Dare to... Deck the Halls

I'm joining up at Kim's Dare to... Deck the Halls over at Newly Woodwards!

I've always wanted a lovely white feather wreath, but I never wanted to shell out the cash to buy one... Last year I decided I'd make one, then Michael's and Hobby Lobby were both out of white feather boas when I went to buy them! Tragedy.

This year I decided to beat the crowds and bought my boas back in October.

I love it! I still HATE the color of the front door, but I love the white feathers! So pretty... One of these days I'll get around to painting the door. Some day. I'd LOVE to buy a new, beautiful, heavy wooden door with a pretty little window in it that actually matches the style of the house and lets me see who's on the porch... But I just shelled out three grand on tuckpointing and seeing as it's actually MY house and not OUR house, that made quite a painful dent in my savings account. Boo. Sometimes being a grown-up blows.

Okay, enough bitching, time for gratuitous close-ups and an unnecessary, and fairly useless, tutorial! Yay!

Oooohh... Feathers...

I added a glittery, little clip-on bird I found in the holiday section at Hobby Lobby. His beak is funny, but he's cute.

I used the largest Styrofoam wreath Hobby Lobby had (50% off, of course).

4 feather boas, also from Hobby Lobby (Not 50% off unfortunately. Those bastards are expeeensive!)

Then I found an end, and used three straight pins to keep it in place.

Wrap, Rinse, Repeat 4 times. And you have a fluffy, fun wreath! Hooray!

This is what the dogs were up to while I was busy wrapping boas.

Must be nice.

What have you made this year? This is it for me... Have you joined in at NewlyWoodwards? If not, go now!

Halloween Decor

Since everyone else is busy talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas, I thought I'd better share my Halloween decoration before it's too late! I had a party again this year and people actually came! Amazing. However, after all the stress, preparation, more stress, and not eating all day I passed out after half a bottle of wine at 11:30 at night. During my party. With like 40 people in my house. Classy, no? Luckily J is freakin' awesome and entertained the guests for the rest of the evening.

I've been attempting to get this posted for a week now, so I'm just going to throw these pics up in no particular order.

 Living Room

Ignore the deer head. He normally lives in the hallway to the basement, but we're having the house tuckpointed and J took him down.

Pillows with spiders on them, courtesy of Lilybethgoodies on etsy.

DINING ROOM

This was actually the next day and no, I didn't take the time to clean off the table.

 

I had J cut down some spare plywood for the labels and sprayed it with chalkboard paint.

The "spike" was Captain Morgan. Much preferable to Whiskey, IMO. 

The "Salem Witch's Brew" was a concoction of Midori, Vodka, Raspberry Schnapps, Grenadine, Lime Juice, Tonic, and Soda Water. It's not great. As evidenced by the fact that this was two days later and the container is still almost full. 

More cheesecloth. 

I was still unpacking stuff and shoving it in here as people walked in the door. Nothing like being prepared...

I've had these Living Dead Dolls for about 10 years now. This is the first time they've been out of the box. I have an irrational fear of taking toys out of their boxes... I got the creepy doll head for $2 at a flea market. 

LOVE my Ceramic Miner Skull! I hesitated for a year before finally making this purchase and I have never regretted it. I do regret waiting so long though. 

 BACK YARD

Not sure why the BBQ pit is in the "grass". Note: we have no grass, the dogs kilt it.

I bought a "Super Strobe" that J hide behind that left tombstone and pointed at the mirror. The previous owners had that mirror mounted to the side of the garage... Why?

Can you tell J was in charge of the backyard? He came back from Halloween Express with a whole buttload of gory stuff and I told him he could do whatever he wanted with it (in a very unenthusiastic tone). He took the hint and put it all up in back. He did a great job.

The graves looked veddy convincing IRL. If you ignore the crappy tombstones I bought at the grocery store in a last minute panic.

Did anyone else have a party? Were you actually prepared for yours?  I'd say "Maybe next year", but I'm a habitual procrastinator. Did you decorate for Halloween? Most of my decorations are just my year round decor, I just make them more prominent during the "appropriate" season... lol

Where to begin?

I've been AWOL for quite some time now. I have no exciting news to share with you... No pregnancy. Sorry. No big secrets. Nope. No major Before and Afters. Just life and lazyness getting in the way of posting.

Frankly, it's been so long and we've done so many projects, big and small, that I'm not sure where to start. I'm just going to jump right in with the changes we've made to the kitchen. I mentioned waaaaaayyy back in May that I was going to paint the kitchen either butter yellow or black. Black won.

BEFORE

AFTER

Try to ignore the mess and the giant tub of beer on the floor. We had a Halloween party on Saturday and that's how much beer we have left over. We are slowly making a dent in it, no worries. lol

BEFORE

AFTER

J ran new lights for me above the sink. It's ah.maz.ing. how much easier it is to do the dishes and cook when you can actually see what you're doing! They turned out super-great and look like they have always been there. He even added an extra switch on the opposite wall, so we can actually turn the kitchen lights on and off from the main part of the house, instead of just from the basement. It definitely pays to date an electrician. 

Looking at the befores makes me wonder how I lived with that blue for as long as I did. Ick. 

Actually I lived with this for a few months:

I really thought I was going to go with the yellow, but I hated everything I tried. Too yolky, too beige, too pale, too grellow, etc... The paint on the right above looks pretty in the picture, but IRL it made the trim look dingy and it was way too blah. 

