Easy Update
Now There Are Two
Not one, but two pairs of longhorns in our house now. Hanging on the wall and everything. As a reminder, here is the first set, proudly displayed over our TV – right in the middle of the living room.
Yes, I’m insane – but they keep my Texan happy 1,300 miles from home. This pair was a house-warming gift from his parents.
The second pair has been here for a while but it finally made its way onto the wall today. We’ve been stepping over them in the hallway floor since Christmas.
If you’ve visited our home in the past four months and used the guest bathroom you’ve seen all of this laying right outside the door – and probably wondered why these people just leave stuff laying in their hallway. Well it was meant to be motivation to hang them up quickly but it didn’t really phase us apparently.
Interesting story on the new longhorns. When we picked up our Christmas tree this year from Christ the King Church a man there noticed the longhorn sticker on Chad’s car and commented about how he spent some time in Texas in med school or residency or something. This started the conversation that went something along the lines of “I’ve got these cool old horns from the 70′s up in my attic. I know my wife would love to get rid of them!”
You don’t have to guess whose wife got ‘em.
The man was really nice though and gave them to Chad for free, which is great because that’s the only way he was getting them, and even brought them to him at the hospital. How could we not hang them up?
So here’s the small hallway transformation:
In case you’re curious about all those items hanging under the longhorns – the small wooden frame is a picture from the front porch of a conference center in Black Mountain, NC, which is where Chad and I first met. The needlepoint Texas map was stitched by Chad’s Great Grandmother who passed away recently (we miss you Mezie!) our living room arrowheads also come from her, and the duck was a $4.00 antique store find on our trip to Cape Cod last year. We don’t normally get into souvenirs so this was our attempt at one. I liked him and he was inexpensive and very “Cape Cod” in my view.
It’s very rustic but this is our new hallway set up for now. Of course we had to keep our one honeymoon souvenir in the mix, which were a little “dead” bride and groom from Mexico.
Doesn’t it feel great to check something off the list – no matter how small?
Words About Lamps
In addition to the natural jute rugs, ceramic animals, pillow-making and True Value – I have discovered a new obsession. You are not likely not surprised at all to discover that I have a certifiable addiction to lamps.
We’ve written about a dozen posts about lamps in the past year and a half of blogging and I only write about 1/10th of the lamps that I see and love. There are 12 lamps in our house currently, two of which received a recent makeover and one thrifty little booger that I do not recall even telling you about.
I’ll try to keep the details straight, since I know you’re all on the edges of your seats right now.
Way back when we talked about a failed attempt to build a living room sofa table. In the end we coped out with a tiny Tar-jay table and a brass Home Goods lamp atop it.
If you’re an avid blog reader slash psuedo home stalker you may remember that the little brass lamp from the picture was actually located in our guest bedroom prior to it’s living room debut.
So what did we put in it’s place? Well, another brass lamp of course!
Only this one is big and round and actually pretty 80′s tastic.
Agreed?
Although the gold-tone isn’t as nasty in the room as one might have predicted, I’m still contemplating a paint job. This was the original thought when we bought the $8 lamp from the Habitat ReStore. The only dilhemma now is what color since I’m pretty certain those pillows are about to get a switcheroo and maybe even our headboard fabric.
I have a sickness.
Oh and remember the last set of brass lamps that I painted and repainted?
They are no longer orange. Which was feeling halfway good.
Now they are red and fully bueno. Oh, and I hot glued black grosgrain ribbon to them too. Just like Nate would do, before he was cancelled.
Insert sad face here for Nate, but a happy face here for new red lamps.
Repurposed
There may be few things more satisfying in the life of two young childless, and over-zealous homeowners than taking a horribly fugly piece of furniture and turning it into something useful and kind of cool. Plus it pretty much saves the planet by keeping things out of a landfill.
We’ve already gotten a question or two so the purpose of this post is to elaborate on the small bamboo stool we posted about yesterday. We never mind sharing the details on our process, fabric choices and paint colors so here we go.
This is the before shot of our little bamboo foot stool/ottoman saved from the Durham Goodwill.
After bringing it home and giving it a little cleaning it was time to get to work. First we removed the top cushion and stripped it down to the foam. This required removing four old screws and about a million old staples.
Then came one coat of spray primer.
And then a coat of white exterior paint, just in case someone wants to throw this guy out on a porch or something. I say someone because we aren’t keeping him, we’re trying to sell him.
Finally a new layer of fab fabric, and to answer the number one question – the fabric is called Candyland but I don’t know the name of the manufacturer.
Ta da!
We’re loving how cute this little guy came out that we’re tackling another project too. Here’s a little process teaser for you.
The chair on the left is the before chair, and the right has been primed. More to come on these beauties. And no I did not rob a Golden Girl to get these, they were obtained from a lady in Raleigh via Craigslist.
Shedding Some Light – On Everything
This weekend was the weekend for new lights around the casa. Whenever someone has asked “what’d you guys do this weekend.” The answer was “installed some lights, that’s about it.” These were much needed repairs, but just a good example of those frustrating, mundane home maintenance items that none of us want to pay for or complete. Alas, they must be done and therefore we must tell you about them.
Let me just say that as I wrote this, Barton was passed out in my lap – snoring very loudly. Just thought you might like to know that. Lucy stayed awake in order to watch the end of the Biggest Loser.
So, now that you have an image of our house on any given Tuesday night, back to those lights.
