Music Room: still plugging away...kind of

So I posted these pictures of the music room as it stands today in my post about what we've accomplished this year.

And then I realized I hadn't given any sort of update after painting the floors! *face palm*

If you look at that post, you'll notice I had already painted the walls and ceiling....well, mostly anyway. Can I just go ahead and admit that I'm STILL not done painting in here? *another face palm*

It seems like I got the bulk of the painting done (the walls and ceilings) and lost steam. I've caulked painted about half of the trim. I still have some touch ups to do around the tops of the walls. I got one coat of paint up in the closet....and it's just sat like that...for a couple months now! Obviously, I've done other things in that time, but this painting project is still staring me in the face.

Does this happen to anyone else? It's not like I don't want to finish in here....believe me....I would love to wash my hands and call this room officially D.O.N.E., but I think I'm suffering from remodel fatigue. I've spent the past nine months doing this by myself (hubs has been deployed)....and even though it makes me really proud when I go back and think about all the work I've done this past year with my own hands, I think about everything that's still left to be done and it just stresses my out sometimes.

Whine....snivel.....ok I'm done. Yoga breathing....one foot in front of the other is how things get done.

Anyone else lose steam in the middle of a project and leave it sitting for months? What do you do to get over the hump?

Painting a Concrete Floor

Ok, the floor in the music room is painted and I've been slowly chipping away at the final touches to call this room done, but in the meantime, it's habitable! Hooray!!

So about those floors.....here they are.

Well, the paint was still wet in this picture....it's not shiny at all now that it's dry!

So I already went over the crazy/scary part of painting concrete floors. The rest was easy (excepting maybe waiting 5 days to put anything on said floors while the paint cured).

The first thing I did was use a bonding primer so that the paint would really stick to the concrete. That had to dry for at least 24 hours before the first coat of paint went on. Here's a mid coat picture...

I used Behr's porch and floor paint for this because it was what they recommended at Home Depot. It's really thick and sludgy! And with the color I chose, it looked like (and was about the consistency of) chocolate cake batter coming out of the paint can.

I actually did two coats, because just one left a few spots that weren't completely covered, but since the second coat was so much thinner than the first, I got away with only using one gallon of paint.

Ready for the before and after? Here's the garage as it was when we moved in....

...and here it is (even with a little bit of furniture!)

While things look pretty decent in this pic (which I hurriedly took with my iphone, so it's not the greatest), there's still quite a bit to be done in here. I've still got to bring in a desk, more chairs, make another set of curtains (there's a window on the far wall), finishing touches on the paint....in short, I've still got plenty of work to do!

This is Your Brain on Drugs....

....and this is my floor on acid!

I feel like a little back story might be in order.

So I mentioned here and here that we were planning on (and in the midst of) converting our garage into liveable space that could be used as my music room. Well it's ALMOST done! You can see above that the walls have been painted (though there is some touch up work to do since the baseboards have been installed), the door installed, and baseboard added. What you can't see is the HVAC vent that has been added, the painted ceilings, the closet, and added electrical outlets.

Rather than adding the expense of putting flooring over the concrete, I decided to just paint the floor. At the beginning of this project, this looked like a no brainer. You just roll out the paint on the floor like you do on the walls right?

WRONG.

When I went to actually buy the floor paint, I was informed that because most garage floors are sealed (it's what keeps every drip and drop that comes out of our cars from leaving big ugly stains), I would have to etch the concrete in order to open the pores and get the paint to stick.

So how does one etch a concrete floor? With muriatic acid. Yes, I said acid.

The nice man at Home Depot was nice enough to walk me through the process, but when it came time to actually do this, I have to admit I was pretty intimidated. Acid eats through clothing, skin. It is harmful if inhaled....and besides the possibility of bodily harm, what if it got on something it shouldn't? And muriatic acid (which I have since been informed is a variety of sulphuric acid) is the sizzle and pop kind.

So the process goes like this:

1. Don long sleeves, long pants, shoes you don't care about, and rubber gloves. 
2. Open all the windows and doors so you have good ventilation. 
3. In a watering can, you combine 3 parts water to 1 part acid. I recommend doing this outside so the fumes aren't in your house.
4. This solution gets sprinkled on a section of the concrete (whilst being very careful not to get any of it on your clothes, shoes, skin, etc. Safety first). It will sizzle like an egg in a hot frying pan. It's scary. Just keep going.
5. Push the acid solution around with a broom to make sure you get full coverage.
6. Wait a few minutes.
7. With a mop and a bucket full of plain water, mop up the acid. You will get all kinds of nastiness off your floor that you never knew was there. I had to change the water frequently.
8. Repeat (still working in sections) until you have etched the entire floor.
9. Once the floor is dry, mop with plain water again.

