Quick! Where's My Brush?!

You know that old saying, "While the hubby's away, the wife will paint!" ...or, something like that (since he whines about the smell of the paint, I usually wait for him to leave before I bust out my brush). Well anyways, that's what happened here—he left for a few hours! :)

Applying wall color to primed wall.

First I applied finish coat to the primed wall behind the front door, and I FINALLY managed to get all of that old paint off of the backside of the front door—on to the primer!

Prime, prime, prime...

Still need to prime woodwork around the door. Maybe tomorrow...

And lastly, I've had my eyes open for a sconce to possibly use in place of that mirror behind the door and came across this one. It is bronze with art glass. What do you think?

Back to the Grind

I've been busy, as of late, working on some computer-related projects that have taken me away from my home improvement projects. These last two days things have slowed down enough for me to find some time to get back to the grind!

First I started with priming the wall behind the front door. I had hoped to prime the door as well, but I don't quite have all of the old paint off yet. A little more pickin' to do...

Then there's the matter of the formerly hidden sconce outlet. Do I find a sconce to put here and put this mirror elsewhere? Or do I simply plaster over it and leave the mirror here? Decisions, decisions...

You can see where the old sconce was mounted to the wall just above the mirror.

FINALLY I was able to get some paint on the woodwork in this corner (at the bottom of the stairs)!

Primer in center of bottom square inset and on door trim.

Primer on door and door trim; finish coat in square insets.

Finish coat on door and surrounding woodwork.

Hopefully I can find some time to put another finish coat of paint on my door and woodwork in the next day or so. Will need to touch up my wall paint too. No biggie...


It looks so different looking at that side of the room tonight! Looking forward to working on that window next! It's coming along! : )

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!)

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!

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...

Continued Progress!

I've continued to make progress on my project. I painted the walls I've been working on with a flat finish coat, and have continued chipping away at paint around doors, baseboards, and stair risers.

Here you can see I just have four more risers to go! I am really pleased with how the skirting on the wall is looking too.

Unfortunately my carpal tunnel affliction isn't letting me work on this as much and as aggressively as I'd like. I am hoping to get some primer on these stripped risers this week!


**UPDATE! I bought one final can of that spray on texture I told you about, hoping that the first two I'd gotten were just duds. With this final can, I shook it FOREVER and ran it under some hot water for about 30 seconds or so. At last I was able to get the product to perform the way it was supposed to and actually managed to spray the entire contents onto my walls! I am beyond pleased with the results. It gave me exactly the look I was going for!

I Giveth, and I Taketh Away

Today I primed a wall...

...and destroyed another.

Hot Mess Tuesday

As always, I have my fingers in a few simultaneous messes today. Let me show you what I'm up to!

First we'll start with the stairs. I've continued to scrape them and get the skirting cleaned up as well. My husband has been pretty good about the destruction and messes I've been making lately. Wonder how he'll handle seeing the stairway with missing spindles? It's a necessary evil—I need to scrape the underside of the railing before I can put my new spindles in.

And speaking of spindles, I have another finish coat of paint to put on them. Here they are with one coat of primer and one coat of finish. Looking good!

I sat on the floor of my screened porch and painted the spindles while my little one sat on the other side of the door jabbering and making this hot mess. And to think she told me she was making SOUP! lol...

Here is a candlestick lamp that I am refinishing today as well. I am stoopid* and didn't make a before picture. It was cream with a crackle finish. The brown will fit my decor much better. Maybe I'll be bright enough to take an after shot when it's done...

*intentional misspelling to further illustrate my point

And lastly, this final hot mess was the inspiration for today's blog title. Let me explain...


You may recall that when I stripped the wallpaper off the other day, I had some wall damage that needed repaired prior to painting. In repairing the wall, the wall's texture was smoothed. I like my house's rough walls! I didn't want to go to the trouble of getting paint and adding sand, so I thought I'd just get a can of wall/ceiling texture and dial down the spray to a fine mist. If needed, I'll sand the texture down a bit prior to painting.

Here's a shot of what I was able to get done before my can of texture malfunctioned after just a couple of squirts:

Definitely one hot mess! At least, I'm assuming this mess is a malfunction? Anyone??

Now where's my receipt?! This thing's going back! Grr...

Back to Work

Finally got back to my projects after a long holiday weekend of traveling. I must be getting old—it took me TWO DAYS to recover from the trip! Gah!

Today I started repairing the wall I scraped last week. While I waited for that to dry, I decided to start priming some of my stair risers. Here's my pooch showing off my work!

