Category Archives: Painting

mile’s nursery

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Hi Friends!

Back in December I shared with you chicago nesting style.  My best friend was expecting her first and I flew to Chicago to help with the baby decor! We shopped a lot that weekend (online and in the city), and our vision really came together. I think it turned out really well!

Here’s a couple of photos of the space. It’s a little “lived in” but I figured that would be best!

Resources:  Color – Benjamin Moore HC-159 Phillipsburg Blue, Crib – Wal-Mart, Rug & Lantern – Overstock.com, Sheep Skin Rug – Ikea, Glider – West Elm, Dresser – Thrifted, Owl Prints – Etsy, Love print – T.J.Maxx, Miles yarn letters – homemade from a friend, Frames – Ikea

Miles said he liked it too.

family room progress

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We’ve been really enjoying our Texas spring; we have to, because the Texas summer is next. In between the beautiful weather, we have been working on the family room. I wanted to share some of our progress.

Here’s the original.

Then, I painted the paneling Benjamin Moore AF-130 Truffle here.

Then I painted the fireplace here.

You would think it was all done, right?

No… we decided to do some renovations, like taking down that paneling I painted!?! Just look at what we found!

Scary! Then, we opened the door from the entry way. It looks like it should have been that way! So much more open and inviting!

We found a kitchen “butler window” in the process of taking down the paneling and drywall! Crazy!?!

We also took down the pillars in the kitchen… then the drywall was put into place!

It looked so open and airy! We decided with all that destruction, why replace the old, leaky sliding glass door, too!

It all came together nicely! I painted the walls Benjamin Moore Early Morning Mist 1528 and have plans to paint/stain/tint the wood beams and some day get reclaimed barn wood to put over them. The lighting needs to be addressed, too!! It’s progress. I also have my eye on a big map for the wall as well! I’ll keep you posted!

In the kitchen, I still want to get long drapes, art on the walls, and a new light fixture.

Progress comes in all shapes and sizes! It’s been really fun revealing our! I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

first visit & color balance

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This past weekend, we had the pleasure of hosting the Daugherty clan in our Dallas home.  The first to venture down and see what Texas was all about.  We had a wonderful time, once Paul and I got over the initial shock of being “on” all the time. Paul even said, “kids are a WHOLE different level, I was tired after Adventure Landing!” But, we had an absolute blast and the things that come out of their mouths are so funny, such as Drake stating the sheets on his blow up bed were Fancy, wondering if the crabs would eat them at the aquarium, and the realization half way through a meal, “I have NO drink!”  They were great, and I wanted to adopt them all. What a great weekend. These kids are a ball full of energy and we didn’t want to disappoint.  So we hit up a couple local attraction: the park, which is right down our street, a couple times, Adventure Landing, Fort Worth Rodeo, and The Dallas Aquarium.

It was a great weekend and honestly, if I could guarantee a baby like Anna, I would have four.

Plus, it was nice to have a general contractor in our presence to nonchalantly ask questions… can we actually do that?  and how much would that cost? and what would you do? and can you just come down and do it?!?  Okay, I was thinking that last question.  I’m so happy they came down and here are the highlights of the weekend.

*Weekend Photos by Lisa Daugherty – because who forgets her camera? This girl. :( 

Otis also won a souvenir prize thanks to Anna.  Otis got many face licks in to Anna’s surprise this weekend; she was watching him all weekend but never got mad, just gave a look of what was that?!

He’s been playing/sleeping with it ever since. Sorry Anna.

Prior to the Daughtery’s making their presence in the Big D, I knew I had to clean up the main bath for their arrival!  I fell in love with the gray-with-green-undertones BM Stingray 1529 in our kitchen and decided to use what was left in the main bathroom.  It works perfectly with yellow tile and bronze/gold accessories. I also demoed the gold shower door! That was such an eye sore, so I replaced it with a simple curtain from West Elm.  I still need to add framed items in here but it’s such an improvement, I wanted to share.

