Ok, it's probably not the worst, but is pretty boring. Since I would never purchase this khaki green color willingly, it can only mean one thing. We are painting the exterior of our house. Lame does not even begin to describe how I feel about this project, but I'm sharing it anyways.

 

 

We've decided to break up the house painting into manageable sections, although after doing the first section it still seems like a lot of work. Basically we are spending one day doing all the prep work so that the next day we can just paint. Prep includes scraping the peeling paint off (this part sucks), washing the house down with TSP (less sucky), and then rinsing scything off with the hose (least sucky).

 

 

Breaking it up into two days gives the wood and siding a chance to dry out before we paint anyways. After that we have to spackle, sand, and seal up any little cracks with caulk. There's a lot of little cracks since we have those little vertical strips of wood all over our house in addition to the regular door and window trim.

 

Once the caulk was dry we primed all the bare wood and patches for better adhesion and stuff. As you can see those stupid strips of wood peeled a lot. Some of them were left with no paint at all.

 

 

Here is the after-ish shot. We still have to get some trim paint for around the door and window. Actually, we still have a lot to do, we only painted the lower half soooo, yeah. What's even more disappointing is the difference between the new paint and the old. As in there's not much! Hopefully the trim paint will help in that department, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

 

On a more exciting note, are any of you working on a Spring Pinterest Challenge project? I think I've figured out what I want to do, I just hope I have time before Wednesday. It's my last week of school and I've got some stuff to finish up, but I hope I can squeeze it in. Do you have a project picked out? If not I've got a few suggestions: DIY paint by numbers, fancy staining technique (maybe for a wall hanging), or maybe somewhere to hang your jewelry! Can't wait to see all the Pinspired projects on Wednesday!

 

Nikki Kelly

 

Well, this weekend we didn't really do anything exciting on the house. On Saturday we went to the Chipotle Cultivate festival (in the freezing cold) but I'll share a little more about that later this week. As far as Sunday goes, we took a little adventure up to the roof. Yes, Matt and I climbed up onto the roof. Why you ask? Well, we had a clogged gutter or downspout. I noticed a problem a few weeks ago when it was raining and I had to enter the house through a waterfall. Water was just pouring over the edge of the gutter and sending it right down on me. Well once we were up on the roof it was as simple as picking out a sliver of wood, we have cedar shake shingles, and a couple of leaves. Hardly worth taking a camera up there for. Oh, and I purged some clothes that are now sitting in my trunk. And now I'm rambling.

 

 

What I wanted to share is this cute little mani I've been wearing recently (as in three times now). It's super easy and you don't need any special tools. Seriously, just a couple of nail polish colors that look nice together. I even made a fancy collage (using Fuzel Pro).

 

 

I have been pretty lazy lately with doing anything other than just plain nail polish. Mostly because my nails were revolting, as in they were splitting and breaking just as fast as I could grow them. So, about three weeks ago I got myself some hair skin and nail vitamins and they seem to be doing better. As a reward (to my nails, not me) I decided they deserved something fancy. I based this mani off of a Valentine's Day mani that I saw on Chalkboard Nails. The only difference is I used different colors on each side, and did a straight line instead of a curved line. Oh, and yes, it is a little messy. I usually just pick it off while I'm in the shower. You might want to give yourself a little more drying time than usual too. It gets a little bit thick by the time you're done. Anyway, what do you think? Do you like painting your nails all fancy like? Is there a mani you've been wanting to try lately? Me: gradient French mani, once I get a little more length.

 



 

Two weekends ago (aka the weekend of frustration) I decided I had had enough and was going to get something, anything, done. Well that something turned out to be sanding the remaining doors on the main floor. As in, I was tired of having painted door jambs and unpainted doors. It's not really the look we're going for. Anyway, I took four doors (the downstairs bedroom, the downstairs bathroom, and two sliding closet doors that used to be on the dry bar closet) out to the garage to begin the painstaking process of sanding them. Just to be clear, I hate sanding. It's the worst. It makes my hands feel numb, it makes my nose run (and then when I blow my nose my snot is the same color as whatever I was sanding) and its generally not a lot of fun. Especially when you don't have whatever your sanding at an appropriate height. See?

 

 

Saw horses would be really helpful right about now. I really love these ones that I saw in ReadyMade (may they rest in peace). Maybe I'll make some. For now I just had to use what I had on hand, which was the drawers that we pulled out of this built in from our bedroom and one polar roller (aka a cooler with wheels).

