Inching Along

After a trip up to Indiana and all the busyness that comes with a new school year, I'm finally getting around to showing you the project I was working on this summer. (Deric's project is up next!)

In--I don't know, June?-- Deric and I were out on a Saturday running errands. In between stops I was browsing Craigslist on my phone and noticed a 6' dresser advertised at a garage sale in a neighborhood about ten minutes away. Clicked through to the ad and saw it was listed for $25-- what?! Deric needed no convincing and we swung by the garage sale to check it out in person. Once we saw it, I was ready to back out. I knew I'd be painting it and I noticed all those itty bitty squares lining the top of the dresser and thought "No way-- that'll literally take forever to paint." But Deric thought it'd be perfect for our dining room to serve as a buffet and storage, and thankfully he convinced me to bring it home.

Then it sat in our garage for a few months while we headed to CIY and camp, etc.

After some time, we figured out a game plan for the center of the dresser. We don't need fifteen or so drawers in this dresser but some shelving would be helpful. Deric took out one of the three drawer base-slider things (?) and installed basically a box from plywood. Now we have shelves and more space to stack dishes, games, or whatever we need.

Fast forward another month or two (seriously, why does it take us so long?) and we got around to sanding the dresser with a belt sander we bought off our neighbor for $20. Sanding took no time at all, but priming, painting, and poly-ing took quite a few nights. That's what we were doing every night after the Olympics were over and our lives felt incomplete. ;) We went with Inchworm by Valspar and we love the color. We hauled the dresser in one day, I outfitted it with knobs from Hobby Lobby and filled some of the drawers with games, cards, and extra table linens.

And then finally, I added the doors. Only took a few weeks to finish up what I thought might be a personal record for finishing a project. I should really get to know myself better. :) Its funny but the addition of this "buffet" makes the dining room my favorite room in the house. Its colorful and makes the room feel much less barren than it did before. Since painting this dresser, I've been eyeballing various other pieces of furniture around the house and envisioning them in different colors. But I'm not gonna get ahead of myself-- I've got various other projects I've started that I just need to finish!

As I type, I'm sitting in my paint clothes getting ready to tackle our wood-paneled, ugly-as-sin mudroom and freshen it up with a coat of paint. Four solid walls of paneling should only take what--six months to paint??

A Long Time Comin'

I've been meaning to show y'all my "latest" (I'm using that term loosely) painting project for a while...actually, for about four months. I finished in early January.  Why thank you, I am good at procrastinating! It's an art, really.

I saw a painting done by Ashley at The Handmade Home and decided to recreate her sign:

via

She painted hers for a baby girl's nursery, but with some different colors it could really go anywhere. I used leftover wall paint (the tan from our dining room/foyer and the brown from our kitchen) for the chevron which made it very easy to wipe it away to get that aged look. The acrylic craft paint I used to write our name was somewhat harder to rub off-- I actually had to scrape it off since it dried so quickly.
 

(I apologize for the quality, but my phone actually captures the true color better than my camera. The front door is to the right, which explains the inconsistent lighting.)

The painting hangs in our foyer, directly across from the hallway to our bedrooms, so we see it every time we walk down the hall. I contemplated for a while over what to hang in that space because I didn't want to hang something I'd quickly get tired of seeing multiple times a day. So far I'm not sick of seeing it (and Deric hasn't said anything either) but you never know. If need be, I'll just have to switch things around. It's not like I have 144 ideas waiting for me on Pinterest or anything, and at my current pace of approximately four months per painting, I should finish somewhere around never. ;)

Perfectionists Don't Make Good Painters

For Christmas, my mom gave me a coupon to an art class at a local studio, Spirited Art. I went on Monday with my friend Katrina, and it was so much fun! I learned a lot about painting, but I also had plenty of time to talk with Katrina.

When we arrived at the studio, we had some time to look at all the paintings that have been done by... people... I don't know. The staff, other newbies like us, Monet, Van Gogh? Whoever it was, the paintings were impressive. As was the huge color wheel made from paint chips. (I bet that was so much fun to put together.)

You chose your class based on the painting you want to do. There was a full wall calendar set up so we could preview the upcoming month. (Katrina's done the Knoxville skyline you see on the 18th and her painting was amazing!)

When class started, we began with the outline of the painting. The girl teaching the class had traced these out for us to save time. Can you see the faint pencil marks?

I took pictures in between each step of our painting so that I can remember later how we did this. I've never done a painting that required blending or layering colors, so this was all new to me.

Even in the beginning stages, I struggled with my tendency to be a perfectionist. The first thing I noticed when I got the canvas? The lines to the door and the porch aren't straight. For the rest of the night, that bugged me. And as we brushed our gold paint over the canvas, I tried so hard to make the strokes even and the amount of paint balanced. (Clearly, that didn't happen.)

With every step of this painting, I worried and I stressed that it didn't look "right". Not only were the lines not straight, the shading on my porch didn't look like a real porch.

As I painted the horizontal lines to create the wall, I struggled to make those lines perfectly straight and even. But I didn't have time to do anything about my imperfect lines before the teacher moved on to the next step, so they stayed as-is.