Before

After (Progress Pic) – Sorry for the dark mirror photo…

When first purchasing a home, I got all excited about paint color, the kitchen could be this and the bathroom that, but then I realized the zen quality of cohesiveness… and stopped wanting to paint our house like a preschool classroom, so I started picking colors that complement each other.  Though I know people that have the same color throughout their house, and it works for them, I couldn’t do the same. I couldn’t think of that one color to blanket the whole house; I couldn’t handle just one color.  Instead, I found a happy-medium.  Here’s my color palette thus far;

  • Guest Rooms #1 and #2 – BM pashmina AF-100
  • Kitchen and Main Bath – BM stringray 1529
  • Hallways and Strip in 1/2 bath – BM swiss coffee OC-45
  • 1/2 bath other strip – BM halo OC-46 (though I could of used Early Morning Mist or Stringray)
  • Entryway – BM stone harbor 2111-50
  • Living and Dining Room – BM bennington gray HC-182
  • Master Bedroom – BM palladian blue HC- 144
  • Master Bath – BM boothbay gray HC – 165
  • Family Room – BM early morning mist 1528
  • Laundry & Guest Room #4/Office Bookshelves –BM dragonfly AF-510 or rockport gray HC-105 (TBA)

I tried my best to use the same colors throughout the house.  I think it’s working really well! I only have the laundry room, 4th bedroom and some bookshelves left!

it’s a marathon

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My generation and the ones following get looked down upon for our demands to have instant gratification. We want the goods delivered. Fast and now. I, too, want it now. I’m willing to put in some effort to get things done, but I want it done well, and I want it now. I want my house to be painted, cleaned, window treatments hung, wood floors installed, beautiful hand-picked pieces for every room, all my magazines read and finished, and all my books and movies read or watched on my “I should read/watch list”. But I have to remember this is not how it works. It takes time!! It all takes time. Unless, as Paul pointed out, I would just do crack; then, maybe I would have more time…

This comes to me in a time of despair.

I’ve been having trouble lately with colors. Making my want-it-now attitude turn sour because now I have to re-do it, again.  Here’s my problem: I have this wonderful idea in my head of the exact color I want, but I’m unable to translate that idea into reality when I get to the store to color-match the paint.  Or it looks great in a blog post or article and horrible in my house. It’s like reading a great book with all your wonderfully vivid characters in your head and then watching the movie and wondering how the director could butcher all the characters that badly. Except in this case, I am both the book reader and director. So, as I promised from the beginning, I’ll tell you about the good and the bad.

Here’s a list of my distasteful color choices, and their appropriate names, in case you would like to bring them to your home … maybe you could make them loved? In no particular order.

Laundry closet – Benjamin Moore marblehead gold HC-11 – Does anything look good with open-faced/cobbled cabinets and a fire extinguisher?? Really?

Bookshelves – Benjamin Moore providence olive HC-98

Kitchen – Benjamin Moore yarmouth blue HC-150 – It’s not bad, but it’s all wrong.  I cannot explain it.

The kitchen was so bad that I woke the next morning after it was finished with hoping it was all just a bad dream. Maybe I dreamt the hideous blue on the walls? Maybe it looks better today, in the morning sun? But it wasn’t. It was still as bright and as awful as it was before. So, I walked into the kitchen, took out all the color samples I owned and painted. Not even the morning coffee could take me away. Until, Paul with his infinite wisdom (or being of the male species) said not to waste my time. “We have to figure out our water damage situation before we paint the whole kitchen anyway, Sarah.”

So, I walked away… I’ll figure it out… later.  Here’s the samples… I want a color?  Not white or beige, a real color. Any ideas?

My favorite is the top left but we’ll see…

This idea of getting things done was emphasized when I revisited an article I read a month ago in Real Simple. It’s about this girl who always had a to-do list or numbers in her head, from her caloric intake to the day her infant would be a toddler.  This sounded familiar to my own life.  I too have deadlines: when I’m able to do something or eat something or even when I’m able to go to the bathroom.

“Fold the rest of the laundry and then you can go to the bathroom, Sarah.” Seriously?

I have countless to-do lists from books to read, movies to watch, flea markets to check out, the lists for the house, to detailed hourly schedule for a weekend, a work week.  It’s kind of crazy.

