Have I Mentioned?

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Target? I probably love it a little too much, and since it's only a few blocks from our house, I frequent on a very regular basis. We're talking it's a very strange week if I haven't been there, and I'm usually there multiple times a week.

So why am I telling you about my Target addiction today? Well, there is an upside to my obsession, I see pretty much everything in the store and know when there is new stuff and when there is stuff that has gone on clearance. One of my most recent finds were the curtains I got for the back room.  I managed to snag them for only $7/panel, which is quite the steal. Update: I just went to Target again this weekend and they are now on clearance for $4 at our store.

As I mentioned here I had already bought the curtains, but was just waiting to get the rods. Well I went to Big Lots (another favorite place, especially for curtain rods) and got some finally. So up went the curtains.

 We hung them as close as we could to the ceiling while still having them graze the floor. (I can't stand too short curtains, it's like those people who wear too short of pants, it just doesn't look right). Having the curtains up higher draws the eye up and automatically makes the windows look just a hair bigger. Plus, since the ceiling in this room is only seven foot it helps to make it see just a little larger.

The one thing I love most about these curtains is their subtle diamond pattern. I think it really adds depth and dimension compared to a plain white sheer panel.

And I checked having them closed at night and they provide a surprising amount of privacy. You can see through them a little if you really concentrate, but hopefully we won't really have people standing outside trying to see through them that hard. If so then we have a whole other problem. And since we're curtain closers anyway it works out well for us (we don't really like to mess with the blinds every night, so we just close the curtains instead). They also do a great job of filtering the light in the day if we happen to leave them closed. Compare: Open:

Closed:

You may not be able to tell the best in the pictures, but the closed curtains kind of redistribute the light so that it brightens the whole room rather than having direct sun in some areas and then darker shadows in others.

We really like that we didn't have to spend very much to have great looking windows (because we're kind of cheap skates). In all we ended up paying $7/panel and bought six curtain panels, $7 for each of the two shorter curtain rods and $10 for the longer rod over the double windows. So in all we only spent $66 for the entire window treatments. Not too shabby considering that you can pay that for a single pair of curtains easily in a lot of stores.

Shelfish

Last week I mentioned that we might do some art over the dryer at some point. We may still do that, but it is looking much less bare these days thanks to a quick little shelf project we whipped up. We started out with some L brackets and a 4 foot pine board that we picked up at Lowes for $9.63.

We measured how long we wanted the shelves to be to fit perfectly in the corner. Then two quick cuts with a skill saw later we had this.

We also had a shorter piece of board left over, who knows, it may become a shelf somewhere else someday too. Next I primed and painted the boards (which you can see some in the above picture since I forgot to take a pic before I started priming). We decided to go with white shelves to match the trim in the room since we want them to look nice, but still kind of blend in with the rest of the room.

I started out painting one side and the edges, then waited for it to dry, which only took about 10 minutes since it was a hot day, and flipped them to paint the other side. I did one coat of primer and two thin, even coats of paint to get them looking nice.

 

Now all we had to do was hang them up. Jake used a level to line the L brackets up so that the shelves would sit on them nice and straight, then he just screwed them into the wall.

Jake also secured the shelves to the L brackets using screws. I'll probably go over the heads of the screws with a little white paint at some point to make them a little less noticeable, but for now I'm really loving what those shelves have done for the corner. As a refresher, here's what it looked like before. 

And here's how it looks with the newly added shelves. 

 

I love how cute they look and all that added function that they provide to the laundry area. And since we already had the primer, paint and screws on hand, the entire cost for the shelves was only the $9.63 we paid for the brackets and board! Gotta love an inexpensive, functional and cute fix! 

Anyone else made any simple improvements that you didn't realize how much you would love until you finished it? I know every time I walk in the back door I look up in that corner and smile now.

The Big Reveal (Finally)

So this is a lot longer in coming than I originally expected it would be, but I also never expected the worst tornado in 60 years to come barreling through my town, so I feel like I have a decent excuse for the tardiness of this post. First, let's take one more quick before look at the room.

 

Ugh, I'd kind of forgotten how ugly and not at all functional that room had been. Yikes! And now for the big reveal:

What do you think? We really love the way it turned out. It's so much more cheerful, and functional, and just plain nice to hang out in. I still love walking into it every day, it just looks so much better. And just so you all know, we did meet our deadline of finishing it by Memorial Day, I just didn't get around to getting it all blogged about until now. This is the view from the kitchen door.

There are still a few other things that we plan to do to the room, like add in some window treatments to the bare windows.

Add in some art on that ridiculously bare wall next to the kitchen door and even over the dryer potentially.

Maybe paint that other cabinet next to the gray one in the corner (please excuse the adorable blonde headed boy in this pic, also known as our nephew Blake).

