Sports Boxes

I just completed another little detail for my son's big boy room. Kids always seems to have little treasures that can quite easily take over their rooms if left uncontained - I had a set of 3 nesting boxes that I got on clearance somewhere that I was going to do something with that I'd long abandoned. I figured they would make the perfect treasure keepers, and I knew just how I could dress them up.

With all that I did in his room that I had to spend money on, quilt, paint, silver tape... I was determined to have projects that were just using what I had on hand, both to save money AND to use up some of the things that have been doing nothing but taking up space. 

So I started with the boxes, paint and brushes:

You'll see I didn't have the right brown for the basket ball, I had to mix red, a touch of black and yellow  to get the right blend.

When dry, I lightly penciled in the lines that make these not sphere shapes more identifiable as what they are intended to be, balls.

Ad then I painted them... that is really about it.

I'll add a coat of varnish once the paint has fully cured. That is one thing I've learned when it come to craft paint - if it isn't completely dry when you coat it with varnish, it runs and smears.

Now baby bear has the perfect places to keep his treasures without having them take over his room. When the boxes fill up - then it's time to pick what can be pitched.

What I've Learned Wednesday: Painting Clothes

My husband LOVES to make fun of me for this - but whenever I paint or work on a particularly messy project - I wear my clothes inside out.

It is easier that keeping track of what are project clothes and what isn't, or risking ruining something that I really like. It doesn't work too well with jeans obviously, but I have 3 favorite pairs of capri sweatpants that I live in on weekends. Pretty much year round. They are perfect. So when I want to work on a project, I just wear them inside out and I never have to worry about ruining them.

Kitchen Renovation - Section 3 COMPLETE!!!

Here we go again - section 3 of our kitchen renovation - COMPLETE!!!

This section was really difficult, definitely the most difficult thing we've tackled in a long time.

Here is what we did - the before:

Here is the after:

And here is some of what we did along the way, not a step by step or tutorial as I usually like to do, but I think this give a pretty good idea of what we were doing.

Painted the drawers, doors and frames of the cabinets, plus a few accessories. Since this was going to be the last time I pulled out the paint sprayer for a while I wanted to get the full use of it. (Yes, I had to paint the lazy susan from section 2 again, there were some pretty awful drips that had to be sanded and fixed)

We also had to remove the counter tops as well as the breakfast bar. Unfortunately, the breakfast bar revealed some pretty ugly workmanship that we had to go in and take out as well. Lucky for us, Bug got into the action. (I LOVE that our kids get into this too.)

Another challenge, cutting the perfect angle on the counter tops, it wasn't any sort of angle you could really measure and go from... so here is what we did. Made a template out of cardboard and cut the first part.

Then we put down another piece of cardboard, put the cut section on top of that, and then made the 2nd sections template from that:

Turned out to be a perfect solution:

(Please ignore the dust...)

Back to the breakfast bar. I knew there was going to be no way to cut the laminate counter top so that it would look good as a breakfast bar... if you go back to my post on our selection, you'll see we went with the butcher block and I'm so happy we did. It was a dream to cut an it looks amazing.

Here is how we cut it, we measured the depth we wanted, then measured the distance from the guide on our circular side to where the cut should be. Then we took a large 1x4" length of wood and clamped it to the butcher block:

(

Sorry, this picture is actually post cut - I forgot to take it before, but you get the idea don't you???

So why did we have the 1"x4"? - funny you should ask!

Because we were coupling them with these corbels:

To create our breakfast bar:

I'm in love!

We still have a lot of finish work to do, caulking, touch up painting, adding trim, painting above the counter tops and figuring out our back splash - but what we set out to do with this section, we completed... all in the span of memorial day weekend.

A few more pictures to enjoy:

Yes, we have a new sink and faucet - I'm not going to talk about those because we did EVERYTHING wrong installing them. The last think you should do is look to us for advice on that part of the kitchen. 

Yikes... and yes, those are my crutches in the background. Long story. Long painful story.

Kitchen Renovation - Section 2 COMPLETE!!!

We've completed section 2 of the kitchen, when we get to the after pictures here, you'll notice it might not look quite finished, but the finish work is going to come later. When removing the back splash, as we expected the wall sustained damage, rather than repairing it now, we are going to wait 'till we tackle section 3 and remove the remaining back splash then repair it all at the same time.

Also, we haven't added the trim, that will go on after the floor, or the hardware, that will be later so hardware for all 3 sections is done at the same time.

Ready to see the progression?

Before:

We removed the doors and drawers, they were sanded, primed and painted with a sprayer out in the garage:

In order to keep things moving as fast as possible, I put push pins on the back of the doors, so that the back could be painted, then the doors could be put right side up without the back touching the cardboard while wet.

