A Cabinet Update, and a Project That's Actually Finished

You may be wondering how we're coming on the cabinets. Well, we're getting there, very slowly, but getting there. The upper cabinets and cabinet frame are painted, they got a coat of polycrylic this morning, and they are currently spread all around the kitchen drying.

Are we having fun yet?

I'm really pleased with the paint so far. The finish isn't perfect by any means, and if you want a super-smooth factory finish, this is not the project for you. But I don't mind the little blemishes. In fact, to make it look a bit more intentional, I lightly sanded the beveled edges of the cabinets to give them a bit of a rustic look.

Intentionally crappy!

Now, I'll be the first to say, rustic is just about done to death, so that may wind up being the thing that makes them look dated more quickly. But for now, it's a good way to work with the problems that chalk paint presents. And hey, maybe by the time I'm sick of them, we'll be able to afford to pay someone to do them properly!

So while I'm still toiling away on the cabinets, I figured I'd share a project that's actually complete! If you read my post about the Peaches to the Beaches yard sale, you already know that it was a total bust, and I only bought one thing- a mantel. I'd been looking for one for our master bedroom to go under our ridiculously huge tv that I publicly disdain but secretly love. We had a long bookshelf there, but I wasn't loving it. And I love mantels- so many decorating possibilities!!!

Minivan full of mantel!

I was really excited when I found this one because even though it wasn't antique, it was literally the PERFECT size, it was in decent shape, and it was only $40! But we did have to figure out a way to fill the huge fireplace opening. And we were dealing with the added challenge of an air vent behind it. I found an idea on Pinterest of framing it out with tin tiles, and filling the center with a mirror. Loved the tiles, but I find mirrors kind of creepy (Is that weird?), plus, it would block the aforementioned air vent. So we decided to go with decorative sheet metal screens.

We cut out a plywood frame that we stapled to the back of the surround. I glued the tiles on that. Then, we stapled the decorative screen (spray painted white) to the back of the plywood. It wasn't quite opaque enough, so we added another screen with a smaller pattern behind it.I made a hearth by staining a 6' length of 1x12. I had to fill a few holes in the mantel with wood putty, gave it a fresh coat of white paint, and painted the three panels the same color as our walls (Copen Blue by Sherwin Williams)

We attached it to the wall, slid the "hearth" underneath it, and began disguising all the cords. Luckily the columns of the surround are hollow, so there was plenty of cord-stashing room. And I used the leftover decorative metal screen to create a handy-dandy disguise for our cable box. A strategically placed framed picture hides the tv power cord until we eventually run it behind the wall, and I finally have a place to display my awesome ginger jars that I scored at an estate sale.
,

Cable box disguise!

I'm thrilled with the way it turned out. I think it adds some fun architectural interest to the room, and I love any additional display space. Plus, it's really romantic looking, and that's never a bad thing in a master bedroom!

Finding Balance

Over the years I've had lots of people tell me, "I just don't know how you do it all!" Short answer- I don't. When I start a new project, I hyper-focus on it in true ADHD fashion, and tune out all of the fighting kids, blaring televisions, and incessant requests for snacks. I paint and paint and paint while everything goes to hell around me. The laundry piles up, the house descends into a mildly horrifying level of filth, and the children are seen outdoors in badly mismatched clothes and unbrushed hair (and one of them may or may not have been going commando).

Fact is, I have trouble finding balance. That became glaringly obvious when my eldest interrupted my extreme cabinet makeover yesterday to ask what we were having for dinner. I just gazed at him blankly and thought, "huh, I wonder if we even have any food?" As I was desperately attempting to thaw some half-frozen chicken in the microwave, I realized that I might be verging on out of control.

Part of it is due to my own lack of patience. I just want to get it done and everything else be damned. I also blame HGTV. I've gotten so used to the big reveal at the end of the hour that it seems unfathomable that anything should take longer. So when I tackle a huge, multi-day project, I instinctively work feverishly at it until it's done, and I get my big reveal moment. What can I say? Admiring a finished project is my runner's high. Freshly painted surfaces are my drug of choice. But as with any addiction, there are consequences.

This morning, as soon as my husband and kids were out of the house, I diligently set up my painting station and got to work- and promptly ran out of paint. My immediate instinct was to run to the hardware store to get more (See?? I'm a freakin' DIY junkie!), but then I paused for a moment, looked around, saw the utter chaos that had befallen my house, and put down the paint brush.

It was time to step away and focus on everything I'd been neglecting. I didn't pick up a brush or a roller the rest of the day. I didn't even go buy more paint. I cleaned and shined, and fluffed and folded, and made things generally habitable. I even tackled the boys' disgusting bathroom (I'll spare you the details on that one in case you're eating, or ever want to eat again). I made a full dinner that required no emergency thawing. The children got haircuts. They all have clean clothes and plenty of underwear. Order is restored! For now.

