Ick!

Yesterday I taped off my wall with the squares to paint the different colors. It looked real cool just with the tape. Damn, I should have taken a picture! Then last evening I started painting, and it was looking pretty good, with the main color painted all around these squares. I went to switch colors and start painting the squares, and the first color up was this sandy beige color that I had picked out. When I put it on the wall it looked a little off to me, but I kept going, knowing that it was going to dry a different color. Then I went to do the second color, and realized that I had forgot to buy it. It was a darker green than the rest of the green, so I thought I would try and blend a couple colors and see what I came up with. When I started painting, it was looking a little more grey than green. I figured it wasn't a big deal. If I didn't like the color I could always paint over it. Finally the third color. This one is like a Tiffany box blue, and when I started painting, it was making that sandy beige color look even nastier. It looked more like a dirty dusty rose than a sandy beige. Well it's dried since last night, and there is natural daylight in the room, and I friggin' hate that color! I was sure it wasn't the color I had picked, which is called Renoir Bisque. There is nothing bisque about this color at all. It definitely has a rose tone to it, and I just hate it! The color I mixed is fine. It does look more like a sandy beige, leaning more towards a sandy color. So I'm going to keep that color, but I'm going to go out shortly and get that darker green and repaint that nasty color. I hope it works out. If not, I'll have to repaint the whole wall, and there goes the hours I spent taping out this wall with a level to make sure my lines were reasonably straight, and I didn't end up with a parallelogram or something wacky like that!

Olivia

Paris chic

I've been checking out different headboards and beds online, just to get some ideas because I want to make my own headboard. Well I came across this site called Time 4 Sleep. They have a whole section of different French Beds, which I just love. I love that whole Paris thing. I have several different Parisian inspired decorative goodies, that I have here in my office/craft room. But I'm not doing my bedroom with a Paris theme, so a bed like these wouldn't work for me, but just look at this gilt and upholstered bed I've got here. If that doesn't scream Paris, nothing does!

What I'm planning on making is a little more streamlined and well, all around easier to build! I had thought of doing an upholstered headboard, but unless I could find a large piece of dark espresso brown leather to upholster it with, I think I'll just opt for wood and paint instead. I do have an idea to add a little bit of jazz to it, but I'll have to see if that will work first or not. Either way, I will post pictures when I'm done.


Olivia

~*This is a sponsored post*~

One in every crowd!

On the radio station I listen to, there is this one broadcaster that has a morning show, and he's hilarious. One of the segments of his show is called "You are an idiot!" What he does here is tell a true story about someone that's done a stupid thing. It could be someone in the media, or just someone he's come across in his daily routine. So he tells the story of what this person does, and then ends it with "You sir/madam are an idiot!", and this funny music plays singing this you are an idiot song.

Well today, I have a "You are an idiot" story of my own. I went to a local home center here to get my laminate flooring for when I do the main part of my house -- the living, dining room and hall. I'm not ready to do this job yet, but they had a sale on this weekend that was too good not to buy it now. We're talking 1/3 off, so I saved about $150 by buying this flooring now! Woohoo!

I needed to get 14 boxes of this laminate, and I would say each box is about 50-60 pounds or so. I know it's not much for you guys and gals that are in shape, but I'm an out of shape, slightly overweight middle aged woman, and they were getting darned heavy after a bit! I had to load them all first onto the cart, then from the cart to my car. Yes! I took them home in my Sunfire! I know I was pushing it to the weight limit, but it was a sale. A sale!! And besides, I wasn't far from home, and just figured I'd take the drive slow and easy.

So I'm driving down the road, with my hazards on, minding my own business. This guy in a truck comes roaring up behind me at a red light. The second the light turned green, he started honking. I hate that! I know the damned light is green already! I don't need a reminder! I start driving, and of course I didn't gun the car because of the overload I'm carrying, but remember, I have my hazards on too! This jerk starts wailing on his horn and waving his arm out his window. What the hell? I looked at my speedometer and I was going the damned speed limit, and those hazard lights aren't flashing for no reason, and, to top it off, there are two lanes with nobody in the left lane, so what the hell is wrong with this guy? Why did he have to carry on like an ass? Why didn't he just switch lanes and pass me? I'll tell you why... because "He is an idiot!" I wanted to stop the car, get out and go slap this idiot! He was pushing my already high progesterone levels through the roof, and I'll tell you one thing guys, to all of you that are like this jerk was, honking and carrying on, don't mess with an out of shape slightly overweight middle aged woman with high progesterone levels! It can be a real ugly experience for you!

