Help a sistah out.

I have got to do something with this atrocity.

Normally I wouldn’t do this.  Normally I’d be too embarrassed to admit that I’ve lived with this lamp on this little table in this state for 2 years.  Normally I would never confess to actually LIKING this lamp after I sprayed it a soft platinum and decoupage tissue paper all over the shade.  Normally I would rather wait until after I flub up the redo to post such awfulness.  BUT, these are dire circumstances.

I’ve been thinking about lamps a lot lately.  I’ve seen some awesome lamp redos around blogland and I am jealous.  These redos have caused me to rethink what I once thought was cool.  Like this.  

Now, what was I thinking??

Here is a list of just a few things that are oh so wrong with this lamps:

1. The shade.
2. The shade is so tissue papered in some spots that it doesn’t let light through.
3. And so not tissue papered in other spots that the light SCREAMS through.
4. The colors are wrong, all wrong.  
5. The style is wrong, all wrong.
6. The room has no overhead light and the shade doesn’t allow enough light through.
7. Did I mention the shade?  Here look again:

Awful.

So, in my defense:

1. I’d never redone a shade before when I did this one.  
2. I generally rush into things with little or no planning.  That was the case here, too.  
3. Wait, did I say “in my defense?”  I’d make a horrible lawyer.  I guess I meant, “This is my problem and why many of my projects are fails.”  
4. Anyway, I just kept layering and mod podging and in the end I thought, hey, that’s pretty cool.  So I did another one:

Oh, geez.  

Again, what was I thinking?

Why didn’t I do some research first?  Why did I look at some table lamps, like these, to give me inspiration?  (Gosh I like this one, in particular.  And I wonder if I could make something that looks like this?)  Why didn’t I gather how-to’s and advice from other DIY-ers?  I mean, check out this super cute idea from How Does She?  Or these very elegant looks I found at Creations by Kara.

Alas, what’s done is done.  I can’t undecoupage.  But I CAN give them a whole new, updated look.

When I first put these out, our room had no plan, no style and no color.  After we added curtains, the colors became a muted robin’s egg blue with some gold and burnt orange tones.  So these guys?  

They need a change.  It’s time.

AND SO:

I need your help.  I’m appealing to your sense of style and your amazingly great ideas.  That’s what this bloggy thing is all about, right?  To connect and share, right?  Give me ideas.  I really need them.  If you could help in any way, if you know what kind of material to use to MAKE a lampshade, if you know how to decorate a lampshade, if you have a favorite lampshade makeover you’ve happened across, I beg you to leave a comment.

My living room will thank you. 

Yipes, Stripes!

In keeping with the ode to paint this week that will hopefully boost my creativity and drive so that all of our painting wishes come true this summer, I present to you, my guest bath.  You saw it already in this post here about the lame curtain I made.  (Lame, but it does the trick and is the right colors.  So, I’m ok with lame for now.)

I feel I should tell you that this bathroom is by no means complete.  Last fall I painted.  And bought new towels (because nothing says bathroom redo like new towels do!).  Oh, and hung mr’s picture.  But that’s all I did.  

There’s more to come.  Someday there will be new fixtures and new lighting and seashell accessories and a fun mosaic frame around that ginormous mirror.  Someday.  Don’t you love someday?  It’s such a beautiful and perfect place... We are working on a shoestring budget here.  I'm sorry.  Did I say shoestring?  It's a lot more like a velcro budget.  

Not the best pictures, after all, it IS a bathroom.  It’s not all that big either, and no windows to boot.

I painted it all a satin creamy white color (something like English Cream or English Cottage or English Toffee... wait.  That last one doesn’t seem right.  Toffee?  Isn’t that brown?  Well you get the idea).  Then I taped off the lines and painted them some Caribbean sea inspired colors.  Something like Caribbean Sea and Lagoon Blue.  You know the ones.  I used glossy so they’d pop. 

The lines were hard.  I didn’t know what I was doing, I’ll admit.  (like I ever do...)  I had seen it on HGTV - of which I watch way too much and get way too many way too big ideas.  It’s how I get in over my head - and I knew I wanted it.  I used a level and a yard stick and drew straight lines.  I taped them meticulously.  (that part took forever) What I didn’t know was that you are supposed to peel off the tape when the stripes are still a little tacky.  Whoops.  AND it helps to go over the tape with the wall color and let it dry before you paint the lines within the tape parameters.  It seals the tape, see?  Well, I wish I’d known that then, so I wouldn’t have ended up with smuginess that I still, to this day, have not quite fixed.  It looks ok, it’s really not THAT bad - but it bugs me to no end.

I’m still happy with the colors and the stripe idea, though.