You can barely see it in the Before shot of the sink area, but I also painted the AC grates. They had been painted multiple times with varying shades of white and beige, but I sanded them down and sprayed them with Rustoleum's ORB. I also sprayed the cords, the ceiling cap, and the little hat-like piece of the original pendants ORB and the shades Satin White. It's makes a big difference from the hideous-cheapy-looking-blue-glass-shades-with-dingy-white-details lights they were. I will eventually replace them, but for now I am drained on cash. The house is being tuck-pointed and it's majorly hurting my bank account. Sucks being a grown-up.

I've totally been missing out on my blog reading... What have you guys been up to lately?

Monkey Love

We have been getting lots of stuff done around here and I have actually been taking photos, alas I am still too lazy to post about projects. Work has been nuts; my boss left unexpectedly and they've expected me to pick up the slack... Suffice it to say, I've been ready to drop by the time I get home in the evenings. I thought I'd fill the silence with a funny little video J shot of the beasts.

Monkey Love

Paint it Black

I bought this little hall table for $30 off Craigslist about 18 months ago...

I fell for the cute little feet. I'm a sucker for furniture with feet.

It had a nice inlaid detail on the tabletop, but I was never 100% happy with the tone of the wood. I knew I wanted to paint it, but I couldn't decide on a color. The wall behind it was white, so white seemed boring... The mirror above it was bright, so a funky color seemed contrived and a bit spastic... And the chair that sat next it was black, so G thought it would be too much black...

So it stayed a nice, boring, predictable honey color.

Then I moved and it was no longer sitting against a white wall or under a bright blue mirror, and it no longer mattered what G thought... Liberating.

So I decided to paint it black.

Eventually the wall behind it will be Glidden's Berries and Cream, not quite as bright as the swatch you can see to the left, above the unicorn.

I decided to leave the original hardware, since it coordinates well with the hardware on the built-in's in the dining room (doorway to the left).

I love the way the black makes the details pop!

And since I am lazy and it has been 100 degrees in Saint Louis for weeks now, I decided to take the easy way out and spray paint it!

First I collected all my supplies and removed the drawers.

I used a can of Zinsser CoverStain primer and two cans of Rustoleum's Painter's Touch Ultra-Cover 2x in Semi-Gloss Black. I finished it off with Minwax Polycrylic in Semi-Gloss.

I taped off the body of the drawers and just sprayed the fronts and sides. Two coats of Cover Stain, sanding between.

Then two coats of black, again sanding between coats(with moistened water-proof 330 grit sandpaper).

Then I flipped the body and painted the feet, so I could be sure to get along the bottoms without having flip it over at the end and potentially mar the just finished top.

I did not sand it before I started, but I did wipe it down with Method All-Purpose Cleaner to make sure it was free of dust and grime.

Two coats of primer, two coats of paint, and two coats of poly. Simple, fairly quick (about two hours actual hands-on time), and inexpensive (all I had to buy was two cans of black spray paint, had the rest).

I love the way it turned out and I am so much happier with the piece now.

Have you painted anything recently? What do you think? Was black the right choice? This guy is the first thing I've painted black, but I liked him so much, he's not going to be the last... Stay tuned.

Monkey Love

That is one happy monkey. 

(Pardon my pasty white leg)

Instafriday

It's time for another Instafriday, hosted by Jeannette at Life Rearranged.

J and I had a fun little Happy Hour last Wednesday with one of the new kids from work. Sometimes small gatherings are so much more fun than large ones.

My sexy man

We had some excitement to start off the weekend.  We were working in the yard and had opened the gate to get the hose at one point... About ten minutes later, I happened to glance over and realized the gate was still open! Gidget was standing, looking out at the street, but no Dozer to be found. For those of you that have been around awhile, you may remember that Dozer is male dog aggressive, so I was freaking out, thinking he would hurt somebody's dog!

I started walking around the neighborhood, talking to the neighbors, and no one had seen him... J brought Gidget to me to see if we could "track him" and he hopped in his truck to look farther and quicker. I called 911, they gave me the non-emergency line, the lady answers the phone and... here comes Dozer, trotting across the yard two houses down, wagging his tail, big ole grin on his face. Oh. My. God. Pretty anti-climactic, but an excellent end to a traumatic 15 minutes.

I took this picture as soon as we got him back in the house. He looks pretty tuckered out, no?

Sunday we headed over to my aunt and uncle's house for lots of food and fireworks. I made this Wave Your Flag Cheesecake for the party and it turned out fabulous! It was quick and easy and super-delicious.

I woke up Monday morning to this scene at the end of the bed.  Dozer doesn't realize he is not a poodle and apparently Gidget doesn't mind that she's about to be crushed.  He LURVES his seeester.

I got new pulls for the built-in's in the dining room. They are fabulous and I love them! I still have to paint the cabinet doors and the frame... Someday.

J has all of the crown moulding up and patched in the dining room.  He is apparently unhappy with the way the wood filler dried though, so I haven't been able to paint yet. Not sure what his plan is, but I hope he carries it out soon. I have yet to unpack practically anything, cause lots of my stuff is fragile, he has already knocked something over and broken it, so I wanted to wait until we were finished in the dining room to start unpacking. Alas, the project seems never ending.

What have you been up to in the last week? Probably more than us! lol 

Do you use Instagram? My user name is Oonafey, join me! Have you checked out all the other Instafriday posts over at Life Rearranged?