From That to This!

Happy Friday! I took some quick pictures of the painted stairs, I am so happy with them!!

So here's the before:

The top set

The bottom set

I had first thought this carpet was original to the house (1979) but after I ripped off the carpet I saw lots of pieces of dark red carpet... I'm thinking the whole house had dark red carpet. Gross.

During:

And After (for now)

I still need the trim on the sides and backs and add a runner (no luck at Big Lots) but they feel so much better! You would never know that they were particle board!

Have a great weekend!!!



Can’t wait for Spring!

I think the spring bug has hit just about everyone lately! It’s rainy and cold here today and I just can’t help thinking about evenings on the back porch, Layla swinging, throwing the ball for the pooch and working on this guy:

I’ve already introduced Trent Taylor the tent trailer but my Mom and I were talking last night and she got me so excited about camping this year! Almost as excited as I am to bring this guy home he is currently hanging at my Mom’s house; my stepdad was nice enough to build him a lovely lean-to so he’s out of the weather, they have 5 acres so are always storing something for me or my brother. Anyways bring him home and give him some love! I mentioned we bought him at the end of last summer for $400.00 and I have quite a few projects lined up! Painting the cabinets, new fabric on EVERYTHING, a new kitchen table and countertops, new curtains and just about everything else. He’s pretty ugly right now and we plan to have him for quite awhile so he definitely needs a lot of love!

On to something else, I am so ready to have the stairs done! I can’t find a runner and it’s bugging the hell out of me! This morning I have been Googling making my own, out of like drop cloths or something… It’s not looking too promising maybe it the stairs weren’t so high traffic. I’m going to check Big Lots today at lunch and see what they have. I got a fairly large orange and white stripped rug there a few weeks ago for $9.00. It’s worth a shot. Their website says they have rugs from $3.-$12.!

Wow this turned into a big rambling post! Tomorrow is Friday and I can’t wait! I will have some more pictures of the stairs, I finished painting and they are ready bedsides the runner! Ben loves them! Did I tell you he didn’t like it when I first took the carpet off? He was scared! I love when he’s nervous about something then it turns out rockin!

Stair Progress!

Good Monday Morning! I have progress on the stairs!!! Not much but a little bit is going a long way! Friday night Ben and I painted the trim and back of the stairs white.

Here's a good before that shows the ugly dark drown trim on the sides of the stairs and the very rough looking backs of the stairs.

Gross! That ugly brown trim is everywhere in my house.

Ahhh here is the after, with nice white trim and white backs of the stairs! It's actually Sliver Leaf which as I've said before is white in my house.

Saturday night Ben went into town to see a band play so I painted a few of the stair tops (I think they are called treads) I only painted every other one since I still have to use the stairs and I needed to stand on one to paint another one. So here's the after with the treads black!

My little helper at the top. I can't believe the difference this is making! I only painted the top set since Ben didn't have time to tape off the bottom set. I hate taping. Tonight I am hoping to get the other ones painted on these and every other one stair on the bottom ones. By Thursday I am hoping to have them all painted and ready for poly!

Also, any tips on mobile blogging? I tried to do it Saturday and it posted to some random blog...

Weekend Round Up

Happy Monday!! We had a very busy weekend so let me jump right in!

Friday: After Tommy took Layla home, Ben and I went out to dinner. After dinner we went by Home Depot for paint and a new kitchen faucet.

Saturday: We slept in, then I got started on Layla's room while Ben got started on the faucet.

Layla's room paint (Tinkerbell), this photo reminds me of the 80's. The color is bright... I am on the fence about it but Ben and Layla love it. I'm hoping the big white tree I paint on the wall is going to help break it up. I tried to get pictures of the room done, but for some reason they all showed up with white looking walls and it's definitely not white. I'll try again tonight with a different camera. Once I got the first coat done I started sanding these: 

Here they are all Spackled! Sanding went really fast (while Ben ran back to Home Depot because we bought the wrong kind of faucet) cleaning up all the dust was another story. I think I will be dusting it off of stuff for quite awhile. After that I did the second coat of paint on Layla's room and Ben did the second coat on the trim. Then we quickly got ready and headed to a bar for a birthday party.

Sunday: We got up fairly early and headed to Wal Mart because Ben didn't find a faucet he like Saturday. We actually found we liked for $55.00! Then a quick stop at Target and home in time to meet my Mom to get Layla! My Mom was going to JC Penny's so decided to tag along. Which ended up being a great idea! We stopped by Goodwill and I found a cute little table for $7.99 and at JC Penny's I found 2 pairs of shoes, a new purse, a pair of jeans for Ben and a shirt and a Tinkerbell placement for Layla! I love shopping!

My new purse, sitting on my desk at work. Ahh Houndstooth! Once I got home I cleaned and we moved the playroom around. Ben's enormous piano was in a bad place and the room just needed to be switched. It feels much better now!

This week is all about the stairs! They need a quick sweep tonight and then I can start painting them!!!

No turning back now...

Snow Day!

 We have been hit by a pretty big snow storm! Layla's school is closed today so Mom got the day off! It really doesn't look that bad out there. (Saying that from home in my pj's). Here's our back yard a few minutes ago:

So Layla and I have big plans to play today! During nap time I am going to rip the carpet up on our stairs. It's gross, our house was built in 1979 and it still has the original carpet in it. Agh that's gross to think about. Laminate floors are in our future but not our immediate future and since I hate vacuuming the stairs and they seem to be the worse I am tackling them! Here are my before pictures, wow they look really bad.

 

This is looking down from the living room.

And this is the second set, going into the basement. Yuck! Rhoda at Southern Hospitality did this Amazing stair re-do that convinced me to whip our gross stairs into gear!

I'll post durings, tears and afters. Have a great Thursday!!