 

 

Everyone says we are crazy for taking it out.... Oh wait, what am I saying? No one says that. After all that pesky sanding I was able to prop the doors up against the garage wall (with some cardboard under them) and use one of the best things we've ever bought, my paint sprayer!

 

 

We bought it before tackling the never ending railing makeover that was coincidentally around this time last year. Don't get me wrong, it's not the painting that I put off for so long, it's the sanding you have to do before you can paint. (oh and not that you can ally read the bumper sticker {if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns} on the wall, but it's not ours. It was there before we bought the house,so no political musings here)

 

 

This really is a life (and back) saver. I do think it takes more coats to get nice even coverage, but I think the end result is so worth it! Oh, and I've even got a little before and after action for you fine folks today! Here's the closet in the downstairs bedroom with the lame hollow core not interesting at all doors.

 

 

This closet is where we keep some of our coats and jackets since we got rid of the closet in the living room. Well, and a bunch of other crap.

 

 

Dut dut duuuuh dunn, the after! Don't worry, all the crap is still in there, you just can't see it now.

 

 

Well kind of an after, I still need to paint that little piece of trim that's above the closet doors and get those little metal things that go in these holes. At least I vacuumed all those little bits of cardboard up! We were just glad the paneled doors from the dry bar were the same size as the doors to this closet. Free upgrade!



 

I'm excited to get these doors finished so I can move on to the ones upstairs. Umm wait, I should probably say that I'm excited for these doors to be finished, not so much actually doing this project. But the good news is that all the doors upstairs are flat like the closet doors we just replaced, so they should be easier to sand. Oh, and as far as the front door goes, I really like the idea of refinishing it with black stain but painting the door jamb white. Sadly, that will probably have to wait until next spring seeing that it's already cold. Which totally matters because we will have to go doorless for a day while we sand the door.

 

 

Please tell me you hate sanding as much as I do. Or at least painting things that are attached to your house, like trim. Also, what happened to ReadyMade's website?

 



 

So I know I'm a little late to see some of the Parade, but I was out of town last weekend. But since the Denver Parade of Homes only runs on the weekends until Labor Day I was pretty anxious to get out there and see some homes! I even dragged brought Matt with me, he says he likes it. oh, and since there are over 70 homes in this years Parade, I'm just going to show you the things I like. First up, decorative moulding in the bathroom.



I really liked the taller one on the right, but maybe if the one on the left wasn't so contrasting I might like it better. Oh, and speaking of bathrooms, look at this wallpaper! I love it. Navy and gold, what's not to love?



In less pretty but more interesting news, this house has a deconstruction zone. Apparently that means they left many areas unfinished on purpose. You know, so those of us that don't know whats really behind our walls can see the bigger picture.



If subfloors aren't your thing then feast your eyes on this floor! It's pretty drool worthy with being on the diagonal, but what might not be apparent is the size of the planks. They were probably 5 or 6 inches wide! I compared the span of my fingers and had to stretch to get my pinky and thumb to meet the edges. It was HUGE! I bet it made the instal go really fast too.



And while we are talking floors, I noticed a lot more tile floors in the living spaces. That is a little weird for me because tile is usually so cold. I'm sure the more expensive homes have the in floor heating, but it still seems so sterile. I know that it's more common in the southern reigions but you just don't see a lot of homes with wall to walk tile in Colorado. Oh, and I may or may not have done my best Rapunzel impression while at the top of the stairs. Could you blame me?



In other tile related favorites, I really like the tile treatment of this fireplace. I think the configuration is a little off, but the tile is so much nicer than just finished walls. If I had one of those lame tv cubbie holes over a fireplace I would totally use this as inspiration and tile the whole thing.



And I would probably look for one of these sweet bi-leveled coffee tables. Or make one, you know me!



Now I'm not really sure why, but I loved the walls in this office. The bottom color is a deep navy if it's hard to see, but I dig it! Maybe it's because I'm a little over the subtle horizontal stripes and this is kinda a new update on that. I'm not really sure.





Oh, and Matt was pretty excited to find Peyton Mannings room while we were doing the tour. It's a little girly for the Bronco QB1 in my opinion, but I guess we're all free to have our own opinions.



I just love walking through as many homes as I can, just trying to soak up inspiration. Does your city have a big parade of homes during the summer? Hopefully I'll have more for you next week, as long as we go see more homes and there's stuff that I like enough to share.

You guys, I am so excited to share how my doors turned out. It's exactly what I envisioned in my head. I love it when that happens! The process was pretty simple too, which is another bonus.

