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Farmhouse Dining Room

November 8, 2013 by 1 Comment

We’ve been in our house 4 months now and I haven’t painted a single wall, until now.   So while the husband was away hunting for the week, I had asked my mom to come stay for a week so I could start a few projects.  I wanted to start with our dining room.  It will probably be the easiest room being I already have the right furniture and I knew where everything would go.

The previous colors weren’t bad, just a little too much dark green for me.  I brought home a TON of different paint samples from yellows, to tans, to grays.  My husband, Jason, always says it’s “my” house being I never let him decide on the decorating part.  So this time I gave him my samples and told him to pick the color.  I honestly had 2 different colors picked out but he actually picked a color out!!  I was so proud of him, I had to go with the color he chose.

Here are a few before pictures.

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Here is the after!

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Jason was completely against painting all the trim.  It is NOT at all the original trim to our 90 year old house and none of the trim throughout the house is the same wood.  So, for contrast, I left some of it unpainted and painted the rest.

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I added this nice cabinet for our little collections.  Post on that later.

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The settee is a rental piece, but I didn’t want it outside in the shop due to dirt/dust.  So it fits nicely here for now.

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This is my husband’s piece.  A very neat old stove.

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Love our coffee station.  The card catalog my in-laws made just makes this a perfect spot in the mornings.

 

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Who doesn’t love a little Diet Dad’s root beer sign?

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I didn’t paint the french doors.  I’m hoping at a later time, I can actually remove all the paint and have them wood.  I believe these may be original to the house.

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I chose to stick with the lighter colors in the room and having the black and wood tone furniture.  I love how it all sort of plays together.  I still have some tweeking to do.  Still need curtains for the large sliding glass door in the room.  I was thinking a burlap???  And I would like to have a small shelf made or some hooks under the large black mirror.  And one day find a new light fixture.  But for now, I love the turn out of it.  The rest is just small tweeking stuff.

Now on to the living room and kids’ bedrooms.  And a sneak peek of Jason’s “den”.

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Hope you enjoyed!

Sondra

 

Filed Under: Before and Afters, Blog, Home, The Farm Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bathroom Makeover

March 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Lately I feel like I’ve been sailing on auto pilot.  Life has been super busy getting the house ready for it’s debut for the market.  We have been frantically finishing up projects that just haven’t been 100% completed.

I have to be honest, (and sure hope I speak for most here)….Hello, my name is Sondra.  I’m a procrastinater!  First step, is admitting you have a problem.  Done!  Next step, trying to fix it….getting there.   Our downstairs bathroom needed a major makeover.   We set a plan to finally get to it when we had some leaky pipes which caused the start of some mold on the wall directly behind the vanity.  So, awhile ago (I refuse to admit when but some of you already know) we started the tear out.  I had a vision for most of it, and other things I just went with the flow.  Here are a few before pictures.  Please brace yourselves.

 

 

I wanted to try and save the vanity at least but had too much mold on the back.  Don’t be jealous of the pink wallpaper now.  Now we are completely finished and love it and going to move!  I really need to stop procrastinating things like this!  Here’s the after pictures.

 

I have never owned a tiled shower before and let me say, I love it!  The water just sounds so peaceful.  My hubby did a fabulous job with all the trim and small cuts that were involved.  Throughout the house, we have oak trim and doors but really wanted the bathroom to have white.  I really like the mixture of the 2 together in the bathroom.  The room is actually very small but after taking out the huge vanity and adding more lighting really makes it seem much larger.  I also took away the mirrored medicine cabinet which hubby disagreed with.  However, it would have looked bulky with the pedestal sink.

We sure learned a lot being this was our first bathroom remodel.  And I know the hubby can’t wait until we buy a new home and tear out the next bathroom!  At least I hope the next owners will enjoy it.

 

 

 

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My Galley Kitchen

February 19, 2013 by 2 Comments

Our house was built over 30 years ago and is apart of the greater cookie-cutter division in our neighborhood.  Most of these houses were thrown up with very little quality.  Our neighbor’s house, looks exactly like ours with the exception that they’re different colors.  With that being said, our house got to be one of the lucky ones with a galley kitchen.

I have to be honest, I HATED galley kitchens.  I didn’t like their layout, I didn’t like the look, and they seem so small.  However, with the decision to sell the house without doing a huge tear down of the biggest eye-soar in the house, came the plan to repaint anything that stood still.  Someone else is going to need to look at this galley kitchen and like it, right?

I got everything painted and replaced that needed it.  On my 3 page list of things-that-NEED-to-be-done before the house goes on the market was to paint the ceilings.   This is by far one of the biggest jobs that the house needed due to the open floor plan of the kitchen, dining area, living room, and hallways.  (Ughhh!!)