All total (not including drying time), this took me about two hours for a room the size of a one car garage. I barely finished the acid part in time to get ready for school, and did the final mopping when I got home. I still have to prime the floor and then paint it. I'll keep you posted!

Has anyone else ever etched concrete? Was it as scary for you as it was for me?

Painting a Thrift Store Find

I have a seriously embarrassing lack of seating in my house. One of the things about moving from a 900 sq ft apartment to a 1450 sq ft house....you can't fit many chairs in 900 sq ft, but it starts to get embarrassing when I try to have people over now. I shuffle chairs from the dining room to my music room so I and my cello students can have a place to sit. I thought about it the other day....I only had 5 dining-ish chairs. I'm not really sure how I ended up with that odd number, but I decided to remedy the situation.

There is a thrift store not far from the house called Southern Thrift that I've taken to wandering through every so often. Sometimes I don't find anything, sometimes I find something really cool....like this guy.

Now, I know it looks a little worse for wear in this picture, but I figured that for $3 (thanks to the fact that Southern Thrift gives 50% off all furniture every Monday), I could scrape off the K-Swiss sticker, sand it down and give it a fresh coat of paint.

I chose a basic glossy white. The other chairs in the dining room are stained wood, but they were significantly darker stained wood with upholstery (and don't match), and I liked the idea of a little variance. The other thing I chose to do was use spray paint with primer already in it. I'm all about saving work where I can. Some people call it lazy....I like to call it efficient.

I dragged the chair outside, sanded it down and then wiped it down with a damp rag. Once it was dry, I started spraying in thin and even coats (to avoid drips). Here's a picture after the first coat.

It took two full coats, plus a few touch ups. I let it cure for a few days in the garage before bringing it into the house to let the paint harden and to give the paint stink a chance to dissipate. Here's the finished product.

I like the contrast of the white with the darker wood tones and the aqua color on the walls. Have you been painting furniture lately? Tackling other projects? I'd love to hear about them!

Excuses, Excuses and Painting the Potty

Man.....I've let it go another month between posts again. Sorry y'all!

I have a (sort of) good excuse though.....I've been working my tail off. Not at blogging, but with my music. The month of October hit with a vengance. I think I played two or three weddings, sang at a master class (the same day as one of those weddings), performed on the red carpet at the BMI Country Awards (what?!) and performed a solo recital. Whew! I actually have one more thing to do before I can stop, breathe, and take a mental health day (or two or five)....I am auditioning for grad school next week. Because, you know, I didn't already have plenty to do.

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook have already seen this picture, but in case you didn't see it, this is from the BMI gig. Sorry for the grainy image....it was an iPhone picture.

 

And yes....I was playing on a platform that was five feet off the ground. On a ghost chair. In a VERY glittery dress. And don't you just love the calla lilies they used to decorate our music stands?!

Onward.

So before the whirlwind hit, I actually did get a thing or two finished around the house. Like painting behind the toilet....something I had been putting off for way too long.

Back when I painted the bathroom green, I left out one spot. Mostly because I was intimidated and foolishly thought I was going to have to take off the toilet tank to paint behind it. This is what I was left with for the better part of three months.

Not so cool right? Once I finally got sick of looking at it, I started looking online to see how I could remedy the situation and I read that hardware stores carry special tools for painting behind the toilet.

There is no such tool. They looked at me like I had three heads when I asked about this.

So I improvised. I had one of those thin rollers that I could fit behind my toilet, but  I would have ended up with green paint all over the back of it, so I taped a trash bag to the back of the toilet tank and painted away.

Here's everything put back together. Isn't that so much better?!

So what have you guys been up to for the past month? Any cool happenings? Improvisations to share?

Painting My Drop Cloth Curtains

Ok, I've shared how I went about making curtains from drop cloths from the hardware store here and here. I actually made them a couple months ago and lived with them plain for a while to make sure I wanted to go to the extra effort of painting them. Finally, I decided to jump in.

I actually got the idea of using a stencil to paint curtains at this Apartment Therapy post, so I picked up an inexpensive stencil at a craft store, dug out some leftover red paint I had leftover from a painting project at our old apartment, and grabbed some roller covers and a paint tray from the hardware store.

Before I could get to work, I had to clear a large-ish spot in the garage, sweep it (so I didn't get my curtains dirty), and tape down some builders paper left over from this gardening project. Once that was done, I brought my curtains out to the garage (with the door open for ventilation) and got to work.