Who knows, maybe someday we'll even refinish the floor, but all of those things are down lower on our list of things to do right now, but we'll definitely let you know about them if and when they happen (I actually already have the curtains for the room, just need to get some good looking rods). Right now though, we're just basking in the glorious remodel and loving it. We've had people over several times already to use the dining area of the room.

 

And the laundry area is so much more functional now than before (you can see the awkward washer/dryer situation in the before pic at the top of the post).

I think my favorite thing, well, I'm not sure I can say that, because I love pretty much everything about this room, but one of the reasons I love it so much too is because of the gallery wall.

We'll go into more detail about the gallery wall and the laundry nook, as well as a few other projects that helped bring this room together, at a later date, but we just couldn't wait anymore to show the final pictures. We just love the way the room turned out!

Anyone else finished off an previously hideous room in your house that is now one of your favorite places? Or is there anyone inspired to do a little paneling painting now?

And if you're interested in checking out the rest of the room projects, and the step by step tutorials that we did, here's a list of them:

Here's a look at all the before pictures.
See how we took down the tile ceiling.
Check out the difference that lighting can make.
How to put up sheet rock.
Preparation for painting paneling by caulking holes.
How to texture drywall.
Put up new paneling over existing "walls".
How to prime wood paneling.
Painting wood paneling with Drifting Dune.
How to paint wood trim and molding.
Adding more of the color you love to your house with another blue door.
How to add art to closet doors while keeping them functional.

Decal-in' It Up

Remember the decal we got in this post? Well it's finally being put to good use. We mentioned in the aforementioned post that it would most likely be used in some form or fashion on the giant sliding doors in the back room. The doors take up most of a wall, so it just seemed a shame to not be able to display any art on them (please ignore the mess on the floor and table, and the fact that the windows aren't painted yet in this picture).

 

Enter decal. We mentioned when we first wrote about the it that we weren't sure if we would actually use the actual decal or use it more as a stencil to paint with a similar but slightly different color as the rest of the room onto the doors. But when Jake looked at it more closely he decided that stenciling would not work out the best. You can kind of see why in the picture below. 

 

Not the best stencil material. But, we really liked the colors of the actual decal anyway, so it wasn't a loss. Jake was the one who put the decal up since he's good at detailed stuff (I don't have enough patience). He also decided that trying to follow the picture from the packaging exactly would be too much of a hassle, and most likely somewhat impossible, so he just winged it (no bird pun intended, sometimes these things just happen). Here's an in progress shot. 

 

We both really love the result, and several people that have seen it thought that it was painted onto the doors, I almost hate to admit to them that it's actually a decal. Every time I kind of want to put my thumbs in my pockets, puff my chest out and say, "Yeah, we're just awesome like that", but I've refrained, so far that is. 

 

And here's a quick look at both doors, proudly showing their plumage (ok, I may be taking the bird thing a little far now).

 

And while we're on the subject of the closet doors, here's a quick switcheroo we did in less than 5 minutes one night. The old pulls on the the doors were gold. 

 

It's hard to tell the color in the picture a little bit, but trust me it was gold, and gold isn't really our thing. So we decided to switch them out for silver ones. 

It may not be the biggest change in the world, but sometimes its all in the details, and we definitely like these details better than the former details. Here's a close up of the nice, shiny, new pull. 

It may not really be your jam, but we like the subtle difference it made on the doors, somehow they felt cleaner and more streamlined. 

Anyone else added a decal recently, or maybe made a very subtle change to something in your home? Do tell!

What's Your Decorating Personality?

I found this fun little quiz in a Better Homes and Gardens email that I get weekly and thought it would be fun to check out. My personality is apparently Polished Casual.


"Polished Casual: You love to mix and match your favorites from several styles, so Polished Casual is the best way to describe your look. Crisp, fresh, and always comfortable, this approach anchors itself in neutral, subtle hues and furniture that isn't fussy but isn't slouchy either. Pair your clean-lined sofa with a dark leather wing chair or a weathered metal table—anything goes, but simplicity is key."

Here are a few pics of rooms that I thought fit the bill pretty well:

found on pinterest, originally from here

found here

found on pinterest, originally from here

Sounds pretty accurate actually, although I'm not entirely sure that wanting to raid Jennifer Aniston's closet has anything to do with my decorating style... So what's your decorating personality? Take the quiz here and see. Then come back and let us know what you get, and if yours seems as accurate as mine.  

The Other Blue Door

As I mentioned last time, we now are the proud owners of two blue doors, one for the front and now one for the back. It wasn't necessarily intentional, in fact, it didn't even cross my mind that we already had a blue door when we were deciding on a paint color for the interior of the back door; it just seemed like the logical choice. Blue just looks that good.