I think with the popularity of stencils these days most of you are pretty familiar with how to stencil with paint, right? I've even spent my fair share of time stenciling, but I wanted this to be different. I really wanted to maintain the linear look of the wood grain that continues across all the cabinets, and paint would just mess it up.

I got the idea from deep in the storage banks of my brain. A couple of years ago I was watching Debbie Travis and they stenciled the phrase for hello in a different language with wood glue before the stain was applied. It left the wood in its natural color, but I loved how subtle it looked. So once I had my stencil I mixed up a little wood glue and water together and rolled it over my stencil. Just like you would stencil with paint you want to make sure your coverage is very thin and build it up from there.

With the wood glue being pretty much clear it can be a little difficult to see where you have already stenciled. I just tilted the door so that the light would catch the glue to help me see.

When you're happy with your stenciling and the glue has dried it is time to stain! I used an old cut up t-shirt to apply stain. Just dip in in the stain and spread it over the wood. Don't worry about where you stenciled, you can stain right over it.

Once I finished staining the front I took another t-shirt rag that was dry and rubbed the surface to soak up any extra stain that was just sitting on top. This also helps clean up some of the stain off of the poofs. If you look at the last picture the are much darker than they are in this picture.

I left the stain to dry for one day and then applied two coats of poly to finish. But before you poly you will want to sand down the rough edges from the wood glue. It shouldn't take much, I just used a fine grit sponge sander until it was smooth. If you want your finish extra smooth give it a light sanding between coats.

Here that are, all back where they belong!


I really love how the wood grain continues through the dandelion poofs. I'm even happy with the way the stain and glue edges kind of feathered together.

And how they are all a little different thanks to some of the glue mixture seeping under the stencil.


Here's the whole room! You might be sick of hearing this but, I love it! I lurve it so much.

Now I just need to figure out what to do for the countertop. So, have you come up with an interesting way to use a stencil? Would you ever try this technique? If you do I would love to see it!

Nikki Kelly

I didn't do a lot of projecty stuff this weekend because (dunt dun DUN!) I was in Seattle! Those of you that follow my instagram feed already know that, but for those that don't I was a little iPhone camera happy. My most favorite thing were the flowers at the public market. I even brought a beautiful bouquet of dahilas home with me! Anyway, that is not what today's post is about. I wanted to show you a quick little update on my cabinet doors, which I hope to finish this week. I'll wait until they're finished to spill my beans as to what all I've got in store for them, but I would love to hear your guesses!







I came home yesterday and got straight to work on stenciling this cute little dandelion puff that I ordered from Cutting Edge Stencils during their Facebook fan sale and I am so excited to see (and share) the final result.



Have you taken a weekend trip anywhere lately? Any guesses as to what I'm doing with these doors? Did you know fish have tongues? Well, now you do!





I have not been compensated for using this stencil in any way, I was just really happy with my last purchase so I got another!

First and foremost, I want to apologize for the pictures in this post. This area in our house gets very little natural lighting and is very difficult to capture. With that being said, this first picture is probably the most accurate as far as color is concerned. Ok, not that I've got that out of the way, because I can't just work on one project at a time, this is what I've been working on in between working on the floors upstairs. I think all the practice from stenciling my studio really paid off. I started with the skinny little stencil that's ment to go near your ceiling (which would have been the better way to start my studio) and worked down from there.

If you're having a hard time figuring out where this might be let me tell you. It's in our stairway. We have a U shaped stair case and this wall is where the landing is. It's also a very tall area (roughly 16') that required us to purchase a new ladder. Oh, and see those old socks on the top? They are there because the black rubber feet things were leaving black scuff marks on the wall.

Haha, this is kinda funny. I hadn't cleaned the stencil off since before I started the second half of my studio and the paint was starting to build up. I've found the best way to clean it off is to just soak it in water in the bathtub until the paint loosens. Once the paint is all wrinkly just peel it off the stencil, if you're lucky you can get it off in one whole piece like this. It almost looks like another stencil, if your stencil was saggy and made out of latex paint.

After two separate sessions the wall was complete. The top half took a lot longer than the bottom, probably because I wasn't taking my life in my hands as much. This picture should also give you a better idea of the space too.

I also just love the way the bubble chandelier leaves these interesting shadows on the wall to. It makes the stairway look very dreamy!

Not that you haven't seen a close up of this stencil before yet, but I love how simple the subtle colors make this. Don't get me wrong, I love how my studio looks, but for something I will see at least a dozen times a day I like this much better!

Speaking of my studio, I've got some storage progress to show you soon, and we've made some good progress with the flooring too. Until then!