Striking the balance between project mania and basic maternal responsibilities is likely to always be a struggle, but I'll keep trying. After all, a pretty house doesn't count for much if you forget to take care of the people that live in it!

Cabinet Chaos

This is what my kitchen looked like Saturday morning.

 Dark, dated, shiny brass- but clean

This is what my kitchen looks like today.

Arrrrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!

Yes, friends, I have embarked upon a fool's errand known as painting the cabinets. I've wanted to do it since the day we moved in, but the scope of the project held me back. However, last week, I just snapped. I could not take those dark, dated, scratched-up cabinets one second longer. I also couldn't stomach the thought of sanding nine million cabinets, so I decided to cheat.

I've used Amy Howard one-step chalk paint before, and I've been pleased with the results, so I decided to give the cabinets a go and see what happened. So far, it's been a learning process. I started off using a brush, but it gave me too uneven a finish. So I switched to a small roller meant for flat finish paint, and that was decidedly better.

I also started off trying to paint without taking the cabinets down. I've done it before with a fair amount of success, so I figured I could do it again. I was wrong. Refreshing already white cabinets is one thing. Going from a dark cherry stain to a bright white is a whole different animal. My husband said, "don't you think it would be easier to do this if you take the doors off?" I stubbornly insisted that it wouldn't, but painting with the doors attached was hard and slow.

This morning I grudgingly took the doors off (took me all of 10 minutes), and tried it his way. And dangit, he was right. So much easier, and about a third of the time. Yes, I'm admitting it here, in writing, MY HUSBAND WAS RIGHT AND I WAS WRONG. There, I said it, and I'll never say it again.

I'm hoping to be back later in the week with a full cabinet update. I mean, a girl can dream, right? In the meantime, I'll be toiling away in chaos.

Yard Sale Fail

Have you ever heard of the world's longest yard sale? It's called the 127 Yard Sale, and it runs through 6 states along Highway 127. I've always thought it would be such a cool thing to do. Who wouldn't love a fun road trip with your best girlfriends, finding all kinds of amazing treasures along the way? That's some chick-lit, girl-movie gold right there! So when the opportunity to participate in a similar sale presented itself, I jumped all over it.

It wasn't the 127 Yard sale- 6 states of stuff might be too much of a good thing. We were going to keep it a bit more local and try the Peaches to the Beaches sale. I'd never heard of it before my mom mentioned it to me a month ago, but it's been going on for a while. It ran through most of Georgia along Hwy. 341, and it promised fabulous home decor items and fare made by local artisans. Best of all, it ended just before you hit St. Simons Island- my favorite place on Earth. Obviously, we had to give it a try. So my mom and I abandoned our menfolk for the weekend and set out on a treasure hunt. We had high hopes that we would find more wonderful things than we could stuff in the minivan. We were sorely disappointed.

Instead of 200 miles of treasure, we found mile after mile of garbage. The home decor consisted of dusty old lamps, ragged pillows, saggy recliners, and sofas with the stuffing hanging out. There were some things made by local artisans. Unfortunately, they were things like liquor bottles stuffed with string lights, sad, balding taxidermy, and more windchimes than you could shake a stick at. The main thing that people were selling was old clothes. So many old clothes- displayed on rope strung between ladders, card tables, and rubbermaid totes. I even saw one heap of clothing in a laundry basket, and I'm not entirely convinced someone wasn't just trying to sell their dirty laundry. Stop after stop, little town after little town, this is what we found.

We occasionally stumbled across something decent, but those rare finds were usually priced so high that we just kept walking. Had I been in the market for chickens, a live turkey, bunny rabbits, a stuffed rattlesnake, or an old bedpan, I would have been in luck. But I wasn't, so I continually walked away empty-handed. I did score at one stop along the way. I've been looking for a fireplace surround for my bedroom, and I found one that was the perfect size at the only decent sale we encountered. But that was the only thing we found. Seriously- we drove halfway across the state of Georgia and bought one measly thing.

But the trip was by no means a complete loss. The Peaches to Beaches sale may have been a huge waste of time, but the adventure was fantastic.  My mom and I had a great time laughing at all the hopeless junk we found along the way. And when we finally gave up on the idea of finding anything worthwhile at those dusty garbage dumps, we put the pedal to the metal and made it to St. Simons just in time for cocktails and dinner.

This view was worth the trip!

And every minute we spent on St. Simons was wonderful. Great food, great shops, lots of wine, lots of laughter. I got a much-needed break (love you, kids!!), and I got to spend time with my mom, and we got to do it all surrounded by blue skies and gorgeous old trees draped in Spanish moss. So while the sale was a fail, the weekend was a complete success. I can't wait for our next road trip, but I think we'll stick with local estate sales for our treasure hunts!

