The Yellow Door

Recently my good friend Jenny asked me what paint finish I used to paint our front door and it got me thinking this might be a relevant post for new home owners or those looking to give the front of their house a face lift.  As always, anytime I start a project I always Google it and see what others have to say.  You can modify according to what you want/need.

-STEP 1- CHOOSE A PAINT COLOR, FINISH AND PRIMER.  Seems simple enough right?  Wrong.  Well, wrong if you're as indecisive as me!  Choosing yellow took some time to get it right (first try = school bus yellow).  Consider how the light will hit your house as it may impact the color.  For the finish, make sure you buy exterior paint.  I personally went with a satin finish and think it's a personal preference.  As for a primer, I chose a gray primer because it's what we had on hand and it worked well in going over a black door. 

-STEP 2- PRIME YOUR DOOR. Find a good quality small foam cabinet/door roller and a brush.  The roller will work great on the larger surface areas and you can use the brush to get into the crevices.  Two coats of primer is what I did, but again depends what color you're going over.  Let the primer dry about 2 hrs between the coats.

-STEP 3- PAINT YOUR DOOR. Wash up that roller and brush and use the same tools for painting.  Once I got my yellow correct, it still took me 3 coats.  I probably could've been fine with 2, but I'm picky.  Oh and one other snafu I should divulge, probably not the best idea to paint the side window panels to the door.  I followed the lead of the previous owners (BIG MISTAKE) and painted my side panels yellow along with the door.  I mean the door was black and so were the side panels so I felt it was sort of a painting by color thing, WRONG!  A yellow door AND yellow side panels = no bueno.  Perhaps a different color would've looked ok, however in this case it did not.  Proceed with caution my friends if you choose to paint those panels or you'll spend a day fixing a mistake.  Let each coat dry about 2 hrs in between before doing the next. 

-STEP 4- DECORATE YOUR DOOR.  I had no idea there were so many options for handles and door knockers out there, but trust me, there are.  Overstock and Amazon are great places to look.  I found our handleset (Camelot Exterior Handleset with Deadbolt, Matte Black) on Amazon for a decent price.  The ring door knocker from Restoration Hardware was more of a splurge, but worth it in my book.  Unfortunately they no longer carry this in matte black though!

All in all I would say this is an easily doable weekend project, as long as your name isn't Emily, and you can choose paint colors without having second thoughts.

Happy painting!

Nursery Sneak Peek: Take One!

I've gone back and forth with whether or not I wanted to share nursery details just yet, or wait it out a wee bit longer until more is complete.  Well I've decided that I can't wait because I'm just too giddy about little lady's room (that's right, she still doesn't have a name), but we are CLOSE.  I also think that in sharing this, I am committing myself to the colors.  If you know me at all, you know how indecisive I am and sometimes you just need to go with your gut.  So that's what I've done with her room, gone with my gut (that continues to grow these days).  The color(s) I've picked were truly some of the first I looked at and it all sort of snowballed from there.  Huge change from when we picked colors for our house (our kitchen was almost a hideous shade of blue that resembled a badly decorated island cottage or something)!  Thank goodness that didn't last...I mean it's tough looking at a 2"x2" color swatch and envisioning it covering your walls.  If I've learned anything it's always go 1-2 shades lighter than the one you like on the card!

Anyways, here are a few of my favorite things so far...

