint on them!). This will look so much better once the door and trim are painted white!

Looking good, don't you think? (That's my girl watching SpongeBob!)

Now You See It ...Now You Don't!

Besides my goofy step-stool, is there anything in particular that stands out to you in this picture?? For me, the LAMP CORD is VERY noticeable and looks TERRIBLE! If there's one thing I hate, it's unsightly electrical cords!

Hard to ignore that unsightly cord!

The cord that came with the lamp was brown and distinctly noticeable against my white and cream paint in addition to being too short to reach the outlet. So today I rectified both of these undesirable situations. I bought a 15-ft long white extension cord, lopped off the end of it, and rewired my mantle's lamp. The long cord easily reaches my outlet now! I also installed a 4-ft long white cord cover to run along the edge of my fireplace and wall to further mask the cord.

Ahh... much better!

And... VOILA! The cord is now virtually invisible! What do you think?

One Door Down...

Today I wrapped up my finish coat on the door and baseboards in this little corner of the room. The white doesn't look as vibrant on the door as it does on the fireplace because of the camera's flash and the way it illuminated the scene (hitting the fireplace first), but it's the same paint. Will work on the closet door and trim to the right of this door next!

I'm thinking I'll take off the hinges and hit them with some "Oil Rubbed Bronze" spray paint.

Fireplace and side porch door finished!

Attention! P.I.P.!

That's right, "Priming In Progress"! After many weeks of contemplation, I decided to go ahead and paint the doors white. Having them white will help make them blend into the background so that room furnishings can "be the star", as well as help make the room less confining. Plus, having white doors will help make there be less visual competition, which sounds more calming if you ask me!

Kilz primer applied to the door.

So, it's getting there! I'm hoping to prime the woodwork surrounding the door tomorrow—might even get to some finish coat!

Goodbye, Beloved Purple!

In this household, we are all big fans of purple. We especially like how the purple walls help make the living room feel more cozy at night when watching TV and winding down before bed. But it's been that way for at least six years now, and I'm ready for a change!

So today I painted over more of the purple paint in the living room to make room for more of the cream.

Here the walls are in the process of being covered with Kilz primer. Kilz is a great paint for sealing dark colors, stains, and smells.

Here the cream finish coat has been applied to the walls. That white trim sure does pop!

While I was at it, I decided to mount the satellite speakers of our surround sound system to the walls; the speakers had been mounted to speaker stands that flanked the TV, but sometimes my golden retriever would wag her tail on one, causing it to sway and threaten to fall. They're not the most beautiful looking things; maybe next spring I'll spray paint them white and hang them higher?


I'm slowly making progress around the room! More to come!

Framed

I've been busy altering the appearance of my new frame. Initially I contemplated painting and glazing the frame, but in the end I decided to coat it in a dark walnut stain instead. With the stain, the grain and the imperfections in the wood would still be visible, and the variation in color between the brown and green tones would noticeably toned down.

Too shiny!

I really liked how deep the color looked without rubbing the stain off and decided to leave it on to dry. It's shinier than I want, but it's still a bit tacky (I've been picking dog hair out of it like crazy!) and hopefully will dry a bit flatter. If not, I'll spray a matte polyurethane over it to get the duller finish when it's completely dry.

Now, to get this thing hung... I decided to hang it with those plastic hooks with removable adhesive strips, since I'm guessing the wall I'm hanging it on is brick or some other equally hard surface that's too difficult to hammer a nail into. For good measure I used three of these hooks.

I was able to use the string mounted to the backside of the frame to hang this—that saved some extra work, plus in hanging it like this, it's easier to get level!

And, ...WALLAH! Here it is all put together! 

The camera's flash makes this print look more washed out than it is. 

And lastly, I'd just like to share with you that while I was hanging this and decorating my mantle today, my kid kept nagging me to rake leaves so that she and the dog could go play in them. Call me crazy, but I think it might still be a bit too early...

Happy Fall, y'all!

Picture This!

