Posts made in February, 2010

Go ahead, write on the walls

Posted by Lindsay on Feb 22, 2010 in Creativity, DIY, Featured Articles, inspiration, Tricks of the Trade | 4 comments

Cool product alert.  Have you wondered how to actually install a look like this? Is it a big board? Is it on a roll (like wallpaper?)?  Is it….hmmm…

{Image via Young House Love}

As you probably know, I’m working on a project that involves a local daycare playroom.  How fun, right? Right.    It’s been a great learning experience for me, and I am thankful for such enthusiastic and trusting clients.  So of course, we looked into a chalkboard wall for the kiddies.  And if you didn’t already know, it’s simply paint.  (You’re probably saying – duh! We already knew that!  Well…the folks at the hardware store didn’t have a clue to what I was talking about so you never know!!)  Anyway, you paint the chalkboard pigmented paint right on to the wall.  The pigments dry harder than normal paint, allowing for a good surface to write on and not damage, and can also be wiped clean.  You can find it in all sorts of colors, but I stuck with black for this project.  And we didn’t do an entire wall in chalkboard paint, we did a chair rail at about 45″ (so not technically a chair rail, but it worked with the mantle above the wood stove visually!) and painted the lower half of the entire room with chalkboard paint.  A dream come true for little ones, right?  I know Harper already loves to take stray pencils to my kitchen cabinets…

I love how they painted the top of the table in the packaging, too!  You’ll have to do some web searching to find different colors, but this black version is available at Ace Hardware.

And to step it up a notch, pair it with a magnetic primer under the chalkboard paint because what kids don’t love to play with magnets?  We only have 3 letters from Harper’s alphabet magnet set left on our fridge…the rest are probably underneath it.

But this way you can paint the magnetic latex primer right on the wall to make any surface magnetic. Just a word of caution stemming from experience – if you’re going to prime, prime the entire wall or section.  I.e. don’t just put this where you want a magnetic surface and leave other areas unprimed – you can see what parts have magnetic (or any) primer, and what areas don’t after you paint a top coating on!

Either way it still looks cool and works great!  Very excited to wrap this project up – not because I want to be done with it, but because I love to see an end result!  Hopefully I can share it with you within the next few weeks!  If I ever get online to blog…

Got Water Spots? I’ve Got a Magic Powder

Posted by Lindsay on Feb 15, 2010 in eco-friendly, Environmental, Exterior, Featured Articles, windows | 1 comment

We have 2 large (8 feet wide by 4 feet tall) windows in our living room.  Nice, but they’ve actually always been an eyesore since we moved in a year and a half ago because the previous owner apparently ran her sprinkler and let it hit the house.  Here in Likely, this causes horrible water spots on the windows and you couldn’t even see through the bottom half of those windows!  We’ve tried cleaning them with normal window cleaner and a few other solutions, but those didn’t take it off, and we kind of just gave up for now because we knew we needed something better.  This has been driving Glenn’s dad crazy…almost every time he stopped by (he’s a UPS man so that is often!) he would say something about a product he heard about or asking us if we’ve tried something to fix it.  Like I said, we pretty much ignored the problem and just kept the blinds closed!

Gross, right?  We thought they were ruined and we had to live with them like this!

Now a few weeks ago Randy (Glenn’s dad) dropped off a little white jar of ‘stuff’ to clean windows, and we really didn’t think much of it.  He does things like that all the time.  We didn’t jump at the chance to try out this product or anything, it pretty much sat on top of our refrigerator for a week or so.  So one Friday morning I’m making our bed and I stop to admire the view out of our sparkling-clean brand new bedroom window, wishing it was the same in the living room and then I remembered the little white jar.  So I went out to the kitchen and found it, read the directions on the back, grabbed the materials I needed and went outside.  I put some water in a stainless bowl, then you dip a sponge in to get it wet, dip that in the jar of white powder, and then go to work on the windows.  I scrub a little circle, then grab a damp rag to wipe it off and in my amazement IT WORKED PERFECTLY!

Isn’t that a great view?  We were seriously missing out and now we open the blinds every day!  Our windows look brand new with very little effort and no harsh chemicals, thanks to a $4 jar of ‘magic’ powder! It’s called ‘Nothin’s Better Water Stain Remover’ (I’m not making this up) and it is worth its weight in gold!!

For you locals you can buy it at Carsten’s!    Check out these results…before on the left, and after on the right.

See our little jar of the stuff out there?  Love it!  And to do both of our 8-foot windows and the storm door glass, it didn’t even take the whole 4 oz. jar.  Next up is the camp trailer windows!  You can use it on all kinds of surfaces (Glass, chrome, porcelain, tile, fiberglass, aluminum and stainless steel will shine and sparkle as new.  Removes water, mineral stain, rust, scum, paint overspray, oxidization.)

I promise that I started the job, but as soon as Glenn noticed me out there working on the windows he came out to see how it was going.  And took the scrubber from me because he had to try it.  And he finished the job.  Strangely, he does that a lot.  I’m not going to complain. 

Magic.  Seriously.  Go buy some now!

Do you have water spots?  Do you have a ‘magic’ cleaning product you’d like to share?  Please tell us!!