The color we chose was actually one that I bought a couple of samples for to use on a bench remodel that I plan to get around to someday. It's Artesian Well from the Martha Stewart Living Collection color matched to Olympic Premium no-VOC paint. The way we ended up deciding on it was I just decided to throw some of the sample that I had on hand up on the door in the midst of my window trim painting escapades, it provided a nice break from the tediousness. Low and behold though, it was a great color for the room! Woop woop!

Artesian Well is the color on the bottom of the sample. And just as a side note, if you haven't checked out the Martha Stewart Living Collection paint samples I would definitely suggest it. They have complementary colors on the reverse side that tell you good uses of those other colors. Coincidentally, the coordinating color to Artesian Well is one that is very close to Drifting Dune that we used on the walls in the back room; maybe I should become a paint coordinator...
*I wasn't paid for this little plug for Martha Stewart, btw, she and her company have no idea who I am, although that would be kind of exciting if they did, anyway, I just like the whole color coordinating ideas that they have on the back of the cards.*

Ok, enough with the choosing process, here's how the door thing went down. We took the door off its hinges and set it up on our saw horses outside to get our paint on. Jake removed the handle before painting too, just to make it a little simpler. We primed first, which was a great decision because of how smoothly the paint went on once the primer was dry. We decided to paint the edges of the door too and leave the outside plain for now (we may paint it the same or another color somewhere down the road).

 

I went ahead and had Jake tape off the window for me too so that we wouldn't have to do the whole razor blade thing later, it just seemed like the easier option in this case. Two quick coats of paint later and Jake was reattaching the handle and the door was looking like this.

The whole painting project only took about an hour including drying time because it was so hot out that day and the sun was shining right on the door. We left it out to dry for about 2-3 hours though, just to make sure it was good and dry when we hung it up. It's such a pretty color, here's a close up of the color for you.

And here's what it looks like in its new home.

We really love the results. The soft blue just seems to finish off the room even more, and we love the way it looks paired with the white trim, just so fresh and homey. And I love how the green of the outdoors looks framed in the light blue color.

Anyone else been adding more blue doors? Or maybe another color theme that seems to be on the brain right now?

Where Were We?

I apologize for the overly long absence from new posts here at The House with the Blue Door. You never realize how much a natural disaster will really affect the entirety of your world until you live through it and discover all the things that it truly changes, from where you get your groceries, to figuring out what to do with a totaled car, to the amount of phone calls you get from people wanting to help in the distribution center where you work. Let's just say that things have been pretty crazy around here for the last month or so, and I appreciate your patience with us.

Now, where were we before May 22, happened? Right, we had just shown you how we painted the back room in Drifting Dune. So, after the walls were painted the next step was getting the molding up and the trim all painted a nice, crisp white. We started with the molding.

We decided to just paint the molding pieces in an off the shelf white (Olympic no-VOC of course). We didn't even prime; we figured they wouldn't be getting a whole lot of wear and tear all the way up by the ceiling, and of course we'll update you if that decision turns out to be a bad one, but so far it's been about a month and a half and no regrets.

We did end up putting three coats on, but it went on so smoothly and took very little time, so it actually ended up taking less time than priming would have. It also helped that it was sunny that day, so the coat on the first one we painted was dry be the time we did the last one. The whole process with all three coats only took about half an hour.

After letting them dry for a few hours Jake tacked them all up with a nail gun, it was interesting trying to figure out which piece went where, if you ever take molding down at home and plan to put it back up I would suggest marking the back of it with where it came from. As it was, we just did a little puzzle piece type thing and figured it out. Next came painting the window and door trim and the base boards.

Jake taped off for me (I hate taping, so he graciously does it for me, which is good since I'm not that great at it anyway). Taping isn't always necessary, especially if you have a steady hand and a good brush, but as you can see in the picture below, the trim pieces were not very well defined from the wall, so tape seemed like the best option.

  

We like using Frog Tape over blue painters tape, it seems to go up and come down easier without ripping, which also makes for cleaner lines. 

Next I got to work on painting. We decided not to prime the trim either, maybe we had just gotten lazy by that point, we had been working on the room for close to two months, but I'm fine with the way it turned out, and once again we will let you know if that decision turned out to be a mistake. I put two coats of off the shelf white on the trim as well. 

 

The base boards were a breeze, I got those puppies done so quickly I was ready to tackle the trim in the rest of the house, then I got to the windows. Ugh, the windows. I'm not gonna lie, I love the look of our wood windows, and they look great now that they're done, but they definitely took the steam out of my "Let's paint all the trim in the whole house white right now!" engine. They were very tedious and took a lot more time than the base boards did, so while I did get them all done, it took me quite a few hours to get those 5 windows all painted and looking good. I was so tired at the end of it that I forgot to take any pictures. Here's a look at them before I got them painted though. 

And here's one that I just went and took right now, sorry about the yellowish tint. 

So that's that for the molding, trim and base boards. Next time we'll take a look at the other blue door that we have in the house now.