dresser: before and after

Faith and Brett Hall asked me to paint a dresser for their baby's room, but before we get into the nitty gritty details of baby changing table makeover let's just talk about how flipping adorable Faith's baby bump pictures are... she posed with the fruit that Baby Hall is the size of that week. It doesn't hurt that she's a great photographer and has an eye for fun shots.

Here are the colors Faith and Brett are working with, all inspired by this feminine but not typically pink girls' room fabric. I love it.

Without further ado, here is their hand-me-down dresser:

Here is the dresser top after a rigorous (and I mean workout level!) sanding job.

The entire dresser was dutifully sanded to get off any polyurethane. I was completely covered and then forgot about that fact that my back was so covered with red dust when I sat down in the chair in Drew's room to nurse him. Oops, sorry white chair and thank goodness for bleach.

The next muy importante step was to whip down the whole dresser with a damp rag so none of the dust will get into your paint or primer. See everything that's on the rag... yeah... that's what's on my white chair now.

While I painted my little musician sat next to me serenading me. The paint was water based so the smells weren't bad for him, or me for that matter. I can just see people wondering if I'm giving my son some brain damage from painting near him.

Here is the amazing primer Faith picked up for me. I coated the dresser with two coats of it and it was thick enough that the former stain color never came through.

I've got everything laying down in this next photo so I could get at all angles with the primer. I did two coats and it covered just like the photo on the right. It doesn't matter if it looks worn, the paint will still cover beautifully.

Next step... the fun part... finding out if the paint color will look different on the piece of furniture from the color that the nice man at Lowe's dabbed onto a dime size amount on the top of the can. I poured it all out into a Tupperware covered in tin foil and immediately loved the color, but it wasn't until I got two coats on that I really noticed the difference between white and this blue / green color. Oh, and side note: I love, love, love cheapo foam brushes for nearly any kind of painting, they reduce lines so well!

Here is the dresser after three coats of paint and after I went over little spots with sandpaper where I noticed a little uneven texture. I'm not putting on the knobs because Faith plans to get some fabulous ones from Anthropologie (I'm mean, are there any non-fabulous knobs from Anthropologie?).

The color in the photo above isn't true to life, which is mildly frustrating when trying to shoot a flattering "after" photo. And then of course the sky looked like it was going to downpour so I brought the dresser inside by myself (not fun when your sciatic nerve is spazing out) and took some photos with the flash on to see if it would make a difference in the way the actual color was represented. It did. Although, the best way to see the actual color is to look at the photo of the swatch at the beginning of the post. Once I can get a better photo I'll post it!

So, there you have it. This morning you saw the evolution of a Popsicle and this afternoon you see the evolution of a dresser.

evolution of a popsicle

Watching Drew eat a Popsicle was definitely in the category where you are laughing so hard you can barely breathe. He wanted that freezing cold Edy's Wild Berry Popsicle so badly that he'd grab onto the entire thing with his oatmeal covered hands (we'd already had a lunch of oatmeal that ended up on his toes... I guess you know a meal is good when it's a full body experience). Every time he'd put the Popsicle in his mouth he didn't know what to do because it was so cold and he'd make a face like the one on the bottom left and then as soon as I pulled it out he'd want it again and start grabbing for it... this kid has a short memory. :)

Oh, and the picture with a part of a Wild Berry pop on the back of his diaper... yeah, that's what I mean about a full body food experience.

walkway in progress

On Monday I decided to take on the job, while AJ was working at the house in Gloucester, of getting all the weeds out of our front walkway. As you can see from this photo it was a nightmare to tackle. I first started weeding by hand, which would have been a good idea if I wanted to spend all eternity working on it.

After what seemed like forever, and making about negative progress, I asked myself WWAD (What would AJ do?). He is pretty much the fastest worker I know so I figured he'd just take a shovel and get all the weeds out that way. BEST. DECISION. EVER. After about 30 minutes this is the progress I'd (and my little partner in crime relaxing in his walker) made:



After this photo was taken it wasn't long before Drew wanted to eat so inside we went for the rest of the afternoon... After Drew went to sleep at 7:45pm I put my work clothes back on and went outside... only to get 28 mosquito bites (which of course, some are in the most embarressing spots for itching) in the next hour of ripping out weeds... I was glad that AJ ended up coming out because I'm not sure if I could have wrapped it up in time for the 9pm Design Star if he hadn't. :)

Let me back up for a minute, during the day I called AJ while he was still in Gloucester and suggested that we might want to get some stone dust to spread on the walkway so weeds don't pop up again. He grabbed some at Wolf Hill Garden and for the total cost of $17 our walkway is de-weeded and in progress for some stones or pavers or something... we are still brainstorming that part:

Keep in mind these photos are the "in progress" version... we don't plan on leaving the stone dust for everyone to track into the house... namely because I already feel like I'm sweeping the house 10 times a day.

Just for kicks I put some chairs I found at the dump on the new "porch" area. I'd emailed April (AJ's mom) earlier in the day to see if she and Kerry could measure their porch width for us. We love how there is plenty of room to get around their good sized furniture so we wanted to have our porch be around that width. You can't really see it in this photo because the sun was so bright, but about two feet away from the chairs is a flagstone on the ground, that marks the 7 feet 8 inches that April and Kerry measured out from their porch.

This photo shows the front porch. We knew from the home inspection that this would have to all come down, the bricks are falling out and there is SO much rot going on within the pillars that I have mostly hidden with plants.

