Browsing the archives for the Paint tag

Studio Trim Color Revealed

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28 Jun, 2010
Meredith
Paint, studio

I’ll spare you the suspense and just get right down to business – Stephen picked high gloss, super manly black for the studio trim.  (Need to catch up on our project?  Click here)

Here’s how it all went down.

After sanding down all the existing old wood trim in the room, we started to paint.  Luckily I learned my lesson with windows when we did our living room trim and knew it didn’t matter if I got paint on the glass.  A handy-dandy razor blade is all you need to fix that.

Once I had a coat on the window and doorway trim, it was on to the baseboards.  We tried to avoid getting paint on our new floors by sneaking brown painter’s paper under the baseboards.  Sadly, any paint that we got on the paper acted like an adhesive and stuck it to the trim.  :(

Next time, we may try using painter’s tape or pulling the paper up before the paint dries.  If there is a next time. haha.

After the paint dried, we put on a second coat and then went back around and edged everything with our wall paint color to get a nice sharp line.  I don’t use tape to do this, but I know lots of people swear by it.  For me, getting in the painting groove usually makes my lines straighter than if I’d wasted time taping.

After we’d finished our glossy black trim, it was time to switch out our outlets and light switch to coordinate.

Now don’t let this picture fool you… at this point it was about 9 pm on a Sunday night after having starting painting that trim Saturday morning.  The real life version of this picture looks like this.

Yep, nighttime electrical work requires a head lamp, people.  Be prepared.

After we turned the power back on and we were sure all the outlets worked, I was in charge of putting on the outlet covers.

Besides the 4 outlets and 1 light switch, our 1981 ranch featured a lovely ROUND telephone jack in the studio.  Needless to say, not many of our local hardware stores carry ROUND telephone jacks, especially black ones.  The solution?  Spray paint for the cover and a Sharpie for the part attached to the wall.

We weren’t too upset by our DIY black telephone jack cover, especially since it got covered up by the couch anyway.

So do you want to see the room to date?  Here it is!

Admittedly not the best photo I’ve ever taken, but it was nighttime and we were just too excited to share the result of a weekend of painting trim!  Still on the to-do list are baseboards in the closet on the other side of the room, installing threshold pieces at the entrance to the room and the entrance to the closet, and (oh yeah) decorating!

So what do you think of Stephen’s color choices?  Modern?  Manly?  Meh?

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Slate Studio

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15 Jun, 2010
Meredith
Paint, studio

Howdy everybody!  We’re back for an update on progress in the man room studio.  (It got re-named in the process of getting re-done.  Such a shame, I really got a kick out of calling it the man room…)

Last we left off, we’d finished laying the laminate flooring we purchased with our yard sale proceeds.

Next, it was time to choose a paint color.  Stephen got total creative control over this makeover, so after deciding he wanted a very modern masculine space, he chose Valspar’s Mountain Smoke as the wall color.

This is what the room looked like during the painting process.  Stephen left on a business trip and came home to a gray room.  I think it looked pretty close to what he was going for.

Of course “the band” couldn’t stay out of the studio for long, so we moved some of their gear back in for one of their Monday night rehearsals.

After painting the walls, there was still lots to do – namely craziness with the window trim and baseboards.  Stephen thought outside the box on that one, but it really paid off.  Stay tuned for more man room (ehem) studio fun!

(In more personal news, I listed my first house this weekend!  Please keep us in your thoughts and let’s hope I can keep this up!)

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The Beam is Done!

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19 May, 2010
Meredith
Before and After, Paint, building, dining room

In my head, I’m singing the title of this post to the tune of ”The Heat is On” by Glenn Frey because I’m so PUMPED about all we accomplished this weekend!  (Side note: apparently that song was written the year I was born… oh the 80s :)

Number 1 accomplishment on the list?  Finishing the beam in the dining room.  The process was easy enough, just time consuming.

Here’s what we started with – raw wood, lots of gaps, lots of rough wood filler.

First thing Saturday morning, I started sanding down the beam for a nice smooth finish.  We ran to Lowe’s and picked up some quick-dry, white silicone caulk.  We chose the GE brand.  It said it was paintable in 30 minutes, and the stuff lived up to its word.  No complaints here!

Stephen got to work caulking the edges of the beam while I pulled out a can of the best primer ever, KILZ!

Here’s a close up of the beam, post caulk and primer.