Oh, and that shower curtain?  Funny story.  That was one of the only things that mr and I agreed on right away without debate or persuasion when we were using those fun little scanner guns.   We found it at Bed Bath and Beyond and when no one got it off our registry, we were kind of disappointed and resolved to go and get ourselves.  Well, they didn't have it anymore.  So we asked if any other stores in the area had it.  They did not.  So we made them call corporate and ask if any stores in the COUNTRY had it.  (No, I'm not kidding.  That's how obsessed I can get.)  And they said no, it wasn't being carried anymore.  BUT, they DID have a solution.  They had a few in some warehouse somewhere so they could ship it to the our store.  When they called us weeks later to tell us it had come in, I was giddy.  With all the excitement of Christmas morning, I carried that precious, long-awaited box in my lap.  When we got home, I ripped the box open - envisioning the perfect, FUN shower curtain hanging in our small and drab basement level apartment (it already seemed so much cheerier just thinking about it) to discover THIS 

shower curtain.  So right then and there, I drove all the way back to the store, gave them the yucky plastic FISH curtain back and demanded my lovely calming island one that was reminiscent of our honeymoon.  Which wasn't calming, by any means, but was still special.  Anyway, they finally did find us the right one and we finally did hang it up in that little bathroom and it finally did make it cheerier.  

So, I really love the curtain but I hated the flowers on it.  So I took a scissors to it.  Yep.  Cut those suckers off.  

Somehow this

 looks like “Tween girl who loves Kris Allen and reads all the Twilight Books because the writing style is like, so deep” 

but THIS 

is like “Relaxing on the beach under a beautiful cabana swaying peacefully in my hammock.”  Right?  Well, I think it makes all the difference.  You can think I’m crazy if you want to.  Go on.  Think it.  I won’t even try to dissuade you.

So there you have it.  Stripes.  Not the most exciting redo, yet, but those stripes have inspired me with an idea for the family room... which will happen later on this summer.  mr doesn’t know it yet, but when he agreed that the family room needed to be painted, he agreed to stripes.  bwah-ha-ha-ha!

PS.  In looking over these photos I realized it's best to clean your bathroom before offering up "after" pictures to be filed throughout all time in the stores of blogistory.  Oops, sorry.

blast off... to the safari!

mr and I are currently in the process of painting our whole house.  We have been in this process since we moved in, about two years ago.  Why are we paint our whole house?  Because the whole house looked like THIS when we got here:

Builder’s white.  And, lucky us, there’s a big bucket of it leftover in our basement - just in case we wanted to remain yawnably boring the entire time we live here.

I do not want to remain yawnably boring.  It’s not my style.  Fortunately, it’s not mr’s style either. Unfortunately, the similarities in our styles end there.  mr is a safe, somewhat contemporary, simple and clean, I’m a chemical engineer kind of style.  I am more of a crazy, colorful, anything unique and different, I’m an eclectic theatre girl kind of style.  So, it’s taken a while to get mr to jump on the bandwagon with the painting thing.  I wanted to whip out the brushes, sponges, cans, rollers, faux finishes, glazes and vinyl the second we moved in.  mr dragged his feet.  And since he has to live here too, I really didn’t want to just take it over and do it anyway.  So I have been patiently waiting until the bug bit him too.  And, lo and behold, this spring it did!  Needless to say I am very excited.  Our plans this summer include painting the rest of our house that I have not yet gotten my hands on - the main floor (kitchen, dining room, living room combo) the family room, two hallways, and the kids’ bathroom.  I know, ambitious!  Thank goodness we have a lot of family in the area who are so sweet and kind and always willing to lend a hand - right guys?  Right??

On Monday we started the playroom and it is ALMOST finished!  You can find the first official picture of it here, on yesterday’s post.  And here’s a sneak peek of what the 2’s and I did today:

I know, it’s going to be exciting.

See, the kids’ rooms are the places mr really lets me have my way.  I guess he figures that since he doesn’t have to live in them, he can let me go wild.  And I do, I really do.

To inspire our coming paint projects, I have decided to post the ones we’ve already tackled.  Because I just can’t wait to put these up, I’m starting with the crowning glory - in my opinion anyway.  They are bug’s bedroom and mini’s bedroom.

bug’s bedroom wasn’t finished until over a year after we moved here and he was almost 2.  It was inspired by this bedding:

It took forever to finish, but this is why:

mr went to Mexico on a business trip and when he came home, bug’s room was this nice “heliotrope” color.  He was a little surprised.  When I finished that, Lise came over and helped out by drawing chalk outlines of all the planets.  (I know, I know, planets are just circles, what’s so hard about that?  Well, have YOU ever tried drawing big old circles on your walls and ceiling freehand?  Didn’t think so.)  Then we primed all the shapes since the background color was so dark.  Anyway, Lise’s most amazing accomplishments were the Earth and the moon.  I made her do those because I was too afraid to attempt them and she’s the art teacher.  (and boy am I glad I did.  Can you believe that moon??)  She also did Venus and Mars.  

