Model Homes and Up

On Monday we were visiting with my mother-in-law and some other family members. She mentioned that the Up look alike house was just down the street. She said it was closed now, but we decided to drive past it. Now, I haven't seen the show (um... I also haven't seen Star Wars). My kids have seen the show and liked it. Maybe I'll have to rent it this weekend. Is it weird to rent an animated movie just to see the animated house in it? We were pleasantly surprised to see that it was open. Maybe because it was Labor Day. Anyway, we went inside to take a tour. Now, I like the house on the outside... except the colors. I'm more of a traditional girl than a bright green/ pink/blue/ yellow, but I do love the style.

This was a bedroom in the basement. I didn't get any more pictures than this because there were a lot of people in there, but I wish I would have gotten a picture of the kitchen. I loved the white cabinets and the turquoise appliances.

If you want to see more pictures of the Up house, check out Hooked on Houses.

Because this was in a neighborhood that is not finished yet, there were three model homes. My husband hadn't believed me when I told him that wallpaper was coming back. I also had to take pictures of some of my other favorite things.

I loved the frames hung on door hangers here.

This is the wallpaper in the powder room. I loved it!

It was a small room, but so fun!

I need curtains for my kitchen windows. These Roman Shades didn't look like they actually function, but I thought they were cute anyway. I also like the tassels hanging down.

I loved the checkered wall in this and also the tassels on the curtain.

This is wallpaper in a different powder room in a different house. I've seen stencils that are very similar to this. It's just so much fun to see pattern on a wall.

I thought this was interesting and fun. The lines in this wall are real ribbon. It is just tacked on with thumbtacks. You can't really tell in the picture, but where the ribbons intersect is a flower with a thumbtack in the center, holding it all on.

Powder Room

Yes, this usedto be a sewing blog. Now, I have a two year old who loves to push buttons on my sewing machine while I sew and is very interested in the iron. I am making a quilt for her new bed, but it's slow coming since I have to do it while she is sleeping. That time is getting shorter too. In the meantime, I'm redoing my powder room. Here is the before. Are you bored yet?

The paint is a putrid 80's color of some sort. This bluish splotch is me testing some oops paint I bought for $1. It wasn't this blue in real life. It was more of a dull, wet cement color so it didn't get to stay.

I painted the bottom white and I'm in the process of stenciling over the top in a light gray/blue called Cloud Nine from Kwal. It's slow going, but so far I love it.

Not quite sure what to do at the bottom though. It doesn't go all the way to the sides or bottom and the stencil doesn't bend very well.

Hopefully this bathroom won't make you want to die of boredom anymore. Ignore the ugly, putrid door. I ran out of white paint.

A project finished (almost)

Once again the time has slipped away from me since my last post. Part of that is because my 4 year old had a septic knee and was in Primary Children's Hospital for 5 days. Three surgeries, two weeks of picc line and one week of oral meds down we are toward the end. Only one week of meds to go and hopefully all this will be cleared up. Last time I posted I showed pictures of our newly painted dining room. I am now in the process of decorating it on a dime. I love to find cheap ways to decorate so that when I'm tired of it, I don't feel guilty finding new decorations. I saw this in the Ballard Design catalog. I loved them because they take up a lot of space on a blank wall, but as you can see they are not exactly decorating on a dime worthy. So I made some myself for about $5. We already had this wood laying around from when my husband fixed our sun room a few years ago. I had him cut it in 12x12 squares for me. Then I painted the edges black.

I found 12x12 scrapbook paper I liked and used spray adhesive to attach the paper to the wood.

And then attached alligator claw hanging things to the back. Of course, this idea wasn't mine. I saw it on several different blogs and one of my friends did it as well. Again, I love the space it takes up!

To the right in the picture you can see the curtains. Curtains are also not decorating on a dime worthy. These ones I found at Home Fabrics for $10 a panel. I went there looking to buy fabric to make my own and found these on clearence. Now I need curtains for my living room. I still kind of want to make them so I can get exactly what I want, but it's looking like making them is as expensive as buying them! Do you have a store that you love that sells home decor fabric? What online stores do you like?

My Current Project

Our house was built in 1979. We wanted an older house because we liked larger bedrooms and living room. Our old house (that was new when we moved in) had a tiny formal living room. It fit our piano and our couch in it and that's about it. It was kind of a waste of space because we couldn't really use it if people came over. I also really wanted a formal dining room. Well, because our house was older it also came with older decorating. It had recently been painted, but it felt cold to me. When we first moved in we took out the forest green carpet and put a wood floor in. I've been slowly painting the inside of the house and it was time for the dining room.

I've been loving molding for awhile now and really wanted to put some in. My husband cut it and put it up and I painted.

The top is Tobacco Road by Kwal. My husband installed crown molding on Saturday. Hopefully we'll get it caulked tomorrow and painted soon too, since we have people coming over on Wednesday. And as I'm thinking that I'm realizing it's probably not going to happen. We'll try! I'll post the finished product later!

I'm a Carpenter!

Ok so I only did the painting. Saws freak me out. I'd like to keep all my fingers. About a year ago my friend saw these shelves in a catalog. For a three foot shelf it cost $99. Each. She made some herself for her living room. A few weeks ago she wanted to make more for her kitchen and I joined her. She cut, I painted.

Here is a close up of one of mine. I made three and they cost about $60 for all three. Much better than $300. The most expensive part was the corbels.

Here are all three on the wall in my living room. I need to figure out a better way to decorate them and I need to put something behind them, especially the lowest one, but I'm happy with the way they turned out.