So, I vowed on this “labor day” that I would still have a to-do list BUT I won’t have them haunt me if/when I’m unable to finish everything. Maybe even scratch the list completely for a dinner out with friends, or a movie in the afternoon. Life is life and I will reference this article frequently until it becomes second nature!  As Paul says, “it’s not a crisis”.

Real Simple article Count Me Out

http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/inspiration-motivation/counting-00100000062753/index.html

Otherwise, this weekend was comprised of little tasks: painting missed spots, covering holes, organizing paperwork, and one BIG monster project that was both exciting and scary.  I’ll just get to the big guy, he was sitting in our family room sucking the energy out of the space but I felt he was ready for rehab and a new look on life. ;)

He looked like this (below) before I decided the unthinkable!

Sarah, it looks like you have some good ideas but I just wanted to tell you, you know if you paint the fireplace, well, you can never paint it back. ~ A.S.

before

First, I started by taking down the bronze door and washing off all the brick with a little soap and water.  I vacuumed around the door frame because that was McNasty. Oh, the layers of dust. Which lead me to this… already an improvement! I also sanded the mantle surface so the primer would have something to stick to. The little LED tripod work light in the fireplace is a little wonder! Paul got it for Christmas a few years back, and we use it all the time!

I then started the priming process!  It was fun to see the transformation and the brick have new life.  It looked so sad and dated before! I was going to use a roller for some of it but opted for two paint brushes instead. One small, one bigger. With all the nooks and crannies, this was the best route.

Primed. Check!!  Yes, I put my estate sale find on the mantle.  Even with just the primer it looks so much cleaner and happier. My estate sale find worked out perfectly, too!  I was getting really excited for the final product!

Then I painted the whole thing (two coats and a third to the mantle and hearth) with Benjamin Moore white linen (color matched to Lowe’s Olympic no-voc semi-gloss paint).  Because my Benjamin Moore store wasn’t open on Labor Day… and that whole, I want it now attitude.  You get the idea.

I’m so happy with the results!  I loaded it up with goods so you can get a visual of what it may look like all dressed up!! With all my strike outs, I’m so happy something worked out! Now, we can load the room. It will be ready for grilling and football season! Yay! Especially with the beautiful weather we had this weekend, everyone was ready for the fall… and sometimes you need to stop the projects and play a little football.

three’s no crowd

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Summers have always been special months for both Paul and I! We’re summer babies and love all the summer festivities: grilling, warm air, weddings, yard sales, and country music (Tim McGraw’s ~ My Next Thirty Years has been playing a lot in our household). Fitting, no? Late August brings the joys of buying school supplies (I love that stuff), the start of football, and hints of sweater season.  This year we got to add one more event to that list of summer loves: the purchase of our home! I cannot believe we’ve been here for a month, but it’s been a fabulous adventure already!  I love coming home to a loved house with history, old trees, that if they could talk, I’m sure would have lots to tell, and a neighborhood full of people that look after each other.  We have a 90-year-old (a multiple of 30!) neighbor that brought us over her special morning muffins and two cornbread muffins for dinner. If we like them, she offered to pass along the recipe. of course.  The previous owners said not to worry, if there’s anything suspicious going on, she will always call you before she calls the police.  We have another neighbor who has an uncanny ability to show up whenever we have workers in the house… “you know, I just passed by, and saw…” I love it.  Our neighborhood is a great mix of young and old, dogs and cats and one coyote. Good neighbors is something you can’t count on when purchasing a home.

We’ve been celebrating all month long in the Snitker household.

They actually took our offer!

Celebrating thirty days in our new house!

I turned thirty!

Paul turned the big 3-0!

And we had three rooms de-wallpapered and painted!

Master Bathroom

before

during

progress

Benjamin Moore Natura boothbay gray HC-165 in Eggshell.

Entryway

before

during

progress

Benjamin Moore Natura stone harbor 2111-50 in Eggshell.