The walkway is half done and I'm still scratching those bites (even though I know I shouldn't) and walking with a limp after my ciatic nerve started spazing out.... so I guess the total financial cost of the project was $17, but I've paid for it in other ways too. :)

wednesday loves: #6

I am in love with this website my friend Jade sent me to; Graphics Fairy. She has used a lot of these graphics for her wedding and best of all... they are all FREE. I have a thing for vintage French graphics because I think it would be great to make some pillows for our bedroom (once it's complete) with graphics like this as a nod to AJ's love for France (I'm basically counting down the days till we get to to see the Eiffel Tower, order something fabulous at a French cafe, etc). Wish I had a trip booked!

I'm actually wearing my second Wednesday Love item right now. Has anyone ever tried Sally Hansen's Insta Dry nail polish? It's advertised to dry in 60 seconds and it actually does it... I'm one of those people who HATES paying for a mani because I love to work with my hands and I'll chip the polish on the way out of the salon opening sour patch kids or something... so when you can put it on and have it dry in 60 seconds, well, it's not such a commitment to standing in front of a window insanely shaking your hands to get them to dry.






This third item is for my sister-in-law, Mern. She loves woodsy things and her house actually is decorated with a lot of moose-y items so a nursery someday like this would fit right in! You can read all about how Katie Bower (bffs with Sherry from Young House Love blog) put together the whole nursery for her son Will here. I just love her originality imagining the log cabin-y wall.
 

 
I love the shabby chic-ness of this kitchen, wouldn't this be perfect in a small cottage by the sea?
 

 
One of the people I follow on Pinterest, Rachel Cuthbert, pinned this photo as a cute inspiration for a Christmas photo... adorable, right?

 
Talk about an adorable way to tell people you are pregnant again (and no, DON'T get any ideas)...
 

 
I'm pretty sure there isn't one thing about this photo that I don't love... how creative to make a pallet into a coffee table... the planters are incredible... the combo of the gray and black is so calming... I could go on and on and then maybe roll around on that comfy rug and just lay and read a book there.
 

 
Kim's best friend, Allison Lundstrum, posted this on her Pinterest board... it's an Etsy find, what a good reminder this would be hanging on your wall:
 

 
And last but not least, a place that we found on HGTV's House Hunters International: Abruzzo, Italy... the people on the show were looking for a vacation home close to the water and close to the village for $80K and there were definitely options... so Abruzzo, Italy, we want to come flip a house.... or maybe just vacation there and rent it out... :)
 

 
That's all for this week, folks! :) What are you loving?

dreaming of a garage

I've posted about driveways we love (see example below) but we are envisioning a slightly bigger outdoors remodel if the house we are flipping sells. We have our eyes on this garage that we found from a shed retailer, Reeds Ferry, in New Hampshire. Reeds Ferry sells their Grand Victorian model  as the perfect shed for avid gardeners or a spot for a one car garage. We have a 1/4 acre lot, so we don't have oodles of space for a two car garage.
 

Here is the view of our house and driveway, you can see the lilac bushes and the maple trees that'll need some pruning.



This photo shows the decent amount of space that we have for a 20 x 20 garage. It also shows that we need to finish painting the top part of the house. :)



I posted this photo at the beginning of the month, but can't you picture this driveway style coming off the garage? AJ and I will be thrilled to get rid of such a grody looking driveway and to have space to store our lawnmower and wheelbarrow. Right now they are under a tree and an old wheel barrow is keeping the lawnmower dry... it's sort of really ghetto and we joke that part of our back yard looks great and the other part looks white trash. Oh well... it's coming together slowly but surely!

elephants partying

I've been brainstorming about Drewbie's first birthday... I know, I'm early. I've been thinking about either an orange and blue goldfish theme or a aqua / blue and red elephant theme. I've been researching some cute elephant ideas for the party and here are some amazing photos that came up.

These photos are from an elephant baby shower, so it's a little girly but I think some elements could be tweaked to work for a boy's first birthday! I love the table set up, especially set with all white dishes. I could picture a table cloth in a similar pattern in red instead of pink...





These photos are from a little girl's first birthday. I could make pom poms like this in red to go with blue accents. The straws and the water bottle labels are adorable!





This is from a Coney Island themed party. I am in love with the dessert / candy cart, does that make you want to grab a handful of candy right now, or what? Also, don't you love the adorable photos with the circus tent on top of the cupcakes?





And last but not least, one of my faves: the Elephant and Alphabet Baby Shower. I'm in love with everything from the invitation to the cupcakes to the table set up.











I'm all motivated now to work on Drew's party... I'm envisioning his invite, it'll be a blue / aqua elephant on textured paper to resemble the textured elephant skin and then a red string around his trunk with a note that says "Don't forget Drew's first birthday!"... good thing I have five months to think of all the other details! Here is a little mood board I found online that gives a good feel for the colors I want to use:





** You can find more details on any of these parties by clicking the links in this post. I took all the photos from one of my favorite sites: Hostess with the Mostess.

progress at the flip

The morning we left for New York last week the granite installers (North Shore Marble and Granite) came over and put in the countertops at the flip. They make it look so much more finished... we still have to do tweaking in the kitchen but it's almost ready.... but first, a view of the before:

And here it is with the new cabinets, appliances, floor and now the black granite!

We chose the most inexpensive black granite with an undermount sink. You can see the sink in this photo and the faucet will be directly between the two glass cabinets.

My mom wonderfully took Drew today so I could go over to the Flip for a few hours to help AJ. I did some painting and then took a little bit of time took work on the fireplace. AJ had already painted the mantle but we needed to do a little something with the center portion. It's filled in with concrete so it'll never be a working fireplace.

I covered up the tin skirting (I think that is what it is called) with the same tin we have in our backsplash. I purchased very strong double sided tape made for installing this tin and then cut the tin to fit the space. I had to use three sheets from Home Depot at $20 each but we have quite a bit left over to finish a small amount of space on our own backsplash.