Wednesday, September 16, 2015

changes {Living Room}



Sometimes you just need to change things up, right? 
 This year we have made a few changes to our home. Nothing major, but these changes have made a difference.


  If you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed some of the changes. We  Jake painted over our striped wall (seen here) a dark moody color, which you may have also seen in our powder bath


Let me tell you something about myself. When I'm done with something, I'm done.  I was pretty done and over my striped wall and really really d-o-n-e with our beige walls! We had the house painted beige before we moved in 8 years ago and I was ready for change. There is nothing wrong with beige walls, but I have been wanting a clean blank space for a really really long time. It's like a blank canvas for an artist! 

Painting had been put off for so long because um, hello high ceilings and stairwell. I do love having tall ceilings in our living room and love the open airy feeling, but they do not make it easy for painting or changing out light fixtures!

I picked up some samples and painted a few spots on different walls to see how they looked in different lighting. I then stared at them for weeks  I know it's just paint people, but we may not paint this room for another 8 years. Committing to a color was hard! From the beginning Jake liked Swiss Coffee (white). He used to be a painter before trading in his paint brush for a badge and Swiss Coffee has always been a favorite of his. He wasn't home when I put the samples on the wall and without telling him which samples were which, he picked Swiss Coffee. I almost shied away from white walls altogether and chose an off-white or pale grey because I was scared it would look too stark and too bright. In the end Jake and I both really liked Swiss Coffee the best and went with our gut! 



A couple of weeks ago Jake used his 3 days off from work along with his man muscles and serious painting skills and made this momma happy! #laboroflove  Yes, labor is my love language! I'm pretty sure that labor of love falls under the love language Acts of Service. #justsayin 





He also painted the stairwell but I didn't get any pictures because I literally couldn't even watch! Let's just say it wasn't safe and I'm glad he's not scared of heights!

We still have more painting to do, but I'm so happy with the look of our fresh and clean walls. We used Kelly Moore paint in Swiss Coffee. If you don't have a Kelly Moore near you, Benjamin Moore's Decorators White is pretty close to Swiss Coffee.

Now for the fun part of decorating! The "vibe" I'm going for is California Cool meets Boho Chic meets Mid Century-ish. #isthatevenavibe

Here are some of the inspiration pics I've been swooning over:

Via

Via

Via

 Via

I'll be sharing progress pictures of the space along the way.




To see how our living room looked before go here


xoxo,


Tuesday, September 8, 2015

{t}Werkin' with what you've got

Happy Tuesday! 
Well, I'm sure I caught your attention with the title of this post and the fact that I'm blogging again! Yup, it's true! Thanks to everyone that has encouraged me to start blogging again, it really does mean the world to me. 

Sorry to disappoint you, but there will not be any twerking going on today, but we will be talking about WORKING with what you've got.


I bought these black stools from Target when we first moved into our home almost 8 years ago. I bought them for the kitchen island.


They're not hideous, but I was just kind of tired of them. I didn't want to replace them with something new because 1. we didn't really need new stools and 2. I still liked the shape of them. 
I realized what was bothering me most about the stools was the dark color and lack of character.

I decided that I would strip them using this  paint stripper and pray that the wood underneath were all matching pieces.  I've loved the look of these dip-dyed Serena and Lily stools and was hoping to achieve a similar look. 

Although the stripping gel claimed to be safe indoors, I still took this project outdoors. I laid down some plastic and gloved up. 


After spreading a generous amount of Citri-Strip on the stool and waiting the amount of time suggested, I used a puddy knife to scrape off the paint.


Below is what the stools looked like after a few hours of some serious elbow grease. Bad?  No, but still not the look I was going for.

I ended up doing the above process one more time and lightly sanded each stool and was much happier with the look.



There are some spots that the paint didn't come off, (upper right hand corner) but I don't mind it.  It adds character which the stools were lacking before. Also, two of the inner pieces of wood (bottom left) were different types of wood than the rest of the stool. The bottom left piece ended up getting painted, so that wasn't a big deal. The other one was a longer center piece that didn't get painted and it is noticeably a different color, but again it doesn't bug me.

I taped off the legs and painted the bottom portion using white paint I already had.

Then I gave them a couple coats of  Minwax Polyurethane,  except the "dipped" painted part.


And…here's how they turned out!


I'm in love with how they turned out!  And the best part is…I werked (wink) with what I had.




Have a great week! It's a short one!

xoxo,