Our First Paint Job - Success!

I know it's been a while since I last posted but I have good reason, I wanted the living room to be as put together as possible so I could provide a whole slew of pictures and with that let the show begin!

I love how Ektorp and his chubby little friend pop with the green (Mother Nature from Behr). There's my Maria Tortilla to the left, she loves that I put her books in a basket.

I love the way the white, dark wood, and green all play off each other. I'm trying to find a spot for my birdcage but for now it'll sit on the floor. I do have a couple of little birdies sitting around the room so I figured the birdcage would finish the theme.

My brother gave me this artwork years ago but I never got around to hanging it until I discovered the Hercules hook. They are awesome and now my picture looks beautiful against the green walls!

I still need to work on my shelves but I did use the white IKEA frames my mom gave me and they really pop. I'm thinking about replacing all the frames with white ones or just spray painting the ones I have.

We tried to do all the cutting in ourselves but we screwed it up so we paid a guy to come do it for us, he had a taller ladder and he was a pro and for 80 bucks it was worth not falling! I do plan on turning the fan blades to the darker side to match the rest of the furniture.

She loves this little nook! Okay back to the living room; I can see where we need to do some touch ups on this section of the wall. We used a can and a half of paint and used the second can for touch ups but we missed a few as you can tell. It's funny you can only see it with the flash of the camera.

The Before Pics:

Pretty blah huh, too plain for me and after living in the house for over 3 years I needed a change.

The dark wood worked okay with the light walls but the stars of the room did not, the couch and chair just didn't pop the way I wanted them to.

We had to tackle some wall repair before we started painting, which was fairly easy with some textured patches from Home Depot.

Getting ready to paint!

Isn't it a pretty color!!

With curved walls it was hard to determine where to stop. We decided to paint the curve and it turned out great!!

The Screw Ups!!

This is what happens when you get roller happy at 2 in the morning! (Our outlets are vertical, just didn't rotate the picture)

Problems: the tape pulled the paint, which means we probably didn't let it dry completely and we suck at cutting in!

We forgot to put the tape in this area and just went for it and well you know how the story ends. (didn't rotate pic) Everything has been fixed by a professional!

So there you have it, the After, Before, and the middle (This will probably be how my first book goes too... lol)

So there are still a few things to do:

• Get curtains (white)
• Paint frames white that will go on the shelves for a pop effect
• Get an area rug for the center of the room right in front my Ektorp
• Add green and white accents around the room
• Clean up desk behind couch. We really just need a filing cabinet.
• Get a shelf with doors to hide all our DVDs, games, etc. (Right now they're in a bin behind Ektorp.

Next is the dining room and kitchen, but we're gonna have the same guy, who came out to do the edging, do these rooms for us. For a 150 bucks and we buy the paint, sounds pretty good to me!!

So there's our first paint job, Riley and I rocked it with a few bumps in the road.

Here's where I'm linking up too:

400 miles for Ektorp

Yup that’s right I’m gonna travel to Tempe, AZ or Centennial, CO for an IKEA sofa. I have just fallen in love, deeply; seriously, I wanna have its baby, in love with this couch. You see the other day I was looking at a blog called Little Miss Momma and I saw her cute little living room, well there it was, a cute little, comfy, white love seat and I thought I must meet her older brother. So after reading that the reason Ashley can have a white couch and a toddler in the same household (unheard of) is because ALL THE FABRIC IS MACHINE WASHABLE, I was sold. I jumped on IKEA and there it was and it's been nothing but passion since our first online encounter. His name is Ektorp, cute huh, he’s Swedish.

 

So anyway he’s only 399 bucks but here comes the distressing news, shipping is 349 bucks. I love Ektorp but I can’t spend that much on shipping I might as well get another one just like him, two is better than one (this blog post is going nowhere but south, stop reading now if you’re already weirded out by my personification of a sofa).

So I announced to my hubby that we’re taking a trip to the closest IKEA to meet my online lover, Ektorp. I visit him online at least once a day, I read the instructions on how to put him together, and I read how to wash him when he’s dirty (oh boy!) So instead of paying 349 bucks for shipping I’m gonna go down there and pick him up myself and maybe a couple of his friends (wowza!).

Oh IKEA please come to New Mexico, there are tons of women out here looking for exactly what you can provide… beautiful home furnishing duh…. what were you thinking?

Garage Sale Score

I love garage sales, yard sales, and flea markets and today's score was just one of the reasons why!

• 2 curtain panels
• 3 throws (1 not pictured, left it in Riley's truck)
• 3 bird strands with bells
• 1 picture frame
• 1 candle holder
• 1 book about India (not pictured, left in Riley's truck)

The total for ALL of this: 15.75 can you imagine how much this would have been at Cost Plus!!

Looks like the guest bedroom will be a retreat to India. 

Lazy by Nature

Riley and I are pretty lazy people. We like to eat (mostly me), drink (mostly him), watch TV, and sit around playing with Maria. We're a couple of lumps on a log. Maybe it's because we work all day, nope not it, and I know this for a fact because even when Riley and I were unemployed, each at different times, we were still pretty lazy. Maybe because we just don't have the energy because of said eating and drinking, eh who knows but what I do know is I would like to change that.


I don't want my laundry to pile up anymore, I want to sort, wash, fold, and put away in one fail swoop, more like an afternoon. I would like our backyard to look the way it was when it was freshly landscaped and BWT I'm not really liking the way it's been done. I would like to paint my...crap I need to turn this into a bullet list, okay starting over.


My list of want TO DOs, but will I actually DO them?

• Laundry: sort, wash, fold, and put away in a day.

Check out her blog, she's a Laundry Goddess!!

• Spruce up the backyard.

This woman is totally inspirational, check out her backyard, Genius!

• Paint my dining room table and chairs a dark mahogany color to match the rest of my furniture.
• Clean out the garage.
• Organize our little home office (possibly get a smaller desk).
• Renovate each room. I would like to start with the front guest room and work my way to the back of the house.
• I want to get a new front door, something with stained glass, panes, just something with windows to let the light in. I also need a screen door. 
• I want to paint every room in our house.
• I would love to put in hardwood flooring in select rooms or entry ways.

So those are just a few things and my list is much longer, I can think of about 10 other things I would like to get done, but I'm just tired of typing at this point. I'm tired and feeling...LAZY!!


So I'm off to bed to dream about the projects I would love to do but probably will end up making a lame excuse not too. :(


Wait here's the solution!! Two of Me!!

P.S. I just read my blog to my hubby, which I do every night before I post, and he said in a serious but very encouraging voice, "baby you're too hard on yourself, if you use the same principles you use in dieting towards everything you want to do, you'll get it done, it's just baby steps!" Have I told you how much I love this man!!