I put the finishing touches on our guest/kids bathroom today.  You may remember from my Free Art post that I needed a new rug (see here for that story) for this room.  I decided that I didn’t want another blue, cream and brown rug.  It would have been easy to just search for on, throw it in there and call it quits, but I am changing things up around here.  I want the house to flow better so I decided to do black, white plus a color in each room. 

 

 I started this project by painting the walls.  I wanted to change the paint from blue (Ralph Lauren’s Shoreline Blue) to yellow because there is absolutely no natural light in this room.  I found the most beautiful shade of yellow.  It’s Ralph Lauren’s Ginger.  I wish these pictures did the color justice.  It is a sunny, sophisticated color that just makes me happy whenever I look at it.   That being said, a little goes a long way.  The first coat of yellow paint went from floor to ceiling.  It was too much for this little room.  I decided that it needed to be broken up.  I went over a couple of different looks in my mind.  Board and batten, bead board, or chair rail would have all been beautiful but I have no patience.  Doing one of those mean a trip to the store and power tools.  I wanted something quick and easy.  I had white paint leftover so I painted the bottom third of the wall white.  I had some ribbon for some pillow covers I was planning to make.  I thought the ribbon would be cute to use in place of the chair rail.   I drew a level line and lined the ribbon up so it was straight.  I secured it to the wall with doubled-sided tape.  It looked good and stayed in place well, but I started to think about it and decided to tap in a few upholstery tacks just to make sure my two year old didn’t pull it off the wall.   Here is a close-up.

 

 I liked the ribbon so much, I decided to put some around my mirror to trim it out. 

 

    The next thing I did was paint the vanity.  I have lived with that golden oak and the mismatched doors for longer than I’d care to admit. The doors are mismatched because I experimented with them (see here for that story).   I kept putting off painting because I want a new vanity, one with twin vessel sinks, granite counter tops, and definitely something not oak.  But life has a way of sidelining my plans (someone needs dental work, the oven needs fixing, etc., etc.).   I am hoping that one of these days I will get my dream bathroom but for now I am loving the grey.

  

    The rest of the room came together pretty easily.  I bought a black and white rug and shower curtain.  I pulled all of my black and white towels out of the linen closet.  I pulled a few things out of storage that were waiting for me to find them a special place.  Here is a picture of a couple of new things I picked up.  The wire-mesh star is a thrift store find.  The chalk board is from Hobby Lobby.  It has really come in handy in the bathroom. 

 

      I just wanted to take a minute and show how the black and white trim/doors is working.  I have mentioned before that I am only painting the the trim/doors of the public areas black.  All of the private rooms are keeping their white trim/doors. Now I like the way the room looks with the door open or closed. 

 

 Well, that’s about it.  I put just under $100.00 into this makeover and just over two weeks.  I could probably have done the whole thing in a week.  Nothing was difficult.  There was just a lot of drying time and I only put in a few minutes here and there last week because my kids were home for Spring Break.  Hope everyone had a happy Easter. 

     I have a pair of brown toss pillows.  They were originally bought for living room but have been moved around to just about every room in the house.  Recently, I brought them back into the living room since I repainted in there (see here for that story).  I liked the color and the size of the pillows but they were feeling  too plain and boring.  I decided it was time to head to Hobby Lobby for some new pillow forms of  similar size and some exciting new fabric to spice things up.  When I got there and started browsing around I could not for the life of me find any fabrics that I could get excited about.  Isn’t that just how it goes?  When I don’t have the time or money to buy anything there are at least two or three different fabrics just begging to come home with me.  When I have the time to look (read, kids stayed home with Dad) and money burning a hole in my pocket, nothing.  Instead of leaving Hobby Lobby  empty-handed (is that even physically possible?)  I decided to wonder around the aisles for inspiration.  I have been toying around with the idea of printing my own fabric patterns lately so I went to the fabric paint/silk screen aisle.  I found a silk screen pattern I liked and some white paint so I decided to paint my little brown pillows which were already in the pile headed for Goodwill.  I was a bit nervous since I have never done this before, but it turned out to be so quick and easy!  Seriously, two minutes tops for each pillow.  The silk screen is slightly sticky so it’s easy to position and it stays in place.  Just squeeze a line of paint in a line above the pattern and then use the tool provied to squeegee the paint through the screen.  Set the paint with your iron and you’re done.  The silk screen was around $8.00 and it is reusable.  The fabric paint was $2.00 (I didn’t even make a noticeable dent in the amount of paint in the bottle).  Now that I know how easy it is to silk screen, I think I’ll be adding a lot more character around the house.

Please join me  at Centsational Girl for the All Things Paint Link Party and Dittle Dattle for

     I don’t have too much to say with this post.  The pictures pretty much do all the talking.  So, I’ll let them take it away.

     I used a piece of twine as a napkin ring.  I got the green placemats at Target and put them on top of my burlap tablecloth.  I like the contrast between the nubby linens and the smooth, shiny china and silverware. 

     The salad and dinner plates were purchased at a local thrift store.  The middle plate is from a set I inherited from my Grandmother.

     Here are a few fun things I added to the table; fresh flowers, a pail, a basket and some of my Easter Decorations. 

   

     Happy Easter everyone!  Hope you have a joyous day surround by loved ones and lots of good food, and of course some yummy treats in your Easter basket.

      My kids are out of school all week for Spring Break.  It hasn’t been very Spring-like weather here though.  It was cold and rainy all day so we decided to dye our Easter eggs today.  I usually wait until a day or two before Easter but the kids promised to eat them and not let them go to waste (my oldest, on the left, decided he couldn’t wait to dye them and went straight to eating).  My youngest, on the right, didn’t remember this fun activity from the last couple of years so this was all new and sooo exciting for him.  It was wonderful for us to watch his joy, and his enthusiasm was contagious-even for my preteens.

   

     We didn’t do anything too specially decorative to the eggs.  I thought about adding puffy paint or glitter to the dyed eggs (that’s just how my mind works, “It looks good, but…it could look so much better if…”  ).  I decided that this project was for the kids to have fun and leave it at that (besides, I’m still finding glitter from Valentine’s Day.  That stuff gets everywhere.) and best part of all not one “Mom, I’m bored.  There’s nothing to do.”  all day.  

    

     Our ancient desktop computer was finally retired.  We replaced it with a laptop.  I like to snuggle down into the couch in the family room after the kids are in bed and do my blogging and surfing so, this built-in desk area became free.  What a perfect (and permanent) place to set up my sewing machine.  Now, I no longer have to set it up on the dining room table only to take it down a couple of hours later for us to eat our meals.  It is so nice to be able to leave a project in mid-works indefinitely because I get sidetracked with one (or two, or three, or all) of the kids. 

     I know I promised to be a good girl and fold my fresh-from-the-dryer laundry on my folding table (see here)  but that just never worked out.  I still am piling it all in a big basket and hauling it all the way upstairs to sort and fold on my bed.  Some habits are harder to kill than others.  Hey, at least everyone has clean laundry (most of the time).  I have filled my folding area with crafts and projects that are in various stages of completion.  I like having all of my stuff in one place, and I like having a dedicated space to be um… messy.  The best thing about having this little space of my own is that nobody bothers me while I’m in here because the think I will shanghai them into laundry duty.   Whatever works for a moment of “Mommy Time”.