Rugs in the Bathroom, Black Rooms and Baby Potties

Posted by Lindsay on Feb 5, 2010 in Baby Stuff, Bathroom, Color Therapy Thursdays, Decor, Featured Articles, Kids Rooms, Likely Favorites | 0 comments

Well, that about sums this post up!  We had this striped brown and cream flatweave cotton rug from Target in our bedroom…but our dogs sleep on the floor in there and we have wwaaayyy too much traffic in that room for a flatweave cotton rug that you cannot vacuum.  Yes, we could go shake it out, but we’d have to do that every day, twice a day.  So we moved it.  I had it in my office, but the same deal; little pieces of paper from the hole-punch and random thread pieces would get stuck all over it.  Plus it kept bunching up under the desk leg and office chair.  So we moved it again.  This time to the laundry room to wash it, and that’s where it stayed.  Until my genius husband suggested it going in the bathroom.  If you’re anything like me you hate a cold bathroom, especially a bathroom floor.  It fits PERFECTLY in there from wall to wall.  And I love the graphic striped pattern it brings in.  *My husband, the decorator.*

It still gets a little bunchy, but that doesn’t bother me as much as it did in the bedroom because it’s easy to put back in its original location…and you might notice that we even took the bathmats out (and now they’re on either side of the bed) because we don’t need them anymore.  This is something I probably never would have thought of on my own – another piece of evidence to show that having someone to bounce decorating ideas off of can be very helpful!  A fresh set of eyes and opinions might be exactly what you need – and don’t discount your husband’s decorating skills – you never know, he might come up with something good a few times out of ten!

Sorry for the blurry webcam shot – I just don’t always feel like whipping out the nice camera, downloading and editing photos, uploading and formatting, linking and…well, you get the idea – quick and easy, that’s what I need these days – THANK YOU PHOTOBOOTH!  At least I am posting, ha! And yes, my daughter is trying to crawl out of her bath because she sees me fiddling with my laptop…

And no, my bathroom is dark brown, not black…but I am dying to paint SOMETHING black, whether it be a room or an exterior!  Will someone please let me pick a black paint for you??

Image via Apartment Therapy

Pretty, pretty please?  Okay, how about chalkboard paint?

Image via Apartment Therapy

Okay, back to the bathroom; I thought I’d point out that cute little green and white baby potty in my bathroom.  I can’t get over how cute my little girl looks while sitting on it.  She’d hate it if it wasn’t for that stack of Wild Animal Baby magazines we put right next to the sink – because of those she’ll sit there forever.  Nothing happens while she’s sitting on it (she’s only 18 months!), but it’s just for fun and for practice. 

She cracks me up…so I’m sorry if I over-talk about her potty, but it’s just precious (to me!).  Here she is, assuming the ‘reading a magazine on the toilet’ pose, with her baby blonde hair combed after a bath.  So sweet!  And I did wrap her in a towel so I could post this online. 

Anyway, the cute little potty, I bought it from Diapers.com because 1) their shipping is FAST! and FREE! and 2) I had a 15% off coupon sent straight to my e-mail because I have a customer account.  All great things when you live in Likely.  Plus the potty is too dang adorable and I thought it would look cute (and not take up much space in my teeny bathroom) sitting in its own little corner!  It’s the Hoppop Torro Potty in Lime. It also comes in blue (Aqua) and pink (Fuschia), but my bathroom is already brown, green and white so I thought it would look good.  Well, as good as a baby potty could.  If it’s going to have to be out, it might as well look good!  Right?

Fascinating stuff, right?    Anyway, this is another baby product that gets the thumbs-up from me.  It’s small, cute and was cheap!  But I also like it mainly because she actually LIKES TO SIT ON IT!  We’ll see how it goes after she actually learns to use it.

Going Granny Chic

Posted by Lindsay on Feb 2, 2010 in Color Consultations, Color Therapy Thursdays, Featured Articles | 0 comments

Hello out there, lovelies!  I seem to be all-about-blogging for a week or two, then I drop off the face of the Earth for another week or two!  But I’m not sitting around eating Bon-Bons…I’m trying to wrap my brain around all of the projects I’ve got going – AND spend time with my two favorite people in the world!  I’m glad they love me so much and understand my lack-of-boundaries at the moment.    I thought I’d share a small project I’m working on, and I’m loving the challenge.  Picking paint colors for a (in my words) ‘Granny Chic’ loft.  Imagine this – an amazing loft space for visiting family with lots of light and a spiral staircase leading up to it.  But it includes some super cozy and soft rose-colored carpet (that is 12 years old but in brand new condition as the room is never used) – and yes, I said rose as in PINK! – with a few brand new coats of barely-there chamomile paint on the ceiling.  So neither will be changed.  Hmm.  The room also has a ton of oak furniture and a brand new bedding set that will also be the basis for choosing paint.  Double hmm.  Check it out.

The lightest paint color on the strip is the ceiling color: Chamomile by Sherwin Williams (SW 6399).  And that is the pillowcase that matches the duvet from the bedding set.  So ‘Granny Chic,’ right?  I really think it could be pretty, and I’m hoping my choices will help make the loft everything she wants it to be!  And I know my ‘Photobooth’ webcam shot doesn’t do the colors justice, but it will do for now I suppose!

Here are the paint color choices I’m mulling over…plus one more sample coming in the mail…

It’s not often that I get to work with such a girly palette.  And it’s a nice change of pace because most designing that I’m doing is for both sexes and has to be a compromise.  And I know it is in my house anyway!  So I’m enjoying it.

Unfortunately I’m not going to share the paint colors themselves, as my client is paying for those color names*, but left to right is a golden yellow that still feels like a neutral, a muddy olive, a tan with a little green undertone, and a light smoky blue.  What do you like best? I’m actually loving the blue, or the yellow, but I’m hoping it wouldn’t feel like a big easter basket with the rose carpet, ha!  That’s why they’re on the neutral side and not too bright.  But I’m guessing it will be the green or the tan that gets chosen.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

*I’m sure you understand.