Oh The Places You'll Go!

Did I show you this Salvation Army find?  How cute is he?!

I am debating painting him, or leaving him... part of me sees a light white paint application, part of me wants to make him pink, and another part likes him as he is....

I painted this dresser last year, and haven't sold it, so I started redoing it AGAIN so that I can use is in my sons room.  The plan is to paint the whole thing blue/black [to go in his blue room] and then wallpaper the framed out sections of the drawers with map wallpaper.

I've gotten most of the black painted, but wouldn't ya' know it, the wallpaper I had my eye on is out of stock!  My job tonight will be to research an alternate wallpaper to use.

I also am making some art to go above it, the theme of this room redo is 'Oh the places you'll go'.  

He's almost 9.  

NINE!  

I can not believe it!  And he's gotten so big,and what he'll do in the future and what he'll become ... well the options are endless, and I am just so proud of him.

For such an interesting, vibrant boy, his room is so... blah!  And he's kind of 'over' the construction trucks/Disney items we used in the past. So it's time for a 'bigger boy' room, I guess.

I bought these wall sticker things, and some canvases....

I made a template of the stickers and painted the canvases around the template...

Here's how they came out:

Originally I wanted to put these on distressed aged wood... and I may add some grey to these to put more background on them, but for now, they're done and the hunt for map wallpaper continues!

I have lots of other projects I'm working on, including several dog/doll beds:

This was a small table I bought at a garage sale and was going to make into a bed with the full length legs, but then I decided to cut them....

And use a small part of the legs as 'feet' under the bed....

Just need mattresses and bedding and sanding and painting...

It's all in the small details

So, we've made several small steps forward on several projects.  I wish all those steps were forward on one, so that it was almost complete.  Alas, when weather and other responsibilities call, you gotta' do what you can do, right?

So here's what we've done lately:


My attempt at a Mackenzie-Childs-esque birdhouse.
I bought some dollhouse shingles to roof it, and got this far when I encountered the problem of how to cut them and how to glue them.  Still working that out.

My jewelry box:

It's actually finished but I can not take pics of it in the bathroom because my bathroom is off limits right now... more on that later...

Here's my cow:

I started out doing him in my favorite distressed blue over red.... until the husband reminded me of the cows I love down the road...

Here's what he looked like at first...

And now in my kitchen flanked by those Bavarian China saucers I found at Salvation Army:

Pretty right?  A steal at $.99!

He joins these cows and other farm animals around my banquette:

That's my horse, Yo, on the top here

And when I am not working on these little projects, or taking my kid to swimming or Baseball...

... remember this room and all that wood flooring hubby and I are planning to install?

We are about 1/4th of the way there, thanks to Husbands friend who got us started and did the hard parts:

At the entry at the top of the back stairs.  The option was leave the 2 pieces of hardwood there, or remove them and butt the pine up to it.  I am glad we went with the latter.

This pine is 8" wide, and therefore it required a small sliver of a piece to finish filling the doorway.  There is no way I woulda' thought of doing this, nor would I have been able to execute so perfectly!

We left about 3/4" all the way around for expansion, it willl be covered by the drywall, and trim.

My idea?  Not on your life. 

So this is the area between the North and South facing dormers.

Right in front of you, at the bottom of those windows, will be the Vermont Casting gas stove.

Then, between those dormers, I want to create faux beams out of this pine that run up the angled part of the dormer, across the ceiling, and then down the angle part of the opposite dormer.

We think we want to do a plank ceiling, painted white, so the 'beams' will really look great against that.

Let me just tell you though, sanding that small portion of floor with my hand sander?  Well it's a lovely result, and it sure beats the time I spent on my hands and knees de-waxing the Mother in Laws rental houses' no wax kitchen floor [we really know how to enjoy our Easter Break, let me tell you!].... but both wreak havoc on the back!  And I can not even get to my clawfoot tub for a soak!

At least this effort was for something I want to do, not something I am doing out of necessity.  Did I say how nice it looks and feels though?  And I intend to slow us down further by sanding each cut end as we install too, cause some of those ends look jagged and though you can't see it when you're standing in there... when you are on your hands and knees sanding it?  

Well, they bother ya'.  

Trust me.  

So they will get a quick 'ZIP!' with the sander before install.  

Because in the end, it's the little details that make the finished job really shine, right?

Yup, a bit more crap to remove [that was the hardest part, to be honest], and all the rest of that flooring to install.  And yes some of the flooring had to go into my master bath 'cause there was no room to work, hence my inability to use my bathroom or show you my jewelry box as it sits there or use my tub to soak away these aches.  

But I guess that's a good thing, a sign of progress, so no complaints for now.