Me and my best girl!

Failed attempt at a glam beach selfie

Found the treasure we were looking for!

Well, hello!

An Entire Post About Doors

The Rolling Stones once sang, "I see a black door and I want it painted red.." Okay, no, they didn't. It was actually the opposite, but they were wrong! I am a firm believer in adding a fun pop of color everywhere you can. Why not start with your door?

Almost every exterior door in our house has undergone a transformation over the last few months. They're colorful and whimsical, and they make me smile every time I open them. So, come in, join me on our tour of doors. Let's break on through to the other side! (See what I did there? The Doors? I'm punny.)

Traditional to Whimsical

Your door is the first thing people see, and I think it should give an indication of what's inside. Our old black front door says, "We are stately, traditional, and we take ourselves quite seriously." The new bright red shade says, "Hey!! Come in! We're bright, loud, maybe a bit obnoxious, and probably a little much for some people!" And it's totally true. Our front door reflects the red-hot chaos you can expect to find inside. But that's not where I started. I actually began my door-painting mission on the interior of the front door.

Our entryway is small and has very little wall space. It didn't leave me with many options to jazz it up with furniture or art. I did my best with a fun light fixture, a bright little table, and a couple of pictures, but it was still boring. One Saturday morning, inspiration struck, and I finally realized my solution- use the interior of the front door as my statement piece! Within a half hour,
I was zooming off to the paint store in search of the perfect shade that would also compliment the furniture in the living room. I chose a bright, orangey-red (Chinese Red by Sherwin Williams), and immediately got to work.

Too immediately, in fact. I was in such a rush to transform my space that I skipped the first, crucial step of door painting. Primer. YOU HAVE TO USE PRIMER!!! Learn from my mistakes, friends. Paint with primer is not enough- you can paint 20 coats and it will still be a streaky mess. After the first coat, my door looked like a hasty attempt at cleaning up a crime scene. After the second, it looked like a toddler had finger painted with Campbell's tomato soup. Third coat was still streaky and way too orange. Same for the fourth coat. That's where I finally gave up and admitted defeat (though you have to kind of admire my commitment to doing it the wrong way). I put two coats of grey-tinted primer (use tinted primer for darker colors- trust me), followed by three coats of paint, and I finally had the color I was looking for. That is NINE coats of paint if you lost track. It's a wonder the door would still close.

Statement Door!

The exterior of the door didn't get painted for another four months. And you might have noticed that they aren't the same shade of red. That might bother some people, but personally, I think it's fine. Each side of the door serves a different space, and the color should go with said space. But that's really a matter of personal preference- you do you!

This week, I decided to work some color magic on the back door. The back of our house is kind of a big, white box. I have a whole plan for a deck transformation, and it started with this door. Well, really it started with the charming, striped awning I purchased off ebay, but since that's still sitting in a box in the garage, we'll say it started with the door.

Boring box

My awning and my design consultant

The awning inspired the color choice (Indigo by Sherwin Williams), and I took it, and my co-decorator, to the paint store to find the best match. This time I was smarter and used that same grey-tinted primer, but I decided against taping the windows. I hate prep work and avoid it whenever I can. I find that even when I tape windows, some paint sneaks under, and I still wind up scraping paint off with a razor blade, so I decided to forgo the arduous process of taping. Did it work? Eh, sort of.


Scraping didn't take very long, but it did pull some of the paint off the edges. I think that was mostly due to some weird caulk that was sticky and gooey. I'm not sure what kind of caulk was used, but it definitely wasn't the right kind. So I wound up taping the wonky edges and fixing those. But I still had to scrape when I was done! In the future, I'll probably eschew tape again, as long as there's not weird, sticky caulk.

Once again, I left the interior of the door a different color. It's still white (though it might not stay that way!). I love the happy surprise of opening the door to find this bright, beautiful blue. And I'm thrilled with the way the color livens up the back of the house. Stay tuned for the rest of the deck transformation. It should be super fun to see if my husband and I can install a 10x8 awning without killing ourselves or each other!

 Surprise!!! Blue door!!

Let the deck transformation begin!!!

Come Sit a Spell

Is there anything more quintessentially Southern than a front porch? Maybe  it's a classic, sweeping wrap-around, reminiscent of hoop-skirted belles and mint juleps. Or maybe it's weathered planks precariously tacked onto a ramshackle dogtrot where Meemaw sits shelling peas in her housecoat. Either way, a good house in the Deep South ought to have a porch.

As a good Southern girl, I've always wanted a proper front porch, but we've never really had one. We've had a stoop, a slab, and a deck, but they never quite fit the bill. My dreams finally came true when we bought this house. We had a porch! Unfortunately, it was a bit...lackluster.

