Painted Stairs- The BIG REVEAL!!!

 I love them!  I keep walking by them and smiling!  The walls haven't been painted up the stairs yet, that's on Friday's TO DO List!  My parents are coming over on their day off to help Mr. TSL and I redo the bathroom and paint the vaulted stairwell-I am super afraid of heights...... and roller coasters, well any carnival-type ride really.

If you will recall the little stairs looked like this to begin:

This is the BEFORE WE MOVED IN picture!

This is after I tore the carpet off-I love the Harley, our border collie's feet at the top!

After thinking I could stand them like this for a long long time, it took about 2 weeks and I needed to do something with them.  So, I decided to paint them with porch paint!  I looked for lots of inspiration. I decided that I am keeping the palette of our house in Ralph Lauren Cobblestone, black, white, and shades of green.  I decided the stairs should be green-I found a fabulous shade of green, but flubbed that up!

Then they looked like this----GAG!!

 I rushed back to Wal-Mart and exchanged the color for a fabulous shade of Army Green!

Here are the little stairs redone-please disregard the kilz primer on the wall-it will be painted over soon!

And now for the big stairs!!

They looked like this:

After much inspiration and quite a few back aches, I am proud to present my new stairs!!

So, what do you think?  Do you love them?!?

Cost- $19.97 for porch paint (I only used 1/2 gallon, still have 1/2 gallon-what to do?:) )


-Make your life beautiful!!

I am a FAN of fans! But, I love chandeliers too...what to do?

Morgan and Hayley's rooms are upstairs and it is really warm all year round.  Since that's okay in the winter, I haven't worried about it up to now.  However, summer is creapin up on us and I am a huge celebrator of warmer weather (I get my projects done when it's nice out!)  It has been really nice outside, but the girls' rooms have been a little warm.  They have old fashioned barn lights that look like this:

Morgan's is red and Hayley's is blue.  I love the style of this light and plan to repurpose these on the sunporch or somewhere in the house, I'll get back to you on that! 

For replacement, I really wanted to put up a grand bright colored chandelier like these:

Vintage Revival amazing chandie makeover!!

via HGTV

pink chandelier

 

I also love the capiz chandeliers:

West Elm

I have seen/read about some clever bloggers that have made these out of wax paper and patiently glued/ironed/sewed them together.  I have 7 month old baby-I don't have time to do this.  Who am I kidding?  I have decorating ADD and probably couldn't sit still long enough for this to get done, even if I didn't have any kids-I have so many projects going right now anyway!

My current projects: I am working on all of these right now in some stage or another!

Living room:

1.  New entertainment center

2. Painting the trim white

3. Finishing the office area  

4. Puttying some drywall

5. I NEED TO CLEAN IT!!

Kitchen:

1. Cabinet issues

2. Painting the trim white

3. Repainting the walls

4. Chalkboard doors- wait I finished that one-nope they need handles! CRAP!

5. The giant mess that is the floor-pulled up the carpet to reveal glue and foam!

Dining room:

1. painting trim white 

2. repainting the walls

3. the floor issue

4. the pallet wall

Front bathroom:

1. tile the floor

2. replace the toilet

3. replace the vanity

4. hang the mirror I repainted

5. Scrape the paint off the mirror I got on it!

6. hand the towel hooks

There is actually more........ a lot more!

OH EM GEE!!  There I go again with the ADD!! Back to the fan issue in the girls' rooms. Sorry!

 However, the girls need a ceiling fan.  Mr. TSL wouldn't go for this :

I wouldn't either, but I thought it was super funny!  I love the label in the middle that says ceiling fan-just in case you were wondering!

What about a compromise?!?  A combo of a fan and a chandelier?

hahaha. they have vaulted ceilings this could work-Please tell me you can tell I am being sarcastic?  Can you?  I am-being sarcastic!  This looks like an electrical fire waiting to happen!  Not to mention it's just dumb!

I would call this the fandelier!  So, I typed in fandelier into google and it pulled up one of my new blogs I stalk LURVE !  House Tweaking!!

She dubbed hers a fandelier too! But hers is BA (that's bad ass, for you non-potty mouthers) !

I can do this!  I am going to paint the girls' white though!  We already have fans with no lights so I am purchasing the light kits and I got 2 capiz shell hangings for $20 each from the World Market-I bought online because ours is like an hour away! 

Yes, this is another project I started!  Don't judge me! Hello, my name is "Kari and I have decorating ADD."  This is where you say, "Hello Kari-it's okay do what ever you want!"  You think you feel bad reading about Mr. TSL lives with it!!




-Make your life beautiful!

The glass is half full!

Er, I mean the stairs are half painted!!  I am painting another coat over the first one today and then hopefully they will be totally done by Saturday!

I am so excited, they look spectacular :)  I have also decided to paint all the trim in the house white, it will look so much cleaner and crisp when this gets done.  Notice I said when.....  I am going to start priming them hopefully today (not all of it, just the dining room)  The dining room is getting repainted to match the living room and since it doesn't matter if I get primer and paint on the old wall paint, I can just go to town.

However, because I have already painted: the living room, the master bathroom, and the master bedroom, I am going to have to be careful doing the trim.  In steps my ingenuous mom, she said just take the trim off label it with numbers and paint it with a roller!