Blending quickly became my worst nightmare. Was there too much gray? Not enough gray? Did it blend into the brown? Did it look realistic? Again, (and thankfully) the teacher moved to the next step before I could make my painting worse by trying to fix it.

With each added color, I asked those same questions: too much gray? not enough? Sometimes to myself in my head, sometimes out loud to Katrina. Every time I asked, she assured me that it looked great. And then she'd ask me if her painting looked okay, to which I would respond-- "It looks great!"

(This is why you need friends when you try new things.)

(You should have seen me when I was directed to put blue on my porch. "Blue?! Who's porch is blue?!" But then I told myself to shut up and I did it.)

This painting was good for me. I've always wanted to learn to paint an actual picture. The paintings I usually do are words-- easy, one color, perfectionist-driven paintings. Paintings that take me months as I tediously make every line perfect. Paintings that aren't messy or smudged in any way, but are also boring in that respect.

I tried, one night, to make myself "just paint". Take a blank canvas and some paint and go to town. See what happens.

It was not good. I ended up painting a pattern of straight strokes in different colors. That was as 'free-spirited' as I got.

So this painting was good for me. It was good in that I learned some techniques for painting, but it was better for me in that I was forced to create this painting quickly. There was no time to fix lines, no time to make even strokes. No time to be perfect. Just enough time to paint. Just enough time to add 'burnt sienna' to the wooden walls before moving on to highlights in the top corner of the door.  (We were not actually rushed, mind you. The class lasted 2.5 hours. But for me, this was warp speed.)

After this class, I feel like I've accomplished something. In a very small way, I've relaxed those perfectionist tendencies I have. I've made myself come to grips with the fact that this painting is far from perfect, but I can still love it. That I don't have to make something perfect in order to be proud of it.

I'm trying to make this realization come about in other areas of my life as well. My house doesn't have to look perfect in order to be a home. My cooking doesn't have to be perfect in order to cook for others. My relationship with God doesn't have to be perfect in order to teach middle schoolers about Him. I don't have to be a perfect person before I have kids so that I can be the perfect mother (crazy, but sometimes I find myself striving for this). On the same note, Deric and I don't have to have the perfect relationship in order to one day be good parents.

God isn't looking for perfect. He knows it is impossible for me to be perfect and I'm thankful that He doesn't expect it from me.

All He wants is for me to do my best with the resources He's given me, and He'll do the rest.

Write Them on the Door Frames

I started this painting four months ago. I sketched out the verse sometime in September and began painting shortly after. Then, Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas barged in, and the painting was forgotten...shoved in the closet of my 'craft room' (or my I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-this-stuff room, whichever way you look at it).

But now, with the holidays over and endless rain outside, the painting is finished! I actually finished it in early January (which was four months, not five) if you're checking my math. I have no earthly idea why paintings take me so long to finish. They're a great, mindless project to do while watching Burn Notice on yet another rainy afternoon. But I tend to start a lot of projects all at the same time, when I really should start and finish one project before starting another.

Oh, and I should mention: During the course of this painting, I started and finished another painting. That second painting even got hung before I finished the first painting. I'll show you that one later. Right now, I think the first painting deserves to go first, since it had to wait for so long. Fair is fair.

In real life, the dark writing is navy blue and the lighter blue is very close to the blue on the wall.

I've decided that displaying Scripture around the house is my way of carrying out this verse..

Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:5-9

I haven't developed the habit of continually thinking about or talking about God's word. Deric and I are getting better at talking about it more often, but I want to get to the point where God's words are on my mind the majority of the day. Seeing His words on a canvas on the wall helps. Some days, I bypass the canvas without a second thought. Other days, the words hope and faithful jump out at me. Its a quick, encouraging reminder that God really is faithful in His promises.

A Fireplace Fit for Santa

Besides our Christmas tree, the only other Christmas decorations we have in the house are on our mantle (which was cleaned up and painted recently) so we're all ready for Santa to visit.

First, let's see the mantle before I started painting.

After some paint, but still with a bulky, broken glass fireplace screen stealing the show.

Here's what was hidden behind that screen. Not too clean, and kinda scary--who knows what bugs lived (and died) in there?!

With our two-year-old nephew, Isaac, coming for Thanksgiving, I was worried about that screen. It wasn't very stable and was already broken in places, and I worried it would fall (possibly on him) and we'd have broken glass everywhere. Not good.

So I grabbed our vacuum and some dark gray paint (aptly named Charcoal), and got to work.

Two minutes in, I knocked over the quart-sized paint can (thankfully into the fireplace), but I still did some damage:

Nothing catastrophic, but paint on the brick was definitely still noticeable. So we had to paint the brick too (which I wanted to do anyways, so now I had a reason). 

And here's the mantle today, all bright and shiny and clean (and childproof)!

Our stockings and the initials are from my mom.

I made this felt garland back in August after seeing tons of inspiration on Pinterest. Cutting out the felt circles was tedious, but besides that, this was definitely an instantly gratifying project.