Once I finished that up, I decided to start picking at the closet door at the bottom of the steps. I suspected that it had been stained at one time as well and that the paint might readily come off. My suspicions were confirmed! Made one heck of a mess, and thought I'd put my kid to work (actually, she volunteered!). She was pretty good at vacuuming my mess when she wasn't using the hose to suck on the hem of my shirt! She thinks she's pretty funny...

You can see here that the door is pretty well stripped; just some fine detail work to wrap up. Some of my wall patch work is also visible here.

And lastly, I finished priming my balusters today! I'm getting pretty excited about this little project. My brother-in-law loaned me his air compressor and nailer and I am really looking forward to getting them installed!

Guess that'll do it for today. My back is screaming at me, "Enough! No more for today!"

Busy, Busy, ...Decisions, Decisions!

Been busy these last couple of days. Yesterday I started scraping one of the doors that leads to the outside. It resembled this door when I started:

Now it looks like this (pardon the tools and my mess!):

I was impressed with how clean it came with just my putty knife and my paint scraper. My neighbor has her doors stripped (with white trim) and I really like the look. I am tempted to have just my two doors that lead to the exterior stained similarly to my neighbor's, but have all of my other doors in the house be painted white (as they currently are). What do you think?

You can see below that I have made some progress on the stairs as well. The skirting is scraping clean better than I expected (where the phone line used to be tacked), and I am almost done scraping all of the risers. You can see that I have also been busy filling nail holes on the risers. Maybe I'll sand and prime those tomorrow.

Today I started off my day by applying the glazing finish to the top of my dresser. I really love how this is turning out! When you look at it up close, it almost seems to resemble woodgrain. You can see I still need to apply the glaze to the vertical surfaces:

Once that was done I primed and painted the newel post in Ultra White. All of my home's doors and trim are currently painted a soft ivory color. I want a fresh clean look, so I am planning on repainting ALL of the woodwork in Ultra White. I think the white trim will make my wall colors look more vibrant and fresh. I'll put a second finish coat on the newel post tomorrow.

I will eventually paint the lower portion of the newel post—need to scrape and prime the quarter-round at the carpet, but this would be much easier to do if the carpet wasn't there. So I'm still working out a plan for this—I'm not quite ready to rip up all of my carpet, but might consider ripping up the perimeter and carpet tack strips so that I can scrape my woodwork throughout the room that's currently embedded in the rug.

And lastly, today I scraped paint off my baseboards and removed layers of painted wallpaper from a small wall. I plan on replacing this purple color with the cream color on the walls in the stairwell. My home has plaster walls and I'll have to do a little bit of wall repair before I'll be ready for paint here.

I'm still pretty stoked about finding those balusters yesterday! They had exactly how many I needed in the sizes I needed and I really like the detail in them—and I got them for a heck of a price! I think I'll paint them white. Such a shame to do since they're lightly stained now and would probably look equally nice with a darker stained finish like I want to use (I love woodgrain!), but I think the contrast of having white balusters with stained treads and railing will look nicer.

Guess we'll see what projects tomorrow brings!

A Dressed Up Dresser

We bought a new unfinished dresser a few years ago. The price was right, we needed the drawer space, and we had no design direction in our bedroom anyway. With an unfinished piece, the design sky was the limit! As it happened, the design sky was "natural" for a few years; I needed to contemplate my new "canvas".

Finally, I decided to paint it brown (should've shot this sooner for a better 'before' shot! Believe it or not, this brown color is actually much darker in person. The flash makes it look much lighter than it truly is!).

Then I needed to replace the stock wooden knobs with something pretty, after all, pretty knobs are like jewelry for furniture! I searched the box stores, and scoured the internet—even bought some knobs on eBay!

Had a hard time finding just the right knobs until I finally found these little gems—on clearance! Oh, the luck!

I loved the details in these knobs. Only problem was, they were BLACK and virtually blended into the dark brown color I had painted the dresser.

I like to follow other DIY'ers and a gal I follow posted about a product with which I was unfamiliar called Rub'n Buff. It's a wax/paint/finish that comes in a few different colors. You just barely rub some onto a textured surface to bring up the highlights.

I chose a silver color. After a little bit of rubbin' and a little bit of buffin', my knobs now have a pewter look to them and pop against the brown a little better. Noticeable, but subtle. I like it!

Lastly, I am applying a glaze over the entire dresser to give it some more interest and character. It's a black glaze I'm applying with a sponge brush. In the pictures below you can see the difference it makes—in these shots, I have applied the glaze to the drawers, but not the vertical surfaces.

I think it's going to look great when it's done! One thing this project has taught me—it's very difficult to photograph BROWN!