Gold and Sand

I have a confession.  I am a piler.  I love to be organized.  I love for things to look pretty.  But I'm lazy.  We almost always have mail piled somewhere.  The table in the front hall.  The kitchen table.  The kitchen counter.  And it drives me batty.  I try to at least consolidate the piles down to one place, the front hall table.  Because obviously, nothing is more welcoming when you come home than a giant pile of mail.

Last summer I made a pretty tray to hold the mail.  That was ridiculous.  It just meant the pile spilled over the tray.  So, when we had people over the other day, it lit a fire under my bum, I had to do something.  My sweet husband told me I didn't need to clean, that nobody would care.  I gave him my best Monica Gellar look that said, "No, people I do not know cannot come over when our house looks like this."  Oh wait, I may have said that out loud.  You know, there are people that can come over when your house is in any state, other people you need to do the crazy fast panic clean.  And then act like your house is always that clean...

Okay, so I tackled that stupid table.  I sorted the mail.  Almost all of it got shredded.  Some of the junk mail just got tossed in the recycling and the rest of it got piled in the laundry room to be dealt with at a later time.  And I shut the laundry room door because that's the mess that I'm still in serious denial about.  It's bad guys.  Really bad.

So I made the table pretty.  If it's pretty I hopefully won't want to ruin the pretty with piles of mail.  Right?  Right?  Somebody please tell me this will work.

 

In case you're curious, this also doubles as our liquor cabinet.  Sneaky, right?  Oh that just looks so much better.

 A close up.  The vase is one I spray painted gold the other day.  It was leftover from our wedding.  The flowers in it are ones that lived on our mantle in the spring.  The bowl is part of a set we got as a wedding present and holds my keys.  And the square vase full of sand and shells has sand from Gulf Shores, AL courtesy of my parents.  Mainly because I was a dummy and didn't bring home any sand from our vacation.  And the shells are from the beach in Siesta Key, FL from our vacation.  The perfect pretty combination of things to see when I come home.

But where did all the mail I actually needed to keep (silly bills) go?  Not far, it just moved to the laundry room.  I hung up a wall organizer and threw in a couple of file folders.  One for mailing supplies like envelopes, address labels, and stamps.  One for bills to be paid.  And one for things to file.  Right underneath is a paper recycling bin and the shredder.

 

I also have a small cork board and a wipe off calendar board.

What do you think?  Is this going to be the end of my mail struggles?  I'm trying to make myself deal with the mail as soon as I walk in the door.  It doesn't get set down anywhere, it either goes in the bin or gets shredded/recycled. 

Put a Bow on it, We're Calling it Done

Sadly, not the front yard.  But the hallway.  The hallway is done!  And I love it.  It seems like this is one of the areas we've worked on off and on for the longest.  Maybe it's because I couldn't seem to come up with a clear vision for the hall.  But now that it's done, I love it so much and it's exactly what I wanted.

I had friends over Friday so that was just the motivator I needed to get everything all finished and ready to show off.  Of course I didn't make plans for them to come over until Thursday so I spent Thursday & Friday speed cleaning and speed decorating/painting to get ready.  And cooking.  There was cooking too.

Back to the hallway.  Tomorrow I'll share recipes from the goodies I whipped up.  We're still enjoying the leftovers and they are amazing.

In case you've forgotten, the hallway is the one place that still had original paneling colored walls when we bought our house.  In an already dark hallway, it made the space feel like a cave.

I'm not going to show you all the progress pictures again.  Because I feel like I've talked about this a thousand times and I'm completely sick of looking at my lack of progress.  But, if you want to check out all the hallway progress, go ahead and click and check it out.

But I had a plan for the hallway (eventually).  Tan on the bottom and a light turquoise on top.  With a pretty gallery wall.  I made a mood board.

So I finally got the walls painted with a second coat for great coverage.  And I laid out my pieces for my gallery wall.  Well, I laid it out twice.  Was sure I had the right combination and then still hung it up differently because I under-estimated the size of my wall.  Oops.  