Olivia

Did I mention...

Sometimes I just want to slap myself for getting into the predicaments that I manage to get myself into. Like for instance, did I ever mention that I hate painting those popcorn ceilings? Whoever invented those types of ceilings should be shot down and pissed on! I tell you, painting that ceiling in my bedroom was an absolute bitch.

Naturally I had to do two coats, because I haven't painted in there for awhile and the paint just soaked up into those nasty little popcorns... well those that didn't drop down on my head or in my face! Now before you say anything, I know I'm supposed to seal those bumpy little buggers with an oil based paint, but I hate painting with oil paint. The only type I will ever paint with is melamine paint, and that's only because I like what can be done with that type of paint, but regular old alkyd paint, forget it! I don't know what the problem was; why it took me so long to do this room's ceiling. I just seemed to whip through that job when I was doing my kitchen a few months ago. So now I'm feeling like I've been beat up. My wrists are killing me from pushing on that roller to get the paint into that nasty popcorn.

I was really hoping to get the walls all painted today, well, not the squares on the feature wall, but the other three walls, and the white base coat for under the squares. All I managed to get done other than the ceiling was the white base coat. Now mind you, I also did five loads of laundry and ran out on a couple errands. Oh well, tomorrow is another day!

Olivia

Got my paint chips!

Oh, this is going to be cool! I managed to find the perfect blue that goes with the green I had in mind so nicely. I grabbed a couple different sandy beige kind of looking chips, but I couldn't really tell if they are the right shade that I'm looking for. It's kind of hard to tell under the lighting at the Home Depot. Anyway I figured I'd bring them home and see what they look like under the lighting the actual room, both the electrical lighting and better still in the natural daylight tomorrow. I had initially planned on putting a coat on the ceiling tonight, but by the time I got home I didn't much feel like opening that can of worms. I'll see how I feel after work tomorrow, and maybe do that before The Biggest Loser comes on TV. We'll see though. Tuesday night is usually one of those nights that I come home dog tired and don't want to do anything.

Olivia

Back at it

Yep, it's renovation zone around the house again. Mr. Funky is of course up at the cottage, so that leaves me home by myself to don the handywoman superhero suit (aka my painting clothes) and wield the handywoman sword (okay, so it's a paintbrush) and redecorate our bedroom. I started this weekend, and last night I finished installing the laminate flooring. It looks great! Except now of course the rest of the room looks like crap, so I'm off to buy some ceiling paint and pick out the perfect colors I want to use. I'm planning on doing pop art feature wall where the bed goes. I want to do different size and colors of squares that overlap each other. I'm thinking a pale green, a pale blue, like a Tiffany's box kind of blue, and some sort of sandy beige. The rest of the walls I'm going to paint the pale green color. I'll check out the paint chips when I pick up the ceiling paint. Fun, fun, fun!

Olivia

Still going!

Oy! I'm still not done with my kitchen. I don't know. Either I'm getting old, or I just take a little more time doing a better job that what I did last time I did the kitchen, which was 13 years ago. Mind you, at that time I had a helper, but we did kind of just slap the paint on too, which is part of the reason of why the painting of the cupboards took so long this time. Today, I've been going all day, except for when I took an hour or so off while a friend came to visit. Not too bright on my part, now that I think about it. I should have put her to work! Anyway, I've got a little over half of my floor installed. Well, maybe about 2/3 is done, but I just can't do any more tonight. My back is killing me from stooping over rolling the tiles once I've done a section. I've been really putting some good pressure on the roller, and giving it a good go-over so I don't have any lifting corners. Most of what took so long today was repairing some of the old tiles that needed replacing and filling with wood filler. I had about six of them that I had to replace completely, and I'm telling you, for reasonably cheap tiles I bought at Price Club 13 years ago, those suckers were stuck down pretty damned good! It was a miserable gooey job peeling the ones I needed to replace, and much cursing was happening! I was really hoping to get my counters painted tonight after my floor was done, or so I thought. Ha! Nice try! Oh well, and my husband is coming home tomorrow, so this will be the first time I took on a job like this while he was away without me finishing it. I hate that! But then again, I'll have a few hours in the early part of the day to get some more done, so I better get my sorry and sore ass to bed and get some sleep!

