Front Entry Painted

All right, here it is. Let's take a look at the entry before I painted it.




Brown, purple, grey? Not sure what the color was. But it was dark and gross.







Annnnd here is the new color. It was painted Eggshell Cream by Behr.







It is SO light and fresh. Walking into my house doesn't feel like a cave closing in on me anymore. Sorry, the iPad doesn't take the greatest photos. But just trust, it's a lot lighter then what the photos show.












I finally get to use the rug I got for mothers day.




Coral is a huge fan of the bench. She loves to sit on it and put her shoes on "all by MY self".






The HUGE wall going up the stairs also got painted. Are you impressed that a six month pregnant lady did this wall all by herself? Don't worry, I didn't climb on any ladders. I wish I could show you a photo of me painting this big wall. I leaned over our railing upstairs and duct taped a brush to the end of a broom stick. Worked pretty well for the edging, and the rolling was done using a roller extender while I leaned over the railing.







The wallpaper sitting room also got painted this same color. I was shocked by how much it changed the room. I always said that spot in our house is seriously lacking in natural light, but after the new color it's not bad at all.




And finally, the hallway going down to the basement was painted as well. It was a lot of work, but so worth it.

And now I gotta go get geared up for a very busy weekend. My sister, bro-in-law, kiddos, and parents are all coming down for the weekend. We are having a big flooring party. The men will be working away, and the ladies and kids will be outside enjoying this beautiful weather. There will be nine people sleeping in three bedrooms. It's going to get crazy at the Hodgsons!!!

Decorating the driveway

First of all, happy summer to all the little kiddos out there! My niece graduated from kindergarten today and I couldn't be more proud of her.

Now, onto decorating that driveway of ours.

Daddy took the car to work today, so our driveway was completely empty. Coral and I decided to paint all over it.




We made our own sidewalk chalk paint using corn starch, water, and food coloring. Coral was amazed that we were going to make our own paint. You should have heard the screams coming from this girl.










Making the paint was a big part of the fun. Coral loves to stir and got so excited when we added the food coloring. We made blue, green and pink, and then off we went to decorate our driveway.







When this stuff dries it looks fantastic. Coral painted for a whole hour outside...we even had to go back and make a second batch of paint. I had to bribe her to finally come inside because it was nap time. We will definitely be doing this activity again. Best part is, easy clean up! Let the rain wash it away.

Sidewalk chalk paint: 2 tbsp cornstarch, 2tbsp water, food coloring

No more painting please!

There has been lots of painting going on in our house this past week. I started painting our entry last Thursday. I was so excited to finally be able to paint, however I was quickly discouraged when I realized that I would need to do three coats on EVERYTHING since the paint color on the wall was so dark, and the color I was doing was so light.

That day I was able to get two coats done on the entry, and the wallpaper sitting room. Friday I woke up with a nasty cold, which meant all the painting I was doing had to be put on hold until I got better. When I start painting, I like to get it done as fast as I can, so taking a break for three days was really hard for me, and seemed to really drag the whole process on and on.

In the mean time, while Coral and I were stuck on the couch recovering, Andrew was downstairs having a painting party of his own. His brother and cousin offered to help, and between the three of them, they tackled the basement like pros. Priming is done on everything except the bathroom, and one coat of paint has been done in the big room (and a second coat started).

Tuesday I started painting my stuff again. That ugly brown/purple wall color continued all the way up the stairs (biggest, tallest wall in our house...thank you previous home owners), and then went down the stairs to the basement. Let me just say that after smelling paint fumes for almost a week, I'm sick of it. I finished the big wall going up the stairs to our top floor, and only one more coat needs to be done on the walls going down to the basement, but Andrew can do that.

When I look at all that has been accomplished this past week in our house though, I'm blown away. What a huge difference a little paint (ok actually it was a lot of paint) can make. Our main floor looks and feels so bright and fresh. When I walk into our house it feels welcoming, not like I'm entering a dark cave. I'll post some pics for you in a few days.

So, I'm over it. I'm over painting. I'm over the smell. No more painting for this mama (at least for a while.....for sure for the rest of my pregnancy). My next big project is to help Andrew wallpaper an accent wall in the basement guest room (y'all are going to love it).

An almost complete big girl room

A while ago I thought Corals big girl room was almost complete and ready to be moved into as soon as we got her a new mattress. Then my mind got rollin, I got some new ideas, and suddenly her room didn't seem so complete anymore.

I'm all for young kids having "kid-ish" rooms if that's your style, but it just isn't mine (example: Dora wallpaper or Hello Kity bedding). I wanted her to be able to grow up with her room. So, while its still painted a light blue, with some girlie wallpaper, I wanted the rest to be a combo between little lady and older lady.

Things that I wanted to change? Remember the teal dresser in her room?




The teal had to go (it wasn't working with the blue walls) and I went on a hunt to find a much bigger, more retro looking dresser.


Thank-you Value Village. This dresser was exactly what I was looking for. Lots of drawer space that fits all the clothes she has (minus her little dresses that get hung). Then an old piece of art that was my grandmothers (handed down to my mom then handed down to me) got hung over the dresser.