I lined up and taped down my stencil over the fabric so it wouldn't move around and started rolling. Here's a mid-process shot:

Every so often, I'd have to take the stencil out to the back yard and hose it off so I didn't get smears (got a few of those anyway, but it would have been way worse if I hadn't done this). Oh, and I also tried using an old rag instead of a roller.....the roller works way better, and is much faster.

In total, this probably took an hour. I decided to only do the bottom portion of the curtains instead of the entire thing. My best guess is that it would have taken 3 or 4 hours to do an all-over stencil like this. Anyway, here they are drying.

You can see where I had a little bit of smudging at the top of the pattern. Here's a closeup of the stenciled pattern. I have to say I'm impressed by how cleanly it came out on the whole.

And here they are in all their glory...I'm giving myself mental high fives all over the place. I'm usually not a craft person!

Oh, and the reason I only did the bottom of the curtains? There were a couple. First, there is a convenient seam at bottom-of-window-height that made it a natural choice, but I was also trying to avoid an overload of red. You see, I love red....it definitely qualifies as my favorite color, but the giant area rug under the couch is red, the doormat is red, the front door is red, the toss pillows are red....you see my meaning? There are plenty of other colors in the room to balance this right now, but I am acutely aware that red is one of those colors that is easy to over-do.

Making Canvas Drop Cloth Curtains, Part I

My living room has a whopping huge set of windows. There are three of them, reaching nearly floor to ceiling, and the whole set of windows stretches 11 feet. Figuring out a window treatment for this bad boy was not an easy task!

First of all, I'm really not a fan of blinds. I know they are imminently practical, but I just don't like them. Plus, these windows aren't really recessed enough for blinds. They would stick out from the windows.

I looked for pre-made curtains, but it turns out curtain panels (that are not custom made) are almost always 48" wide.....not even close unless I wanted to spend lots of time futzing with the curtains every time I wanted them open or closed. I am really not a futz-er.

So I went and priced out fabric, thinking to myself "Ok, I'll just make my own, and then I can just sew panels together to create something wider." Then I added up how much fabric I would need and nearly died of sticker shock. I would have needed 11 yards of fabric to make curtains to fit my windows. Even if I got fabric that was $10/yard (and most of the drapery fabric I really liked was more in the $20/yard range), that's $110 just for the fabric. Then I would still have to get thread, and some sort of curtain rod, plus whatever other random hardware, trim, etc. Yikes. This was starting to look like an expensive endeavor.

I considered just leaving the windows bare. They have some reasonably attractive trim around them, and leaving them bare would fit into the style of out mid-century brick ranch. However, this is the room where we hang out in the evenings, which means we are back-lit after the sun goes down. It also looks right out into the street, and I find it a little awkward and unnerving that our neighbors could see our every movement once the sun goes down.

After nearly two weeks of indecision and racking my brain for a solution, I was reading Better Homes & Gardens and happened on a story in which a woman used canvas drop cloths (from the hardware store) to make her curtains. THAT was my solution!

So off to the hardware store I went to find the largest drop cloth I could possibly find (15' x 12'), knowing that I would need to cut it in half and hem it. This cost me approximately $30 (not bad, as opposed to the $100+ I could have spent). I then thought to myself "What if I found a stencil and painted a pattern on them?" And the plan was hatched. Stay tuned. This was a lot of text! Next post about this will have more pictures....promise!

Have you ever had a decorating puzzle like this? What creative solution did you come up with? Do you purchase pre-made window treatments or do you make your own?

Kitchen To-do's

Now that I've shared my kitchen painting expedition, I figure it's time to let you know what else is in store for this room. There is a fair amount of work to be done in here, but at this point, we aren't planning a major overhaul.

SO, in no particular order, here's the plan....

1. Replace the stove with a glass top, energy efficient model. The stove was the only appliance in the kitchen when we moved in and while the oven works great, some of the burners don't (namely the two larger ones). Plus, we'd love to eventually have a sleek stainless model instead of what I'll call "aged bisque" for now.

2. Replace and extend the countertops. The large space where the fridge is supposed to go (ours doesn't fit....my husband eats too much haha) would be much more useable if our counter went all the way to the wall, especially since our kitchen is rather lacking in actual work space. This is pretty far in the future, but we're thinking quartz or possibly granite.

3. Once the counters are installed, we can install a dishwasher (and I'll have a dance party)! I survived three years in Boston without one, and it's really not THAT bad to wash all of our dishes by hand, but dishwashers are just so darned convenient. Also, we already have a dishwasher (gifted to us by some friends who found out they were moving mid-kitchen renovation), so we don't even have to buy one!

