That Crazy Awesome Accent Wall

Ahhh painting. I love it. My husband HATES it. This project was the final straw. After we were done he was all, "I'm not doing any more painting." 

I did most of this, but he seriously hates painting. Anyway. Backstory on this one:

I was pregnant with baby #2, and it was another girl (squeal of glee from the woman who had nothing but brothers). We planned to re-use the bedding and decor but since our first was born we bought a house-so it was a new room and the simple paint job from our first was long gone. So anyway... I was pregnant with number 2 when we bought the house, and due about 4 months later. I started my first official semester of nursing school 2 months after we moved in (yep, I waddled into class like a very round boss haha) so my husband had no idea that one night when I had class I took a piece of the nursery decor with me. When I came waddling home with a few gallons of paint from Lowe's he definitely had the, "oh for the love...what is this crazy pregnant woman up to" look on his face. I picked up a gallon of each of these to get things started. 

Basically, I wanted most of the room to be the almost-white-so-light-pink color, with a very dramatic accent wall. First things first-move all the furniture to the center and let the 3 year old climb it.

Wait, no. Not safe. Oh geez. Ok. Scratch that. CHANGE OF PLANS.

Ok, so lock door to nursery and paint only after 3 year old is in bed. Great for the insomniac night-student preggo. Poor "works days" husband. I love that man. 

ANYWAY. I wanted to do a harlequin/diamond motif on the accent wall. There are so many tutorials about making grids, using X-acto knives etc... But in my head I was like-ok, I'm great at math. This is WAY easier than people are making it out to be. 

I was right. It's super easy. So stay with me here. Step one is painting everything the light color. This will be the color of the "stripes" between your diamonds, and also the color of the rest of the room. Then you need to decide how you want the diamonds to be proportioned, and measure your wall. 

I promise, it's easy. Just stick with me. 

I forget our exact measurements, but I knew I wanted the diamonds to be about twice as tall as they were wide. So HYPOTHETICALLY- let's say your wall is 8' tall, and 16' wide and you want your diamonds about 2' tall and 1' wide. On ONLY THE PERIMETER (ceiling, baseboard, and sides of walls) use a pencil to LIGHTLY make tick marks. Start at a corner and work out. So on the vertical, mark a tick 2' down from the ceiling, then 4', then 6', then bam-you're at the base board. Do the same across the top and bottom but at 1' intervals. 

THERE IS NO NEED TO DO A GRID. 

So starting in a corner, pull your tape TIGHT and place the tick mark in the CENTER of the tape. It's basically connect the dots. You'll need 2 people to keep the tape tight. Once it's tight and lined up, very firmly press it down. When you get started, it'll be like this 

Keep going all the way across the wall with the tape going that direction. Once you finish that, start at the same side as before and do the same thing-connect the tick marks, hold it tight, press firmly. It will start like this...

Of course you can't see the tick marks from here, but from the photo you get the idea-just look at the edges of the wall where the tape hits. When you're done you'll have a bunch of lovely blue diamonds. 

Now, The secret to painters tape is to "seal" the edges with the color UNDER the tape. This keeps the other colors from seeping under any bubbles or uneven surfaces. I wanted to alternate the dark pink and brown. In this photo you can see where I went over the tape edges with the lighter color to "seal" it. 

My husband was SO grumpy at this point... But he was a trooper. He had the pink, I had the brown... 

Work, work, work. THEN we needed a second coat. Torture to the poor guy. It looked like this when we were done painting...

You can see where things are headed... But seriously you guys-nothing is as gratifying as peeling off that tape... AWWWW yes. 

Ohhhh that felt soooo good. I was even happier when we got the room set up. This was an iPhone "pano" shot, so ignore the 2-faced cat 😂 

Also, fun fact-our baby was NOT named Juliana. I literally changed her name in a fit of tears only hours before going to the hospital. I think Juliana is a gorgeous name, but it just didn't feel right, and her new (actual) name fits her spicy, spunky personality much better. So with that being said... 

I LOVE our fun accent wall. It's still there, and even when this nursery becomes a guest room I'll probably find a way to keep at least a portion of it in tact.

Thanks as always for reading! More to come very soon I'm sure! 

Dresser Transformation

I. Love. This. Project. 

This is also an old project, but I took plenty of photos thinking, "you know, one day I should keep a blog record of all the crazy DIY stuff we do."

Funny how that works out. 

Anyway, when my husband and I got married, we had both lived on our own previously so we had a big mash-up of furniture items since we both had furniture. Once baby number 2 was on the way and we bought our own home, we really wanted to make things special and nice. The dresser and crib that belonged to my oldest daughter were being re-distributed to the baby on the way, so the older one needed a dresser. She slready had a bed compliments of my husband's childhood so we didn't really want to just go buy a dresser or an all new bedroom set for her. We made the executive decision to treat ourselves to a brand-new, actually-matching master bedroom set. We sold off a lot of the random pieces but I had a nice, solid dresser just begging to be fixed up. It had a couple broken handles, and one of the legs was unstable from multiple moves, but I had BIG PLANS. Here is the "BEFORE" dresser. 

