Molding phase 1

After painting the walls of the front room, dining room, and entryway dark gray, the edges where the walls meet the ceiling were not looking great. Partly because my paint line was uneven, partly because the walls and ceiling are textured (which creates some unpleasant nooks & crannies that are difficult to even out, paint wise). Our plan was to add molding at the ceiling anyhow, which gives a more finished look. Eventually we will add a larger and prettier molding, but one day I couldn't stand the unevenness anymore and went into a nailing frenzy - using some thin molding that I had already purchased for a different project. I quickly ran out of molding and had to make another trip to Lowe's and get more. It only took about $20 worth of molding to go around the entire dining room, front room, and entryway, and it is very simple in style, but I think it makes a big difference.

 We will upgrade the molding later, but I like it much more now already! 

Garage Door Makeover

Pretend not to notice the peeling house paint - we are trying to decide which color to paint the house, so in the meantime I decided to spruce up the garage door! It is a plain white metal door with no handles (automatic).

I bought this garage door accessory kit for $18.00 on Amazon.com  here 

They also have magnetic (stick-on/removable) versions of the same thing (more $) 

but these were not difficult to install with an electric drill and a screwdriver.

All of these accessories are supposed to make your plain garage door look "carriage style".  

Since I bought this kit I've seen a lot of these style of garage doors around town. They are not functional (even the handle pieces), they just look nice.

Here it is with just the side pieces installed:

I didn't get around to installing the handle pieces because it was a billion degrees outside. Now I'm not sure if I want to have the handles or not. What do you think? 

This is NOT my house, but a similar garage door with the handles attached, so this is what it would look like WITH the handles....

Please comment below whether you think I should leave it as-is or add the handle pieces. 

Media center - NEW TOP

I bought this media center at a salvage place months ago...it was a great price because it didn't have a top. Actually I think it is really a vanity without the sink/countertop part. But it was just what we were looking for, for under our newly-hung tv. Except for the whole not having a top thing. I figured for the price, we could come up with a top for it. We considered several different options on how to replace the top, but it just kept getting pushed off because of other projects.

So a few days ago I made a trip to Lowes with my 2 youngest (not a great idea) 

and came home with $30 worth of wood. 

I didn't want to be there with my "helpers" a minute longer, so I cut the wood at home. Then I stained* it and and attached it with screws.

TA DA!

A CLOSE-UP

I told Kendall that if had to marry an inanimate object, it would be this media center, 

because I love it so much. 

* I didn't want to buy stain, so I mixed some clear craft varnish with black acrylic paint. The wood grain is still visible, it looks slightly weathered.

Mailbox makeover (zero cost)

I gave our mailbox a makeover, using some leftover misfit spray paint that we had in the garage and some scrap vinyl (& my cameo silhouette machine to cut the letters/numbers)

Ceiling fan

We had a terrible fan. I took the glass cover off and covered the ceiling with plastic.
I spray-painted everything - the pulls, the blades, etc with oil rubbed bronze spray paint

A billion times better! 

WALL ART

WALL ART:

I BOUGHT 3 CHEAP CANVASES AND PAINTED OVER THEM 

and then it became this:

PERFECT SIZE FOR OVER THE COUCH!

World map, I painted this on a wooden sign (reclaimed wood)

Family Proclamation, family photo, and family crest with matching frames, hanging from a decorative rod

Scrabble family name tiles 

I special ordered these wood squares on Etsy, then cut the letters & numbers from vinyl using my Cameo Silhouette

Brick makeovers #1 & #2

Original brick (and halfway through process of painting the walls & molding). I hated how the multicolored brick looked - to me, the white & black splotches were reminiscent of bird-poop.

I painted the black & white parts of the brick, so that they were all a more uniform color. But I never finished the bottom section because I just wasn't sure about having all that red with the new gray wall color. So instead, I finished painting the molding and walls of the room, and procrastinated finishing the brick painting.

I finally decided I wasn't happy with how the red brick looked with the new gray wall paint - the color looked very blue, instead of gray. I decided that the problem was the red brick. So, on a whim, I started painting the brick white & gray. After I'd done about a dozen bricks, John walked into the room and asked, "WHAT are you DOING?" Uhhhhhhhh....nothing?

More painting 

The final result - and the walls now look gray like they're supposed to! And every time John walks into the room,
he says, "That looks SO much better!"