Around the House- the last 6 months

EDIT- I added three more items to the list (#8, 9, and 10).

I used to post quite a bit on little projects that I was doing around the house.  I looked through some of them the other day and realized I havent done that in a long time.  It is in my DNA to always have a running list of projects.  And though the projects have kept going, the posting them halted.

So, if house posts bore you to tears, stop reading.  There will be no cute kid pictures. :)

Where to begin?

I am going to number off things that I am loving in my house/ about my house right now.

1- Painted front doors.
   Last fall, I started obsessing over painted front doors.  I love the pop of color and wanted  something besides the traditional black front door.  I found a couple colors I liked.  I finally decided on  .  I really like it, however I also painted my brother (Nolan) front door last fall too.  I like his color better.  So, maybe this spring I will change it again.  It is a cheap project that makes quite an impact.

Our front door.  The lighter caller is Sea Salt by Valspar.  And I cant find the door color.  If I find it, I will post it later.
Also, I am trying to find a pretty wreath or something to put on the front door.  I made a burlap wreath a few months ago but I dont think it is very wintery.  

Nolan's door.  Color- Valspar- Belle Grove Victory Blue (this is seriously a beautiful blue)

  To go with this, I painted the extorior of my shed as well.  If you remember, the inside of the shed got a huge makeover in the fall of 2014 and the outside finally got a facelift.

The "Man Cave"  

  On this same note, I have painted my screen porch door (in the garage) 4 times since we have moved in.  Right now it is a pretty Clemsony purple color.  A change may be coming soon though.  :)

2- Painted Wallpaper.
  My obsession over painted wallpaper started back in Easley when I did this to our kitchen/ dining room.  I was so in love with this specific pattern that I did the same thing to our dining room (only below the chair rail.)

Love!

  To continue with the painted wallpaper, my parents cleaned out their basement and I became the proud owner of bunch of stencils from the 80's and 90's.  I found a receipt on one of them purchased in July 1989...haha.  I decided to revamp the 80s/ 90s style look and traced the pattern in the half bathroom.  I didnt want the old sponge look, or the multi colored look (no offense mom, I am sure that was cool back in the day).  After tracing, I just loosely hand painted it.  It definitely doesnt need to be neat as I didnt want a uniformed look.

Finished product.  Side note- this is such a pretty color.  It is a perfect gray/ green that still looks good with tans-  called Oyster Bay by Sherwin Williams.

3- Large artwork.
   My den.  This big "L" shaped wall has given me a fit since we moved into this house two years ago (much like my kitchen wall color did).  But, as I finally found the perfect wall color for my kitchen, the pieces for this wall finally fell into place.

When I was growing up, I remember two things my mom always would say... 1- "watch out for deer."  haha, deer are overly attracted to her car so she spread her fear of hitting them onto her children.  and 2- "Behavior is a Choice."

I am sure that my kids will have a couple sayings that stick out as they get older but one that I often write to them is "Follow the Narrow Life" which is shortened from one of my favorite Bible verses, Matthew 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it  The poem, The Road Less Traveled, by Robert Frost is always one that I have loved as it speaks to the path that is not always the obvious one.

Anyway, I saw a really cool canvas on pinterest.  It was huge- 3 ft by 8ft.  Though it would fit on my wall, I wanted something a little smaller.  Bennett and I hit Michaels up and found a 2 ft by 4 ft canvas, with coupon, was right under $20.

I got home and mixed up some paint and water and gave the whole canvas a quick wash with the paint- a super light gray.  I then debated whether I should use a paint pen to right on canvas, trace the letters and then paint it, or just freehand paint it.  I practiced and finally just went for it- freehand.

The Road Less Traveled

I really love it.  It feels like up the space perfectly.  Where I was trying to do basically do 2 gallery walls right beside eachother, this canvas allowed for me to just do the one gallery wall and then the canvas by itself on the other.   Much less chaotic.

Now, for the lighting.  I had been on the hunt for weeks for a sconce light that plugs into the wall (so not hardwired).  I had purchased one in Easley 3ish years ago to go above the the boy's bunkbead.  Ashton likes to read at night so I have been hunting one for awhile but either they are too expensive or has a normal lampshade on it (which I didnt want).  I decided that this type of lighting would look good flanking both sides of the canvas so Bennett and I hunted for something. Nada.

Here is a pic of B and S's room with their lights.  This comes in handy as well since their overhead light will not work.

Finished product.  So much better. 