Awe to the Some!!  So, I will be recruiting her for said task and also to paint the vaulted stair well.  I am super scared of heights and am not EVER going to get on the ladder to paint it!  Unfortunately, this may not happen for a while.  This weekend she is babysitting my super cute nephews on Friday and Saturday.  Not thinking she wants to do it on Sunday--probably that's a grandma recoup day!  Then next weekend is Easter. However, she does have some days off from work and weather permitting, I bet she'll go for it :) 
Love you mom!

Since, I will be painting the stairs and fixing my office area (I put together the vintage table of my mother-in-laws for our desk!) I am not ready to reveal...boo :( 

Just realized I have been writing and no pictures, nobody reads blogs for the content..jk, so here are some inspirational pics!

I got a new entertainment center-actually it's a dresser, but I love it! I used the paint tool to draw some inspirational decorating on it (I just learned how to use paint on top of a photo-LOVE!)

Like the wonky lamps?  :)

Please note: the bottom drawers were being glued, but I couldn't wait to take a pic of it.  They are now in place!

I fake painted the trim white with the paint tool too!  I am thinking I like the black and white curtains!
Like these amazing curtains:

The Yellow Cape Cod

Decor Pad

Also for curtain inspiration is how, Michael over at Inspired by Charm did his curtains.

I love this idea!  He is a creative genius! 

I am painting my curtains, like Meredith over at Welcome to Heardmont did with her shower curtain!

Off to paint my stairs!

-Make your life beautiful!

Chalkboard doors and a flub up!

A while back I decided to paint my flat builders-grade pantry/laundry room doors with chalkboard paint.  I never did get around to doing it...mama's got a big list of to do's and a teething 7 month old!  I was commited to painting the stairs though!  I went to Wal-Mart to get some porch paint for the stairs. 

While I am at Wal-Mart I see Krylon Chalkboard Paint on clearance near the spray paint (yes, I have another project and I needed spray paint for it---don't judge me---...that will be a later post-when I eventually get to it!) !

I retails at Wal-Mart for around $9 and it was marked down to $5.  PURCHASED :)

This was my inspiration:

source

Love the pulls turned upside down to hold chalk!

This is what I started with:

Now they look like this:

Super cute and functional!!  I was going to write something inspirational or draw something fabulous, but this is what they will almost always look like.  I have kids and they are having fun with this :)



And now to my flub up!!  I wrote down the color for my paint choice for the stairs.  Went to Wal-Mart and apparently Benjamin Moore makes more than one color with that name in different shades of green...what the crazy?!?  So, I buckled and picked one.  As soon as he opened the can I knew it was wrong.  But, he said it should darken up when it dries.  I knew this was wrong, but I was going on no sleepy-teething baby and I just wanted to leave Wal-Mart.

That was DUMB!!!
The color was more like mint-gag adn almost matched the current paint in the dining room and kitchen.  Crap!  Back to Wal-Mart (BTW they take back paint if you don't like it!) I did however paint the steps and live with the old color for about 5 minutes before I vetoed it and drove right back to Wal-Mart.  20 minutes and gas is like a thousand dollars a gallon!! I color matched a green Army blanket Mr. TSL has and repainted when I got home.  I will show you them, when they are done!  For now, here's the ugly paint!

not a fan of this paint color!

 
Painting them is not a permanent fix, but rather a temporary/semi-don't-know-when-we're-going-to-get-to-it-fix.  Because of that reason, I am not priming the steps, I figure the porch paint will do. I was going to paint every other step, but I have little girls and I don't think they could remember/actually get up the stairs without a step between, so I am painting half then finishing them the next day!




-make your life beautiful!

An Anniversary Party

My parents recently celebrated their 30th anniversary.  Being the super daughter that I am, and first born, I threw them a fabulous party!

I knew I was planning on doing this for a while and had in mind how to decorate.  Neutral and elegant!  My parents didn't have the huge wedding and their cake got eaten before they even got to the reception!  So, I knew I needed a wedding-looking cake for them and something fantastic, but not over the top :)


Thank you to my fantastic sister-in-law Lindsey for helping me decorate the tables before everyone got there!!  

What I used:

1.  white table flat sheets from Wal-Mart for table cloths. 

2.  craft paper for table runners.

3.  tons and tons of unscented white candles.

4.  electrical conductors with the battery powered tea light candles

5. mason jars with jute wrapped around the rim.

6. finger startfish

Here are the pictures!!

We catered in BBQ and used plastic plates, cups and utensils.  I chose white and clear to go with the beachy theme.  I really wanted to use real dishes, but there was no way to drag all of it to the party (I only had the venue for 1 hour before everyone arrived).  But, it turned out fabulous!




-Make your life beautiful!

Done with demo? -at least for now!!

I spent most of the day yesterday tearing the carpet off the big stairs!  It was a giant pain in the bum.  Our garbage can is full of scraps now :)  But, I am happy with the results! 

I also found a fantastic (I am super hoping.) new entertainment console on craigslist!  We are going to pick it up tonight.  I have also been selling tons of stuff on craigslist, when you are a stay at home mom and working with a budget, you got to support your habit somehow!!  I am rocking the garage sale this weekend!

Tools needed for carpet removal: Hammer, flat head screwdriver, utility knife, cat's claw (not sure if that is what it's really called-Mr. TSL calls it that.) needle nose plyers.


Here is what the stairs looked like before we moved in:

The nasty carpet in the dining room is gone, did that last week!  The ceiling fan is gone and was replaced with my Pottery Barn Bellora Chandelier Knock-Off. 

Looking good, Hollywood!!

Soon to look like this, but green:

-Make your life beautiful!!