Samantha's Princess Bathroom

I recently talked my friend Megan into painting stripes in her daughter's bathroom after she talked me into helping her redecorate the bathroom into a Princess theme. And to be honest, it was harder and easier than we had both anticipated. I've painted horizontal stripes before but this was my first go-round with vertical stripes. I must say - the green Frog tape is the way to go with stripes! You will not be disappointed with the results. Trust me, crisp, clean lines each and every time.

Here's where we started:

90% of the painting job is in the prep work. Prep wisely.

I'm only kidding, this is how we started:

Lots of tape. Use a credit card or putty knife to seal the edges of the tape. You'll thank me for that.

We didn't use an exact science when measuring. The bathroom has tiles that we ended up using as a guide and we ended up doing stripes that were 2 tiles wide. And we're glad we did that - anything smaller would have been a taping nightmare. Do we paint this one or not? Tape on the inside or outside of the line? Paint, no paint, paint, no paint, no paint...wait, I need to start over. 

After about 2 hours of taping and 2 beers each, we started painting. I do the detail work of cutting in and Megan rolls. We've painted enough times together to know each others strengths and she's one of the only people I can paint with and not want to take the roller out of her hand and send her away to do something else.

We removed the tape while the second coat was still wet. This is very important when painting - removing tape from dry paint can lead to also removing paint and is super frustrating. Just take my advice and remove while the paint is wet.

I need to work on removing beer bottles before taking pictures. 

Thanks Frog Tape for those amazingly crisp lines!

The next step is also very important. You need to buy EVERYTHING PRINCESS FROM THE HOBBY LOBBY CLEARANCE AISLES, right Megan? If it was pink or princess, she bought it. I'm glad she did though because we ended up having lots to choose from. It's also very important to have a friend that can sew (ahem, me) so you can have her sew up some curtains for the space as well.

In the end, I think we have a princess bathroom that's not overly "OHMYGODI'MAPRINCESS" bathroom.

Big giant crown over the mirror, check!

Disney princess towels and princess rules, check!

Crown candle holder on toilet, check! And flower poms hanging from the ceiling, double check!

Princess, princess, S for Samantha, check!

Megan is going to record Samantha's reaction. I told her that if she doesn't like it, I was going to come over and paint the entire room white (I don't take criticism well apparently). But I'm pretty sure she's going to go nuts over this space. She's actually seen all the items but thinks that they were buying them for "Aunt" Traci and may have lost it when she couldn't use the princess towels immediately. I don't blame her, those are some pretty sweet towels!

And one more picture, because I love these flower poms - it's my favorite part of the entire room!

Don't be surprised if you see these make an appearance in my new house. 

My Opinion Monday - renovation realities

They don't show this stuff on HGTV so I'm going to show it here on my blog -mostly so my mom - hi mom! - can see the disaster progress that has taken place.

We start with a seemly normal kitchen, the standard 1995 remodel - navy blue was in during the 90's for sure (my mom's kitchen has blue accents too and a floor very similar to this one - which we both hate - seriously manufacturers, white flooring in a KITCHEN??? really though WHITE FLOORING?? what are you thinking? and what are WE thinking for even considering that as a choice?? but I didn't pick this, the previous owners did. phew!)

So here are the BEFORE pictures of this accidental remodel:

It's clean now...but just wait

A whole bunch of wasted space in my opinion...

Then I bought a couple shelves from IKEA and that's where this all stems from:

New wall color, new panel color - obviously

Even though I'd like to blame it on this:

"This is easy babe!" Um yes I know this is the easy PART.
It all sucks from here. Remember how I've done this before?
I just realized I didn't post that remodel of the Jefferson casa.

I came home to this the other night after work. I was less than impressed...but look at how nicely his pants match his "Palin Stanzi 2012" shirt! Luckily his parents were coming the weekend to help out. I'd seen his painting skills...they were best left on the golf course tee markers and such. I am uber particular, as is his mom, so I was awaiting her help with painting the cabinets. 

In the meantime, this is what the place started to look like:

No worries - the booze has not left the kitchen. 

You only get one picture, it pretty much sums it up. 

Then I bought some cabinets off Craigslist and things started coming together with the help of his dad:

The 2 smaller cabinets are upper cabinets so they built
a base for those, complete with a toe kick area. 

But first we had to do this:

Which sucked since we'd JUST painted all that damn trim. It's still behind
the cabinets though...well, behind the smaller cabinets I should say. 

And this is what we had before our ambitious evening: 

I need the doors to be back on. The 'open shelf' concept
will not work in this kitchen...at least this side anyways.

And without the backsplash now:

Looks better already!

And this - except these have been painted with the charcoal gray color that you see on the frames above:

The punching bag has gotten a bit of use during this project...but only
because I kept bumping into it by accident. And yes, it's from Goodwill too.

