Face Plate Update

After painting the living room, I got busy putting the switch plates back on. You know, the face plate cover things on the light switches. And I put our old cover back on and realized we had a problem: our fresh new paint job was set back about 30 years...

So I pulled the cover off thinking about replacing the cover. Then I realized for a few more dollars I could replace the entire switch so that both the switch AND the cover could be bright white and fresh. It was actually pretty easy.

I would give you a step by step, but I just did it the simplest way I could. I went to Lowe's and bought new switches and covers. You don't buy a 'double switch' if the hole has two switches, you just buy two single switches and one 'double' switch cover. Does that make sense? I should have taken more pictures.

Key part is making sure you know what you are doing with the electricity and wiring. Always turn the breaker off to the area of the house you are working in. And make sure to buy the correct switch: there are 'single pole' switches for when one switch controls one light, and there are 'three way' switches for when two different switches control one light. 

I found this handy video from Home Depot to show you guys the entire 'how-to.' But really I want to show you the difference it made in the looks of the house. Fancy and new right??

Here's the switch on the other side of the room. Check it out. Old dated house that simply got new paint...

Here's a close up...

...to Wow this is like a brand new living room right? (Just ignore the shiny gold door knob).

But really though I was impressed. We had to purchase one single cover, one double cover, one single pole switch and two three way switches and it ended up costing less than $15. Took less than half an hour to install. 

So the living room is looking fancy now... unless you open the door to the 'hello wood paneling and blue linoleum floor' kitchen :) I like it either way...

Happy Monday. 

Look What my Husband Did

So while I was working on the house, by husband stopped by a garage sale on his way to work. He bought me the most romantic thing ever...

A lawn spreader and two cans of chalkboard spray paint! (You think I was kidding about the 'romantic' part?)

No one knows me like my man. I really started jumping up and down when I opened the door and there were these mysterious gifts on my porch.

These Scott's spreaders are like $75 at Lowe's right now. This particular one is only a year old and was only $15. Which is why I love garage sales... and Kyle Hess..

Happy Friday. Tomorrow's Saturday... that means you could go to a Garage Sale tomorrow :) Do it! At least while the weather's still nice and springy!

twenty-six

Yesterday I turned twenty-six.

No one called me at work this year and told me I had tuberculosis.

It was a good day.

I am truly blessed: family, friends who are like family, the Lord and His goodness and grace.

Happy My Birthday. Hope you enjoy it too.

Moonshine Living Room

After months of choosing colors, rechoosing colors, picking out color samples, testing color samples and good ole procrastination... the living room has been painted!

The room may not look completely different in the pictures, as we went from an off white to a pretty neutral light gray, but in person it makes all the difference. Really. See this is what it looked like before...

And then this is what it looked like a few minutes later, after Kyle and I pushed everything to the middle of the living room. There really is no need to actually move furniture out of the room unless you're painting the ceiling or floors. We just made enough space near the walls for painting.

I wiped down the walls, removed the electrical outlet face plates and switch covers, and then I taped the nails and hangers from the gallery wall. Since I just put the gallery wall up, I didn't want to take out all the hardware just to paint. So I taped it off. Worked out quite well.

I also taped around the curtain hardware rather than removing it from the wall. Since it is screwed to the wall, removing the screws and then trying to replace them may lead to a not-so-sturdy hold. And while I prefer to 'cut in' around the trim and ceiling, I did cover the tops of the blinds bracket with tape, just in case I dripped. We paid too much for those blinds to get paint all over them. And while I could have removed the blinds, they were heavy and Kyle was at work...

My most difficult challenge was the new office board. Since I screwed it into the wall, I didn't want to remove it for the same reason as the curtain hardware. So I rigged up a system. I propped the board up on a  floating shelf on a step stool... The floating shelf was made by my dad and will soon be on the wall somewhere in our house... until then it's handy.

I covered the board with a trash bag to protect it from paint...

I taped the bag to the board, but then I ran another strip of tape on the underside where I thought it might be impossible to control a paint brush.

 Taped up the hinges and we were ready to go.

 Supplies ready. Lucky us we have friends that paint too. We bought the new canvas drop cloth from Lowe's and the Premium XL Tight Spots 2" Angle Short Handle brush I got from Sherwin Williams for less than $4 with tax (recommended here).  Everything else was borrowed from a friend: roller, extension pole for roller, roller cover, paint tray, and even the handy paint bucket. The blue tape was sitting on a shelf in my dining room. And I didn't end up using any of the other stuff.

We got our paint mixed at Lowe's in Valspar's Ultra. It's low odor and zero VOC, and it was decently priced. I bought two gallons and ended up using about 1.2 gallons by the time the job was done. We had the paint matched to Benjamin Moore's Moonshine (and I love it!).

I moved the furniture and got my supplies on Friday night so I was ready to go Saturday morning. Saturday I remembered I needed to remove the electrical covers and tape the various challenges, so by the time I actually started painting it was about 10 in the morning.

I rolled on the walls and cut in on the edges. Since it was just me painting I made sure to alternate the cutting in with the rolling quite frequently to keep a wet edge. You don't really want to paint all the trim in an entire room and then go back and roll. I preferred overlapping brush with roller (painting the edges first then rolling and filling it in), rather than rolling a spot and then painting the edges. I felt like I was messing up the rolled on paint when I did roller then brush, because when I brushed back over trying to paint the edges it got sticky... does that even make sense?

With our fancy popcorn ceilings (lol) I was careful cutting in. I've never had great luck with tape and popcorn ceilings.

About 9 hours, two eating breaks, 1 coat, and 1 touch up coat later; I was left with this. Yes it took me a long time, but I'm a little meticulous and a little too OCD to have someone else painting with me. And we have carpet... Crazy, I know. 