About three weeks ago one of our fairly new kitchen track lights started on a downward spiral. One week one light blew, and a new bulb did not fix the problem. Six days later number two of three lights did the same. Finally this weekend the third died. Bad track light.
So back to Home Depot we went and amazingly enough they let us exchange the $59.99 fixture no questions asked. It was obviously defective so we feel okay about the whole transaction.
Especially me, since I didn’t have to climb up on the ladder to reinstall the track.
Don’t think I got off so easy though.
Yeppers. That’s me in the attic. Don’t mind the messy closet. Now that we have a new light and can see all the mayhem it will be cleaned up. We just need more weekends.
Are you wondering how I ended up in the attic? Ever since we moved in our closet light has been touch and go. Again, not the bulbs. But when the man of the house took this light down, he discovered that the previous fixture was installed with those little butterfly drywall anchors and they came off in the ceiling. Still with me? They are the same do dads we used to hang our lantern in the bathroom if you need a visual.
Somehow we decided it was easier to hoist me into the attic to retrieve the lost anchors, since the access door was right there – instead of driving to True Value for new ones.
Our attic is nice, not to shabby up there. Our new closet light is just so-so. We obviously didn’t break the bank on this one, spending about $24.99 also at the Depot.
But it works.
Anyone else out there battling random home maintenance this weekend?
There’s a Zebra In Our Closet
Kind of.
Amy (8 AM Saturday morning, still in the bed): I want to paint stripes in our bar closet today.
Chad: Okay, great.
Amy: Like white zebra stripes. Kind of. Maybe. We’ll see, but I want to just try them.
Chad: Sounds great honey.
A few hours later this:
Became this:
The lighting was brighter in the after image of course but I think the lighter-than-our-wall-color stripes in Valspar’s Honeymilk (purchased from Lowes) help out the lighting situation. Our original wall color stayed behind to serve as the darker stripes, it is the same as our living and dining rooms, Benjamin Moore’s Tapestry Beige.
The first thought I had was to free-style some abstract painter’s tape on the walls and see what I could come up with. No bueno.
You don’t need me to tell you that those aren’t really stripes. Try again.
In case you’re curious the tape with the tape going across it like an A shape, was to let me know not to paint that section. It’s a highly technical process. this stripe business.
Then I just got to painting, which someone found amusing.
Don’t worry it looks like I got might have gotten paint on the back of my Boom Boom jeans but some how they were spared. I need to remember not to paint in my “good jeans” which for me means the one pair without paint on them, that cost me $19.99 at T.J. Maxx. That sweatshirt has lots of paint on it, as all of my sweatshirts do.
And again, the final product.
My only real tip for doing this project is to keep your paint within the tape lines, pull the tape off while it’s still wet to avoid peeling, and pull the tape down and towards your painted stripe for the best lines. You may still have to touch up a line here or there with a brush and a steady hand but overall the tape works great for a finished result. Oh, and our new Honeymilk stripes are in an eggshell finish so they have a slight sheen compared to our flat wall color. This just made it a bit more interesting in there, which we like.
Now all that hooch and our smiling candle holder aren’t the only things that spark conversation in there.Oh, and P.S. if you want one of those smiling candle holders yourself be sure to order him today, in honor of Halloween and all. He ships f-r-e-e and is on sale in a big way. We only have two left!
Make Your Room Look 10 Years Younger
Now! With white spray paint!
Do you expect anything less from us, spray paint it White-ds?
Here’s what we’re talking about. Old HVAC air vents. Luckily ours are in the wall, cut out of the baseboards, otherwise we’d probably be buying a new unit on account of all the dog hair. But that’s another issue altogether.
This fur trap had our room looking a little less 2011 and way more 1951. They probably didn’t have Krylon back then. Wait did they even have HVAC back then? Hmmm… Wikipedia is not giving me a definitive answer.
Either way it looks like it’s been around that long, you can see the age on the vent cover especially well after we unscrewed it from the wall which was pretty easy. It had a patina, but not a cool aged patina like, say our door knobs.
Nope, these air vents are past their patina prime.
Thankfully there are only two of them that were left in this condition, both located in our ignored-by-the-previous-owners office. Besides just being unattractive, the grunge was also holding back our freshly painted office walls, so action had to be taken. This action involved the use of an old Prego jar.
We often use random household items, mostly things rescued from the recycling bin, to prop up our painting projects. Like this Dr. Pepper can from our tin painting project last week.
If you’re ready to tackle your own air vents just remember to use a spray primer before your spray paint for optimal results and go slowly painting in two coats if needed. This way your paint doesn’t glob up in the vent slots.
Once it has had plenty of time to dry, 24 hours for us, just reattach it to the wall. Oh, and don’t forget to make your screws match if possible. We spray painted those too.
Something small for sure, but it made a big impact in this room. Plus it probably saved us about twenty bucks. Maybe more, something tells me these dinosaur air vents are no longer a standard size and replacements would be tougher to find than expected.
In the end our 60-year-old casa is looking at most 50 now, maybe even 49. Who needs Botox when you have spray paint? Ladies you agree with me right?
The only problem now is that the black dog hair is a lot more obvious when it’s stuck to them. You win some you clean lose some.
Check out other simple D.I.Y. tricks and ideas by visiting our projects page here. Have you guys done any small yet valuable projects around your home lately? We’d love to see what you’ve been up to, we are always in need of some new Reader Shout-Out material.