It's not completely without charm. It has columns, decorative corbels, and runs most of the length of the house. But it's narrow- only 4 ft. wide, has plenty of cracks in the concrete floor, and the railings are in desperate need of a coat of paint.All those things will happen in due time, but when an early spring hit around the beginning of February, I started itching to do some porch sprucing. I'd outfitted it with some chairs, a small table, and a couple of decorative items when we moved in, but that was it. Spring fever calls for bigger projects.

I already had this sassy doormat thanks to my BFF!

Up first was the ceiling. It needed to be blue. Haint blue, in fact. Having a blue porch ceiling is an old Southern tradition that originated in the Gullah settlements off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. You painted your porch ceiling, and often your door and window trim blue to keep the "haints" (think hags, demons, ghouls) away. Why a haint would be put off by a lovely shade of blue I do not know, but who am I to question tradition? As my spirit animal, Ouiser Boudreaux, says in Steel Magnolias, "Don't ask me those questions. I don't know why. I don't make the rules!"

 I spent an incredibly miserable day painting the ceiling a lovely shade of blue. (Soar by Sherwin Williams). Seriously, it was awful. If you have never painted a ceiling, I do not recommend it. I was so sore the next day, I could barely move my arms and neck. But it was so worth it! It was beautiful. When I was finally finished, I just laid on the floor and admired it for a good 15 minutes at least. (partly because I couldn't stand up).

Next, I had to cajole my husband into hanging the porch swing he'd gotten me for Christmas a month and a half earlier. It's not easy to find a swing that will fit such a narrow porch, but google helped me find a company that makes swings in a multitude of sizes (www.theporchswingcompany.com). On Christmas morning he surprised me with a very large box that contained the perfect 3' porch swing. He'd even upgraded to the one with cupholders- that's true love.

We finally pulled it out of the guest room, assembled it, hung it, and I slapped a coat of black satin outdoor paint on it. It was great, but after sitting on for a while, I discovered that the wooden slats had a definite numbing effect on my posterior. Luckily, I solved that problem with a delightful red gingham swing cushion from Plow and Hearth.

We were almost spring ready, but something was missing. We needed more cheer. We needed a bright red door. The house had a perfectly nice, very traditional black door. But I need a bit more whimsy in my entryways (more on that later- I've got a whole door post coming), so I had to go bright. Three coats of paint later (Showstopper by Sherwin Williams), it was finally time to relax on our charming porch with a very large glass of wine.

I'm gonna paint my front door red 

and change my name to Elizabeth Arden!

Best thing about the porch swing? This guy regularly sits with me!

What Am I Doing Here?

Almost exactly a year ago, we embarked on a new adventure. We put our first house on the market, and set out looking for something bigger and better. Mostly bigger. We didn't know exactly what we wanted. Well, we did, sort of. We wanted our own bathroom.

For the past nine years, my husband and I had been living in a very small house, sharing one full bath with our three gross sons. It was unpleasant and smelly, but it didn't start off that way. When we purchased the house in the early summer of 2007, we were an unjaded young couple with a precious, curly-haired, three-year-old. We bought the cutest house we could afford, and set to work making it our own. It wasn't huge- 3 beds, 1 1/2 baths- but it was plenty for us, our little son, and the baby we hoped to soon add. Plus, it was just a "starter home." We'd only be there a few years, so it was okay that it was small. Two months after we closed, I was pregnant. With twins.

So,we pretty much outgrew that house in less than a year. And then the housing bubble burst, and we were upside down in our adorable little prison. But we survived. For nine years, we survived, with our rowdy boys getting bigger, and noisier, and smellier. We told everyone that wondered how we possibly lived with so many people in so little space, "oh, it's not so bad." But we were lying.

And finally, almost exactly a year ago, we had the opportunity to improve our station in life. So we cleaned out closets, spruced up the yard, painted the trim, and stuck a "for sale" sign in the yard. We spent a month packing up the kids and the dog at a moment's notice, cruising every park and drive-through in town, praying for a decent offer. All the while desperately searching for a house in our budget that would fit our family's needs. We rejected one after the other, got a tenuous contract, lost it, sold ours, and still had nowhere to go.

Finally, we happened upon a house. A pretty great house, in fact. We weren't sure if we could afford it, and we didn't know how we felt about moving from the center of town to a house way out in the country, but we put in an offer. And we got it! And the rest is history.

Here we are, nine months later, happily ensconced in our cute farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. We're slowly but surely turning it into our dream home. And here's your chance to be along for the ride! You can follow me as I haphazardly DIY this testosterone castle into the charming house I've always wanted. I can't promise you perfection, or even solid advice, but you can share my triumphs, laugh at my spectacular fails, and hopefully be entertained.