Back Wall Painting Done

You may remember this post from March when I was quite indignant about getting a $20,000 bid to paint the back of our house. You will also remember that I decided to buy the tools necessary and paint myself. Since that time, we have been sanding, scraping, priming, caulking and painting on the weekends.

Today, I totaled all of the receipts on materials and tools we spent.  We spent a grand total of: $1,792.12!!!  That is over a $18,000 savings for doing it ourself!

Here is our cost breakdown:

House Paint (Benjamin Moore, White Heron, bought at Joseph’s Paint)    $323.06

Primer (Valspar Exterior primer, bought at Lowes) $213.30

Paint brushes and caulk $39.82

2 Wagner paint eater sanders and 8 discs $251.04

Graco paint spray gun and tips $300.00

Scaffolding rental $664.90

Now, we are done! This past weekend, we finished up cleaning the paint overspray from the windows, caulking the windows so they won’t rattle (YAY), and painting the window trim.  Thankfully, that was the last bit needed until we could really call this house DONE!

Of course, I have painting the shed, backyard landscaping and some other spiffy things up my sleeve. But, as far as the house…inside AND out, we are DONE!

DIY utensil holder

Spring is in the air and summer will soon be here. Time for outdoor parties and summer BBQs. I ran across this adorable utensil holder idea here on Put It In a Jat and was inspired to make my own. Normally, I collect links and ideas with the hope that I will one day remember to do any of them. :). This time was different.

I remembered that I had a wood basket type caddy sitting in my giveaway pile and I have an embarrassingly huge collection of jars…old and new. Combine that with leftover spray paint and chalk tags from another project, I had a basically free utensil caddy.

Before:

After:

While digging through my pile of misc junk in the attic, I ran across another wood caddy. I now have plans to put all of the old bottles we found in the attic and other misc. bottles Steven has collected, in this caddy and display it on the living room coffee table. More to come on that later.

What I’m working on now is a long post regarding our front landscaping showing the realtor walk through pictures to present. Following that will be pictures on our Last Project (eeeek!), which is painting the back of the house. I can’t believe that we are completing the very last project on our six page list!!!

Stay tuned!!!!!

Spiffing things up

I think I am just going to turn this into a picture blog…hahaha.  I have lots of pictures to share, but nothing cute to say.  The last three months we have spiffed up a few rooms including updating Alex’s room. Taking him from toddler to little boy room. I also brought down an iron bed we had in the attic for Lillian. For some unknown reason, she has always hated her little twin size platform bed.  I got it because it was low to the ground and she could get in and out of it easily. Anyway, she loves her new full size “big girl bed”.

I updated the front porch by putting new plants in the boxes and making spring wreaths. I am not a pastel gal, so I used turquoise and brown/burlap (Thanks Steven for the suggestion!). I also made a wreath for the back porch.

Back Porch

I bought some gerbera daisies and impatiens a couple weeks back, but I didn’t pay attention to the weather and the late frost got them, so I had to toss them out and buy more.  I went to Fads and Frames and bought some gorgeous ferns! Fads and Frames, hands down, has the best plants in town. I also bought more daisies.  In the next few weeks, when it warms up enough, I am going to landscape the rest of the front yard. I can’t wait!

I went to Ikea a week or two back and bought a tall skinny cabinet for the bathroom. I have had trouble with storage in that tiny bathroom. This cabinet worked out great! It looks so clean and streamlined in there now.

I also bought 3 sets of curtains for my gables.  Sometimes I like to leave the lights on upstairs. At night, you can see into our messy attic. So, we put the curtains up last week. I think they make the window look a little more “finished”.

And…….that’s it!  I have called several paint contractors. Only one showed up to quote me. I got tired of scraping and painting, so I was going to hire someone to finish painting the last two back walls of the house. After receiving estimates between $15 and $20k, I decided that I am not that desperate. So, I put an airless paint sprayer in my cart at Home Depot and am going to put some scaffolding on reserve at the local tool rental place and get to work painting again.