So there you have it.  The stuff they don't show on HGTV that all of us who have been through a remodel before has experienced. 

And if none of that makes sense, here's the color palette:

Imagine concrete countertops, a mable slab on the accent cabinets wall and some new flooring....and none of the mess!

Be honest, which chair would you rather sit in?

Don't lie to me. Would you rather sit in this chair:

 Or this chair:

That's what I thought. You'd rather sit in the chair with the waaayy cooler pillow. I bought some new patio furniture in lieu of rent this month (which means, I guess, he gets to keep it if we break up? I mean, I paid for it, but it was in lieu of writing a check to him for rent minus half the utilities..ah guess we'll cross that bridge if we get there).

The set (a small loveseat, two chairs and table) came with some pretty - yawn - boring pillow covers. I didn't notice until we got it home that it was from the Country Living series. Now, I'm a small town girl and my style is a bit country, but that fabric was plain and boring. I just so happened to have enough outdoor fabric in the damask pattern that I love so much, so I just whipped up 4 new covers in about an hours time.

I like this much better than I did the plain old standard, comes with the package covers.

My motto in life is "don't settle, even if it is just a paint color" - I think that fits here too...just with pillow covers I guess.

Sidenote: the corner tables are from Goodwill. $4.99 a piece, 2 cans of stone spray paint and voila! - side tables! Don't be jealous, there's plenty at Goodwill to go around :)

We finished something!

Remember when the front of the house looked like this:

Pretty drab, but considering no one lived here for a year, it's not too bad.

Well we Tyler's dad finally did something about this. Ty took out all the bushes and started a landscaping project that only his dad could help finish.  After a couple days of this:

Someone must have known I was going to take a picture...always wanting to show off the "goods"

 and this:

Craig hard at work. He only stopped to sleep. Crazy man.  Much appreciated though.

We now have this:

New front patio, much better than the bushes. Chairs from the side of the road, tables from The Will.

 and this:

Quick tip: buy your plants towards the end of the season, they're much cheaper and these come back each year. Score!

and this:

Now we can sit out front and stare awkwardly at the neighbors house.

Now let's try those side by side shall we?

Before	After. You like?

Not to shabby huh? We'll be adding some planter boxes that we decided we're going to make this winter. We actually took the time to sit on the chairs last night - they're a bit uncomfortable but we got them for free on the curb so I can't really complain. I'm just going to whip up a few cushions for them in my newly finished craft room - which I just need to tidy up a tad then I'll take a few "after" pictures. We all remember the before right?

Things are coming together people...be ready for some more before and after posts!

The house before we made it way more awesome!

I was going to put these in a nice little table for you, but realized that the HTML code option didn't allow me to pick pictures I'd already waited 5 minutes for to upload, so you'll just get a running stream of photos. 

Hopefully your computer can handle all of this....

The living room with the first purchase after he signed for the house, a $25 shell chair from, where else, Goodwill. 

The dining room, complete with our $1.00 work table from the Goodwill outlet and the $1.00 broom from the Dollar Tree

Built in hutch in the dining room.

View looking from the dining room to what is now the "office wall"

The guest room...or my closet, however you want to look at it

Master bedroom, being taken over my country chic...

The backyard and humungo deck. Our yard goes back to the other house, 3 lots for this neighborhood. 

The bathroom, which is going to be getting a much needed makeover  this fall!

Our big tree, thank goodness Tyler trimmed this one so the neighbor kids don't try to climb it and break their necks...

Front of the house, with a reflection of the neighbors house, these bushes are now gone...

And so are these bushes...they're all laying underneath the back tree...

Our first dinner in the new place...we picked up those wine glasses from the Dollar Tree, you can't beat that!

Okay okay, enough bitching..how about some before and afters?

I know, this blog has turned into just my opinion. Well so-rry for being so busy with finishing up projects that all you get is my opinion.

So let me show you what has been keeping me sooooooooooooo busy....

Oh wait, wrong picture....let me try this again...the dresser pictures this time please:

Purchased for $9.99 at Goodwill, all sorts of ugly blue...	Then we decided red, which was a mistake....
After said blue and red (and some brown) were removed...	don't you have flowers on your dresser?

I even bought some glass knobs to play up the "shabby chic" (I sound so old saying that!) look. See:

I can always paint over it if I end up deciding I don't like the look of it. I guess this is the country part of my "Eclectic-Contemporary-County" style I have going on...

Now I just have to find something a little more masculine to put on his side of the bed. I have an idea, but I'm going to save that for another blog. It's quite amazing I think, but I won't be able to do it, so I'll have to send it out for completion. One thing at a time...

And after this weekend, I can't WAIT to show you the before and after picture of the garage - you remember the before picture don't you?