Kitchen

before

during

See the water damage on the left.  I’m praying it hasn’t gone into the cabinets.

progress

Benjamin Moore Natura yarmouth blue HC-150 in Eggshell.

I have to admit, I think the kitchen is a vast improvement over what we had, but I’m still not all-in with the blue paint. It always looks so good in photos but maybe I’m stretching my palette a little too much? In the master bedroom and kitchen, I’m still not sure.  I may change it down the road. We’ll see.

We’re pretty pleased with the results.  Besides the water logged wall in the kitchen, that is. But I consider ourselves lucky we moved forward with having the wallpaper removed so early in our renovations, as we may be able to salvage more than had we waited.  And if all else fails we’ll save up our pennies and remodel the kitchen a little sooner than expected.  Sorry, wood floors you might have to wait. Here’s to the positive!    

I’ll leave you with a picture of a man starving. As I was taking the last progress pictures in the kitchen, this little man hadn’t had dinner and judging from his wrinkles, he’s really worried everyone forgot!   (We didn’t).

I hope everyone has a fabulous-relaxing-long weekend!

  

star wars

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Did you ever have those little glow-in-the-dark stars that you promised your parents you would only put up on your ceiling, and then of course ended up on fan blades, walls, and anywhere else they would stick? Well I did, and I loved them. I think mine even incorporated designs, including the number of the soccer player I liked in junior high. Fast forward 15 years – hello, Karma. I took (what felt like millions) of those little stars off all the ceilings, walls, doors, and fan blades of our various bedrooms. I took down “Yo” from a door, several different hearts, designer brand emblems and much more.  And, of course, the only way to see all of them is to have the room pitch black. Needless to say, star wars, episode: dallas was well underway. While this took a lot of patience (and balance, it turns out), I couldn’t help but smile about my teenage years and the stars that are still on the ceiling of my childhood room at my parent’s house. Two nights later, it turns out the “force” was strong with me, and I was able to withstand the dark side and remove most of the stars, but there are still a couple lingering throughout the house that were picked up by some innocent and maybe unfortunate bystanders…

Bystander 1: If you look closely, you can see stars on his chest. He was not pleased!

So what did I learn from this exercise?  I will never allow my children to put stickers in their rooms nor put anything up that would need anchors or poster/sticky adhesive… those too, had to be dismantled from the walls. We’ll be simply hanging things the old-fashioned way, with nails. I spent Friday taking down stars, and putty/adhesive from the walls, while Paul removed metal anchors from our walls. Firing a 77 with the blisters and cuts on his hands from removing those anchors apparently gained him street cred from the white-collared country club goers. Adda boy.

My first weekend goal was to get a fresh coat of paint in the office.

Office - The family photos with all that adhesive.

Office - door view

I used goo gone on the adhesive wall, and it worked like a charm. I applied a little amount to a rag and rubbed; then, I let it sit for a couple minutes before removal. The smell was horrible!! You know it’s bad when you’re looking forward to the application of oil-based primer to mask the smell of orange scented goo gone.

Goo Gone in action!

Prime Time

I let the primer sit overnight, so I could have a fresh start the next morning… I started with the roller first. You can see my coffee cup on the desk! I start my day out right!

I must say I really like the mustard-y/tan outcome of this room.  I had Paul pick the colors for this room, and he did a great job! (Benjamin Moore Natura Wilmington Tan HC-34 in eggshell)

Oh sweet progress!  On my list of to do’s for this room:

  • new fan
  • sew a cushion for the window bench
  • paint bookshelves
  • organize the shelves
  • put up diplomas and artwork
We also had a very excited Friday with the insulation people!  They blew in more insulation, put in two additional wind turbines and weather stripped the house.  Well worth it!  I can hear our air conditioner (and the electric company) thanking us now!

Attic Insulation

Two Wind Turbines

But wait, there’s more! I still cranked out a family room reveal as well!  I was crazy-ambitious this weekend.  I guess I’m really excited to start decorating, but I really need/want to paint all the walls first before I start buying and rearranging furnishings!

Sorry, I didn’t orientate the photos the same in the family room.  I’ll have to remember to look at the originals before I get started… this blog thing is a little new.