Night all... ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Olivia

I wanna sit!

I really wish my kitchen were bigger. At least big enough to put in a small table and a couple of chairs. I was looking at home furniture at a couple sites online, and I love those bar height tables with a couple chairs. We used to have a table and chairs in here, but when we bought the new fridge a few years back, it had to go on another wall, as it is too big to fit in where the old fridge was. Right now I have my icky microwave cart in that spot. My long term plan is to get another base cabinet to fit that area, and extend my counter. Then I want to build a shelf under my cabinets for my microwave. That would give me a lot of extra counter and cupboard space. But it won't help me being able to have a small table and chairs. I'd have room to put a little set in next to my fridge if I were to build in my now portable dishwasher I think, but then I'd lose my double sink. I'd have to weigh the pros and cons of that, and decide what I want more, a double sink or a bar height bistro set. Hmm, I think I should have thought about this before I started re-doing my kitchen! I guess I'm just one of those people that will never be completely happy. Maybe I need a new house! ;-)

Olivia

Kitchen update

It's getting closer to the end, this big redecorating project I've been working on. Last night I put the tiles up on the one wall I wanted a back splash on. It goes from corner to corner on the wall that my stove is on. All the tiles are complete except for two that I have to do "L" cuts on, which I need to go buy a special saw blade to put in the Dremel. And then I have to do the mosaic border as well, which I would have done last night, but ran out of adhesive, so I have to get some of that too. So I have to make another run to Home Depot, which I'm going to do very shortly. I think I'm going to pick up the floor tiles while I there as well. I don't know if I'll get to them today, because I still have to paint the counter tops when I finish the mosaics, but at least I'll have them here and can start putting those in one evening after work this coming week. It's looking really good so far, yet still in a state of chaos with everything pulled out from the walls! Good thing my husband isn't home, because I don't think he could slink around everything like I can!

Olivia

Kitchen update

I finished painting the last of my cabinets tonight, and all I have left now is trim to do, which I'll do a bit here and there with no major hurry. The next task at hand it going to be the back splash tiles I've decided to do. I had pondered it, and I think it's a good idea for our kitchen, considering the mess my husband makes while cooking. It will save me time I think, because it's a lot easier to wipe clean some ceramic tiles than it is to scrub walls. Hell, I can just use my handy dandy Norwex mop to clean them! I love those products!

So after I purchased my plain white tiles, I went to a few different places around town to find a nice border tile I liked for along the top of the counter. After looking at several that I did like, I decided against this idea. Reason being is they all had color in them, and I don't want to restrict myself from any future color changes, because I have colors in my tiles I have to work with. But, I'm still going to do a border. What I'm going to do is the top four inches or so above my counter tops, I'm going to do a strip of mosaic, with just using the white tiles that I will break up into pieces. This will still give me some design to the tile job, but it will still be neutral white, allowing me to change my colors at any time I want to and not have to worry about matching to the tiles.

Olivia

Woohoo! I love coupon savings!

As you know I'm in redecorating mode right now while Hubby is up at the cottage catching fish! And as you also know, what started out as a little painting project has mushroomed into a much bigger project in my kitchen. The local building supply stores are grinning when they see me walk through the doors right now! Well I've decided that I need a new light fixture in my kitchen now too. The old one is just icky and I don't like it anymore. I need a brushed nickel one instead!

