Kids Bathroom Makeover—Installing Board and Batten

A couple of weeks ago I gave you this sneak peek at our kids bathroom makeover.  And I think a few people were wondering at my interesting choice of color for the walls as it looks a little like pea soup.

But there was a reason I chose this particular shade of green.  And that reason would be this FABULOUS shower curtain I found at the CSN store:

Don’t you love it?  I looked for a shower curtain high and low and everywhere in between!  I was beginning to think that the perfect shower curtain just didn’t exist.  And then I found this baby.  (And just as a side note—it was $21.99 but it came with a small flaw in the fabric and so I called them and they knocked $10 off the price—so I only paid $11.99 for my PERFECT shower curtain!!—and you can’t even see the flaw—can you?)

Then we decided to add some fun and interest to the walls of the bathroom.  I had found these instructions from one of my favorite blogs (320 Sycamore) for an inexpensive way to do board and batten and knew this would be perfect for this room.

So we purchased a bundle of inexpensive Lath pieces from Home Depot.  My hubby sanded them down and we installed them about 10” apart. 

Even I wielded my little pink hammer for this project.  And oh how we wished we had a nail gun.  But even still, installing the pieces was quick and easy.

Next we added a 1 x 4 piece of primed MDF for the top.

Then my hubby filled all the holes and sanded them all down.

Next it was up to me to caulk all the edges and paint it up.  This was the time consuming part.  But I think it turned out awesome!

Next we added some handy little towel hooks and put up my FAVORITE bathroom art: pictures of MY BABIES.

Its not 100% finished yet.  We still need to paint the trim around the door (and I would like to paint the vanity cupboards eventually as well) and we are going to be framing up the mirror as well.  Oh yah, and I also think I might want to paint those picture frames.

But for now—I think we can call this bathroom improved.

Before:

After:

And now we can check another room off our list!

More Spray Painted Goodness

I have SO many projects lined up to show everybody—But finding the time to POST them all with 4 kids home for summer vacation has been challenging. 

Anyhoo.  Here is a little project I completed a while ago on the exterior of our house.  See these BEAUTIFUL exterior lights and house numbers before I got my hands on them: (Ok—in this picture I had already started getting my hands on the house numbers and then remembered I needed to snap a before picture—so the “2” has already been disassembled and ready for its makeover.  But you get the picture):

   

  

My favorite part of this makeover was changing out these lights:

WHAT color are these lights anyways?  PINK?  Salmon?  UGLY?

And here are those ugly brass house numbers chillaxing on a pizza box ready for their spa treatment:

And the pampering begins. 

(I chose to treat them to a coat of Rustoleum Black in Gloss).

And the results just speak for themselves.  Don’t they look like they FEEL better? 

 

And one final before and after:

  

I know I didn’t show you a picture of the whole house so you can step back and really bask in all of the spray painted glory of it all.  But we have been working a lot on the landscaping and soon will have the exterior of the house painted.  So I want to save those changes for the final before/after.  

But for now—you and  I can sleep easier knowing that I don’t have pink lights anymore.

Yummy on a Stick

The other day I saw this amazing idea for Smores on a Stick while I stopped in at the Idea Room.  I knew immediately that we needed to try it RIGHT NOW.   And I am SO glad we did.  They were AMAZING!  (And I don’t even really like regular smores that much).

So here is our version of which we will call Yummy on a Stick.

Microwave for 30-60 seconds.  Insert popsicle stick and top cracker.

Freeze for 30 mins.  Then dip in melted chocolate (we used Chocolate Almond Bark).  Then we added sprinkles and Skor Bits.

Then we ate them.

Thank you idea room. 

We will definitely be making these again very soon.

The Making of a Manly Desk

As I promised yesterday, here is the redo of our Treasure Chest Desk and chair.

It started off looking very old and very girly.

But this desk was for my 11 year old son.  So we needed to modernize it and give it some testosterone.

So before you start any wood working project—you should always prep your surface for painting.  Usually that means SANDING.  I HATE SANDING.  Like with a passion.  But I wanted a good paint job .  So I tried the cheaters route and used this:

I put a little on a cloth and wiped it all over the surfaces of the chair and the desk.  To be honest—I have no idea if it worked well or not.  The paint job turned out great so I guess it didn’t hurt it.  I really should have tested one drawer front with it and one without to have a side by side comparison.  But I didn’t.  So for now we will all just pretend that it worked great and I didn’t waste $6 on this stuff.

Next came the paint.  First we put on our very attractive spray painting masks which my husband makes me wear because of the massive amounts of spay painting I do.  He doesn’t want me losing any more brain cells than I already have.  He shouldn’t worry, I don’t have much to lose!

I found the perfect color of spray paint for this boys desk.  It is a dark grey and it happened to come in the Rust-oleum ultra 2x the coverage in gloss.

The gloss part was not my favorite.  But sometimes you have to sacrifice your finish of choice to get your color of choice.  And I do LOVE the color.

And can I also say that I LOVE the double the coverage paint.  This is the first time I had used it and I am in LOVE!!!  It really means what it says about double the coverage.  What normally would have taken a billion coats and 12 cans of spray paint (ok…I exaggerate.  But it would have taken a lot) took 2 light coats and only 3 cans of paint for both the chair and the desk—and I still had some left over!)

So here is the chair:

Before:                                             Middle:

 

After:

And then came the drawers: (Sorry about the shadowy pictures in my garage)

Before:

Middle:

Spraying the hardware with some ORB:

And After:

Then I took some scrap book paper and made some drawer liners for him in fun colorful prints:

 

And ta-da.  A very masculine looking desk for a very deserving 11year old.

Next time I will give you a tour of his new room and a breakdown of how much it all cost. 

That should be fun!

The Treasure Chest Desk

 

I do most of my furniture shopping—well practically ALL of my furniture shopping on craigslist.  And I have made out with some pretty awesome deals in the past.  But this one wins over all—not because the piece itself is the best but because it has the best story behind it.

I was looking for a desk for my son’s room in our new house and found this cute desk on craigslist and they were asking only $5!! 

A $5 desk IS an amazing deal.  But the deal got even better when I arrived to pick up the desk and the lady selling it asked me if I would like to take the matching chair for no extra charge!

 I couldn’t believe it.  A solid wood desk AND chair for $5.  (It was old—but built like a tank and in good condition!)

The gal selling the desk was selling off items from the estate of someone who had died and had cleaned out most of the drawers but had forgotten the top one.  When we noticed it was still full of stuff she told us she was just going to throw the stuff in the dumpster and asked us if we wouldn’t mind taking care of it.  For a $5 desk and chair?--NO PROBLEM!

Then—just when we thought the deal couldn’t be any better—we went to clean out this drawer and found MANY treasures.

We found:

• A couple collectors coins (some valued for around $60 each)
• Several pocket knives--some that were antiques like this one:
• A very old $2 Bill
• An old quill pen
• A gold emboss seal kit (you know the kind of thing they used to seal letters with in the olden days)

And lots of other neat office/desk stuff.

It was just like a treasure box.  At first I felt bad that we had paid so little for the desk and felt like we should take back all the neat stuff—but as my husband reminded me that the lady was just doing her job by getting rid of the stuff and was going to throw it all in the dumpster without even looking at it. 

So after that I don’t feel very bad about it anymore. 

I just feel AWESOME about it.

Tomorrow I will show you what I did with the desk to turn it from Old and Girly—to Hip and Manly.