We went ahead and caulked the trim around our dining room and kitchen windows while we were at it.

After we caulked and primed on Saturday, Stephen moved on to his garage project…

Turns out there was.

… while I tackled another trouble area in our house – our walk-in closet.  More on this project to come!

We woke up bright and early Sunday morning ready to start back on the beam, and I prepared myself for the day of painting ahead of me.  First I painted a nice thick coat of Valspar’s Betsy’s Linen white in a semi-gloss over the beam (and on the pre-primed window trim while I was at it).

I really can’t say enough about how much I love KILZ primer.  That stuff covers so well, I only needed to do ONE coat of trim paint and we were done!  (And no, I’m not being paid to say that.. although I wouldn’t mind being paid!  Are you listening KILZ? ;)

Next, it was time for edging on one side of the beam with our kitchen wall color – Valspar’s Cincinnatian Hotel Carl Tan (weird name, huh?).  I also touched up around the kitchen window at this point.

Third paint color for the day?  The dining room side of the beam – Valspar’s Mocha Syrup.  Why, oh why did we decide different paint colors in these two rooms was a good idea???  This was the darkest paint of the day by far, so it required 2 coats over the white primer and caulk that had made it onto our walls.

Here I am touching up the dining room trim.

Finally it was time to touch up the ceiling.  When we scraped the popcorn off our ceilings in the dining room and kitchen, we primed and then painted them with this ceiling paint.  I love that it goes on purple and dries white!  It makes it so much easier to see where you’ve already painted and any spots you might have missed.

Can you see the purple?

At the end of the day Sunday, after 5 different cans of paint and 2 tubes of caulk, here is the finished beam!

And with our new curtains.

What do you think?  I really want to share full pictures of the dining room and kitchen with you soon.  We’ll see if I get a day where both rooms are clean at the same time! :)

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Master Bedroom Redo: Race to the finish!

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8 Feb, 2010
Meredith
Crafts, Home Decor

Holy Heardmont, Batman!  More than one post in a day?  And we still haven’t even done the big reveal??

We did four (count ‘em, FOUR!) more projects on our two week journey to a finished master bedroom that deserve a mention because they really “make” the room.  BUT, rather than leave you in suspense for four more posts before the big reveal, I’ll show you the two little projects now and then the other two after you see it all come together.  Cool?

The first was this sweet yellow pillow I made:

This one was easy peasy, I just recovered one of our original brown accent pillows and added embroidery thread and a fun blue button for some contrast.

The hardest part was hand sewing the part of the pillow I had to leave open to stuff it.

I created another accent piece for the other side of the room using an old canvas I had lying around and 3 colors of paint.  I took this blank canvas and leftover wall paint…

… and turned it into this!

This was a completely fun and free project and added a perfect pop of color to our little sitting area.

What do you think?  Are you excited?  Bursting with anticipation?  Just wish I’d quit dragging it out and show the room already?

Fear not, all will be revealed TONIGHT!

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Light and Lovely

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11 Jan, 2010
Meredith
Uncategorized

Finally got the chance to enjoy our fireplace in the daylight this weekend.  The white is a huge improvement, don’t you think?

Sigh of relief.  :)

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Sittin' Pretty

2 Comments
31 Dec, 2009
Meredith
Before and After, Home Decor

Check out the newest addition to my craft room!

My grandmother bought this sweet little chair when my mom and her brother and sister were little kids growing up in La Crosse, Wisconsin.  Grandma worked as a secretary in downtown La Crosse and decided to stop by the town’s one hotel on her way home one day to check out a renovation sale.  For $5, she brought home this lovely little chair, probably black or stained wood with a dark green vinyl seat at the time of purchase.

Over the years this little chair was painted several times – once orange and green to match my mom and aunt’s 70s bedroom, once buttery yellow to match my grandma’s writing desk, and once dark chocolate brown, when the chair was passed along to me.  I had this chair all through college, though it never got the attention it deserved.  I used this chair far more often to hold books or laundry or to change a light bulb than I used it as a chair.

Remember when I revamped my old high school desk a few months ago?  I originally wanted to update the chair that went with the desk, but once I saw the chair in the room and realized how big and bulky it was, I decided to find a new one.

Enter the little chair that could.  I took one look at my little brown chair and saw potential.  I started the process of giving it new life by taking off the flat sheet cushion (painted brown along with the rest of the chair) and sanding the whole chair and cushion so the next coat of paint would stick.