I did Saturn, Uranus,  Neptune, Jupiter, and Mercury.  Oh, and all those stars you see.  Ay-ay-ay!  I know, that part took forever.  I also did the satellite, which I kind of hate.  A lot.  It’s like this huge monstrosity orbiting the light fixture.  If I’d been thinking, I would have painted the ceiling fan silver and added some details and used that as the satellite because the fan panels look like the satellite panels.  Oh well.  I painted the comet and the meteor shower, too.

I just noticed I spelled handiwork wrong.  Oops.

There is no Pluto, because even though it was a planet when I was a kid, it was demoted.  So we didn’t technically put it up.  But we decided to call one of those really big white stars Pluto.

I spray painted a big Chinese lantern that I got at IKEA orange and yellow and hung it from the light as the sun.  You can see some smaller chinese lanterns I got at the dollar store hanging in the corner as stars.  The hanging rocket shelf is from IKEA, too, and is PER.FECT. for the space.  mr’s contribution?  The starship enterprise hanging above bug’s bed.  Sigh.  I couldn’t change his nerdy chemical engineer’s mind.  

Here's another picture of that moon.  Because it's just too cool not to put up.  (thanks, lise)

Since these photos were taken, I got some glow paint put up, and I’ll have to take a picture of that later so I can post it.  I love how it makes the room glow at night, and so does bug!

I know the blue paint makes his room VERY dark, and a lot of people wouldn’t like that, but I was going for a unique bedroom, and when I found this bedding on clearance for like $25, the whole concept was born.  I actually like how it’s dark in there, even during the day, because I don’t think he’d nap nearly was well if it were light!

mini’s bedroom, on the other hand, is VERY light!  mr actually came up with the idea for her room all by himself.  We saw this very sweet little yellow and brown giraffe after we found out we were having a girl, and mr announced:  “This is what I want her bedroom to be!”  

Yellow happens to be my favorite color, so even though I wanted a “fairy tale room,” I relented.

Her bedroom also took a while to finish, but this is what it looks like now:

I started by painting the whole room yellow.  mr wasn't in Mexico this time, so he helped.  bug wanted in on the action too.

Then I went around the bottom of the walls with brown.  I decided I wanted all of the details to be done in silhouette to play up the brown on yellow contrast.

My mom and sister came over to help draw some of the animals.  My sister drew the giraffes, the leopard in the tree and the small elephants.  My mom drew and painted the big elephant and the alligator in the watering hole.  I drew and painted the lions.  I also painted the varying degrees of tan and yellow in the background to add perspective.  I painted the background trees, the leopard, and the grass.  

Then mr and I painted the big tree in the corner, the focal point in the room.  It took FOR.EV.ER, but it didn’t feel like it, mostly because I love trees and yellow, so I was pretty much always happy when I was working on her room, despite having only a month or so to go until my due date!  I was also happy that mr seemed to be enjoying helping out with the tree.  Lastly, I added the leaves in the tree

 and the final touch (AND hardest part) the sun in the corner.  What, you say?  The hardest part was that little circle of light yellow?  Circles don’t want to be painted in corners.  The just don’t.  It’s incredibly difficult to get the perspective right and make sure it looks like an actual circle and not a weird, lumpy, lopsided oval.  But, mr and I agreed that the sun HAD to go in the corner.  When you draw a picture as a kid, you always put the sun in the corner, don’t you?  Well, we did, anyway.

I found her bedding for cheap on-line, and now I’m not sure I like it very much, but it does go with the theme!  I painted a dresser I found for a ridiculous price at St. Vinny’s and an old shelf from our apartment days.  I also painted the little bench chair in front of the window a distressed yellow and tan and reupholstered it with one of mini’s receiving blankets that she didn’t use.  It’s tan and cream stripes.  I couldn’t find fabric that I liked for a decent price, I had the blanket on hand AND it is soft, so I think it was a good choice.  

Don’t get me started about the ugly green carpet.  It was one of the biggest cons for buying this house.  We went with it anyway, because it’s cosmetic and can be changed.  But until we do change it, we have to live with it.  Unfortunately.  I don’t know why this color carpet even exists.

I know mr won’t let me do anything like this on our main floor, so it’s good I got it out of my system with the kids’ rooms.  I’m not a muralist, by any stretch of the imagination, and I know their rooms aren’t perfect.  But I hope that as they grow older they will look around and realize how much time and effort and LOVE was put into making their rooms personalized and one of a kind.  Although, as I get older, it’s not likely I’ll let them forget it... “do you know how much sweat, blood and tears went into that room?  I slaved and slaved for you...” especially when bug decides his is too babyish and wants to paint everything black and mini falls in love with her generations equivalent of The Backstreet Boys or N’Sync and plasters posters all over.


Have you heard of the new site, The CSI Project?  They are having a paint challenge this week, and I'm linking up!