Tag Archives: paint technique

Project Notes: Personalized Paperwhites

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After a whirlwind week of playing with blog administration stuff, I think everything has successfully switched over and I can get back to the fun part of telling stories.  If you are reading this… congratulations.  We both made it!!  And a huge thanks for being patient and keeping up with me through this transition.

During the holidays, I saw these pots at Target and picked one up to give to a friend.

Plain Flower Pot

They come with paperwhite bulbs which I love.  Paperwhites always remind me that Spring is just around the corner and the winter grays will be ending soon.  I thought this would be a neat gift, especially once I personalized it with a little chalkboard paint.

When I got home, I gathered my supplies:

Paint Supplies

  • Painters Tape
  • Chalkboard Paint
  • Decorative Scissors

1. Pull off strips of tape and cut them down the center with decorative scissors to get two identical strips with scalloped edges.  Do this twice to get enough tape to create a rectangle.

Taped Flower Pot

Tip: How big you make the chalkboard area can be determined ahead of time by writing the word you will write in chalk on a piece of paper and measuring how much surface area you’ll need.  I guessed on the size I wanted and it ended up being only enough room for a small word.  Luckily my friend’s name is short, but lesson learned.

2.  Once you have the taped area marked off for painting, put the entire pot in a bag and tape it off so that only the area of the pot you want paint on is exposed.

Prepped & Ready to Paint

3. Spray with chalk paint.

4. When the paint is still slightly wet, pull off the tape and let everything fully dry.

Finished Flower Pot

5. Rub chalk over the dried paint and personalize.

This was such an easy gift to customize.  My only disappointment was that Target was sold out when I went back for more.  I’ll definitely pick-up extra next season.

Have you done anything with Chalkboard paint lately?  What was the last store bought item you put your own personal twist on?  Have you gone back for more of something only to discover the store has run out?  It’s such a bummer!

Scope Creep

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Our home is very open and you can see many of the rooms from different angles. It’s one of the features we absolutely loved about the place when we first saw it and we have had tons of fun playing with color and accent walls within the space.  In fact, I recently realized we have 15 different paint colors throughout our home.  Saying we aren’t afraid of color is maybe an understatement.

However, I’ve noticed the trend of having multi-colored walls within a room is getting… dare I say it… a bit dated.  I don’t know… I still like the idea, but I’m just not seeing the trend of accent walls as much as I once did.  And there are spots in our home that could use some freshening up.  So since we had the paint, tarps and ladders out, our little kitchen project crept into a few other areas too.

In our dining room we had an accent wall that we both were kinda done with.

Accent Wall

Tyson was feeling like the red was played out so he wanted to update that. For me, I wanted to say goodbye to the accent wall all together. We killed two birds and continued the taupe that was in the rest of the room and kitchen across that wall.

Dining Room Wall

This wall also bends down the stairs, around into the family room.

Old Paint Meets New Paint

We decided to cover the lower wall (which is a part of the family room) with Chocolate Sparkle to shift that room from having three colored walls to two.

Lower Family Room Wall

Tyson’s not super excited about the stark contrast where the two colors meet, but I like that the new paint balances and streamlines the colors that you see when you are in a particular room.

New New Paint

We also needed to paint this cut-out on our stairs.  This house has more pot shelves and niches than I know what to do with.  But that is a discussion for another post.

Cut-out Before

We will eventually frame in the shelf with molding (and possibly lighting) to accent this spot.

Painted Shelf

I also came home from picking up more paint and Tyson was ready to tackle this small hall off the family room.

Hall Before

More neutral paint… yes, please.

Hall After

The doors getting a coat of paint and some trim are also on our “to-do” list.  Someday… someday…  For now, the painting is complete and I’m happy to be living without tarps and tools everywhere.

Do your projects creep into other areas? How have trends and/or your tastes changed over the last few years?  And since I have kitchens on the brain, I thought I’d share this article on Hot Kitchen Trends for 2013.  Lots of things that we are considering which is always encouraging.  See any new ideas that inspire you?

Chocolate Sparkle

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Phase one of our kitchen plan is complete!  Admittedly, this is probably going to be the easiest step, but it’s the first step in the right direction and I am crazy excited.  The walls are painted and already breathing new life into our kitchen.  Life that I had no idea it was lacking.

We brought the dark brown that was already in the family room all the way into the kitchen. It’s one massive wall that is finally finished in Chocolate Sparkle by Behr.

Chocolate Sparkle by Behr

It looks like chocolate pudding.  It is not.