And when this job is done, I've also decided that I'm going to put some laminate flooring in my living room. I have it currently in my dining room and hall, and I love it, but what I want to do is take that up and put that laminate in my bedroom, then buy new flooring for my living/dining/hall, which all adjoin to each other. I can't get the same type as I already have, so I figure I'll have to buy new and do the whole sha-bang over again. It's pretty easy to install though, so that part doesn't worry me. It's just the whole cost factor is all. However, I was just browsing over at Coupon Chief to see if I could find any coupons to get some redecorating goodies, and I clicked through to see what the Home Depot deals were currently. Yippee! They have a deal on laminate flooring right now! I was so excited to find that! So now I'm also going to check out the clearance items and value center to see if I can find a light fixture for my kitchen that I like and save some bucks there too! Don't you just love Coupon Chief?

Olivia

~*This is a sponsored post*~

Still painting!

Wow! Did I take on a big job or what?! I've been stuck in my kitchen the past few days, painting, painting, painting! So far I have the ceiling done, the walls, and most of the cupboards. I still have one more base cupboard to do, and finish the doors with another coat. Then I have miles of trim! Okay, so it's not miles, but I have a lot of trim, and I had previously painted it black, and am now painting it all white, so it's going to take about 3 coats at least. But it's going to look great when it's all done! I'm also going to do new flooring, because as you know if you've done any kind of re-decorating, once you do one part new and nice, the rest looks crappy! Of course my floor is 13 years old, and was just cheap peel and stick tiles at the time. They yellowed on me, and I was never really happy with them after that. I'm also toying with the idea of doing a tile backsplash. I'll have to give that a bit more thought. It's practical for us, as my husband, although he's a great cook, he's definitely not a clean cook, so wiping tiles clean would be a lot easier to manage than scrubbing walls. And I'm still deciding how I'm going to do my counter tops. Will I ever finish?

Olivia

Re-decorating time!

Hubby officially left for the cottage last Friday, and I'm gearing up to do some re-decorating as I previously mentioned. However, I was thinking of doing my bedroom at that point, but after giving the kitchen a good scouring on Saturday morning, I've decided that I'm going to do that instead. It's more work, but I'd really like to have it done the way I want it. Several years back, the last time I did it, I painted my cupboards white, but I used oil based paint that has a gloss to it, and I hate them! Of course they're in need of new paint now too, so that doesn't make them look any better. And at that time, I also painted my counter tops with melamine paint. I did those in black. Yep, I was in black and white mode at the time. I'm over it now! So I'm going to keep in tune with the pale sagey kind of green for the walls, white ceiling though. I'm going to paint the cupboard bases white with melamine this time, but I'm going to do the doors in the next shade down of the green, again with melamine. I had thought of painting the counter tops white, but I don't think I want to do that, with stains and all, so I'm tossing around a nice espresso brown idea. I'm not sure yet though. I'm going to call my decorating diva sister and see what she suggests. I'd like to pick up another base cabinet too, since when we bought our new fridge a couple of years back it didn't fit in the fridge spot, so I had to give up my little two-seater table and put it on the other wall. In it's place I put a microwave cart that I hate! I'd like to ditch that cart and get another cupboard, which would be good for storage, plus it would give me another 30 inches of counter space, which I'm seriously lacking! I have this idea in my head of a 50s kind of look with the light green, white and I'm seeing cherries with it! I won't go overboard on any kind of theme, but I think I might put my embroidery machine to use by making some cute kitschy tea towels with cherries on them. Then I just need a cherry red mix master and blender to sit on the new counter space I'll gain! I'll have to put in a hint for a birthday gift, or I could even wait until Christmas too! ;-) I picked up some spackle today to start patching a few dents and scratches on the walls. I'm going to go tomorrow and check out a new light and get some ceiling paint. Big job, but it will be worth it! I'll do before and after pictures. Those are so fun!

Olivia

Fun coming soon!

