Stamp of Approval

My favorite project this summer was re-doing our laundry room. My favorite part of that project was the ceiling.

I knew I wanted to do a fun pattern in the room (the laundry room is the perfect place to take a risk since it is small and not a central room in the house!) My first thought was wallpaper, but all the ones I love are just too pricey. So I thought about doing a stencil like this:

image from here

But... we've been there & done that, so I wanted to think of something different. I really liked the wall color, so I decided to focus on the ceiling instead. We had a couple of shades of teal paint samples (one from the bathroom mirror and one that is my parents' exterior door color), so I painted a sample of each color on paper.

I thought about trying to make some sort of stamp (I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find a rubber stamp that would be big enough to make a statement), but figured I would check out Hobby Lobby's stamp aisle just in case. 

 

This guy caught my eye immediately. Bonus: it was less than $5 thanks to a 40% coupon I pulled up on my phone!

Next came a trip to Home Depot for some metallic gold paint (which was a little more expensive than I planned since the shade I wanted only comes in the quart size, not in the small sample jars)

I used an old small brush to brush the paint onto the stamp and did a little trial stamping on my painted paper samples.

I decided that I liked the darker, more smudged stamp look and that I should just GO FOR IT on the ceiling. Worst case scenario: it's not a big space to paint over. 

So I painted the ceiling the teal color and after spending a couple days putting up crown molding, I was ready to plan out the spacing of the stamps. I kind of liked the spacing on the rough draft sample, so I measured the distance between each stamp and made a template from a grocery bag & hole punch:

I started at the corner of the ceiling and held up the template, making a pencil dot in each hole. I just overlapped the holes and kept going in rows until the whole ceiling was covered with (not quite) evenly-spaced dots. 

You can't see the dots very well, but I promise they are there. After I rested my neck for awhile, I started the stamping. 

It actually went pretty quickly, thanks to a good Pandora station. The actual stamping took less than 2 hours.

The paint was the perfect shade of gold and I am absolutely THRILLED with the results. Who would have thought that a 5-dollar stamp from Hobby Lobby would completely change the look of our laundry room? The best part is the metallic shine that really brings your attention to the ceiling.

Obsessed. So worth the risk! More laundry room pics to come...

Catch Up

Well, as usual... I suck at posting once school starts!  It's been an interesting year so far.  I have some super sweet students, and some super challenging ones, too.  It's neat to see how much progress so many of them have already made. 

This is my attempt to catch up... you could also call it a camera dump.  Or just a picture dump, since quite a few of the pics are from my phone!  Apologies if the quality is lacking, but I just haven't gotten around to taking any nice photos.  

Over the summer, I moved our DVD cabinet up to the office so it could be with the 2 others that match it (excuse the Chrismtas pic...) and replaced it with this little chest.

It wasn't in the best shape,

but after some sanding, paint, & poly, it fits right in. 

 

 The yellow lamp was a little much on the yellow chest, so I gave it a coat of black spray paint.  I'm not sure I love the black lamp & white shade... so we'll see.  It will probably change.

Before I put the paintbrushes away, I also painted a mirror for the hallway bath (also known as Boston's room).  Mom & I found the mirror at a consignment store; it was originally black.  I tried spray painting it a blue shade, but it just wasn't the right color.

I picked up a sample tub of a color closer to the teal in the shower curtain, and it was much better.  

While on a painting roll, we also painted the interior of the front & side doors black.  They looked fine white,

but I really love the contrast of the black!  

I also made a fun gift for a friend's bridal shower using this awesome flickr collection of letter pics.

It was fun to make and I really liked the result, so I made one for us, too!  It became part of our new hallway gallery wall.

The last project I took on before the school year began was finally making some sort of window treatments for the office.  After lots of thought (like 2 years worth), I finally decided to make cornices/pelmets for both windows.  

I knew I wanted orange & white fabric and finally found some I liked at ufab (best fabric store ever).  After debating how to make the boxes themselves, I finally decided to use purple foam insulation board from Home Depot (I wanted something lighter than wood, but a little more sturdy than foam core, which I've seen quite a few bloggers use with great results).  I love how they turned out (although again, excuse the phone-quality pics).

Right now, we are working on a project that I thought we wouldn't tackle for awhile, but hubby surprised me one day by starting it!

I'm so excited; I always thought it would be the perfect place for a banquette/window seat!  Plus, it will give us a little extra storage, which is always nice.  Stephen added some trim and is working on painting it white.  Now it's my turn to sew the cushion... should be interesting!  It'll definitely be the hardest sewing project I've undertaken so far.  

The plan is to shift the table over (and move the light over as well), 

then add some sort of sideboard or buffet on the right wall for even more storage!  Yay.

