Select Page
To Paint Or Not To Paint Wallpaper And Our Guest Bathroom Reveal

To Paint Or Not To Paint Wallpaper And Our Guest Bathroom Reveal

To paint or not to paint the subway tile wallpaper was a question I posed recently, and you responded!

Thank you to everyone that gave an opinion. I love hearing what you are thinking.

My Mom had a suggestion to paint a leftover piece of wallpaper to help visualize what it would look like.  (smart lady, right!?)

I used a very, very, minimal amount of paint on my roller and gently applied it. I liked the look, but also knew that I would have to use something besides the roller to reach the edges of the paper.

A brush or anything besides a roller would not give me the uniform look I wanted.

Most of you responded that you liked the unpainted paper better anyway, so, win-win.

And now the only thing left is to share with you the before and after pictures of our newly decorated guest bathroom.

 

 

You may have caught a glimpse of the toilet room from the pictures above and the fact that it is still red.

Wade loved the Tony Taupe color so much that he said he would paint the room!

Keeper. 🙂

~Wendy

 

I Love Me And My Tools

I Love Me And My Tools

I love me…. and my tools.

Being home alone, the only accolades I get are the ones I give myself. And today I praised myself above and beyond what is probably normal. 🙂

Let me explain.

Last night when I was Face timing with Wade, I was telling him that I was going to put up the trim piece above the wallpaper in the bathroom, and needed to know what kind of nail to use.

Before answering, he asked if I was “ready” to buy a nailer yet.

I wasn’t.

And I wasn’t because I wanted the trim piece up right away and I didn’t have a clue how to use a nailer.

He explained the process of putting up the trim piece, without a nailer, by saying that I would need to drill a pilot hole in the trim and all of these other things, which sounded much too complicated, so I decided to go to Home Depot and buy a nailer.

I love me. HeeHee

I picked out the Ryobi 18V straight finish nailer with AirStrike technology. Just like the box says, “There are no compressors, gas cartridges or hoses needed.”

This doesn’t seem super exciting, but let me tell you, a quick review of the easy to use directions and I was nailing!

But wait, there’s more. I also used my miter saw! Wade bought me the saw for my birthday last July and between you and me, I was kind of chicken to use it.

I had an old, no bells and whistles miter saw and it worked fine.

Except for those couple of times when it didn’t.  🙁

I pulled up my big girl panties and gave it a whirl. And let me tell you, it was amazing!

I had some fancy angles to cut (thanks Dad for the help from Texas on that) and it did not disappoint. The other thing this miter saw has that my old one didn’t is this Ghostbusters-like Laser Beam.

All I had to do was line up that laser with my mark and it was a perfect cut.

Now, since I was so full of self love and confidence, I decided to continue this cutting streak in the morning and put a wood frame around the bathroom mirror.

Using these four wood blocks and liquid nails, I simple squiggled some liquid nails on the back of the wood and stuck one in each corner of the mirror.

Although this will adhere fairly quickly, I still used painters tape to hold the top blocks in place.

From here is was a matter of making straight cuts on the boards that go between each corner block, squiggle and stick.

The only things left to do on this project are filling the little nail holes made by the nailer, sealing the edges of the wood around the mirror so it is waterproof, touching up the paint on the boards, re-hanging my towel hooks and of course cleaning up my mess.

I’ll have the full before and after reveal for you on Thursday.

And I promise to be done with the self praise, but not until I look at the bathroom one more time.

~Wendy

One Piece Of Advice About Painting

One Piece Of Advice About Painting

If someone asked me for one piece of advice about painting the walls of your home, I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to say, “Don’t do it if you ain’t feelin’ it!”

Actually that sounds like a great title to a country song.

“Don’t Do It If You Ain’t Feelin’ It”

Don’t paint if you ain’t in the mood,

Don’t paint if your day comes unglued.

If you need to take a break from paint,

Do it.

Just don’t do it if you ain’t feelin’ it.

With lyrics as catchy as those, Blake Shelton will be breaking down my front door to get after ’em! (A girl can dream 😉 )

Not painting is exactly what I did after sharing with you that I was redecorating the bathroom. I trimmed out some of the walls, and then told myself that I couldn’t go any further because I didn’t know how to remove the light fixture and switch plates. 🙂

And that’s where this project sat.

Sat on Thursday.

Sat on Friday. Sat until I felt like painting again

And finally on Saturday, I wanted to paint again.

I found myself full of inspiration, and not only did I take down the light fixture, the towel ring and the switch plates, but I finished painting AND wallpapering.

Now I find myself in a quandary. Should I paint the paintable subway tile looking paper or not?