Not great for a 3 year old girl... So I put my DIY hat on. 

step 1:

Get rid of those legs. One was already wobbly, and the last thing we needed was another piece of furniture that little toys and laundry and dust bunnies could live under. We took off all the hardware and bought a few new drawer pulls to replace the broken ones. Then we took out the drawers. Here's the "skeleton". 

So Step 2:

I needed to paint this bad boy. I used Valspar spray paint from Lowe's and chose an ivory and pink. I painted the main body ivory all over. 

I laid the hardware out on some cardboard.... 

And sprayed!

Easy peasy. Much better. Ok, time to handle the drawers. I had something special in mind. First I did an all over ivory 

I did a second coat after this. After it dried, I used pieces of cardboard to only spray paint the trim areas of the drawers pink. I was already loving the way it looked at this point. 

So, the next step was really fun. I had an old cheap lace shirt. I tightly taped it down over the drawers... It has to be tight! 

And then.... You guessed it-spray LIGHTLY with the pink. Don't go crazy and soak it. 

The result? 

LACE. DRAWERS. 

Replace the hardware and drawers....

And VOILA! An awesome upcycled piece that looks amazing in sweet girl's bedroom! 

I hope you enjoyed this project as much as I did! Thanks for stopping by!

The "A" shelf

So, this project is something we did a couple years ago so the photos are somewhat lacking... But it's one of my all-time favorites. It was one of our first projects, and it was before I stared using the saws etc. so the build itself was my husband's work. I handled the paint job. 

Plans for this project can be found on one of my favorite sites, www.ana-white.com 

If you haven't been to her site, you're missing out! 

So anyway, my oldest' name starts with "A", and we needed some fun shelving to keep little trinkets and whatnot. When I saw these plans I was all over it (aka bugged the crap out of my husband to build it). So off he went with the supply list and spent some time with the mitre saw, wood glue, and wood screws. This was the initial product. 

Super cute, right? So then he cut out a piece of plywood for the back, using the shelf to trace. I decided on a grey and white chevron design for the background. Like I said, not enough pictures on this old project but it ended up like this:

I used painters tape after drawing a grid, and then lightly sanded to give it a weathered look. Attaching this to the back of the shelf was easy-a few nails. So for the shelf itself, I chose to keep the Chevron design on the outsides and did some solid yellow accents. I really love how it turned out! 

We still use this piece in our playroom and it's so useful! It holds Lysol wipes, paper towels, TV remotes, snow globes... Anything I don't want the kids getting hold of 😂 

I hope you enjoyed this, and be sure to go check out Ana White if you want to build your own! 

That Swing we Made

So, we (I) got an old crib from a friend and decided to get Pinteresty. John was skeptical, so this is a combo build. Long story short, I wanted to turn a crib into a porch swing. So this is the crib with the front bit removed 

So now we need to drop the mattress and lower the side rails for armrests. We also built a support frame under it all

So we put the Mattress support at the lowest setting, shaved the arm rests, and made a base frame. 

Then I bought some outdoor pillows...

Then I put a neutral crib sheet on a used crib mattress for the seat... 

And then I painted the swing robins egg blue 

We added some swing hardware, and we have a wonderful new family-sized swing! 

The Playroom closet "dressing room" Part 2

Ok, sorry I'm new to this-I was afraid the whole thing would delete... ANYWAY. Back to work. This is a continuation to Part 1, on the blog. So as you can see I picked a fabric (Michael Miller polka dots) then I got some stuff at Hobby Lobby to coordinate (curtain rod, curtain, signs)

Then I got paint from Lowe's. 

 

I got these items at a thrift store to paint 

I ended up running out of time (Christmas morning surprise) and only painted the mirror. 

So anyway. I wanted to do a light wash of the lime green on the entertainment center (henceforth called vanity). So I used the lime paint and *very lightly*painted the surfaces that wouldn't be covered in fabric. I included the fabric for color.

So then I tediously measured and Mod Podge'd and smoothed the fabric down, 

Then I decided to use washi tape on the shelf fronts instead of painting 

Yissss. I love it. Ok, time to paint the closet! 

Yes, all the two-tone pink. Then add the vanity... 

Awwww yeah. Ok. Now my hubs added a safety strap to connect the vanity to a stud (safety first!) then we removed the door, hung the curtain, and decorated! 

The kiddos were so happy! 

I hope you enjoyed ☺️ more to come soon I'm sure!