4. Install a shelf or two in the extra vertical space left in the fridge nook. This will give us a nominal amount of pantry space in the kitchen that currently does not exist (our pantry is in the basement. I love it. It's huge!).

5. Figure out a better situation for the fridge.

It's huge...it may mean closing up the pass through into the living room(that may have been intended as a dining area) and widening the door to make up for the loss of natural light, though we only get part of that natural light right now because the fridge blocks it anyway. We shall see.

 

 Any big plans for your kitchen? Hope everyone has had a good week!

Painting the Kitchen

Our kitchen seems to be the one room in the house (besides the basement) that doesn't get a ton of natural light. I am sure the dead-body-beige paint that was there when we moved in didn't help. Here's what it looked like when we moved in (and until yesterday)....is it just me?

I don't have anything against the color beige, but this specific color combined with the fact that it is flat paint seemed to just suck in all the light. Yesterday, I decided to do something about it.

I had nearly a full gallon of paint left from painting the dining room, and since one of the dining room walls extends into the kitchen, it seemed like a natural move to paint the kitchen the same aqua color as the dining room.

I already had all the painting tools I needed leftover from other painting projects, so this was a buy-nothing project (my favorite kind). Satin paint (to reflect light, rather than suck it in), paint brushes, edger, roller, paint tray and painters tape were the only supplies I needed, and they were sitting in the garage waiting for me, and since I didn't have anything else to do yesterday afternoon, I decided to get to work.

I started by removing all the light and outlet covers, the knife rack, clock, etc. from the walls, plus doing some general rearranging so I had easy access to the two-plus-a-tiny-section walls that needed painting. Oh...and remember the lime green I found under the outlet covers when I painted the bedroom? I think the paint I found under the outlet covers in the kitchen might beat it.

Oh....and the ceiling was once painted yellow also. How do I know? I made the mistake of looking up behind the cornice over the sink.

With my nominal amount of prep work done, I started painting. I like to start with edging because I think roller over brush stroke makes a smoother texture transition than the other way around. Once that was done, I started in with the roller.

Also, I thought I was going to have to call in reinforcements to move the refrigerator away from the wall, but it's actually on wheels, so it's pretty easy to move by myself.

Anyway, here's the end result. I think the aqua really makes my red kitchen stuff pop.

It also makes the cabinets look brighter.

So what do you think? Not so bad for a free project and about an hour and a half of my time! What did you tackle this weekend?

Just Call Me DaVinci, Part III

Ok, I think I officially deserve a break from painting for a little while. My latest project: the master bedroom.

The bedroom was painted tan, just like the rest of the house. I discovered why the house was painted right before being put on the market. When I removed the light switch and outlet covers, this is what I discovered.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, that is lime green. Almost neon. Yikes.

My goal in this room is to create a light, airy, soothing feel, so I decided to go with a lighter shade of the aqua that is in the dining room...almost white with a very slight aqua tint. I also decided to tackle this two walls at a time, mostly because it was way easier to move the stuff away from two adjacent walls (an L, if you will), take down curtains, remove outlet covers, paint, and edge and then repeat on the other side of the room. Here are things halfway done. Observe the chaos.

Actually, it was more chaotic when I moved the furniture on the other side of the room, since there was more furniture there, but that's ok. You get the idea.

After dealing with all the tape in the dining room, and not really wanting to have to tape off this whole room, I broke down and bought an edger to do the tops and bottoms of the walls as well as around doors and windows. Can I just say.....sooooo much easier than taping! This wouldn't have worked with the panels in the dining room, but made things go way faster this time around.

Anyway, here's the finished product.

 

That first picture made me realize I really need to do something to cover the box spring. It's pretty hideous. Also, I have quite a list of to-do's for this room. Not that there's really all that many to-do's, they just seem like big ones!

• Find a place to put some closet space (the original owner turned the closet in this bedroom into the stairwell to the basement after he dug it out of the crawlspace...a story for another day). These will probably be Ikea wardrobes, but we shall see.
• Get a new (queen-sized) bed.
• Move the current bed and my dresser into the guest room (which is currently my music room until we can get the garage renovated).

Have you tackled any painting projects lately? I'd love to hear about them!

Just Call Me Davinci, Part II

I don't think I've shared this previously, but when we moved into this place, the entire house (except the wood paneled dining room) was painted tan.

Now, I don't have anything inherently against the color tan, but there are definitely more exciting colors out there. Plus, sometimes it just doesn't fit. Case and point: our bathroom.

This is what it looked like when we moved in.

