The Last of the Shutters!

I thought this was momentous.



I've been working on painting our exterior shutters little by little over the last several weeks. There were ten total to paint, two coats each. We're finishing up the second coat on the last four shutters tonight! :) Hopefully, Sam can put them back on the front of the house tomorrow afternoon before we leave for the church picnic.



It feels so good to get something else done. (The paint color is Sherwin Williams "Garden Gate").

Children's Bathroom (Before Pics)

Not that there are really any "after" pics to share anytime soon. But, I've got that overdrive nesting-ish feeling that has me painting everything that will stand still for more than a few minutes (thankfully, that requirement excludes my children as canvas options), and who knows how long before this bathroom gets a few coats? I already started experimenting with the cabinet color last night.

So, before I forget to chronicle the "before"... here's my rather sad-looking little hall bath. As with the rest of the house, there's a lot of BROWN.

This is the bathroom the children most often use, and it's also the only bathroom with a tub.

It's the first door on the right as you come upstairs, and the closest to the living room/kitchen.

That means guests use it. (wince) This light fixture is straight out of Jules Verne.

Wobbly towel rails hung on a hollow door (that's splitting on the side a bit). The cabinets are pretty worn out and tired.

Weird feature that lots of homes in the area have. What is this little empty space supposed to be, anyway? Possibly a place for a trashcan? Big trashcan! Not meant as a vanity area - the potty is blocking the way and makes that idea impossible. Like I said, it's a mystery.

Through the mirror, you can see the bathtub/shower area on the other side.

And the beige faux cobblestone flooring.

That's it! :) Hopefully it'll look MUCH different relatively soon.

Shug & Punkin's Bedroom: Before Pics (and DIY ADD)

Scouring the internet lately, looking for some much needed inspiration for the girls' bedrooms. I've been painting a little here and there, and hope to have the two rooms painted - walls, doors, and new trim, by the time the cold weather starts to roll in. My oldest daughter, SweetP, will be in a room by herself for now, and my next two daughters, Shug and Punkin, will be together for the time being. If I can do a bit of painting in our boy, Little Dude's, room by the fall, that would be a great bonus!

I'm trying to go for a look that will gel with the rest of the house while still letting the children express some of their own creativity and interests. (You caught that didn't you? ...some)*wink*. For the continuity part, I'm hoping to choose wall colors that are soft and fairly neutral... similar to what I might use in any of the "whole family" spaces. I'm also planning on using the same window treatments in each bedroom and throughout the majority of the house. Soooo, that means that these bedrooms are not going to look much like children's rooms at first. That's on purpose, though! :) I want the rooms to be flexible and not scream out FOUR YEAR OLD GIRL. But, with a little color added with pillows, wall art, and accessories, I think it will all pull together in a fresh, fun way for the ladies.

Here's what we're starting with (the room now has just two twin beds - this arrangement was temporary while we replaced some flooring in the family room and used the 4th bedroom for a sofa & television). This is Shug and Punkin's room. I hope to finish painting it this weekend. Oh, and you'll be happy to know that there are also sheets and blankets on the beds these days. I think I took these pics the day I bought them new white sheets and khaki box-pleated bedskirts (Bed Bath & Beyond).







Quite the blank slate, don't you think? As much as I want to finish this entire room **now**, I'm feeling the need to get through the painting projects asap (as in, I'd like another baby, but don't want to do all this crazy painting while I'm preggo). So, we're just painting the walls, doors, replacing trim, and hanging window treatments before we move on to the next bedroom. Then, hopefully, I can use the cold months and possibly a pregnancy to decorate & detail without all those paint fumes :)

Just in case you're wondering about our kitchen cabinet progress... well, we did run into a teensy case of ADD there. But, the good news is that our exterior painting is almost completely done! Our current plan is to work on the first girl's bedroom and then work on 1/4 more of the cabinets. Then, finish SweetP's bedroom painting and window treatments followed by another 1/4 of the kitchen cabinets. Then, if we're still going strong, we'll paint Little Dude's bedroom and get his window treatments up and finally finish off the last 1/4 of the kitchen cabinets. That, my friends, is called Making Your DIY ADD Work For You.

:)

Sam is heading out to Colorado this weekend to backpack with his best friend ever, Edwin. Do you think it would be okay if I ripped the molding out of the girls' room while he's gone?

Hmm. Something to consider.

Have a great day!!!

Style Injection - Pantry Door (Before and After)

Hi, y'all. In my last post I told you about our new doors for the utility closet in the family room. They're ordered, but they haven't arrived just yet. Last night Sam let me in on a little secret he hadn't mentioned before. When the new doors do come, he has no idea how to install them.

That should be fun, don't you think?

While we've been waiting for the first of our new doors to arrive, we've gotten busy making one of our other interior doors look a little better. When I posted our inspiration photo for the family room, one of the things I found myself admiring again and again was those doors! They were black. How interesting. In case you don't remember, here's a reminder of the room.



Yup, I'd like a closer look at those doors, too.



Don't they look smooth? Stylish and chic little doors, aren't they? After noticing the doors in that photo, I started to see interior black doors all over the place. Really, I mean all over the place. Just Beachy is a great little blog. Beachy, obviously, but the gal has nice style - her foyer coat closet's door is black. Then, I saw a few photos of Kate Spade's apartment - black doors. Then, I was so quickly becoming smitten with the idea of black doors all through the house, I started actually looking for them on the web. I googled "black interior doors" and discovered that Joni Webb from Cote de Texas (a blog I had just begun to read regularly) has every single door in her fabulous Houston home painted... you guessed it - black.



I was sold. I knew I loved the idea and I loved every single black door in every single one of the photos I saw. I bought black paint and everything - Martha Stewart's French Bulldog, reportedly a very true black. I decided on trying the new look on our pantry door. I was a little uncertain about experimenting on our soon-to-arrive new doors, but the previous owners had put an inexpensive hollow door up before they put the house on the market. Perfect! :)

I admit, those first few strokes of glossy black paint were a little alarming. I mean, it was jet black and I was about to paint it all over one of the first doors you see when stepping into our house. But, I took a deep breath and kept going. Here are the before and afters (with the new wall color from April, too).





What do you think? I think I love it :)