chalkboard: the final-after shot

All done!  I endured the 3 day wait, “conditioned” it as the can of paint instructed, and now I’m free to write and draw anything I can I dream up!  Yay for chalkboard paint!  (I actually wrote that on the chalkboard, hehe!)

final color

Welp, painting is done!  There are a few touch-ups that need to be done, but otherwise the bulk of the work is over and I can show a semi-after photo!  (I’ll show a final-after photo when the whole room is done, of course!)

I’ll admit, that dark pink was really overwhelming for me at first.  I walked into her room several times over the course of the day yesterday, looking at the color in different lights, trying to decide if I loved it or hated it.  I think I’m starting to love it.  And once I get all her furniture painted white, I think it will help immensely.  As you can see, it’s pretty cute with the white bookshelf!

Still so much to do, though… paint the crib and dresser, sew some curtains, make or buy wall art (most likely I’ll make most of it, I’ve got a lot of ideas – too many actually, she doesn’t have enough wall space for everything I’d like to do)… but I’m motivated now, so hopefully I can crank it all out quickly.  I’m making it my goal to have it finished by her birthday at the end of April.

Oh, and speaking of making things myself… I quickly painted up a letter “E” for her bedroom door last night in-between feeding the kids dinner and Jason getting home.  I used a purple floral patch from her quilt as inspiration.

(I bought a “J” for Jag’s door too, but he’s decided he wants to paint it himself, so it’s in the works… )

UFOs

While my Mom-in-law was visiting last week, we got to talking about all our unfinished projects.  I was telling her of my huge stack of unfinished sewing stuff and various other ideas I’d had and bought supplies for.  She told me that she calls these “UFOs” – Un-Finished Objects.

I remembered this week a project I bought supplies for several months ago – a magnetic chalkboard wall in the kitchen.  Since buying all the supplies, we had a change in ideas for the wall I had in mind so I had packed the cans of paint and rollers away.  Once I got to thinking about it again, though, I realized I had one other wall space that would work.  It’s much smaller than the original wall space, but actually a lot more practical in location.  So I won’t be able to do large fun drawings, but I will be able to write reminders to be seen as we’re leaving the house, or grocery lists or weekly menus.

I got to work on it yesterday just as soon as Kat went down for her afternoon nap and managed to finish it up right after the kids went to bed last night.  Yay for knocking out a project in one day!  I did 3 coats of magnetic paint and 2 coats of chalkboard paint.  I didn’t take a before, but here’s my semi-after:

I say semi-after because we can’t write on it for 3 days.  Right now it looks like nothing more than a black accent wall (and I’m not an accent wall kinda girl, so it’s bugging me).  Once we can start writing on it, and it’s apparent what it’s purpose is, I think it’ll look better.  (you’ll have to please excuse the condition of the baseboards and doors – dogs and kids will do that.  one day I’ll get around to repainting them all)  And just FYI – that door leads to the laundry/mud room, which then leads out to the garage, so we go through it every time we leave the house.  To the left there are the doors to the pantry, and to the right (not pictured) is the fridge.  So this really is a great location for a chalkboard – it will make it easy to jot down notes or To Buy lists.

So there you have it.  The first UFO I can mark off my list!  YAY!

kitty kat’s room – a home decorating project

So the project has begun.  Okay well actually, the project technically started when I got the bright idea to use the yellow trimmed quilt and buy berry pink paint.

BUT, I have put brush to wall and there’s no turning back now!

Here’s my “before” shot.  Please don’t mind the mess, I pushed stuff out of my way and was about to get started when I remembered I needed to take a picture, so I didn’t bother tidying up.

Here is my paint choice.  The lighter pink is just the primer.  That darker pink there is the actual paint color.

And here’s about all I was able to get done last night before Jason and the kids came home from playing at the neighbor’s house.

I fully intend to continue to document the progress.  The good, bad and the ugly.  Okay, hopefully there will be no bad and ugly, just good and pretty!  Anyway, stay tuned!

as seen on tv

So the kids are watching Sprout this afternoon.  Jag likes Zoboomafoo.

The tv gets quiet, so I glance around the corner and I see Jag’s paused it.  Then he runs in from around the corner with a pen in his hand and yells, “I need paper!”  He quickly snatches a piece of paper off my printer and goes running back into the family room.

I followed him, and found him carefully copying this down from the tv…

Apparently, he thinks we need spacebags.

I couldn’t help but laugh.  I asked him, “are you going to call?”  He replied, “no, I have to be 18 years old to call.  I’m going to save it in my room until then.”