Then I painstakingly spray painted the chair base white.  In the process I got to try out a new gadget – the spray gun attachment I got at Lowe’s for under $3.  Let me tell you folks: Worth. Every. Penney.  After 3+ coats of spray painting I could still feel all my fingers!!  Awesome.

While I waited for the base to dry, I cut a 1” thick piece of foam ($3 at Hobby Lobby) to fit on the top of my seat cushion.

I used spray adhesive to attach the foam to the seat cushion and then covered it with batting (1/2 yard remnant $0.80 at Hobby Lobby).  I also spread out an ironed piece of fabric left over from my craft room curtains and folded up the edges of the batting and seat fabric all together.

Using my handy dandy staple gun, I proceeded to put about a million staples into the base of the seat to hold the batting and fabric down.  Let me tell ya, this baby’s not budging.

Once the base of the chair was completely dry, I put the four screws back into the base of the seat to reattach it and Viola!  My little old chair now has a brand new life.

Here’s a shot of it at my newly painted desk.  Don’t they go well together?  I’m so glad I had this chair.  It was the perfect addition to this room – cute and petite and perfectly useful.


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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

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14 Dec, 2009
Meredith
Before and After, Home Decor

Mr. Heard and I put ourselves to work last week, tackling another huge project in our living room.  When I say huge, I mean literally huge – like 16 feet tall and 20 hours worth of painting kinda huge.  What could possibly be so large, you ask?

Our fireplace!

Here’s a shot of the fireplace the day we moved in.

First_Day_Fireplace

Although we painted and decorated around this eyesore for a year after we bought Heardmont, the time finally came to update it for real.  Here’s a shot from our recent living room redo so you can see what it the fireplace looked like just before we dis-mantled it (pun intended … hehe).

Living_Room_redo

We started by taking down the décor, mantle, firebox grate, and air intake covers.

Fireplace before

To make sure the paint would adhere to the brick, we wiped the whole thing down with wet rags and vacuumed up all the ash and dust.  Then it was time to patch the sides.

Patching

The fireplace originally had strips of wood trim on either side which we discovered were covering gaping holes and rough mortar between the brick and the drywall.  So before we could paint, I had to patch all those holes with my best friend DAP Fast N’ Final Lightweight Spackling.

Spackle

I didn’t Google how to patch a fireplace or visit DIY websites to see if this was the best product to use.  I just figured I’d use what I had, and it worked really well and was ready to paint later that day.

After the patching, it was time for the priming.

Priming

Priming2

Yep, that’s really how I look during 95% of the projects you see on our blog.  Sexy, no?

It may have taken 10 hours of our time, but ensuring full coverage with the primer meant 1) super fast application of the paint (Valspar’s Betsy’s Linen in Satin) 2) no brushing of the paint necessary 3) less than a gallon of actual top coat (Betsy’s Linen) used.

Stephen_Primes

We noticed between the coat of primer and the paint that the trim at the top of the brick had several gaps which were much more obvious in white than they had been before.  Thankfully we had some paintable caulk that Stephen  used to fill in all the gaps for a much cleaner look.  I decided to break the “dry time” rules by painting the caulk sooner than the package said, but I figured the caulk was for aesthetics and not for weather-proofing, so in this case we should be fine.

Finally it was time for the final coat of paint.  We waited to prime and paint the hearth until the very end because we knew we would be standing on the hearth to reach higher on the fireplace throughout the process.

Meredith_Paints

Fireplace_Painted

After letting the final coat dry, we came back in with our wall color on the sides to cover all of the patching.  Here’s how it looks today!

Xmas_Fplace

Still on the to-do list are to paint the brassy gold grate covering the firebox a nice oiled bronze and to spray paint the four air intake grates white to make them disappear.  Sadly, the temperature around these parts might not reach the required 50 degrees for spray painting for awhile, so for now we’re content to call the fireplace done.

And oh yeah!  Christmas is coming!  I should have a post or two coming up soon with more pictures of our festive decor.

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Flip This: Craft Room Desk

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29 Sep, 2009
Meredith
Before and After

Boy, oh boy, am I excited to share my latest project!  This past weekend my mom and grandparents made the trek to Fayetteville for a visit and to bring my old-school metal desk in grandpa’s SUV. I had big plans for this dated desk and its companion chair and was just itching to get my hands on it.  Here’s a shot of what I mean by dated…

Desk_Before

I never thought I’d want that desk-chair pair back when I left it at home after high school, but after pondering the wonders of spray paint, I figured they deserved a second chance.  My project this weekend, then, was to tackle the desk first and see what I could make of it.