 Although it's subtle, it really makes the trim pop. See around the doors where the white trim meets the now gray walls?

 I love it. It makes the room feel years newer. Fresh, updated, ours.

I especially like how the new paint makes the curtains stand out. They look extra white and crisp.

No really, I took a closeup of the curtains...

Great day. Super relaxing for me. And now I just sit in the living room sometimes staring at the walls. Smiling.

Go paint a room. It feels incredible. And it's not as hard as you think...

Happy Monday.

Moonshine Sneak Peek

Happy Friday!

It's nice to be back to the blog after the break, but my little computer wasn't as happy. Apparently there were a few viruses or "threats" on the computer. Camera wouldn't upload pictures... long story.

So for today. I did get the computer problems fixed, I did upload the pictures, and I'd love for you to enjoy a little sneak peek of the living room wall painting while I get everything in order...

It was kind of crazy. And I love the walls; I like to call them "subtle" to sound fancy. But really they're just gray or Moonshine to be exact.

Other treat because it's the weekend: Look what I found on our apple tree!

Blooms! And there are plenty more too! Repeat after me (like my kiddos at school) "and flowers turn into fruit and seeds!" #birdsandbeesforprek #ilovemyjob

Happy Friday! Back on Monday with the details on the living room. Don't miss it.

After a little break...

So maybe our break from the blog was a little bit longer than I planned. But I will tell you, we've gotten sooo much done in the last week and a half. Really. I'll prove it to you.

We painted the living room!

No more procrastinators around here.

We trimmed the hedges, clipped back the trees, finally mowed the lawn, added some flowers, planted potatoes, and made plans for more spray paint...

I'll let you think about how accomplished we are today. And I don't want to overwhelm you with pictures just yet. We'll save that for Wednesday.

Don't want to keep you too long... it is Tax Day.

Happy Monday, make sure your taxes are done. And even if you didn't miss us, we missed you ;)

Back on Wednesday

There was no post on Wednesday. Sorry about that. But maybe you didn't notice, you probably have no idea really.

But this is the only post for Friday, and Monday will be empty as well.

I've got a wonderful community of ladies that are working together for good. We're reading and sharing and loving together and it amazes me about how much we're learning. We're trying to be more like Christ and less like the world around us, while still being very relevant in the world and the people that surround our every day lives.

We're learning that maybe Jesus is a little more like the Bible says and a little less what we seem to think of Him sometimes. We put Jesus in a box sometimes, and we're trying to learn more.

So this week will be a little silent. I'll be back on Wednesday, with stories of painting and fixing and maybe a little bit about the things we're learning and doing and loving.

Enjoy the break and as always: Happy Friday.

Easter and the New Living Room Color!

This weekend we were up in Oklahoma visiting Kyle's family for the long Easter weekend. It's been a long time since I've had off for Good Friday so we trotted off to Norman for some good ole Easter family fun. And I'm excited to say that a little crafty fun this weekend inspired me to finally choose our living room color!

There are a few more kiddos up in Oklahoma with Kyle's family than down in Louisiana with my family. Let's just say me and my brothers and sisters and cousins are 'the grand kids' and on one side there are no 'great-grand kids' and on the other side none of the 'great-grand kids' live in the state of Louisiana. While we have our fair share of fun, it usually doesn't include dyeing Easter eggs or hunting Easter eggs anymore. Although after our weekend in Oklahoma, I think I'm going to recommend we start doing both again in Louisiana... kids or no kids...

Anyway, we had lots of good times in Oklahoma and I'll share all of the pictures later, but I wanted to tell you about the egg dyeing. It was 'for the kids' but the adults were allowed to participate too.

I whipped out the ole rubber cement and made a little tiger-striped egg. It's real easy, just 'fling' the rubber cement drips across the egg on all sides, let dry, dip the eggs in dye. Let dry, remove rubber cement: presto, tiger stripes. Maybe I'll do a little tutorial later. It may not be the most kid friendly because of the fumes, but I don't have kids so I didn't think of that... until my nephew tried to sniff the jar. Oops.

I whipped out the 'magic crayon' method too. My mother-in-law had a clear crayon we used that came with the egg dyeing kit, but growing up we just used a white crayon. I was sneaky and wrote my youngest nephew's name on the egg without him seeing and handed it to him to dye. A few minutes later he pulled out a green egg with his name 'magically' written on it. I made a similar egg that said "I Love Kyle" and handed it to my husband, but he wasn't as fooled. How did he ever figure me out?? :)

I was pretty impressed with the colors of the eggs, the selection of colors and the ability to really create any design using moth the rubber cement and crayon techniques.... and it got me thinking about the living room...

See the paint on our walls really is in great shape; they painted the house right before we moved in. The problem is simply the color: it's a 'dirty' off-white. But then I thought about how the eggs were off-white when we started with them too right?

I could pick the perfect color and beautiful blend if I 'water colored' or 'dyed' the walls! I could stencil a design in rubber cement and the pattern would be left white after the dye. Or I could dye the wall first, then apply the rubber cement, and then apply the second color and get a two-tone design. Maybe that green or even the blue. With such a large living room we could even do multiple colors on the different walls.

Paint color problem solved! Imagine it!

Or maybe it's just an April Fools joke. :)

No one in their right mind would stencil an entire living room in rubber cement, right? The fumes! But I will tell you those pretty egg colors may just pop up when we accessorize the room.

But not the wall, no, not the wall.

Hope you had a good Easter, we really did have a great weekend (that wasn't part of the joke) and we really did dye eggs. More to share about Easter weekend and the reveal of the real wall color coming soon. No kidding ;)

Happy April First.