So, not bad for a first layout, right?  The trick, that big "Life is Good" sign needed to go on a stud because it's a solid piece of wood.  But I was pretty sure I could fit everything....

Then I ended up adding two more frames.  I realized if I had a picture of my family, I needed one of my husband's family also.  And then I remembered a cute round turquoise frame I had and could pop a cute picture of our nephews into....

Then I was ready to hang it all on the wall.  There wasn't enough space.  Oops.  So, the floating frame that held the picture of our wedding party got moved to another wall and I just ended up with family pictures and some other little pieces of art.

So, let's break down what's on the wall....  On the top row, a Life is Good piece of art I made with a leftover scrap of wood from building my living room entertainment center/dresser.  I stenciled the words on with a white Sharpie paint pen and stained it with grey stain.  I sealed it with some poly-urethane.  And I painted the edges of the board a bright turquoise.  To the right is a metal Love sign I picked up at Hobby Lobby the other day.  Love it.  And next door is a picture of me and my husband from when we had family pictures with my family.  In the middle row is a picture of my family with one of my sisters and her boyfriend cut off, the picture is oriented weird.  Annoying.  Then the round frame is a picture of our adorable nephews.  And finally the bottom row has a picture of my husband's family on our wedding day.  Next to that is the Custom Monogram Art I whipped up the other day and the bird wall hanging I grabbed on clearance at Hobby Lobby the beginning of the summer.

What did you guys do this weekend?  Anybody else finish up some lingering projects?  We're tackling the rest of the front yard this week, I'm pretty excited to have things caught up before I go back to school.

Custom Monogram Wall Art

Today I'm really off to Crystal Bridges with my mom and oldest sister.  Crystal Bridges is an American art museum in Bentonville Arkansas.  Since at my normal posting time I'll be driving to northwest Arkansas, I'm planning ahead and whipped out a little art project of my own.

Since my hallway is almost painted I'm getting some little things ready for my gallery wall.  I think I've mentioned I needed a thick canvas to cover up the switch for our attic fan (which is non-functioning).  So I picked up a eight inch square canvas the other day at the craft store.  I had plans of chevrons and a monogram but I got frustrated trying to tape off a chevron pattern on my small canvas.  Totally not worth it.  And I know chevrons will go out of style eventually so I really should control myself, right?

So, this is what I came up with.

I taped off diagonal lines.  No measuring, I just eyeballed it.

I painted stripes in kind of a champagne color.

I sketched out my monogram.  I had this great plan that I was going to make a sheet of masking tape and cut out a stencil.  That plan failed horribly when I got my tape sheet stuck to itself.  So I just cut my stencil out of paper, laid it on the canvas and traced it with blue hi-lighter.  Blue so that it would not bleed through my paint on the monogram.

Then I just grabbed a tiny angled brush and some turquoise paint and filled in my outline.

I can't wait to get it up on my wall!  Anybody else DIY-ing some art?  Or struggling to keep the blog up during summer trips and massive projects.  Hopefully the whole hallway project is going to get finished soon.

Primer v Paint

I've been working on painting our hallway for the past week or so.  Why has it taken so long?  I think I've been pouting that I'm not on the beach anymore.  Let me tell you, I already miss the salt water and palm trees.  I'm ready to go back.

Anyway.  So, painting.  I painted the top part of the wall's Benjamin Moore's Ocean Air color matched to the Walmart brand of paint.  It was leftover from painting my office.  And I have decided one thing for sure, I hate priming.  It's so boring.  And unfulfilling.  You have to paint the walls white before you can paint them a nice pretty color.  Blah.

Trimming though, man I am good at trimming.

You can't tell from the pictures, but even trimming, which is the fun part to me, took forever.  Maybe because I kept sitting down to check facebook and drink root beer.

And our hallway is very dark.  The lighting is terrible.  Really terrible.  Like I have to turn on the light in every room down the hallway to try to create better light.  And it's still too dark.  I end up with splotchy patches.  It's so not cool.

Anyway, I finally got the hall primed.  And then I got excited about painting.  Because the actual painting part is fun.  

