Summer. Living Room Paint Reveal. My trees.

Is why I haven't been around much. I'm not crafty enough to write a post on my iPhone- truth be told- it's just not big enough for these bespectacled eyes...should I just get an iPad?

But then I feel like I'll have a bunch of stuff that I don't really need. So instead I'm taking a break this summer. I'll eat donuts all day because I FEEL like it!

Wine at noon? Kanye does it, why not me? (I don't know if he does or not, just seemed "current"- Ha!)

I give you my Etsy find of the day-You're Welcome, Peeps!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/LookHUMAN?ref=seller_info

I sent my best friend a message just a bit ago asking if we should get two of these? We could wear them on our lake walks together. She has a shirt that says "this is what awesome looks like" which I LOVE! But she says she gets weird stares when she wears it and...she had to buy it in the men's section! WTF?

In other news- we finally painted the living room. I couldn't take the not-quite-white anymore. I know it works so well for some of you and your homes are cozy and lovely. I can't get it to work for ME.

Before:

WAY before:

AFTER!  I love it. It may seem too dark, but it's actually quite cozy. We have a lot of windows and for the most part, privacy. I didn't want to cover up the architectural details and mouldings, so I needed to be able to darken the room somewhat. With the light walls, some days it was just too bright in there.

Mountain Elk by Behr. With built-in primer. One coat! Yeah!!



Before:

After: Please ignore various junk on coffee table and flattened stuffed dog toys:

Two rooms down (Bathroom and Living Room) and a good FOUR to go!




So many favorite spots at this house. We are in the city, but it feels a million miles away. Yet I can walk everywhere and spend my life at the coffee house if I WANT.

Everything is in bloom now. This whole area now has light pink peonies, flowering bushes, some purple petunias planted by yours truly and a huge flowering rose bush.



Front yard view. Please ignore the dead sod that was planted last year. We're going to rip it out and add more flowers to the area. It gets all day sun, so I'm thinking of salvia. Any other ideas?!

Anyway..so happy here! I think it's the trees. We lived in the deep burbs for five years. While it could have been great, we had NO trees. We planted a few medium sized ones that I'm sure will be amazing in 20 years. But after five years..I became increasingly tired of no shade ever and honestly..no privacy ever. Our neighbors here and kind and have their own thing going on.

Have a great Wednesday!

xo

T

Fabulous Before & Afters via Country Living.

I just found these today and am IN LOVE with so many rooms! I'm also a sucker for Before & Afters which is why I think I love HGTV's "Rate My Space" so very much.

Also...I'm still at the fab "midway point" in my own living room. Dealing with the "black lung" I've got or..okay...truth be told..some cough and cold. I'm not a miner. The feeling the cough provides makes me think I've spent a past life in the mines or something...but that's a different subject altogether.

GOTCHA!

****All images via Countryliving.com****

Today's first before:

Is this the worst room? No. But it's dated and the wood is heavy and it doesn't look like it really inspires anyone to dine in here.




After:

Ahhh...Ahhh...Ahhhh...amazing! I LOVE everything about this room. The contrast of black and white. That wallpaper!! The crispness of the white drapes and rug. I don't think my husband would dig this at all. He has great taste, but he has mentioned that my style tends to be more "eclectic" than his. For whatever reason, that comment reminds me of that scene in "Along Came Polly" where Polly (Jennifer Aniston) says to Reuben (Ben Stiller) "I eat ETHNIC food?! What?" Lol. If you haven't seen it, you should.





Before # 2:

A nice room. Boring. Needs some personality and could use a headboard.

After:

Holla!! What is most amazing about this? The "headboard" is actually...get ready..just a covering!! Genius! Seriously? Why didn't they make this stuff when I was a poor design student? you get tired of the look, you change it out! I have a headboard, so I'm not sure WHY I'm so excited, just know that I am, people!!

Headboard removable wallcovering, $128 for queen; casartcoverings.com

Finally...soon enough/eventually my own living room mini makeover shall be finished and posted here. Right now a lemon poppyseed muffin is calling and a small puppy.

Have a beautiful day!

xxoo

Before & After- Our Kitchen

We moved into our house in May of 2008. It's lovely and has nice finishes and some interesting architectural detail. The kitchen? Never my favorite. Not so much. The cabinets are beautifully made. It was hard to see any of the good about them with the oak stain that the builder chose. The combination of the orangey stain with the orangey countertops (formica) and hardware made the kitchen a place I didn't really want to be.


Kitchen in 2008

I tried to talk my husband into painting them white. At the time, he was NOT on board. I think he was worried that it wouldn't look good. Oddly enough, I was doing interior design at that point in my life. Yet he did not trust me. What does that mean??? ;-)

I painted the walls a medium brown color from Sherwin Williams and it made the cabinets and countertops less offensive. We kept it like that for a good 3 years. We had a fan in over the stove that never really did much, so every time we cooked, our whole house would smell. Good times.

We bought a hood and vent in Spring of 2011. We decided to overhaul the kitchen finally, but our plan was to remove the cabinets above the stove, add some open shelving and stain the cabinets dark.

The prepping of the cabinets was NOT fun. Lots of sanding. Lots of dust. Noisy hand sanders. Dogs unhappy. More sanding. More dust. I felt defeated some days. And my arms felt weak.

Mid project: My husband starts having weird hip pain and after a few months of physical therapy that doesn't work, he needs surgery. What was awesome: Our kitchen was in the in-between stage. We had all of these plans and so the doors were all sanded and in the garage. We had lovely "Open" everything, so you could see ALL of our junk for months and months.

I finally realized I couldn't stand looking at it anymore, but didn't have the SkillZ to stain everything myself. Maybe I'm great at it, but I've never stained more than a table (it did turn out great!) but I didn't feel comfortable. So..as my husband was recovering I told him I wanted to paint them white. Cue mystical music and bright white lights.."ahhh.ahhh..ahhhh.."- He said YES! And so it is.

During. How "awesome" is it that you can see everything we own?

I would be lying if I said the painting was fun. It wasn't. Many days I had our puppy angrily crying while I was painting for a few hours. He stuck his head in the paint a few different times and sported a cute yet strange white beard-like thing for a few days. I did about three coats. Could it use four? Probably. But after a certain point you just have to ball it and move on.


During

The greatest part? I no longer hate the countertops! They don't bother me at all! I also realized I even LIKE the original copperish hardware. The whole kitchen is so much brighter and pleasing. It also lost the country look that I don't enjoy. I love country style, just not oak cabinets and oak stains. Not my thing.

We bought the hood online for about $300 which I thought was a steal! The magnetic steel backsplash was found on eBay. The shelving is just inexpensive but fabulous Lack shelves from Ikea. I also "splurged" and bought a gray rug from Ikea for $20!! I sound terribly cheap, don't I? I honestly love the rug. I saw another that was "eh" and was $200, so I chose the $20 pretty rug. Said rug is not shown in these photos yet. Paint was from Home Depot. Just the regular Behr paint. No built in primer, it wasn't needed. It was low VOC which was great as it never smelled and I never felt goofy after painting for a few hours.

Now: I LOVE it. I feel like a bit of a weirdo sometimes as I just sit and stare at it from different angles. I also probably take too many photos of it. I showed pics of it AGAIN to my best friend yesterday. I'm sure it's getting sickening, but it makes me soo happy! I also have a great sense of accomplishment. I would be lying if I said I had any interest in painting anything for a while. I do not.


After!

Curtis seems to like it a lot better too!

So happy it's done! I think the total cost for everything (paint, sanding paper, Ikea items, miscellaneous items, hood, backsplash, etc.) was less than $850. Holla!!