Spontaneous Weekend Transformation - Inspired by Young House Love!

Let me start by saying we had absolutely NO PLANS to do this project this weekend. I'm going to blame it on pregnancy hormones making me super emotional and a well-timed post by Young House Love. (I'll get to that in second!)

You see, I have always hated this room. It just never sat right with me. The wall color, which was supposed to be a light gray, always looked a little blue and the curtains always looked too yellowish against the white woodwork and blue/gray walls (Ugh!). The couches were ugly hand-me-downs (although seriously comfortable) and the berber carpet...Ohhhh the carpet. No matter how much I tried I couldn't get it clean enough! We've been talking about replacing it for two years, but I have had design block regarding this room and haven't been able to make a decision I felt comfortable living with the next 10 years. (I really struggle with carpeting! Good thing this was the only room in our house that still had it!)

Anyway, I woke up last Saturday morning, and had a completely meltdown about the room and how it just always felt "dirty" and how I wanted the carpet GONE before the baby comes in February. But I still couldn't make up my mind what to do! Coincidently, this conversation happened over breakfast when I was skimming through Young House Love's blog on my iPad and saw this post they did about painting their subfloor as a temporary fix. HALLELUJAH!! It was less than 5-minutes after reading that post that I had pliers in my hand and was discreetly pulling back a corner of our rug.

What was underneath was beautiful, beautiful plywood (never thought I'd say that!) Thankfully Evan was on board for being spontaneous (especially since he did virtually all of the work) and we had all the carpeting up and out of the house in 30-minutes!

Once the carpeting was up, we had a decent amount of patching to do using wood filler. I think we went through 3-full tubes of it filling in holes where staples/nails resided and also filling in the small cracks between the pieces of plywood.

Unlike YHL, we decided to rent an orbital sander for the room to get an extra smooth finish. Sanding by hand just seemed too greuling. It cost us $55 to rent the sander from Home Depot for 24-hours, and we spent about $15 on sand paper to go with it. We went over the the floors once with 60-grit paper and then went over it again with 120-grit paper for a fine finish. (Unfortunately the cuff was stuck on the sander we rented and we couldn't angle the handle! Thank goodness it was a small room!)

Before sanding the floors, we decided to re-paint the upper walls. We went with Sherwin William's Van Dyke Brown. I knew that going with a dark brown was a risk and we didn't put that much thought into it ahead of a time, but thought we'd give it a shot! (Very unlike me on both fronts, but like I said this was a spontaneous project!)

Thankfully I loved it :) Then Evan primed the floors. We just love Killz water-based primer, so Evan finished this up while I got out of the house the rest of the day (shopping for baby stuff, of course!). 

Once it dried, we painted the floors in Martha Stewart's Flagstone (a semi-gloss Glidden paint) from  Home Depot. This is same color as the walls in the adjoining room and kitchen. I thought it would tie the first floor together nicely!

We did two layers of poly-acrylic so far and it makes all the difference! The shine brings it from a painted subfloor to a beautiful, shabby chic floor. Overall, I'm LOVING the result!! It feels like a new room. It is warmer, crisper, and CLEANER!

We originally had planned on doing white stripes on the floor, but I decided I liked it so much just being a solid gray that we are leaving it as is.

Talk about a transformation on a budget! We already had the paint so the whole thing cost us around $100 (sander rental, sand paper, and acrylic).

 

I can't believe thats all we had to spend to make me so excited and happy about this room! It is something I never would have thought to do or been brave enough to do without John & Sherry's inspiration - SO THANK YOU!!!

 

Here is one more before and after so you can get the full effect:

 

I'll keep posting more once the room is finished :) We have some plans in the works in terms of reusing furniture and adding a cushy rug.

 

(and yes, i'm very excited for the holiday's this year so I had to see how my wreaths looked hung up in the room!)

 

Stay tuned!