I have been searching for artwork to hang on my mantle for months. Prerequisites? First—it must be a landscape or nature scene, and secondly—in the style of a painting (as opposed to photography). Over the weekend I came across this little number (only $10!!) and knew I had found what I was looking for:

The scene depicts a view that is representative of the landscape where I live, which is exactly what I had in mind when I began my quest! Some of the colors are a little brighter than I might prefer, but I was willing to take it home to try it out. If I didn't like it I could always return it and continue my search. As it happens, once I had it placed on the mantle, the brighter colors seemed less apparent. I think this will work!

Now that I had my print, I wanted to find a frame for it. I went to a couple of craft stores with my half-off coupons in hand, but their frames in the size I needed start out at $50! And the face of the frame (the part you see when looking at the frame straight on) wasn't chunky enough for my taste (chunkier frames started at $125!). I am too cheap to pay those prices, even with a coupon! So I tried the second-hand stores. Imagine my glee when I found this framed print for only $18! This frame would be perfect!

It's hard to tell from the images, but the frame's face has some nice contouring and sculpting. I'm not too crazy about the green, but I think I can adjust that in a way with some paint and glaze that will better suited for my decor. While the artwork opening is an inch or so larger than I need it to be, I think this frame could be perfect for my new mountain print!

I began disassembling the print from the frame by removing the staples in the back. Imagine my agony when I stabbed myself with my poker tool in the index finger! Egads...

My next step was to free my mountain print from the frame it was stretch mounted to. After ripping away the brown paper on it's back, I painstakingly removed every staple around its edge and carefully unwrapped the edges from the frame. Next I sprayed adhesive onto the print that came with the frame; the original print was mounted on a sturdy board that was about 1/8" thick.

And... VOILA! Here is the framed print on my mantle.

It's bigger than I expected. As I mentioned, the frame's artwork opening is larger than I needed and so the edges of my mountain print that had been wrapped around the previous frame are now flattened and viewed as the rest of the image, so now my artwork appears bigger. I may end up cutting the frame and artwork down a couple of inches, but that was more work than I wanted to get into today. I guess I'll marinate on how much it's large size bothers me. Otherwise, I really like it and know I will like it even more once I make my artistic adjustments to the frame (of which I will have a subsequent post that will highlight the changes I make to the frame. Check back later!).

Mantle Redo

I found a print that I really liked for my fireplace mantle over the weekend that has inspired me to work on the fireplace this week (more on this new artwork in a subsequent post!).

The wall above the fireplace used to be dark purple (aka "Sweet Bark"). You can still see some of it that I haven't gotten to yet in other pics. Anyways, I primed the wall and painted it the cream color (Behr's "Wild Honey") that I have throughout other areas in my home. The mantle was a soft candlelight color while the brick fireplace was white, and not the freshest of whites either. Here you see the finished wall color with white primer on the brick and the mantle scraped and sanded down and ready for priming.

Here I'm in the middle of painting the brick (Behr's "Ultra White" in eggshell finish). It is astonishing how much brighter the finish coat is than the primer! I love how the white looks against the cream color! You may notice the mantle is primed now too.

Halfway done with the brick! Thank goodness the fireplace isn't any bigger than this. I was getting REALLY bored painting all of that brick. They have a lot of texture to them and it takes a lot of brush wiggling to get the paint in all of the grooves.

And... VOILA! Here's the brick, mantle, and wall all finished! I put Behr's "Ultra White" semi-gloss on the mantle—I want the mantle to have a little more shine than the brick. This will match all of my other woodwork, which will also be done in the semi-gloss. Will put a second coat on the mantle tomorrow.

By the way, did you notice that inset space on the brick just above the firebox? It's inset about an inch and is about 9"x 18". Why is that like that? Anyone?? Did homeowners put something in that void back in the day? That space is calling out to me. I feel like I should put something there. I found this pediment the other day and it will fit perfectly. What do you think of that idea? And if I decide to put it in there, should I leave it colored the way it is or paint the pediment white like the rest of the fireplace?

What do you think, Puppers?

BAH! She doesn't care...