So how's that for a crash update!?  It'll do for now.  My plan is to try to post a little more often, even if I have to make them short and sweet.  We'll see how it goes!

Fall Fun & Kitchen

We did a little decorating for Fall, although it'll soon be time to replace it all with Christmas decor!   

 

Our living room plant died, so for now we replaced it with a pumpkin.  There will probably be a tree or something there for Christmas, but I'll have to find something else to go there for the rest of the year (we actually went through 2 plants there... love how they looked, but they just didn't do so well long term).

I don't consider myself super crafty, but this was a fun project from awhile ago (it's been hanging on the door since the spring, so it's not technically "Fall" decor).  I wanted a wreath, but I realized how pricey they can be, and I wasn't willing to splurge.  So, after seeing some handmade wreaths on etsy, I bought a wreath form from Michael's, along with some fuzzy green yarn and felt.  I wrapped the form with the yarn, then made some flowers from felt (just cutting & sewing... I played around and tried to copy pictures of felt flowers that I found online).  Another "crafty" project that was for Fall was a pumpkin for my best friend, Allie. 

 

I planned to make one for our house too, but by the time I went back to Michael's, all the white pumpkins were gone.  Maybe next year!

On another note, I was organizing photos recently & realized how few rooms I've actually posted pictures of on here.  One room that I haven't taken many pics of is the kitchen.  Here is what it looked like 1) when we toured the house and 2) before we closed on the house, just as we were starting to work on it- what a mess!

 

Here is the one good "after" picture I've taken:

 

We painted everything (walls, trim, cabinets), continued the bamboo floors, changed the over-the-sink light fixture from a flourescent tube to a little pendant, and put in a new sink, faucet, & disposal.  We would loooove to change the counter tops, but that's on a long-term list.  Behind the peninsula is the eating area.

Everything continues to be a work in progress!  And let's be honest, the biggest challenge is just trying to keep all of the mail, bills, magazines, and other clutter off of the counters.  No doubt one of the reasons there aren't more current pictures!  Such is life...

yea, about that...

As usual, it's been awhile, and my excuse hasn't changed.  I've been spending lots of time here.

It's hard to believe that it's already NOVEMBER.  Wow.  Luckily that does mean that the first part of kindergarten is over and everyone has really settled in to our routine.  The year is getting more fun and less exhausting.

Back to the house, though.  Thanks to TONS of help from Mom (seriously, she worked her butt off), the stenciling in the dining room is FINALLY over.  Actually, it's been over for awhile, but I had to work up the energy to do the touch-up (6 hours straight of painting with a teeny artist brush- ugh) and then make time to put it all back together.  Here is the "after"!

 

Of course, there is still more to do (window treatments, change the table & chairs, possibly a rug?) but I am SO thankful to have the walls finished.  I'm happy to say that all of the work was worth it (hopefully Mom agrees) and I LOVE the finished product.  It is so much better than the coral, and fits in really well with the rest of our house.  Plus, it really gave us the wallpaper look that I wanted, without having to spend so much $$.  So, here is the dining room's progression over the past year +.

 

before we moved in - the previous owner had started to cover up what had been RED walls with BLUE trim (their kids' playroom)

 

last winter/spring

 

now!

(you can see the glossy sheen of the stencil lines in this pic... my favorite part!)

It's always fun to see how things change.  Some fun facts about the room:

* The base coat (darker gray) is high gloss and we stenciled over it with flat.  It sure was shiny in there before the stenciling!

* The painting of the circles above the buffet was done by my Granddaddy

* The silver rectangular "VOTE" poster between the windows belonged to my Grammie and it came from the League of Women Voters... such a snapshot of who she was!

* The white columns (there are two) came from Lane Sanson, the fabulous Carytown store that closed last year (sob) and Valerie Sanson, the owner, got them from Thalhimer's when it closed!  Love having a piece of Richmond history in our dining room.

There are other fun facts, but they're probably much more interesting to me than to anyone else. :)  I'm just thankful to have a presentable dining room again!

Stencil Attempt

Life is picking up speed here in the Bouton household.  We just spent a fantastic, relaxing week in the Outer Banks with some wonderful friends, waking up to this view each morning:

This weekend has flown by, and it is back to work for both of us.  Stephen is working and taking a class all week while I will be setting up my classroom (yay for getting ten, yes ten, crates full of school purchases out of the house!)  We are also trying to finish a (long-time coming) project in the dining room, which currently looks like this:

The project involves these two paint colors (Behr's Silver Drop and Dolphin Fin; and yes, they are very similar!)

and this stencil from designerstencils.com.

The stencil is bigger and a little more awkward than I expected, so it should be interesting!  I'll post pics as soon as it's finished.  Wish us luck!