The absolute LAST two things we have to do on the house are: Paint the back walls and fix some of the bricks crumbling in a few areas around the skirt of the house. After calling 8 brick contractors over the past month, I actually had someone show up this morning!!!!  I was excited. Now, let’s see if he comes back with a bid. That is always the hardest part. Getting someone interested in your project.  So, I will be back to report whether or not that happens.  You can see the bricks in the above picture around the electrical box that I have stacked up to keep the cats out. I have about 5 places like this that need to be repaired. The man I talked to today is going to give me two quotes. 1) to fix the 5 brick holes; 2) to re-point ALL of the bricks around the entire perimeter of the house.

So, there is your little update on progress of the house.

Andrea

Painted pew

About five years ago, Steven bought me this pew in New Orleans for an anniversary present. I was ecstatic! Now that our floors are refinished, We were able to pull it out, wood glue some of it back together, reinforce it, and get it ready for its new debut in our hall. Steven picked out Moroccan Red by Benjamin Moore in the pearl
finish for the pew (shout out to Joseph’s Paint on Bolton Avenue. BEST customer service—buy local!!!!) and I went to town painting today. Here are the results. I will be back tomorrow with a picture of it installed in the hall.

I was really pleased with how it came out.

Andrea

Dining Room Chairs

For a long time now, we have had folding chairs around our 10 person table. While I thought it was an ok solution for the time being, I really yearned to put “real chairs” around the table. The folding chairs, I bought wedding chair covers for the time being hoping that I could figure out how I could afford 10 dining chairs!!!

Anyway, fast forward a couple years later….I saw a couple pictures on Pinterest where some really crafty ladies have taken mismatched wood chairs and painted them all the same color to unify them. I thought this was a great idea! I had 4 wooden chairs in my shed from a couple people giving them to me. I just had to find 6 more. I called a friend who owns a flea market and she rounded up 6 more chairs. All total, I spent $80 acquiring the chairs.

Pinterest picture:

Now, all I had to do was figure out what color to paint. I really wanted to paint them turquoise, but I worried about it being too bright. I pittered and pattered and pondered….

My mood board and ideas. For accents, I could not figure out if I wanted to do yellow, chartreuse, lime or acid green.  I think I settled on somewhere between chartreuse and lime. 

So, the day I decided to paint, I bought 6 cans of 2x coverage Rustoleum satin black spray paint. I sprayed them all black. I had a gallon of leftover turquoise satin paint from when I painted a room in the house. I intended to leave some of the chairs black and paint some turquoise. Then after it was all said and done, I didn’t like it, so I painted them all turquoise. I am glad I did!

Even though the turquoise is bright, I think the dark color of the room and the other accessories blend in together nicely.

I also had a beautiful medallion my mother in law gave me. It has moved from room to room as we have remodeled and worked. Finally! I am able to give it a home! I painted it a darker turquoise and had my handy hubby hang it over the fireplace. Perfect!

So excited! I can now call my dining room done…errr…ahem…for now! Until I get a hankering to paint again….if you don’t know what I am talking about, click on the tag dining room and see the several transitions it has made. ha!

So, this is how it all came out. I am happy with it!  I repurposed a cream colored metal tub that I had in the attic and painted it navy blue for the flower centerpiece. The flowers were bought from Michaels and Hobby Lobby this week. The two owls were bought at Hobby Lobby. The turquoise bird was one I had. It was green. It got painted 🙂  I am known to paint things to match my room. I usually shop in my attic first before buying anything new and repurposing what I can.   Soon, I am going to post 360 video tours as we have just about finished every project in the house. Hopefully sometime early this Spring those will get posted.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and you got something crossed off your list!

Andrea

Back Porch, just needs a rail

We still need to build and install a rail, but I was able to stain and finish most of the porch work.

The Study Evolution

Just finished putting the last coat of poly on the floor. I’ll be able to move in next week. Yay! These are the pictures of the study evolution from the first being the realtor walk through picture and the last one is from today. I will take more pictures after I move in and get everything settled. But, I love before and after pictures and know you do too. Here you go!

This is the way it stayed until late last year

This is how it looked for the past 5-6 years. The junk/scrapbook room.

Bumped out Vivian’s bathroom, removed the fireplace. It didn’t work. All of the chimneys were removed at some point in the past.

Recycled 100+ year old wood pieces to make a wood interest wall. Plan to put up shelving to house our book collection.