Before_Desk_Only

I love the combination of white and wood in furniture, so I figured high gloss white Rustoleum would do the trick for the base of the desk and I’d leave the top natural.  First step was to tape paper over the desk top and rough up the metal with sandpaper.

Sanded_Covered

I did all the spray painting outside on a tarp and made sure to take off the drawer handles so only what I wanted white ended up white!  Here’s a shot of how the desk and drawers looked after 3 coats of paint – that’s 2 cans of Rustoleum and some very sore index fingers.

Desk_Sprayed

After letting it dry overnight, I re-attached the handles and took the paper off the desk top and ended up with something a little bit like this!

Desk_After

I couldn’t be happier with how the desk turned out.  Best of all, it’s long enough to spread out all kinds of craftiness on top and shallow enough not to crowd out the guest bed.  This is where the crafty magic happens, people!

Desk_After_Magic

The best part of this whole “flip” was the price.  One free desk + two $3 cans of Rustoleum + one $2 pack of screws to replace the ones I lost = A whole new desk for about $10!

Thanks so much to grandma, grandpa, and mom for coming to visit and helping me get the craft room on its way!  Stay tuned for my upcoming desk chair flip, including a re-upholstering tutorial…

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Great Minds Think Alike

6 Comments
12 Aug, 2009
Meredith
Paint

I will be the first to admit that Stephen and I have been rather hesitant to tackle the behemoth project that is our living room.  The popcorn-ceiling-scraping that we so excitedly tackled in our kitchen, dining room, and never-ending hallway definitely does not sound like fun for this vaulted-ceiling cave of a room.

Before_LR

Nor does taking down the fabulous faux ceiling beams and patching whatever lies beneath or figuring out a way to patch the holes between the drywall and our brick fireplace that our builder so cleverly covered up with wood trim circa 1981.

Those of you who are lucky enough to experience visiting or living through our renovation with us will also be quick to point out that we have yet to settle on a wall color, despite several test paint swatches smattered throughout the living room.  Well, I’ve added another color choice to the mix.  Part of the reason I couldn’t settle on a color (most recently narrowed down to Valspar’s April Thicket and Sage Bud) was that I wasn’t sure if such a teal-y blue would translate in that big of a space.  Would the darker shade be too overwhelming?  Would the lighter feel too pastel?  At the end of the day would Stephen and I feel like we were sitting in a big ol’ aquarium?

Enter the “youngsters” over at Young House Love.  After browsing their House Tour pictures for the millionth time the other day, I realized that I was definitely digging their master bedroom paint color (Glidden’s Gentle Tide).  Now there was a blue that was light and airy, looked good in a relatively large space, and most importantly didn’t make you feel like you were drowning!  Not being a Home Depot girl in general, I decided it was high time I gave the old Depot a chance and checked out what Glidden had to offer.  Glidden’s standard paint colors aren’t the same now as when John and Sherry painted their bedroom, so of course there was no paint chip for Gentle Tide, but luckily all the names of the old Glidden colors are still stored in the computer.  At $3 a sample, I figured it was better to know than not to know if this could be the color for us.  As soon as I got home I added yet another color to our living room walls and sat back to watch paint dry.

The funniest part of this whole experience?  When I was finally sure Gentle Tide was dry, I stepped back and could BARELY tell a difference between it and Sage Bud!

Living_Room_Paint

There may be a touch more blue in Gentle Tide, and in certain lights it looks a bit more bold, but if I didn’t know which sample was which, I’m not sure I could guess correctly!  I guess it just goes to show that we were on the right track in the first place.  Stephen came home and approved Gentle Tide, so it may just be the winner. :)

Now that we’ve been bitten by the R&D (that’s Renovate and Decorate) bug again, we can’t wait to tackle that living room!

Here’s a rough to-do list:
1. Patch small hole in roof from January ice storm
2. Take down faux beams and patch ceiling
3. Scrape popcorn off ceiling, prime and paint
4. Patch or re-trim edges of brick fireplace
5. Paint fireplace, fireplace grate cover and walls
6. Build and stain new mantle
7. New hardwood floors!!!
8. Replace and paint trim

We’ll keep the updates coming as we start crossing things off that list!

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