More Pillows

I haven't had much time for quilting lately. I need short, easy projects that I can start and finish during nap time. Over the last few days I've made some skirts for my daughter. I think I'm addicted. I can make one in less than a half hour. I recovered a lampshade. I made these pillows: I needed some pillows for my living room couch. The fabric is by Sandi Henderson from her line

Meadowsweet. I love the fun, bold pattern. I made four. Two for my couch and two for my chairs in the same room. The orange pillows were bought at Ross for super cheap. I'll post the skirts and lampshade another day!

The Power of Paint

I haven't been sewing much lately. I can't seem to get into it lately. Not sure why. Hope it comes back. I have been working on my house though.

The following took place two weeks ago, but I wasn't ready to talk about it until now. We ordered new carpet in the bedrooms and before it was installed I had to paint. The boys room was a pale yellow color. I've come to terms with the fact that I don't really like yellow. It's fine as an accent color, but I don't love yellow clothes or to decorate my house in yellow. This room was yellow and it had to be stopped.
I didn't take the before pictures until I had taped and moved furniture to the middle. The picture is kind of dark and shadowy, but you can kind of see it.

I wasn't super sure about the color. The boys picked it out and really, really wanted blue. I'm fine with blue, but this blue was pretty intense. It is their room... right?

The old carpet in this room was a light blue. It wasn't hideous, but it wasn't good either.
Here is the prime reason we were replacing carpet. This old, ugly cheap stained carpet (please excuse the abandoned, dead dinosaur). This carpet is the "brown room." As you see the following pictures of the room you will feel the life and happiness being sucked out of you. It was a dull, boring, plain room. The baby has been sleeping in a tiny room until we could get this room done. Nobody should have to sleep in the brown room.
To match the ugly brown carpet was the ugly brown walls. I am a fan of beige walls with white trim, which is what this picture looks like, but this was off-white of some sort. The beige was dirty everywhere too. I also think it was wall paper that was painted over because it had a different texture.
Another dismal picture of a dismal room.

I dreaded painting the brown room because I knew the doors and trim all had to be done. It was a big job. I wanted to wait until the carpet was out to do it because I didn't want to get carpet fibers in the baseboard. As we thought it through though we also didn't want to live carpetless for a week while the paint dried so they could install the carpet. One day while Jeff was at work and the baby was taking a nap I decided to pull up the carpet around the edges on a suggestion from my dad. It worked! I got all the trim done in about an hour. It was wonderful not to have to tape!
I didn't even cry when I had a huge paint spill on that awful carpet. The white paint totally brightened up the room, even with the gross carpet and dirty walls.

I let it dry for two days before I began on the color. For some unknown reason I decided I could get both rooms done during the baby's morning and afternoon naps. That's a total of about 4 hours. Shouldn't be too hard..... right? After all... I used to practically be a professional wall painter!

I taped the boys room the night before. It wasn't too bad since I only had to tape the ceiling and the top of the chair rail. Then I painted during nap time and turned on a show for my 3 year old.

My dad came over in the afternoon to watch the kids so I could paint. Two hours later I finished taping.... but that's all. I hate taping. I had big plans to do molding on the bottom of the wall under the chair rail. With all the taping I decided it wasn't worth it. When I went to repaint later I would have tons more taping. I'll wait until I do a more neutral, non fad color.

I spent the afternoon painting the room a bright green. It was amazing to see the difference from dull and depressing to bright and happy. I spent the rest of the afternoon painting the first coat in Olivia's room. I ended up calling Jeff and telling him he would be doing the second coat in the boy's room that night. He also brought home a pizza.

12 hours from start to finish (not including the time it took Jeff to do the second coat) I was done. It was worth it. No more yellow.

I still don't have anything on the walls. I'm working on that. And yes, this is my three year old's bed and yes he did make it all by his three year old self. And yes, the dog he told his primary teachers about is sitting on the bed. They thought he was telling about a real dog. Harry. Who is about twice the size of him.
Here is the baby's room with a glimpse of the new carpet. The green is brighter in real life.

Overall it was worth the effort, but I won't be painting for a long, long time... except the dining room and the kid's bathroom and possibly the family room. I still have 2 coupons for free paint.

I'll post the decorations as I add them.

paint, Paint, PAINT

I was looking through the camera today and realized I have not been keeping up on the blog. I had quite a few pictures that I have not posted.
I have been feeling a major redecorating (or just finish decorating) mood. We bought our house from some investors who had bought the house on foreclosure. The house was built in 1979 or 1980 (we have two different official papers that say two different things). Apparently when the investors bought the house it was COVERED in wallpaper. They set out to make the house more appealing thinking they'd get rich because of the rising housing market at the time. Well.... about 2 months after they bought the house the housing market started to tank. They had done quite a bit of work. Thanks to them we live in a wall paper free zone. We did find wallpaper remnants under our stairs in the basement and are very glad our living room is not decorated in bird houses, and our dining room is not decorated in a barn theme. Seriously, that's what we found.

Since they stripped the wallpaper they had to repaint. For some unknown reason they chose dark, drab colors. The first picture is our front door (hopefully it's years are numbered). That is the only light we have in our entry from those windows. The investors decided a dark grey/green would be perfect for a small darker space.
Here is the entryway looking into our living room and up the stairs. We decided to paint a light beige color called chocolate froth. Well..... it's a little chocolaty and a little more like not quite white. I don't love it, but it's much better than this green guck. I don't have a picture.
Next it was on to the living room. I don't have a good before shot, but here is the during.
Here is the color up close. Is it it green? Is it grey?

And the after. It's called pecan sandie. Kind of makes me want a cookie.