It's so much lighter feeling in the hall.  I think I like it but I'm not completely sold.  I need to go back and do tons of touch ups.  The roller I used was one we had used before and somehow one side of it was flat so it didn't do the most effective job of painting.  But I think I like it.  

Now I'm kind of thinking I need new light fixtures that are not straight out of the 70s.  I'm heading to the Habitat ReStore tomorrow with my sister so maybe I'll find something good there.  And then hold on to it for a while because there are other projects in the works.

Anybody else hate priming as much as I do?  Or taking forever to do a tiny job like painting due to facebook and root beer drinking?  And now I have lots to do because my parents are coming to visit this weekend.  Also, after a trip to my parents house yesterday (more about that tomorrow) I have a pile of stuff to find a home for.

Feeling Blue....

Or turquoise.  I have a plan for the hallway.  I mentioned a while back I was considering a gallery wall.  That's still in the works.  And I have picked a wall color.  So, here's what we have going on right now.

Excuse the terrible picture.  There is zero natural light in the hall and it's practically impossible to take a decent picture.  So we have tan walls on both top and bottom.  And there's the switch for the no longer functioning attic fan that will need to be covered up with something.

This is the paint color.  The same color I painted my office.  I just pained a little swatch to see how it looked.  I'm going to need to prime before I can paint because the tan definitely showed through the new paint.  Boo. 

1.  Paint Color:  Ocean Air by Benjamin Moore.  A perfect pale turquoise.  I love it.  I got it color matched at Walmart to just their cheap paint.  I usually use Sherwin Williams.

2.  I love this pattern.  Gorgeous colors.  Maybe framed.  Maybe with words over it....

3.  This art is gorgeous.  Way out of my price range, but gorgeous.

4.  I already picked up this little guy at Hobby Lobby a while back.  He was on clearance for around six bucks.  And adorable.

5.  I love this life is good sign.  I've been eyeballing it at Kirkland's.  But it's not available right now.  I think I have a piece of scrap wood hanging out in my basement I can make it out of.

6.  And this graphic art is fantastic.  Something like this would be super easy to make and perfect to cover up the attic fan switch.

There will of course still be some pictures thrown in also.  Probably wedding pictures.  And maybe a couple of family pictures.  No exact plan for that yet, but I think I have a good start.

Hallway: Step 2

Okay guys, get ready for lots of pictures.  Remember how I said we got lots done over our long weekend, this was one more thing crossed off the list.  One tiny change that made a HUGE difference.  I keep asking myself why we didn't do this sooner.  And it cost nothing.  I had the paint on hand, leftover from all the other tan walls we painted when we bought our house.  So, after a good paint mixing, I was ready to go.

I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking.  Here we go.

The hallway when we bought the house.  And I didn't realize how gross the carpet looked in pictures.  We've had it cleaned and it's much better.  And it's getting replaced soon.

Stupid stupid stripes.  Someone really should've told me no.

Stripes be gone.  I love how it looks now.  Maybe love is too strong of a word, I'm never going to love paneling, but it's so much better than it was!

And now a few more pictures just to show off how much better it is.

We have this weird little nook....  It looks like a "Time Out" spot.  I'm not in love with what I have here, but it works for now.

This is so much better, right?!  I'm completely smitten with the change!

I love how much of a change a couple hours and a red Solo cup full of paint can make.  Yes, I poured my paint in a Red Solo Cup.  Classy.  That's what you do when your paint is in a five gallon bucket.  It works though.

Anybody else making tiny changes that have a huge impact?  Do you guys hate paneling as much as I do?

One Step Closer

We've been hard at work on the house this weekend.  I can't wait to show off all my fun little projects.  And the best part, they're all in preparation for a fantastic project my parents are coming to help with next weekend.  Oh it's going to be great.  Here's a sneak peak before I get to the first project for the weekend.

Yup, new floors!!!!!!  All stacked up in the living room ready to install next weekend.  I cannot wait!  We laid out a few planks on the kitchen floor to get a better picture of how it will look and it's going to be gorgeous.  I want to fast forward to next Sunday!