I'm gearing up for redecorating mode here coming real soon. My husband is going to go up to my mother in law's cottage for the better part of June to do some work, and of course to do some fishing too! It's been a long while since he's gone on a cottage trip like this, and every time he does, I usually do some redecorating while he's gone. I prefer doing stuff like that when he's not around, because he turns "foreman" on me, and is always telling me I should do this that way or that this way. I don't need a foreman! I'm just as handy as him, and I have more patience while doing the job too! And I also enjoy doing that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I am thinking I may redecorate our bedroom this time. I want to pull up the carpet and put in some laminate flooring. I have it in my dining room and hall and I love it. I want to eventually have it throughout the whole house. I want to paint too. I'm thinking a nice pale olive green. I love that color, probably because of my name, and it would go well with the rest of the house as it is right now. A friend of mine had given me a whack of fabric from some curtains she had and didn't like on her windows. The fabric is pale olive, so I'm thinking I might make a duvet cover out of it, and maybe a couple decorative toss pillows. I want to get some new Blinds too. I really like the wooden slat blinds, but I'm thinking it might be a bit much for my puny bedroom window. I'll probably go with a Roman blind instead.

It will be so nice to sleep in a new bedroom, and until he gets back home, it will be even better, because I'll get to hog the entire bed and sleep diagonally. Of course I'll still have my little bed-hogging Jack Russell to fight for space with, but she's easily moved aside! :-)



Olivia

~*This is a sponsored post*~

Do it yourself or contractor?

This friend that I was visiting tonight had just recently had her bathroom remodelled. Actually it was stripped down to the bare walls, completely gutted and started new. It turned out just beautiful, and she lives in an older house, so the before was definitely in need of a redo. Her dad and brother offered to do it for her, but she opted to hire a contractor to do the job instead. She figured her father and brother could do the job, but it would take them too long to do, since they both have day jobs to tend to first, and with her only having the one bathroom, she didn't want it to be out of commission any longer than was necessary. She has it completely tiled -- floor, walls, and ceiling, which I thought when she told me she was doing that it was going to be too much, but it actually looks wonderful! The tiles on the floor are of course different from those on the walls and ceiling, and she has a row of really nice accent tiles around the perimeter of the walls. Her new tub is one of those fully enclosed ones, where the walls and ceiling are all of the same material as the actual tub, and then she has really nice glass shower doors. She has one of those nice bowl sitting on a counter styled basin. I love those!

Now I've come home and looked at my own bathroom and it's so blah to me after seeing hers. But it will have to do for a few more years though, for anything major other than a new paint job. I have more important issues in my house, like my kitchen for example. I'm actually pretty handy myself, but installing new kitchen cupboards is a little out of my league and no matter what my husband says, because I know what his patience level is, it's out of his league too! I think when I'm ready, I'll do like my friend and hire some professional Kitchen Remodeling Contractors. I'd like to make a couple of changes in my kitchen, such as layout, etc., so I think it would be best to pay someone to do it. There are lots of contractors out there looking for work, and if I can't find one on my own, I could always find a company like OnCallContractors who could find the right contractor for the job I have that needs doing. Now I just need the money to pay the contractor to do the job. Maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket for tomorrow's draw...

Olivia

Living room makeover

The other night I went shopping with a friend of mine. She was looking for new furniture for her living room that she's re-decorating, and she wanted my input on her choices she had narrowed down. She was torn between a contemporary styled leather sofa and chair, and a fabric set that had more of a country taste to it. My taste is definitely contemporary, so it was natural for me to choose the leather over the fabric. I'm happy to say she went with the leather, and it's beautiful! She also bought a new area rug and table set, as they were on display with the sofa and chair, worked well with her color scheme and looked great all together. The table lamps that were displayed in this setting weren't that great though, and she's decided that she needs to replace hers as well, and I have to agree! Hers are from the eighties and they are that shiny brass. Ick! I'm going to have to direct her to ShopTableLamps.com to check out these really nice lamps I was looking at. They're just stunning! They're brushed nickel and frosted glass, which is a lot more up to date from that shiny brass she has! They have a nightlight built into the base of the lamp, which is pretty cool, and they're priced at only $79.99 per lamp, which is even cooler! They offer free shipping within the 48 contiguous states, but the only drawback is that they don't ship to Canada, which is where we are. Fortunately, my husband has a cousin that lives just over the border though, so shipping hurdles like this are never a problem for me, as I can have something shipped to her house. Then I can just head over for a visit and pick up my shipment.


Olivia

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