And then I started the process again! Roller, check!

We were really looking for a warm and inviting color for our family room, and I think we nailed it. We went with Truffle AF-130 Benjamin Moore Natura in eggshell. It was a great choice for this space. I can picture us cozying up next to the fireplace watching a football game.

Family Room To Do List:

  • Paint fireplace
  • Art on walls
  • Interesting/Unique lamp light
  • Mount TV
  • New face on fireplace door
  • New window treatments
  • New light fixtures – can lights??

We ended our weekend with a couple glasses of wine (milk too!) and a household favorite:  Venison Spaghetti.  It was a wonderful, productive weekend at home. Here’s to another work week! I need to get some shut-eye because I’m going to start heading out before work to walk/run.  I love to run and it’s starting to cool down in Dallas to start back up!

paint therapy

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This is the first weekend Paul and I spent in the house… alone!  The first week Paul’s parents were in town, and the second comprised of surprise birthday festivities; so this weekend we look around our brand new space in ah of all we have left to accomplish.  It’s sort of the feeling (or at least I imagine) when empty nesters have their children back for the holidays.  Oh the excitement and happiness of the moment, having everyone around … but then there is the cleanup afterwards. Maybe that’s why my mother-in-law Swiffers constantly while we’re all still there, so she doesn’t have the same overwhelmed feeling I did on Friday.  My two goals this weekend were to make some order of our bedroom situation, and yes, paint the guest room (we call it guest room two)… all else will have to wait for next weekend.

So I rolled up my sleeves… and started painting the guest room, which looked like this:  (Nope, I didn’t get to keep the egyptian art.) 

Guest Bedroom #2 (door angle) Before

Guest Bedroom #2 Before

I usually do all the big roller stuff first… I’m sorry I didn’t take both angles.

Then I start on the trim… which was double time because I have the great chair rail in the middle… but I must say, I’m very pleased with the results. Benjamin Moore Natura Pashmina AF-100 in eggshell.

Now, I know I still have A LOT of work to do in this space… the fan, the mirrored closet doors, a headboard, lights, fun framed stuff… but I’m happy it’s painted!

I must give a shout out to my friends at Benjamin Moore.

Benjamin Moore Natura

I think this is where I have to say – no, Benjamin Moore did not pay me to say this (I wish), but I tried their Natura line and was so pleased with the results.  It’s claim to fame is that it’s more environmentally friendly, meaning it has zero-VOC’s, and well, sorry crazy high-schoolers no huffing here.  It was wonderful, Paul and I walked through the house, and I honestly wouldn’t know someone had painted, well that is, until I looked down at my fingers!  It’s a little more pricey, but if you can forgo a relatively inexpensive Chipotle dinner for a deli sandwiches at home, you will be much happier, digesting your food and sleeping more soundly, when you’re able to breathe “fresher” air.  Just sayin’. AND – because no one really reads the words if I don’t have photos, I added the paint can. Contrary to popular belief, it comes in every color Mr. B.M. has to offer! 

Otherwise, I spent the latter part of the weekend picking up and organizing the master bedroom and bath. But first I painted!

Master Bedroom (door view)

First, we had to paint over a weird stain on the wall… let me tell you, it made for a pretty interesting conversation at the paint store… so I got this stain (above) in the master bedroom.

Sorry, this picture is a little off color-wise.

What I’m about to reveal is a little shocking in the color palette-o-sarah, but I kinda like it… and as Paul said it after he said he REALLY liked the guest bedroom color even better than the master.  He goes “No, No, I mean… I like the blue, it’s kinda beach-y.” Ha. I love him. Benjamin Moore Aura Palladian blue HC-144

I still have a duvet and pillows to pick out and pictures on the wall, but all is good!

Oh, and one more major reveal!!  I know Paul would be at least a little bummed if I didn’t add in his accomplishments this weekend, too… (not pictured, but also great: a wireless printer install, thank you, Paul!)

And sometimes he plays along!

Two cars in the garage! Say it ain't so!!

And that’s a weekend with the Snitkers! Have a fabulous week!