But this past weekend, the hubby and I got it done!  The ceilings look great and my new can lighting in the kitchen looks AMAZING!  I even found hardware (finally) for the cabinets.  Here’s a refresher of what the kitchen looked like before…

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Be honest!  Did you just shreak!?  How about snicker??  I sure do every time I look at these before pictures.  Would you buy a house with a kitchen that looks like this??

Finally, my ‘DONE’ pictures are here.

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This kitchen makeover has really changed my way of thinking when it comes to galley kitchens.  Even though it could really use some more counter space, I am really happy with the way it turned out.  I keep asking myself why I didn’t do this 5 years ago when we acquired the house!  When we met with our realtor, she even made comments about loving how bright it is!

Our dining room really got the ‘galley’ part as well.

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Instead of adding new cabinets for more pantry space, I found this AMAZING cabinet from the early 1900′s that fits perfectly in the corner and adds a ton of room for pantry stuff.  Sorry friends, too many have asked to buy it from me but I am heavily attached to it!  ;)

Sondra

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Tutorial on Painting Kitchen Countertops

January 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Just before Christmas, I had decided that our not-so-lovely kitchen needed a little makeover.  We are selling our house so the option to gut out just didn’t make sense for us.  So I had decided to put my ideas and painting skills to work!

Here are the before pictures…

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Horrific!  Not something a potential buyer might be attracted to, huh?

So the obvious need-to-be changed project was the cabinets.  They are just too dark for my taste.  I started out by painting those.  I then looked into coutertops.  As you can see we don’t have a lot of countertop space, so I was thinking we would just simply replace them.  Much to my surprise, the cost to replace them was $800 and up!!!  I couldn’t believe it!  Needed a plan B because that amount was NOT in the budget.

I did some research online and through the stores.  I did find the most popular, Rust-Oleum.  However, I came across a couple of blogs of people who had actually used and tried this brand as well as regular priming and painting, but all seem to have something negative to say about the durability.  I wasn’t ready to spend over $100 on Rust-Oleum nor just paint over if it will only scratch, can’t put appliances on them, or etc.

In my research I came across Giani Granite.  It is a kit you can buy in multiple colors, and is supposed to make it look like granite.  The cost was great and it was only going to take 2 days to do.  AND they had tons of great videos and tutorials to help you apply.  They really make it dummy proof.  It comes with 4 cans and all labeled, step 1, 2, 3, and 4.   In my area, not a single store that I could find sells it.  So I had to order it online.  Only $80!!  I got the Sicilian Sand color.   I have to say, I was a little skeptical because I haven’t heard of this being used very much.  But the price was right, it seemed easy enough, so why not try it.  Worse case scenario, we were going to spend the $800 and get new countertops.

I didn’t plan on making a tutorial out of this, so I didn’t take a lot of pictures.  My instructions are very vague but I will post a link to the Giani Granite website and their tutorial below as well as a tutorial from Gail from My Repurposed Life.

1. First you clear off the countertops and clean them really well!

2. Tape off EVERYWHERE!  I taped off by my fridge, stove, walls, freshly painted cabinets, around my sink, and added plastic to the floors.

3. Add the Black Primer

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So much better already!!  No more orange countertops.

4. Now is the fun part, sponge painting.  There are 3 different colors and you can practice before applying on how you want your look to be.  For my case, I started painting and was done.  Then I noticed the very first counter I did didn’t look the same as all the others!  So I tried to “fix it” and then it really looked different!  (Awwwhhhh!!!)  But then my hubby came to look at it and really liked what I did to “fix it” so I just re-painted all the countertops.

5. Sand down lightly with sandpaper that they recommend to get that nice smooth feel.

6. Apply the Top Coat.  Then you have to wait 3 days to really use them in any way.  And a full 2 weeks for them to completely cure.

And now, beautiful granite looking countertops.

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The top coat gives them a really nice shine to it.  I had done this to my kitchen in November and now almost 3 months later, they still look amazing!  We’ve baked cookies on them, cleaned them, have small appliances on them, etc.  We use them like we would any countertop surface.  I did put a couple of small scratches due to a sharp surface on the bottom of our toaster (that I was unaware of) but the company had contacted me and said it’s very easy fix.  Take some leftover paint, sand the area first, re-sponge paint, then apply a little of the top coat again.  Very easy quick fix.

I really love this product and for only $80 I have to say I am impressed!

Gail from My Repurposed Life has a great Giani Tutorial on her site with lots of pictures.  She had done the same to transform her countertops as well.

For more information on Giani Granite go to http://www.gianigranite.com/learnhowcountertoppaint.html

 

Sondra

 

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