Because the wall runs the width of our home, it is impossible to accurately photograph the entire area.  For funsies, Evan helped me snap a few pics with my iPhone Panorama feature.  We live in a split level so here is the wall from the kitchen… weird lighting and all.

Kitchen Panoramic

And here is the same wall from the family room.

Family Room Panoramic

We also brought the taupe in from the formal living room and dining room.  It’s Pronghorn by Behr and we had it color matched since it’s from an old line.  How about a little “before & after” action, shall we?

Kitchen Corner 1-BeforeKitchen Corner 1-After

Hmmm… that’s not looking super-dramatic.  Maybe from the other corner of the kitchen?

Kitchen Corner 2-BeforeKitchen Corner 2-After

Yeah… not so much.  In fact, that sound you hear is the air escaping my excitement over having this step accomplished.  Bummer.

In real life, you can definitely see a difference.  Painting the room has married the colors from the two main living areas that are connected by the kitchen.

The good news: Even with just paint, the space is already feeling more like “us”.  I’m not sure I know exactly what that means, but I know it when I see it.

All of the high spaces are complete and look fresh and clean.  This required a lot of time for Tyson on a very high ladder and me below loading the brushes and rollers with paint to pass back up to him.

Paint in High Places

The bad news: We are living with A LOT of brown. We are so happy with the paint, but it screams to have the cabinets and molding updated in white to balance out all the brown and orange tones.

More Contrast to Come

The two arrows point to the same paint color in two different areas of our home.  Once the cabinets are painted white, there will be a lot more contrast and a lot less brown/orange.  I just have to remember the transition has begun and none of this is permanent.

How do you stay inspired when a big project is in progress? What color have you painted that has created the most drama in your home? Could your friends see a difference when you showed them what you’ve been working on?  Well, the next set of pictures will have a little more contrast.  Promise.

Hitting the Ceiling

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We just finished with the kitchen ceiling and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.  Painting the ceilings in our home has been a labor of love and I’m so glad they are finally D.O.N.E.!

When we moved into our home in 2000, it came with plain vanilla walls and a heavy knockdown plaster texture on most of the ceilings.

Knockdown Plaster

It’s flatter than the sprayed “popcorn” look and I’ve been told, this style is suppose to be a feature.  However for Tyson and I, it has just become a royal pain. The heavy texture requires the use of a very rough nap roller and a TON of arm strength to get into all the crevices. Plus the ceilings have never been painted, so they really suck up the paint, requiring a few coats for full coverage.  On the other hand, we’re uninterested in having the texture removed so we gladly paint.

With our kitchen having high ceilings, we figured it would be no minor task.  For the rest of our vaulted ceilings, we rented scaffolding, but we knew that couldn’t be used in our kitchen. This project was going to require the use of ladders and poles and it quickly fell to the bottom of our “to-do” list.

Vaulted Kitchen

We even had areas where we had painted as far as we could reach and then stopped.

Unfinished Work

Classy, right?

Since we would be working on the high kitchen ceilings, we also included this open area sandwiched between our kitchen and family room that needed to get done too.

Vaulted Ceiling

Our primary goal was to get the high stuff painted while Tyson was on break from work so that when he gets busy again, I can keep this project moving with the lower stuff.

Tyson got everything prepped and was ready to get to it.

Prepped

Will Work For Music

Maybe it’s because it was the last of the ceilings or maybe it’s because it’s easy to make a mountain out of a mole-hill project, but Tyson was able to make quick work of the last of the ceilings and we both can’t get over how much it has cleaned up the space.

It’s difficult to show good “before and after” photos since the “after” are still a light tan and they pretty much look like they are suppose to.  Probably the best example is the section of ceiling where we had stopped painting.

Before:

Unfinished Work

After:

Painted Ceiling

Yup… Looks exactly like it should.  Flat and even. When you are in the space, the texture is definitely down played and it all feels fresh and clean.

The most challenging part of the entire job came when Tyson got paint in his eye. Painting overhead typically means that paint is bound to get everywhere. However, Tyson got paint literally stuck on the inside of his eyelid and it would not go away. A doctor had to clean it out and Tyson got some stylin new protective eye wear.

Safety First

I can’t explain the hammer, but here’s a free tip from us to you:  Paint on the inside of your eyelid is no fun.  Protective eyewear = super fun!

What new paint projects are you working on? Have you tackled any new tasks that you thought would be more challenging than they ended up being?  Have you had to learn DIY safety the hard way?