Meanwhile, the frames were sanded, primed and painted with a roller inside, we decided to extend the white up onto the soffits to give the illusion that the cabinets were taller.

Also, I spray painted the hinges black:

We then replaced the counter top with the Ikea counter top, same as we used on section 1. I can't believe this entire section only cost $69!!!

Here is the after:

We still have a lot to do, but pulling this section together really makes so much of a difference!!!

I'll post some other details of this section in the next couple of days.

Kitchen Renovation - Section 1 COMPLETE!!!

Well, almost complete, we still have to add knobs and pulls but we're going to do that when the other sections are finished.

I'm going to try to not get to wordy here and just let the pictures show our progress. Throughout the week I'll go through more of each part's step by step including cutting the counter top, making the recycling center and hanging the Café Shelves.

So without further delay, I present section 1 of our kitchen renovation.

Before:

During:

After:

We are beyond THRILLED with the way this section turned out. I've already eliminated our island cart and only filled up less than a third of this new storage.

In case you are interested in learning more about any of the above projects that I've already finished and blogged about here is a list:

• Kitchen Table and Benches
• Café Shelves
• Counter Top Selection
• Finding the Base Cabinets

I'll be linking this up to a bunch of link parties, please be sure visit the list of link parties on the right hand side to see all the fabulous parties and visit all the wonderful blogs with fabulous ideas!

I'm not the only creative one in the family...

Thought I'd share a project that my daughter did last year.

First, our playroom carpet, this was not meant to be ours, but my mother insisted and she was right.

Then about a year later, I found this poster at the trade show my association manages:

It now hangs in the playroom too.

These two pieces inspired my Bug Girl to pick up a marker, paint and paint brushes to create this:

It took her well over an hour, which for being 5 I thought showed amazing dedication. It has been featured in our kitchen since she created it, but I think it is time I let it go to the place she had envisioned it being, the playroom.

Branch Trivets

I'm going to go out on a limb here and hope that my future Sister-in-law does not read my blog... I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know I have a blog so I think I'm safe.

Anyway, my little Brother-in-Law is getting married in May, and their wedding shower is next weekend. Actually, I posted the invitations I made for her shower a few months ago.

I found this bowl on their registry and I knew I could do a little more with it:

I had these cork trivets that I picked up, pictured are 3, I ended up using 2:

I wasn't able to do a tutorial of this one, my son was my helper and that made it nearly impossible to have "help" from him, make these AND take pictures.

A brief recap:

• Cut contact paper on my cricut in in the shape of branches
• Applied those to the cork trivits
• Spray painted over them with flat black spray paint. This proved to be a bit more difficult as the contact paper decided that this was the right time to let go... I had to work fast.
• Removed the contact paper and ta-da....

They didn't turn out quite how I imagined, but I think they work and compliment the bowl.

Yard Sale Rescue

We had a yard sale over the weekend and at the end of it, we still had these candle holders:

They had been in a dresser for years, at least 5 years, the 2 tone metal didn't match any of our decor and I thought they might get a few bucks towards the kitchen project.

I was wrong... but that caused me to give them a second look and realize that with a coat of spray paint.

They could turn into this:

They really work in our guest bedroom now, and it didn't cost a thing!

Star-ting over

I've had this star kicking around for months, I bought it at JoAnn's on clearance with big plans for it.

I tried to use it on the new bookcase:

See it there on the left?

That didn't work.

Tried it on the mantle, no. In our bedroom, no... the list goes on.

But stars are my favorite shape and I wanted to do more with them in the house than I had with just our son's bedroom.

While shopping at Micheal's over the weekend I realized what wasn't working about the star, was the star... it was too smooth, manufactured... it wasn't personal enough.

So - I assembled some supplies:

• The star
• Tissue paper (any color/pattern will do)
• Mod Podge
• Craft paint
• Foam brush

First, I crumpled up some of the tissue paper into a little ball, then I smoothed it out and did it again.

I wanted the tissue paper to have texture, lots and lots of texture.

Next, I coated the star with mod podge (which BTW, I still cannot believe isn't actually called Modge Podge...).

And began applying the tissue paper to the star, taking care to not smooth out too much of the tissue paper's new texture.

I kept layering and layering 'till I had just the look I wanted.

And finally, I coated it with flat black paint. This is the end result:

I'm so happy with the way it turned out, you can still make out some of the original texture, but on top of that it now has all the crinkles, crackles and tares.

Unfortunately for the star, it is still homeless within our home - BUT - not for long. I know exactly where it will go once we finish the kitchen.