After decorating our tree, Sarah and I filled the vase with the extra ornaments.

 She also helped me make these yarn trees. They're very simple: construction paper rolled up tight with yarn hot-glued on top.

Also time-consuming, but its easy and free. Watching Elf while gluing makes the process much more entertaining.

There you have it. Our Christmas decorations that we'll enjoy at least halfway through January. I go through Christmas withdrawal, so I slowly take down decorations and wean myself off Christmas music. Its a sad thing, when Christmas is over. So I'm enjoying this last week of the Christmas season as best as I can!

P.S. We've bought one Christmas gift so far. Holy cow.

Just a Few Problems

I found two of these lamps in a clearance aisle at Target a few weeks back.

I checked the tag and immediately grabbed both lamps-- two lamps for under $25? Yes please. We've been wanting lamps for our bedroom since the overhead light seems glaringly bright at night.

As soon as I got home, I disassembled the shade from the base and took the bases out to the garage for some white spray paint. The shades were recovered in linen I had leftover from our headboard. Everything was fine until I actually brought them into our room and set them on either nightstand.

There's just a few problems.

Problem #1: Proportions are a little off. Next to the headboard, the lamps look teensy tiny.

Problem #2: Our side tables are so low that this is my perspective when I walk in.

Problem #3: I could have done a slightly neater job when recovering the lamp shades. :)

We're still using the lamps until I find taller lamps to take their place. Once I find those, I'll put these lamps somewhere else...somewhere high, like on top of a dresser, so I can't see down in the shade. And I may recover them again as well. I wish I could just redo the linen, but its hot-glued to the shade and will probably do a lot of damage to pry it off.

Live and learn, right? The lamps are still going to be put to use (just not next to our bed) so they're not a total loss. In the meantime, I'll be scouring Goodwill and Target's clearance!

The Mantle Makeover

About a month ago, I posted the before and after pictures of our living room. I figured the before and afters of the mantle deserved their own post because the difference is pretty drastic. The mantle is gorgeous, but I've never liked the color of oak wood. The orangey color just doesn't work for me; that, and the oak wood stuck out like a sore thumb against the light blue walls.

So, literally nine or ten coats of primer (and one coat of semi-gloss) later, the mantle fit in much better with the rest of the room. I'd like to take it even farther and paint the brick and the inside of the fireplace, since it doesn't work anyways. If I cleaned out the fireplace (and possibly painted it a dark gray or black), I could get rid of the cracked fireplace screen. Don't think I'm crazy-- Young House Love did it and made their fireplace look ten times better. 

More about the mirror you see later this week. Deric and I just finished making it, but we didn't consider a few things before starting our project. And as for the fall decor, they're my on-a-budget mostly-from-Dollar-Store leaves and pumpkins. While it bugs me to death that the mirror absolutely dwarfs everything else on the mantle, I'm pretty surprised at what I could find for $1. Each vase on the right was $1; the fake leaves were $1 for about 50 leaves; candle was $1; and the felt leaf garland was found on Pinterest. The pumpkins were from TJ Maxx and while they weren't a dollar, they were close.

So what do you think? I'm so glad I decided to paint that mantle, although that orangey-oak probably would've matched all those fall colors pretty well. ;)

Ten Dollar Table

I found this side table at our local Goodwill for $10. I was shocked to find it for so cheap because our Goodwill is the most expensive one I've ever been too. Walmart is cheaper. For example, I used to get 8x10 frames (and the glass) for $1 or $2 at our Goodwill in Indiana. Here, an 8x10 with the glass is $5 or $6, but I can get an 11x14 for $5 at Walmart. Its a good thing they've got 50% off days occasionally.

But back to the table. I found it in May and planned to stain the entire thing a dark brown to match our coffee table. Fortunately, my dad saw the cell phone pic I sent my mom and he advised me not to stain it because of all the grooves on the legs that I'd have to sand...by hand. I hadn't thought of that. So I decided I would paint the bottom white and stain only the top. When my family came to visit for Memorial Day, Dad brought his electric sander and it took us no time to sand down the top of the table. I applied the stain the week after Memorial Day but waited to paint.

When I went to paint it, I planned to use primer and paint we already had and roll/brush it on. But as you can see from the picture, that didn't look so good. It also took forever to get in all those cracks and crevices. So I got spray paint and primer instead and covered the top with newspaper and Frog Tape.

It took me at least three more months to completely spray paint that table. I have no idea why I take so long to spray paint things, but it always takes me weeks (at least). I think it was late August when the table finally came in to the living room and I could get rid of the free dorm-room quality table we'd been using.

I can't say I'm thrilled with how the table turned out (if you look closely at the picture above you can see water rings--probably because I didn't seal the stain), but I'm proud of it because it was my first furniture re-do. I'm on the lookout for two more side tables for the living room, each with a drawer or extra shelf and with straight legs so I can stain the entire table. I haven't had luck at Goodwill so far, but tomorrow there's an antique festival in a town nearby...Fingers crossed!