When I got home, I found this online on clearance from Lowes for 9.99.  It wasnt exactly what I had in mind but I decided that I kind of liked the industrial look of it and was hopeful my house could handle it.  This morning Bennett and I went to Lowes to get a couple as it said they only had 5 left in stock. I figured I would get one for above Ashtons bed and two for the den wall.  When I got there, they couldnt find them.  Finally a third person came up and found the 6 they had left but the price tag said 39.97. She scanned it and it rang up 9.99, so I went ahead and got all 6 figuring each boy could have one above their bed and then the two in the den.  (Plus, I had a $10 off when spend $50 coupon). Here is the link if interested.

4-  Necklace Holder
  This is so simplistic but I like it so much better than the set up I had going on.  I had all my necklaces hanging on my hand towel rack.  It was a mess and looked bad.  I found this old frame in my garage when I cleaned it out.  Got the webs off of it, gave it a quick spray paint and a perfect place to hand the necklaces.  Simple but practical.

The handle to the left is what they were all hanging on.  This seriously took 2 minutes to do and made such a difference

5-  The deck
  When we moved into the this house we had a a small deck built into the backyard.  It has needed to be stained and I finally got to it.  The plan was to stain it rich looking brown.  But when the Rescue It step 1 paint was on sale for only $10; I decided on a different route.  I painted the floor part with the Rescue Paint in a light gray green, the brown is the leftover paint from the shed floor (Rescue It Step 2), and the white paint is the leftover furniture paint I used when Shepherd messed up the kitchen table.) I really like the look- kind of Craftman style.  It shows dirt a little more than I would like but hey, with 4 kids and 2 dogs, I think everything shows dirt.

I almost didnt post this picture because the door needs to be touched up again where the dogs scratch the ever loving snot out of it.   But. this is real life. I normally touch this door up every other week and it has been over a month.  Just pretend the door looks good.  :)

6-  A Clean Garage
  What is about a clean garage that just makes me happy?  I probably clean our garage out really well 4 time a year.  Chad never parks in the garage but after this last snow storm caused a huge crack in his windshield, we decided it was time to start protecting both of our OLD and heavy miled cars.  I purged and purged and purged.  All the bikes, power wheels and both cars now comfortably fit in the garage.

If only we could always keep it this clean.

7- New Area Rugs
  Sometimes you just luck out.  Moses, for some reason, tore a huge hole in our dining room rug.  Like literally, ate the middle out of it.

The old rung now serves as a bike parking space- notice the hole in the center... such a weird dog.

A couple months after, a friend of ours, Jay called and said his parents had 3 matching area rugs they were getting rid of.  He wanted to know if I wanted them.  Uh, He-- yeah.    The big one went in our room.  We needed one in there so bad since Molly had stopped coming in our room because she would always slip on the hard floors (poor old girl).  The middle one went under the dining room table an the runner went in the front foyer.

This is a picture of the rugs.  Looks good, right?  Especially for free. 

   The rugs are in quite condition and look really good with our stuff.

8- Door Knobs
  This house had those old brass door knobs.  I, personally, dont like the brass look but dont have a few hundred dollars to replace them.  So, I just took them all off and spray painted them with a blackish color.  I then painted the hinges black too (with a small brush.)  I did these a few months ago and they have held up really well.  I have only had to re-do one (one of the boy's doors).

Love this look so much better than the brass.

9-  Clemson stuff
  I cant take credit for this print but love it still.  Mom (and dad) gave this Clemson print to the boys for Christmas... signed by Dabo himself.  Hunter and Ashton love it so it is proudly hung in their room flanked by Clemson Soccer scarves that are handed out for free at soccer games.

Love our Tigers!

10- Ladder
  I am sure you have seen ladder's being used as blanket holders, etc.  When the boys stopped using their ladder for their bunk bed, I decided to use the ladder in the boy's bathroom to hang their towels.  Their bathroom is long and the towels were too far away from the tub which meant water mess.  Also notice the bath robes (Christmas presents). These have slightly cut down on water drippings but mostly cut down on nudity that boys (or my boys) love to flaunt.

Bunk bed ladder recycled.

   So, yeah for free things.

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You made it.  I know this was super long and I probably could have broken it up into chapters.  ha.  But, posts like this are probably more for me than you anyway.

So a lot of projects completed for not a lot of money--- my favorite kind.

Though I said no cute kid pics... I just couldnt resist snapping a picture of my most faithful friend.

He is such a good boy.  Love him!

Until next time.