Restore Deck Resurfacer - One Year Later

If you remember, last year we had to repaint our deck because of a violation we received after our city did exterior inspections on all of the houses. Wanting a quick fix and knowing we are going to rebuild the deck within a few years anyway, we opted to try Restore Deck Liquid Armor Resurfacer. (You can see the link to the original posts here and here). In case you aren't familiar with this product and don't want to take the time to read the previous post, this product is basically a really thick, sandy paint that is supposed to fill cracks and resurface your deck. It comes in a huge array of colors (we chose "bark") and at first I loved the impact! It brought our red stained, worn out deck back to life with the rich even chocolate (errr, bark) color! I thought it was amazing.

I'm sorry to say, however, that it has NOT held up well! Not well at all.

The coat has worn thin in sooo many places and you can see the original wood coming through. (Don't be distracted by the cute pup and pretty mums!)

The whole entire deck is like this. Even in areas we never even walk.

The area by the door is the worst though. It looks like it aged 20-years in one year. UGH!

Overall now the texture of the deck is just hideous. I'm sure if we bought another few gallons we could put on another layer and fix it up, but I'm also afraid if we make the coating thicker it will wear even faster. And I don't really want to spend my money to fix a problem I don't think I should have had to fix in the first place if it were a better quality product! It doesn't sit right with me that a company becomes even MORE profitable because they make a crappy product you have to keep replacing, so I have a hard time giving them any more of my money. 

The other frustrating thing is that to redo the current deck at this point would really not be fun. Sanding it when it was red and worn would have been one thing, but trying to sand and strip it now with this sandy, gunky texture it would nearly be impossible.

SO, for now we've decided to let it look like crap and then next summer we'll talk more seriously about replacing the entire deck and/or doing a better short fix. (Thank goodness my city doesn't do exterior inspections every year!)

Overall, I would not use this product again. It was a quick, cheap fix and quite frankly we got what we paid for!! 

Painting Mistake #9483294829

AghhhhHHHHHhhhhh!!!!!!! Here we go again. I think I have more posts now on painting mistakes than I do on painting tips. Oh well, such is life.

So, we are working on building built-in cabinets in our kitchen around the refrigerator (super excited!) We have the basic frame built and decided to prime before installing the shelves/trim/etc. because it would give us easier access to the nooks in the crannies in the back of the unit. So far, so good.

(And yes, many more posts on this project coming soon!)

In all of our PAST projects, we've used Kilz primer and its worked incredibly well. It stinks to high heaven when you are applying it, but the smell usually dissipates very quickly as it dries, and it dries within a few hours. (The label even says it is dry within the hour) Works for us!

Until the lady with pregnancy brain is the one sent to Home Depot, and buys a different version of Killz than we've used in the past!

Instead of buying the Kilz 2 Latex Primer (on right), I bought Kilz Complete (on left).

I should have been tipped off when Evan started telling me how it was going on better than he ever remembered (I guess thats the pro! Evan thought it went on thicker and smoother)

HOWEVER, the stuff stinks. LIKE REALLY REALLY REALLY STINKS!

Of course I kept my distance and was upstairs or outside during the afternoon while he was working, but I remember thinking as he was finishing priming that it smelled faintly stronger than I remembered. (Of course I chalked it up to my heightened sense of smell... at first...) But come 10:30 at night when we needed to close the windows on the first floor before heading up to bed, the smell became CONSUMING and I could start smelling it upstairs. Well, that was an instant deal breaker for me so at 10:45 we packed our bags and headed to my in-laws to sleep. Being pregnant, I'm not taking a any chances! 

Now its Sunday and we have every window open in the house and every fan we own blowing at high speed. Still, Tuckie (the dog) and I are on the deck enjoying the fresh air and I think this is where we will be parked until heading back to my in-laws again tonight! The room STILL stinks but it is getting much, much better.

Why the difference? I think it all comes down to the fact Kilz complete is oil based and the Kilz 2 we usually use is Latex (and water based). We've only ever used Latex paints before in our house projects and I would absolutely stick to them going forward. Even though they say oil based primer is more durable and smoother, we've had such good experiences with the Kilz latex paint in previous projects that without a doubt any benefits of using an oil based primer are outweighed by the terrible smell issue! I'm sooooo mad I didn't look closer at the label! I don't know what I was thinking.... Oh well, lesson learned. Again!