Believe it or not, I actually like the crazy-colored tile (not what I would have chosen, but it's here and I figure I might as well go with it!), but the dead-colored beige made it look a little out of place.

Not wanting to bust this lovely tile out, I started scheming what I could do to make it "fit" I thought about painting the walls a bright white, but didn't think that would make the tile look any better. Then I had the thought of finding a green that would blend with the green color in the tiles!

With that plan hatched, I went hunting for the perfect green color and (with no reference besides my memory) came up with these:

The chips on the right ended up a little too much on the blue side of things, but the ones on the left ended up being perfect.

Now, keep in mind, I wasn't trying to match the tiles exactly, and the "Greenbelt" (middle left) was the same tone, but a little lighter than the darker green, and a little darker than the lighter green. I also liked that it was a little but higher drama than the one just lighter. Here's my end result:

What do you think? BIG difference right? The tile actually looks like it belongs there now!

I'm still debating whether to paint the wood trim white. The plan is to rip out that hideous sunflower sink that takes up nearly the whole room (and makes it really difficult to get through the door) and replace it with a white pedestal sink. I'd also like to put in a light with multiple bulbs and a white, water-saving toilet. The (yellow) one that's currently here is really old and must use 10 gallons every time you flush! Lastly, we either put in a medicine cabinet, or I will paint the frame of the current mirror white (it was hanging in the living room in the old apt).

Next up? The master bedroom! Told you I've been doing a lot of painting haha.

Just Call Me DaVinci, Part I

Actually, don't....I'm really a terrible visual artist. I can't even draw stick figures without them looking deformed. However, I have been painting....a lot.

I started in the dining room. This room has a large glass sliding door that looks out into the back yard, and my original thought was to paint it some shade of sage-ish green to make it feel sort of like a garden room. I grabbed a bunch of paint chips, taped them to the wall so I could see them in the varied lighting throughout the day, and began narrowing things down.

Once I got things narrowed to about five different chips, I called in the hubby (mostly to make sure he didn't hate any of the ones I was liking...it definitely helps narrow things down!). Wonder of wonders, he actually zoomed right in on a color and said "I like this one." So that's the color I went with. I was surprised he picked the one color that was actually aqua instead of green (it's called "Aqua Smoke"...by Behr if anyone is interested).

By the way, here's what the dining room looked like before I started painting.

 

First of all, that's a lot of knotty pine!! Second, it was really bothering me that all of the wood (floors, walls, built ins) were all the exact same color! It made the room feel a little on the bland (and orange-ish) side...

So I got to painting. Let me just say, even with the help of some friends, this project took a looooong time! The grooves between the panels are actually quite ornate, which meant they all had to be done by hand, with a tiny triangle-shaped brush. It took two coats, plus touch ups to get those grooves done. Here's a closeup shot of the grooves (after paint...call it a teaser), just so you can see the level of detail.

 Fortunately, the flat parts could be done with a roller.

After nearly a month of work (a few hours here and there....not constant work!) This room is finally done! At least with the painting haha. Here are the after pictures....

I really love the amount of natural light this room gets, and you can actually tell now! Before, I felt like I needed to turn the light on every time I walked into the room...even in the middle of the day. Now it's fresh and bright.

There are a few more things I need to do before I can really consider this room "done". You can see some boxes in the picture above...I have nowhere to put my pretty china! Boo! I need to invest in a china cabinet. I also need to find some more dining room chairs as I currently only have five (and two of them are currently in the music room). I'd really like to put a great chandelier in this room....I think it would be gorgeous. I also need to hang some art on the walls and maybe add a side table or something. This is a large room, and it's currently pretty empty!

So this is my first painting project in the house....next up, the bathroom!

An updated plant shelf

I can't remember if I've put this in any pictures yet, but I have a bookshelf (built by my father years ago) that I re-purposed as a plant shelf last year (because it's a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a plant stand). I painted it, but it was looking a little worse-for-wear

So I decided to repaint it. I started by cleaning the pieces off really good, letting them dry and sanding down the rough spots where the previous paint was peeling. I found a bright red spray paint at Home Depot for about $3 per can. Here is the paint I used:

Once the pieces were dry from their hose down and wipe off, I set to work.

As you can see, I tried to avoid painting the driveway red as well by putting down some trash bags. As you can see from the picture above, I should have covered a larger area....oops. Anyone know how to get paint off of asphalt?

After two-ish coats of paint, I let the pieces sit until the following afternoon before stacking them together. Et voila!

I will probably let them sit for another day before I actually put anything on them, just to make sure the paint is all cured.

What do you think? Have you re-purposed items from your home in your garden?