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?

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.

Quick Fix: Stove Update

I don't have a great shot of it, but the stove in my kitchen was two-toned.

This was annoying for two reasons; 1. the white on it was more of an ivory and it looked dated, 2. my other appliances are all black and it seemed awkward and out-of-place, like everything else had been updated and the stove was forgotten.

Saturday morning I had a haircut and I came home to this:

I don't know much about electronics and technology and all that, but I never would have thought the inside of a glass-topped stove would look like this!

Again, please forgive the fuzzy pictures, I still don't have a camera...

J took the entire stove apart, cleaned everything well, taped off the stove top and sprayed everything with this Rustoleum Appliance Epoxy from Home Depot.

It's amazing what a difference it makes!

It really does look like a brand new stove and I couldn't be more thrilled with the results! Start to finish the project took about 2 hours active time (dismantling, cleaning, painting, reconstructing) and he let the pieces dry for about 8 hours before putting it back together.

As you can see, I haven't started on painting the kitchen yet, although I do have the colors chosen and a tentative plan in place. We have been busy focusing on the dining room. The walls are finished, the ceiling is almost finished (we ran out of paint on the last coat, so I had to get another Quart), the medallion for my chandelier is painted (the paint crackled, so it had to be sanded down and repainted, then the dogs both stepped on it the second time it was drying!), he put the first coat of paint on the crown moulding on Saturday, and I *think* I have decided on curtains. Maybe it will be sorta finished by the end of the month!

Oh, and while I was out Saturday morning for my haircut I stopped by World Market. They have some really great products right now, I seriously could have spend hundreds (at least) on all the fab stuff I saw! Check out this gorgeous chair:

It was on sale for $179.00 and it was super-comfortable! I just love the colors and the little turned-wood legs, so precious.

I have been wanting this lamp for months after seeing it on the website:

But I hate the fact that it has a high-gloss finish. It's supposed to look time-worn and distressed, but then it's shiny? That doesn't work for me. It's looks matte online.

These dining chairs are gorgeous:

I love the ethnic vibe they have, but it wouldn't be overpowering. Plus, they are fairly reasonably priced for being solid, heavy wood with beautiful detailing.

I bought some fabric napkins that I had planned on turning into curtains for the kitchen, but then I got home and second-guessed myself, so they are still in the bag... Maybe they need some pom-pom trim or something to jazz them up and make them look less like napkins? I can't find them on their website, but they have a chartreuse background with pink, fuchsia, yellow, and teal floral designs on them. The problem I have with them is the stem details are dark brown and my cabinets and appliances are black. I HATE mixing black and brown (in my own home) and I really just hate brown in general, unless it's wood, leather, or a dog.
So I think I may return them for these instead. They still have the deep teal I need to bring in the dining room wall color and the yellow from the future kitchen walls, plus the brown seems to be minimal in this design. And the orange is really fun!
Although, I really love this design too, but they didn't have them in my store and I am afraid they will be too pastelly compared to the dining room. The yellow in the kicthen is going to be more of a pale, buttery yellow, so the curtains really need to *pop* to bring in some of the strong color from the dining room walls.

What do you think? What projects are you working on now? Anything you're trying to accomplish that's currently sucking up all your brain capacity? Do you tend to over-think every decision you make and everything you bring home?

Inspection Frustration

So the house still didn't pass county inspection... Boo. Hiss. 

I was never given a list of things that needed to be fixed. I was, however, given the impression that everything was being taken care of by the seller. I was told there were four problems: cast iron plumbing needed to be fixed (done), there was a leak in the gas water heater (done), there was a broken window pane in the basement that needed to be replaced (done), and the utility room in the basement needed to be vented (done). So it takes the seller's agent another week (!) after this is all done to get the inspector out to the house, who then tells my father (I can't afford to take any more time off work right now, plus my parents are the greatest) that there was a list of electrical things that needed to be fixed as well (not done). Bastards. So it failed. 

Luckily the guy I am currently dating is an electrician and had all the (minor) problems fixed lickety-split!

Not so luckily, the inspector can't make it back out to the house until Tuesday!!! And since I'm not supposed to be staying in the house, I can't bring Dozer's giant crate over until after the inspection... Grr. I've got him again this weekend cause his daddy's going camping, so it'll be interesting to see how we work around not being able to leave him in the house and the temps being in the 80's (no leaving him in the car, either). Frustrating. 

We did get a coat of paint on the ceiling of the dining room though. No mean feat, considering I've been sick and have gotten the new guy (let's call him J) sick. Whoops. 

Helpful!

Here is the first coat with the DR light off:

Forgive the craptastic dreary morning iPhone pics... I still can't find my camera. 

And with my new DR chandelier all lit up:

It's just one coat and is for sure needs at least one more coat, but I think it will be a fun, blingy contrast to the peacock walls I'm hoping for. You can see two of the contenders under the window there. Oh, and we had to install the chandelier for the inspector... Obvs it's coming back down before we paint some more. 

Not sure what's going to get done over the weekend, but hopefully something!