For more posts on my painting mistakes, go here: 

Painting Tips I've Learned from Mistakes I've Made

Fixing Another Design Mistake

The Deck - The Reveal!

The deck is DONE!

We actually ended up going a different route in terms of the colors I posted about on Friday, but I think the result is perfect!

Here is a snapshot of the finished result:

We ended up going with Restore Deck Liquid Armor Resurfacer in the "Bark" color. I was really afraid of the gray colors being too light, and Evan was  certain that dark was the way to go.. so, we went with his gut and I'm so glad we did!

Here are a few before shots:

You can see how beaten up the boards were here:

Look at the difference just one coat makes (Just a note to anyone wanting to use this product, we used the Restore roller and then went over it with a paint brush to smooth it out. I really did not like the texture with just the roller - WAY too rough!):

And ta-da!! The finished result:

Looks like a new deck! We should definitely pass our exterior inspection now :)

Deck Paint Color - Help!

Our city does exterior inspections every few years, and gives homeowners 30-days to fix all violations. We were lucky and only had two:

1) Trim the trees above our garage
2) Refinish the deck (paint or stain)

Trimming the trees was easy, but the thing about the deck is that we plan on replacing it next year! Not that my city cares about this. Anyway, for a quick, inexpensive fix, we decided to paint the deck with "Restore" paint. A couple of my neighbors with the same violations have already done this, and let me tell you it doesn't look too bad at all! In fact, I'm getting really excited painting ours!

The problem is - what color should I choose?

Here is a picture of the house and the only current picture I have of the deck (or a corner of the deck, I should say!)

(I should metion I hate the color of the deck currently. It is practically red!)

And here are the paint color options:

Granite

Cape Cod Gray

Charleston

Fieldstone

Gray

Pewter

Obviously I'm leaning towards something more in the gray family. I like the idea of contrasting a little bit with the house. Originally I thought I wanted a brown, but I just hate the look of brown paint, so I'm going this route. Or do you like the fieldstone? Let me know your thoughts! I hope to buy the paint after work today and start painting tomorrow.. Our 30 days is rapidy running out!



Painting: Lessons I've Learned from Mistakes I've Made

I've posted about my paint debacle before here, but I spent even more time this weekend repainting the walls I worked so hard to paint once already! This weekend, it was the entry's turn to go from a semi-gloss finish to a flat finish:

I also repainted the stairs. They just weren't WHITE enough! A lot of the ugly yellowish paint that was there originally was showing through, as was some of the stain from when we had the steps refinished. Basically it just needed a facelift. Here is an in-progress shot (After taping, before painting):

While I was repainting, I thought about how much more confident I am when painting and all of the lessons that I've learned. The most interesting thing I learned about being a good painter has nothing to do with skill or tricks-of-the-trade, but just about making sure I'm awake, focused, prepared, and up for the job! That being said, here are my painting tips:

