Hello Kitties give a tour

Helro I'm Kitty. No, I'm Kitty. And we're going to give you a tour of the new guest room.



First, let's revisit what the room use to look like before Keith and Anita moved in!

Before: 2006 - Previous owner - Traditional, forest green molding and white walls. Very un-kitty friendly. But that basket looks like a kitty place to sleep.


After we moved in! Yippee! Bright teal and deep, rich cherry brown. Wow! But a little bright on these kitties' eyes, don't cha think? And a little too cramped for the 4 of us.


Now: Light and airy. Keith and Anita moved into the other bedroom and gave us this bedroom! Hooray! And look! There we are!


And now back to Anita to finish the tour while we enjoy our new room.


Inspired by Pottery Barn, I sewed the paisley patterned duvet cover. The sheets are super soft too. 360 thread count by Sutton Park from Ross. They look baby blue, but they are actually teal which lends a contemporary look.


Next to the bed is a wicker shelf taken from the porch furniture. Here it's being used as a night stand/book shelf. I love the way it looks because it adds charm to the room.


The opposite side of the room.


Lamp-yard sale find $7, 1940 French style mahogany table-Craig's List, Wicker waste basket-Ross $4, New light switch plate-$6 Lowe's.


Bird & Cherry Blossom hot plate - $1 at Goodwill. It's pretty and acts as a coaster.


I was going for a contemporary look in this room, but it naturally evolved to a more traditional style. It looks so peaceful and soothing that I just want to put my head down and stay here forever.


We hope you enjoyed the tour!

Bed Cover Sewing Project

If you're looking for me, I'm not at home. I'm in the garden! :D

So besides spending every waking moment in the garden, I'm working on finishing up our bedroom. We installed a swing arm lamp, put up some picture frames (photos on order), and now I'm sewing a bed cover. Here's a sneak peak:

Productive Weekend

We did lots this weekend! Taking advantage of the warm weather, I cleaned up all around the yard. I painted the chair rail and touched up the paint in the hallway.

At Walmart, we picked up these curtain rods from Better Home & Garden. The quality isn't great, but for something that is just going to hang there, it does not matter. I wouldn't recommend them for heavy drapes.

Keith put them all up and I put up a pair of shears. It makes the room look so romantic now.



Next, I will sew a valance for each window.

We've Moved!!!

...our bedroom.

Keith and I thought it would be really practical to send each other loves notes via paint. Here he is responding to my message on the same wall from 2 years ago.



So we moved from the medium sized bedroom into what was my office/guest bedroom, which is the largest bedroom in the house. Although this is the largest room, we used the medium bedroom as a master bedroom because of our bedroom furniture. This room was awkward in wall space and we wanted to keep the bedroom set together.



Finally, we decided enough was enough. Why are we not using the largest room in the house? Why are we living around our bedroom furniture? We split the bedroom set up: Bed and tall dresser in this room. Armoire and night stand in the other room. This way, it looks as though both rooms are fully furnished, but they really one set.



Before Pic: I went to Home Depot last night and randomly chose a color. It's "Light French Gray" by Behr. It's a blue toned gray color. At first, it looked a bit like Periwinkle which had me worried. After it dried, you could see the gray blue.



Retail is down, so I got this mirror for $7 (originally $26)



We brought the love seat up to create a little sitting nook in the bay area of the room.



Now, to clean the other room...

Little Black Dress

Drapes are to Windows as Dresses are to Women. For a year and half, our naked windows have been staring at me begging me to take them dress shopping I have wanted to, but I don't feel like I can do the windows until the tone of the living room as been set. I know...I feel incredibly guilty because there's a ton of infiltration and heat loss through those windows, which is only jacking up our heating costs, our dependence on oil and working against the environment.

For my birthday last week, we went to Jomar to find some inexpensive fabric for drapes. We didn't walk out of there with anything for drapes, but we did get 20 yards of fabric for sheers. Jomar was having a sale so it was just $1/yard. On average, it can be anywhere from $2-$5/yard for sheer material. Since we have so many windows, we needed at least 30 yards, so every penny counts.

Since we had no luck at Jomar, we hit up the JCPenney Outlet at the Franklin Mills Mall which always has home stuff at really affordable prices. For one panel, drapes can cost around $25-45. For the bedroom, we found these on clearance for $12.99 for 2 panels! We were thrilled! They are similar to my bridesmaids' dresses. It's a gray-blue with a yellow undertone. I think I am going to go back to the store to find yellow/gold sheers to go underneath them which will pick up the colors in our accent pillow.



It's great for the winter, but might be too "heavy" for the summer. In contrast, I had another idea to use sheer material with a dark brown flocked floral pattern on it. It's going to be harder to find material like that though. Since our bed is in front of a window, I wanted to camouflage it a bit by creating a crown and have the fabric drape down like a canopy.



I'm not sure what to do with these walls. I'd like to add sconces.



This wall is really large and I really don't know what to do with it. Sconces would be too small and frames might be awkward with how rectillinear the mirror is.



In that far corner, I'd like to put a tall green plant and a new lamp. I'd like to replace the ceiling fan with a nice chandelier too, but the ceiling fan is actually pretty handy in the summer. There's no need for us to turn on the AC when it's just the two of us in one room.

Painting 101

July 1st, 2006 - Painting 101

Materials:
Tape ($5), rollers ($5-9), roller stick ($12), primer ($14), ceiling paint ($$), paint brushes ($$) , plastic drop cloth ($1.79), Paint ($25)

"I LOVE YOU" on the wall - PRICELESS

1. Clean and vacuum any dirt and particles. Prepping the room will relieve you of any mishaps while painting. ie. dust particles sticking to your brush and getting under the paint. Unscrew all wall plates.
2. Putty up any holes and cracks. Dry over night and sand. Vacumn and clean again.
3. Lay plastic down . I really didn't need it all over. I just put some down to lay my tools on. Gather all your materials together.
4. Tape along the floor using 3" Painter's Tape.
5. Prime any areas with dark colors and areas that required putty. It may take 2-3 coats.
6. If the ceiling needs painting, start with that first.
7. Paint the trim using a 2" angled brush.
8. Paint along all the edges, ceiling, floor, and corners about 3" in. It's worth the time to do it this way. The results will look much better. I found it easier to do free hand.
9. Then the easiest part, paint the walls! Make touch ups with a brush. If paint drips onto the floor, wipe it immediately with a DRY rag/paper towel. (Water will cause it to spread) These pictures are of the Master Bedroom. The forest green trim in the Before picture required 3 coats of primer and sanding helps the paint adhere to the dark trim.
The color we used for the trim is Behr: Swan wing. It's a creamy white. The color of the wall is Behr: Rain Washed. It's supposed to be a Teal color, but looks very baby blue. I would've prefered a more neutral color like Tan or Taupe, but Keith wanted a blue color so "we" compromised.
Is it me because I don't SEE the compromise? :)