my acting debut...

Or at least my voice! I'm the radio announcer in my girls latest Get Buckles movie and I do not like my voice. And I'm not really that peppy in real life.

In the movie you can also see my new mismatched black chairs around my huge round dining table that I still haven't made over yet.



Episode 7: Jack Be Nimble

another chandelier makeover in progress...

I bought this at the reStore awhile ago but haven't been inspired to make it over. Until now...



I painted it with RustOleum's Paprika. The color is wonderful! I didn't take the center glass part and paint the rod in there yet. I'll do that when we rewire.

I plan on adding a drum shade to it so it looks more like this sort of and hanging it in my living room.

Source

So I hope it will look nice once it's done. Not like my last chandelier project which I ended up hating in the space. I'll be posting pictures of our upstairs bathroom project as Brian is installing the tongue and groove beadboard and I prepare to fill in a million nail holes, prime and paint. That will not be a fun chore.

overheard...

Grae: "Mommy, is milk cow potty?"

Me: "What???"

no money makeover in progress...

Ava and Maddie have been begging me to let them paint their room. I've put it off because our plan is to tear out the walls and ceiling, insulate, put up some beadboard and build some built-ins. Oh and pull up that terrible carpet and put down some hardwood floors. Well our plan is now put off until spring so we can save some more money so I gave the go ahead. The rule was that we weren't going to spend any money and they could only use the paint I had on hand.

The only color I had enough of was Behr Dolphin Fin that I had picked up as a mistint at Home Depot for $5.00. I of course had all of the painting supplies and used the $5.00 mistint primer I recently bought. We decided to paint the ceilings and walls the same color to open it up.

Here it was after it was newly painted 5 years ago.




Then a few days ago with the peeling paint and the room cleaned out. The hole in the wall is from me checking to see what condition the chimney is. I would love to have an exposed chimney in this room.






And now after being painted. I took down the white curtains (that I had made with a sheet) and dyed them a turquoise color. I really want full length curtains in aqua with white polka dots but remembered the no money rule. So these will have to do for now.

The bench is from the dining room. I'm going to paint the top black and stencil it in a trellis pattern in white.

We want to stencil something along the wall of their beds and maybe paint some headboards as well. When we demo this room, those side walls will be built in bookshelves with their bed built in as well.


Notice that Ava is a die hard horse fan?




I haven't touched their closet yet. The plan is to paint gray and black stripes and add some coat hooks for their bags. Here is the before:





So we still have work to do but it looks a lot better. And it didn't cost me anything but time.

It's funny the girls didn't want gray at first but now love it so much that they want to paint the same color after the renovation. We'll see. You know I'm a fan of the color.

I'll post some more pictures as we progress.

Linking:

chairs...

We had these great Pottery Barn dining chairs bought on Craigslist a while ago. I loved them!
We recently bought a huge round table and I decided I didn't want my chairs to match anymore. I love the look of mismatched chairs. I sold the Pottery Barn chairs and came out ahead. So I also bought another round table with 4 chairs for $50. They were plain old ugly oak but solid.

Did I mention I got 4 of them and a table for $50?

See?


So I used my new sander...


And my $5.00 mistint Kilz primer...


To get this...well this times 4 since I had 4 chairs.


I used a brush to paint the first chair and then quickly decided to break out my paint sprayer. I did 4 coats of Olympic "Black Magic" which is a gray/black and beautiful. It's the same color of the countertop in the new bathroom. I will not be using Olympic paint again though, I think I will have it color matched at Sherwin Williams or Ben Moore. The Olympic paint didn't cover well at all.

Anyway, I got this times 4. I sealed it with some polyacrylic and we're using them now.


I just have to paint the round table it came with black and paint our huge dining round table gray and I'll be "done". All of you DIYers will understand the "". Is there ever really done?

crafts and projects...

Just a few things we've done around the house.

More paper garland for the living room...




Made over this desk with a chalkboard top, couldn't find room for it and sold it on Craigslist.




Found this cute 1940's platter at Goodwill for $2.99! Goes great with my cuckoo clocks.


Made velvet pillow covers for our bedroom. I love the channel stitched pillow covers from Pottery Barn but didn't like the price. So I made these for $15 total. The back is just a gray twill and the front is velvet that I quilted.



I also made a lumbar pillow.


And the most exciting part is we now have two fully functional sinks in the upstairs bathroom. We bought both sinks at the reStore. They are both Kohler but they aren't the same style. That is how I wanted it. We went back and forth about the counter top and didn't want to spend a lot of money. Since this bathroom won't see a lot of use, we opted to go with an oak plywood that I painted and sealed with Polycrylic. The plywood was $50, paint $12 and Polycrylic $9. Deal!



Now we can start framing the built ins, putting beadboard on the walls and painting. The girls are already using the bathroom but it will be nice to have it finished.

doing what you love...

Spiderman pose.

I've always tried to support my kids in their interests. When Ava was about 5 she was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. I bought her the movie, the dress, the shoes, the basket, the dog and some dolls. Graedon loved pirates when he was two and had a pirate ship, eye patch and the works. Now it's superheros and Redwall.

Their interests now are a little more expensive. The older girls are into movie making so I bought Lauren a Flip video camera for her birthday.

Ava loves horses so every week I drive her out to take lessons.



Maddie loves dogs and we recently adopted two whippets with the express agreement that she trains them and scoops their poop.




Fortunately one of Lauren's interests doesn't cost me a thing. Twice a week she volunteers for our library shelving books. Boring to me but she loves being there. It will look good on a work resume to have references other than her parents or friends!

It was so hard that first day to drop her off and drive away. What if she needed me? What if there was a problem? Nevermind that she is 15 and can use a phone to call me. It was just weird to me. We homeschool so I've never had the experience of having my kids gone all day.

Sometimes their interests are just being together as a family and experiencing the wonder of watercolors. The little kids thought this was so neat. When the older girls were young, I shied away from crafts because it made a mess and didn't go perfectly. Now, I don't mind the mess and love to see my kids creativity. My house is filled with their drawings and paintings.







We're blessed to have my business, Miss Label to support those interests that do cost money. But really they just love when I sit and listen to what they are thinking. And that doesn't cost a dime but does reap big rewards even though sometimes their stories go on forever and I try not to fall asleep.

I'm looking forward to what the littler kids interests will be and where the older kids interests will take them. And I pray that they will always know that I supported them wholeheartedly when they become rich from their ideas. Maybe even kickback some of that money. Hint, hint.