It will need a trim board across the top to frame the paper, but I am really loving the crisp white look of the paper tiles.

So I am asking for your advice. Which would you prefer,

Paint the wallpaper tiles to match the color of the wall or leave it white?

You don’t need to answer in the form of a country song, but hey if you feel inspired…

~Wendy

Surprise Projects Are In The Future

Surprise Projects Are In The Future

I have mentioned several million times that my husband travels a lot. No surprise there. And when he travels, I love to get projects done that he might not be exactly 100% on board with.

Please tell me that some of you DIYers out there do the same thing? Anyone?

Plus, who wouldn’t enjoy a home decoration surprise every once in a while? I personally would love it if I came home from a business trip and someone moved my fireplace to the center of the wall in the living room or even if someone simply built me a wall unit in the bedroom.

But…Um…Wade?

He. Does. Not. Enjoy. Surprises.

He has this silly notion that we need to talk about ideas, communicate expectations and create a budget.

Blah, blah, blah.

So, honey, if you are reading this between phone calls and meetings, take a deep breath and just give yourself a chance to absorb the possibility that this could turn out amazing. And then accept the fact that it will be amazing if you absorb this or not.  😉

Ready? This is my next big project, our cherry sleigh bed. Surprise!!

We recently sold these four pieces of our bedroom furniture.

The pieces matched, but they did not come with the bed. So now that we only kept the bed, it needs to look like this.

BUT, I already started another big project so the bed project will not get started until the guest bathroom is done and of course we do the talk, communicate, budget blah, blah, blah, thing.  So, until then here is the progress report on the guest bathroom.

Exciting, right?

The wall only needs to be painted 1/3 of the way down because the rest will be wallpapered, so after a second coat of paint this will be done soon.

I am hoping to have this completed before Wade gets home because, like surprises, he does not enjoy the in-between stage of DIY either.

Love you Honey!

~Wendy

Project For The Week: Painting and Wallpapering The Guest Bathroom

Project For The Week: Painting and Wallpapering The Guest Bathroom

My friend Alyssa and I were texting back and forth last week, and one of the questions she asked me was if I was working on any big projects.

I responded that I was working on some wholesale things and changing up some blog things but nothing big.

Silly, silly me.

I decided at 2:30 yesterday that I am going to redecorate the guest bathroom. There won’t be any walls coming down or vanities ripped out, but more like new paint and wallpaper decorating.

I haven’t touched the guest bathroom since we moved in besides hanging three hooks for towels. The best part about that is that I blogged about it!

Crazy interesting, right!? (yawn)

I have picked out Tony Taupe as the new wall color. It just so happens that this is also on my bedroom walls that Alyssa and I painted over a year ago.

Remember when I mentioned that Sherwin Williams had chosen Poised Taupe as the color of the year for 2017?

Here is Poised Taupe and here is Tony Taupe.

Similar, but Tony leans more towards the browns than the grays which works better with the browns of my woodwork.

Our bathroom has a double vanity on the left when you walk in and past that a linen cupboard before you walk into the toilet and tub room.

Standing in the doorway of the of that room and looking back,

the big red wall on the left will be wallpapered ⅔’s of the way up with a paintable subway tile wallpaper.

From there, I am thinking of painting the wallpaper. I haven’t decided 100% on that. I am going to wait and see how it looks.

Oh and if you were wondering, the toilet/tub room is also red so it will get a fresh coat of Tony also.

No big deal.

~Wendy

Decorating Ideas Without Spending A Penny

Decorating Ideas Without Spending A Penny

It will come as no surprise to anyone that when I grow up I want to be KariAnne from Thistlewood Farms.

Granted, she is younger than I am, but let’s not sweat the details.

Besides her wonderful ability to tell a great story on her blog, the style in her home is something I strive to emulate.

So, when I read a recent post of hers, I was not surprised to see that my living room looked like a long, distant relative of her living room.

There are lot of similar elements; neutrals, wood, light, etc. But the item that caught my eye in her room was the ottoman.

Somewhere in my subconscious I must’ve known she had this ottoman, which she calls a coffee table ottoman, when I went to At Home and purchased mine.

In the blog, KariAnne then brilliantly took her post a step further and showed us three different display ideas on the ottoman all while using items she had around the house. So today, I am going to see if I can also “shop my own home” and come up with three long, distant relative coffee table ottoman ideas.

I used the same general concepts as she did.

#1 The Galvanized Metal and Greenery

#2 Boxwood and Wood Vases

#3 Typography

Here are my guided visions:

The Galvanized Metal and Greenery

Boxwood and Wood Vases

Typography

 

What do you think? A distant relative or not even in the same gene pool?

~Wendy