Interest wall stained and polyurethaned

Sanding the floors getting ready for stain and poly

Started staining to see what the color would look like. Minwax Red Chestnut.

The color came out pretty good, nice and even

Time for poly!

Looking pretty good!

Tada!

This picture shows the biggest difference in the floor. Can’t wait until it dries. I am trying hard not to go in there and touch it.

Now, on to refinish the floors in the rest of the house!  This was the “test” room.

Bye bye pink trim!

My favorite project of the day? Heck, of the year???? Drumroll please…… Painting the pastel pink trim! I just now noticed that the trim is ribbons and they turn opposite ways. This is just the start, but I was SOOO pleased just to see this small change. I have decided to trim the entire house in black. I have talked quite a bit about this pink trim. ha! if you search for the word pink you will note that many posts bemoaned the color. I have been whining since 2009The siding will stay white, but the top of the handrail, trim in the dormers, the round windows and some other misc. pieces will soon be black. The pink round trim in the photo above will also be black. Exciting!

Kitchen/Laundry Room Almost Finished

Besides some trim paint and a pantry addition (hopefully a nice built in pantry), I am almost finished with our Kitchen/Laundry project we started back in November 2010.  As you noted from previous posts, it all started with me convincing Steven to lay a new floor.  After we pulled the flooring up and found the old floor plan of the kitchen…the ideas started from there…mostly mine as Steven was still content to just lay the floor.

Below, I will post a few realtor walk through pics, and then the progression of the kitchen over the past year.  However, if you would like to see all of the posts and photos of the Kitchen from the realtor walkthrough to recent posts, click here.

Without further ado, here is what we have been working on!

 

Framing up the laundry roomOh by the way, Steven, can you add a refrigerator alcove? Lol...

Sheetrocking laundry This is where the butler pantry was. We moved it back, now we want to make a built in pantry in this area.

Framing up the laundry room

Sheetrocking laundry

This is where the butler pantry was. We moved it back, now we want to make a built in pantry in this area.

TA DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Overall, I am very pleased.  You can tell that I need to paint the baseboards, they are only primed.  I need to paint the broom closet door and attach it (it is to the right of the refrigerator), I need to paint the laundry room sliding door and add the hardware, and we need to put down threshholds.  Last, but not least, we need to build some kind of pantry behind the door.  Whew….I am tired of this remodel!  It took long enough!  If we ever get through this adoption process, I might spring for a new dishwasher….its a good thing Steven works for GE!  But, first things first…..

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Andrea

A blank slate for Vivian’s new room

Yesterday, I finished cleaning out the spare room.  Viv and I took apart the king size bed and put it out in the hall.  I also attached her fireplace mantel back to the wall.  We also swept it out, cleaned the baseboards and sealed her floor with some kind of special wood wax sealer.  It is a blank slate…ready for Viv to move in!  We have talked about adopting a little girl if all goes well with this adoption.  So, Vivian is always taking about future “sister”.  She wants bunk beds for her and sister to share.  I had a nice surprise yesterday, I posted on FB if anyone was selling a twin bed that I would be interested in it for Alex’s room.  One of my friends, Melendie, posted she had one and brought it to me yesterday.  When I got it home and Steven helped me assemble it, it was a bunk bed!  Hahaha…so…guess what?!  Vivian gets her wish.  We will put the bunk bed in her room and buy a twin bed for Alex’s room.  I have a toddler bed, but we are putting that in our room for him to sleep near us as he will most likely experience separation issues and we want to be close at hand.

I am going to paint Vivian’s bunk bed white, and on each end, there is this neat chain link type material on the bed.  Steven came up with the idea of attaching a chalkboard or memoboard to each end for each of the girls…what a fantastic idea!!!   I had a couple lying around, so immediately grabbed them and measured…they will fit perfect!  Can’t wait to get this baby painted and into Vivian’s room! I also need to paint white a chest of drawers I am going to put in her room. 

I just need to go shopping for Alex…a bed and a chest of drawers to match.  I already have his comforter and pillow set.  I am thinking about doing his room in transportation.  Since I just moved Viv out yesterday, I will have to touch up paint his room and redo his floor to look like Vivian’s.  Then I will be able to move in his furniture and decorate….so exciting!!!!!

Andrea