• Prep the night before you paint! This includes getting out your drop-cloth, brushes, paint cans, stir sticks, rollers, and painters tape the night before. I actually even prefer to tape everything the night before as well. This can take a really long time (for me, often longer than painting a coat!) so I try to break up the prep and the painting between days so I'm not tired before I even start with the paintbrush. If I'm tired, I am sloppy and careless!
• Eat a solid snack or a good meal before painting. I find that if I get hungry an hour into painting a room, I start to get tired, I lose energy, and therefore, once again, I start to get sloppy! (I swear sleeping and eating are the good to a key paint job!)
• About an hour into painting, stop and clean your brush and your hands. As you may have picked up on, I can be a little bit sloppy at times (!!), but, I also have surfaces I do NOT want to get paint on so I have to be careful. The best thing I have found to do this is to STOP and wash up every hour or so. This way my brush isn't dripping the excess paint that starts to accumulate near the base, and I'm not making handprints or elbow-prints across the walls with the paint that's gotten on my hands (or elbows)
• And in case the above doesn't work... Always, ALWAYS, carry a wet-paper towel in one hand while painting. If you are messy as I am, this is essential to quickly wipe-up drops on your trim or beautiful floors! I've also found if you put just a dap of dishsoap on the papertowel too, it works even better.
• Paint in natural light. You can see your strokes and lines so much more clearly and this often leads to a better paint job. I typically always try to paint first thing in the morning when my house is nice and bright! 
• When painting with primer, as I often do, I try to wear long sleeves and pants, and sometimes even gloves. I use Killz primer whenever I have the need, and the stuff is great but its HARD to get off your skin! I have sensitive skin, and scrubbing endlessly to remove the paint is painful and time consuming!  I won't do it anymore - long sleeves it is!
• Understand that painters tape is not God's gift to painters no matter how much those paint commercials try to sell it! It's a lie! It helps, but it is not perfect by any means and can be very frustrating if you are expecting amazing results.  The best way I've found to use it successfully not to go directly to the taped area right after you load your brush with paint. Paint in the middle wall of the first, and then when your brush is nearly dry, THEN go near the area that is taped. This will hopefully help you prevent excess paint from seeping through the tape.
• I prefer the 1.5" Scotch Blue Delicate Surface tape with Edge Lock.
• Always REMOVE any outlet covers or switchplates before painting. Do NOT tape over them or try to paint around them. The result is soo much better if you remove them, paint, and then put them back on. (Trust me, I know from experience!)
• I buy a lot of Sherwin Williams paints.. Every once in awhile, they have a big paint sale where cans are 30% off. Even if I don't need paint that current moment, sometimes I'll buy a few gallons and stock up, and then bring them to be mixed later when I figure out what project (and color!) I need next! This way I take advantage of the sale but am not committed to a color yet!
• For keeping track of your paint colors (especially custom mixes), I take a picture of the top of my cans that show that color mix. I keep it on my iPhone, this way I always have the 'recipe' for the color handy when I'm out and about!

• Always apply two coats. Always!
• If you can, remove your baseboards if you plan on painting the room and your baseboards at the same time. Having a real nice, clean line between the room and the trim makes the room look so much more crisp! I painted my baseboards without removing them, and the line isn't 100% perfect and to be honest it drives me a little crazy! (Hence the reason I plan on slowly replacing all the baseboards in my house!)
• My favorite brush is a 2" angled brush with a short handle. It is my go-to for painting trim, for painting edges, for getting in tight corners, for painting furniture... the list goes on and on. I have about 10 of these and rarely ever use any other kind of brush! 
• And my number one rule... If you have plaster walls, use a FLAT paint!!!!! (This will hide the blemishes and look a million times better!)

I think thats it! :) Any other tips to share? Especially regarding painting ceilings? That is next on my list!

Fixing Another House Design Mistake!

We started painting our living room the DAY we moved into our house...

It took 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint... We could not wait for it to be finished and we loved the color when it was complete!

HOWEVER, it was our first house ever with plaster walls, we didn't realize how much a semi-gloss paint would show all the flaws in the wall. The more time that went by, the more and more it started to bother me! It was so blotchy, and when the sun would shine on it, you could practically see each paint brush stroke.  (It's really hard to catch on camera, but here is the best I could do!)

Last weekend, I'd had ENOUGH! I went to Home Depot and bought the same paint - Martha Stewart's Flagstone - but instead of in a semi-gloss finish I bought it in a flat finish. I sanded some of the really uneven parts of the wall (I'm not sure I've ever been so sore in my life!) and then gave it one quick coat of paint.

The difference? You would not even BELIEVE!! Amazing!

It seriously looks like a new room. The walls look p-r-i-s-t-i-n-e!!

The only problem is that now I want to repaint every other room in this house I painted with this paint... the kitchen, the entry, the stairwell, the upstairs hall, and the master bedroom.... !! Wish me luck :)