• Whispering Peach by Benjamin Moore I hit up a Ben Moore retailer to get color swatch ideas a few weeks back before we knew what we were having and as most of you know, I didn't expect to get to use this sweet little color, totally thought this room was going to be painted gray with navy and green accents!  Anyways, my favorite paint guy at our Lowe's store was able to color match this and I'm happy to report that I like it!
• Used Little Castle Glider that I randomly found when I popped into Encore Consignment Gallery looking for the paint I plan to use on her furniture.  And no the glider wasn't for sale in their store, I just like to make idle chit chat and it just so happened the very nice girl working there had this sitting in her basement ready to be sold -- TO ME!  Highly recommend checking out Encore Consignment Gallery though, new place, friendly staff, cool stuff.
• How Sweet It Is, To Be Loved By You ... No I'm not the biggest James Taylor fan, but I do love that song and these sweet little mint green/gold signs that need some frames.
• Gold Chandelier with White Glass Flowers from The White Rabbit. I've become a regular in this store over lunch these days. The hubs asked how we are going to hang this and I said it's perfectly acceptable to run a little electrical for a chandelier, I mean am I right? Am I right?
• The DaVinci 3 in 1 Jenny Lind Crib. I must say the price point on this one was right on, but it concerned me about whether the quality would be effected at all.  Well I'm happy to report that the crib is solid and sturdy and that the Baby Bargains book B rating is good enough in my book!  I will say we have opted to forgo the wheels that come along with this crib as they didn't really meet my style standards and seemed to make it a little flimsy. 
• Vintage Hat Boxes containing hints of peach and mint from a local antique shop, I couldn't resist. 

Next up is to get a 2nd coat of paint on the walls (big shout out to my gracious MIL for painting the first coat recently) start on our wall stenciling project, sew a crib skirt, and paint the other furniture (tall dresser and short dresser = changing table) going in her room and who knows what else!  Stay tuned!

Bathroom Vanities

As I sit here and try to figure out a project to share with you from the past years reno (a.k.a stall while I work on new projects in the background to share), I decided to highlight our bathroom vanities.  They were by far MY biggest project, and a big cost savings too.  Going into all of this I had no idea how much new bathroom vanities cost.  I quickly discovered that they are insanely expensive when you need two of them, one of which is for a master bathroom (i.e. bigger space).  And there I went into a tailspin.....wrecking my brain with how I could get the look I wanted without breaking the bank.  I discovered the following post from HGTV (probably on Pinterest or something) which sent me to Craig's List multiple times a day in search of the perfect dresser.  So if you find yourself in my shoes, here are a few things to consider:

STEP ONE:  Find your inspiration and what you like.  For me it was these awesome (and oh so pricey) vanities from Pottery Barn

STEP TWO:  Peruse Craig's List, Goodwill Stores, Garage Sales, and Flea Markets for a dresser that looks similar to your inspiration.  This can take time, so be sure to check out all possible options.  Here's what I found for our master bath (kinda similar to the dresser style look from Pottery Barn):

And here's what I found at a garage sale for our upstairs bathroom:

STEP THREE:  Prime your dresser.  Lightly sand first (using a hand sander) and then apply a gripper primer before painting.  On both of these I used Glidden Grey Gripper Primer from Home Depot.  Apply with a roller, and use a brush to get into grooves/crevices.

STEP FOUR:  Remove the top of your dresser. Each of these were pretty easy, one had screws and one had nails....so a screwdriver and hammer were all that we needed.

STEP FIVE:  Start painting. For both of these I used Valspar Ultra Interior Soft Gloss Kitchen and Bath Tintable Base Paint and Primer in One and applied with a small foam roller.  Each of these took 2 coats.

STEP SIX:   Choose your knobs and pulls.  For the upstairs vanity I used some of the same hardware but then found these cute little bird knobs from World Market.  For the master bath, I discovered a cute shop on Etsy which sells vintage inspired cabinet knobs and pulls.

STEP SEVEN:  Set your vanities in place and determine where you will need to make cuts for the plumbing.  Make your cuts.  Choose your granite supplier and have them come and measure.  This part was a wee bit scary as ours was measured and there was some concern regarding whether it would be too narrow to hold the sink, but the pros at Midwest Tile and Granite worked their magic for us!  The only thing we did not have room for was the granite backsplash portion...that's a project for another day as we will be choosing a short tile backsplash in the near future. 

STEP EIGHT: Stand back and admire your hardwork!