Next was to hang up some curtains. I already had some curtains sittin in our linen closet and decided to try those first. I had two panels of those, and three windows to cover. So I found a curtain at Walmart that was on clearance, plus the package had been opened, so I got it for a steal of a deal.








I cut the one panel in half to make two, and suddenly her room has curtains.

Next was to change the art work above her bed. Before she had that HUGE painting (which was actually a room divider) over her bed. That got put in her closet, because her closet is going to be turned into a dress-up closet (another reason why I had to get a bigger dresser. Before she had shelves in the closet for her extra clothes). So over her bed she got some "counting birds" as she likes to call them.
















Her room is looking pretty adorable right now.







I know I have done ok when I can sit in the room and actually relax without thinking "ah I should change this, and this and this."

And now all we really do need is a mattress and this little lady has herself a new big girl room.

Reno Update

Someone asked me how the basement renos are going, and I realized I haven't posted pictures since it was framed and we put the insulation in.

We now have walls. They are currently being mudded and sanded.







That's the hallway coming into the basement. The door on the left is to the guest room.




Lots and lots of Mudding going on in this house. Andrew did the first layer of tape and mud, and then we decided to hire a family friend to help us out. Basically, if Andrew was going to do it all by himself, it would have taken him all summer to finish. He works full time, and Coral is only awake for a little over two hours after he gets home, so he spends time with her. Then by the time we put her down for bed, he would only have (maybe) two hours to work down there. And that's if we/he had no evening plans. So, it seemed more practical to hire someone that could come during the day to work on it.

The big room is almost finished (just needs a final sanding) and then we will prime and paint it while the guest room and bathroom is being worked on.

The best part is, the guy working on the basement has a vacuum that sucks up all the dust while he is sanding. There has been hardly any dust at all upstairs! Woo hoo!

Guilt-free spending

I love to shop for my home. That's no secret to anyone who knows me. Sometimes it can be difficult to control my urge to decorate, but it has to be controlled, because we have a budget of basically zero to spend on unnecessary stuff.

Entire kijiji and yard sales. Lately I have managed to redecorate our sitting room on our main floor, floating shelves upstairs, and entry, simply by selling stuff on kijiji and at my parents yard sale, and then buying new stuff with the money I made. It's simple, if I want new pillows, I sell my old ones to buy the new. If I want a new area rug, I sell the old to buy a new.

The yard sale money is always a complete bonus. I ended up making $80 at my parents yard sale, by selling stuff that I considered junk and was cluttering my house. I got rid of the clutter, and got to go guilt free shopping after.







I got elephant book ends for the floating shelves upstairs.







A huge lamp for the sitting room downstairs. As soon as I saw that I could put two light bulbs in the lamp I was sold. That room doesn't have a light in it and the natural lighting is minimal. This lamp lights up the whole room.




I also got a classic captains chair from Value Village. And another chair from Value Village.








Out with the dark green pillows, and in with the light blue (don't mind the giant tv behind the couch...ugh basement renos).




I also got a new area rug. The other one had the ends all chewed up from Kaya when she was a puppy, plus I wasn't diggin the dark squares on it. This is much more light and fresh.

I also got a new picture for the play room upstairs to replace the one that was there. Since Coral will be in her big girl room soon, the play kitchen had to come out (or she would literally try to bring the whole kitchen into bed with her). The painting we had there before was the one my mother-in-law did for us and it was to big for the space once the kitchen was put there. Plus it's my favorite piece of art that we have, so it's new home is going to be in our entry where everyone can enjoy it.




And lastly, but not pictured (hopefully soon) I was able to get a bench for our entry from Ikea, and fabric and pillows to go on the bench.

And there you have it. Redecorating practically for free. I guess the decorating will have to stop once I run out of things to sell. Meh, there's always free stuff at the curb for me to switch things up with eh.

Weekend Find

Ok, here's how the junk hunting went this weekend.

The yard sales were a total bust. It was cold, and windy, and the sky was full of clouds that promised rain. That being said, not that many people in the villages decided to have yard sales, and the ones that did were not very good. The only thing I ended up buying was some clip-on earrings to add to Corals dress up collection.

Our yard sale ended at around 2:00 pm, and my sister, mom, grandma and I jumped in our Buick to find some free stuff. Wow, that was exciting. I got so excited about so much stuff that the baby was kicking like crazy. Every time I saw a new pile of stuff the baby would go bananas inside of me.

There was a lot of JUNK. But there were also a lot of treasures. I sort of have this thing for chairs. I LOVE chairs. There were chairs everywhere. From retro leather chairs, to old rockers. You name it, it was on the side of the road. I found a couple of really neat things that I wanted, but in the end, the Buick is only so big and could only hold so much stuff (keeping in mind we have our weekend luggage as well).

So, I ended up only getting one thing. A chair. A big beautiful green retro chair. It's perfect. In perfect condition, after a good clean, and is really comfortable too.













I love me some retro. The place where we snagged this from had a HUGE pile of stuff. They had a bunch of funky chairs (orange fabric one, blue and green ones with huge flowers on it, another green corner chair) and they were all super retro. If I had more room in our car, more would have come home with me from that pile. But only taking this one chair was worth it.

What do you think? Do you love chairs as much as I do? Not bad for free eh!