So, in preparation for the new floors we've been knocking out some little projects.  And cleaning like crazy.  Saturday while my husband was watching basketball I got a little project done to update the hall and move toward the turquoise accents I've been wanting to add.

Okay, this is the wall just to the right of our bathroom door.  I painted this canvas back when we lived in our apartment.  It filled the space okay, the colors just weren't right.  I still like the idea of the flower, I just wanted something a little brighter and more fun.  So, after some turquoise paint (leftover from painting the built ins) this is what you see when you walk down the hall.

So much brighter already.  Just the punch of color that side of the hall needed.  

Okay, so I left the same center on the flower.  And I always hated how uneven the petals looked before so I made a couple of stencils out of a sale ad and just painted right around them.  That way the petals were all the same length and looked a little better.

Next step, paint the bottom of the walls and find the perfect things to hang in my gallery wall.  What did you guys do this weekend?  Anyone else whip up some quick craft projects?  BTW, this one was completely free.  I already had everything on hand.

Framed

If you've been around for a while, you know there has been an ongoing, ridiculous process of figuring out what to do with our hallway.  It's too tan.  And it drives me craaaaazy.  I mean, it's more attractive than it was when we bought the house, but it's still not what I want.  So first, let's see where we started.

Paneling.  Always more paneling.  But it got a coat of paint and it was much better.  Sort of.  I thought it would be cute to leave the seams in the paneling black so the bottom of the wall was striped.  Turned out that was a bad idea.  That for sure is getting repainted so that the whole bottom of the wall is a solid color.  The wood chair rail is staying how it is.  I like that.  So, let's see what we have right now.

Okay, like I said, I'm painting the seams.  Because they look ridiculous.  I can't believe I've left it that way for so long.  I think that's going to happen this weekend.  We're getting our new flooring soon so I feel like I need to commit to something before we get the floors in.  I don't want to paint walls with new floors.

First, these two stupid problems have to be addressed.

1.  The thermostat.  I'm pretty sure that's the original thermostat.  Super attractive, right?  I think we probably need to replace it for a new thermostat, like a digital one so that it's more efficient.  Then I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was clever and could definitely dress it up a little.

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2.  That is the switch for the attic fan.  An attic fan which is not even hooked up to power.  Call me crazy, but I think an attic fan on a gravel road is a terrible idea.  I'm all for fresh air and everything but I don't want to intentionally pull outside dirt into my house.  I think the solution for this crazy thing is to at least pull the knob off, that way I can hang something big on that wall to cover it up.

I like the print at the end of the hall.  It's from my husband's parents house.  And there's a canvas on the left side of the hall I made.  It's just painted tan with a huge flower on it.  On the right side of the hall is one of our wedding pictures in a floating frame.  So I like what we have on the walls, I just think it could somehow be better.

That's when an idea came to me this morning.  I don't need to paint the walls.  Well, other than getting rid of my stupid stripes.  I just need to bring more color in on the top of the walls, but in a different way.  I'm thinking some sort of gallery wall.  Here's the thing about gallery walls.  My mom had one in her hallway at our old house.  It was fine.  I want something a little different than the wall of my childhood.  And I know I can't do a gallery on both sides down the whole hall, that would be insane.  

So, here's what I'm thinking.  A good mix of big and small pieces.  Maybe just on the right side of the hall.  On the right side, frame the thermostat with a fancy little frame and repaint the canvas on the left so that it matches better (right now the flower is burgundy).  And then do a gallery wall on the right side of the hall.  And use all turquoise frames.  Something like this....

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I couldn't find the actual link for the second one.  I just linked back to the blog.  Sorry guys, I tried!  I think both of these are gorgeous though.  And I love the variety in them.  But that they also very much go together.  I'm actually getting pretty excited about this project.  Hopefully it's the right way to add color and quit driving me crazy.

So, how about you guys?  Where do you stand on gallery walls?  How do you decorate your hallway?  Anyone else being driven insane by an inability to make decisions?