The beginning of a new year...

2012 sure started out with a bang! Christmas was stellar (I actually got some time off for it!), but stretched from Dec. 17th through the 28th with various family celebrations. I was a bit done by the end. NYE was a blast with good friends and to really get the year going, I led 14 other women on a 7 mile snowshoe trek in the mountains!

This year promises to be an exciting one as we have made some travel plans to visit Washington DC and we have recently been told that 3 close friends are pregnant. :-) "Auntie" Erica needs to drag out the sewing machine!

Despite all the busy-ness, I am still managing to get projects done around the house.

I painted the headboard wall of the master bedroom. We chose the swatch on the left: Behr's Prelude. I received the duvet cover and the quilt, shams, and bedskirt for Christmas, so the yellow-esque walls needed to be toned down. I think the Prelude is the perfect blue with a shade or two of gray. Now I'm waiting for some fabric swatches to come in so I can make drapes. 

The previous owners of our house left this (semi-creepy) dragon guy in the backyard.

We listed him on CL and made some moolah this weekend. Which is great because we are saving money to do some landscape work and to build a 6' cedar fence so that we can get a canine friend:

via

We are still undecided on the breed: Standard Poodle, Springer Spaniel, Australian Shepherd, Brittany Spaniels are at the top of our lists. Each breed has some great characteristics; we want the dog to be a good fit for our lifestyle and vice versa. Have you had any experience with any of these breeds? 

We have gotten a small bit of snow and our indoor cat has been very curious about it, so we let him venture out:

He loved it! I was so surprised. He especially loved chasing small snowballs. We call him our "fenine" because he acts a lot like a dog sometimes! 

This year hasn't been all rosy (because life never is); we've had a plumbing problem (I'll post about it later), and there is a fight between some friends of ours who have tried to drag us into the middle of the conflict, and because we've told them we won't be a part of it in any way, we may be losing some friends too, which is immature and also very sad. I thought high school pettiness would be done by now, guess I was a bit naive! Hopefully everyone involved will realize the power of forgiveness... 

Oh and not to forget, J! He received a leaf blower & sucker for a Birthday gift. It really came in handy for cleaning up after the Christmas tree this year!

Laundry Room Mini Makeover

The boxes are all unpacked and the dust has settled (mostly). And I have a blank canvas for a house. What to do? What to do! So far, the only rooms I have a clear vision for are the master bedroom and the laundry room. The master is going to wait til after Christmas as I'm hoping to receive some particular linens as gifts... (cough! cough! hint hint!)

The laundry room was easy. Just needed a quick little painterooo to make it pretty.

Before:

The two white bars are where the existing shelves were hung.

The wall color is actually really pretty: it's Valspar's "Boston Cream"

J helped me remove the existing wooden shelves, I then took them into the garage and prepped them for painting. When painting/refinishing wood, you can't scrimp on the prep work. It's a lot like painting your nails: remove old polish, wash polish remover off, base coat, color, top coat, Voila! 

The shelves got sanded with 150 grit sandpaper to get off the old sealer and sand out any imperfections in the wood. I then followed up with 220 grit sandpaper to really prep the surface for paint. After sanding, I used our ShopVac to vacuum away major dust and followed up with a damp cloth (tack-cloth also works well). If you don't get the dust completely off, the paint will stick to that and flake off over time.

The shelf on the left is sanded, the one on the right is still shiny with varnish.

Time to prime! I used Rust-Oleum "Painter's Touch" Primer in gray. The trick to spray painting is to do many light, even coats. At first, it will look awful, but after about 3 coats your project will be amazing and there will be no paint runs. You can apply each new coat after 15-30 minutes of dry time for the previous coat.

Once your primed coats are dry, you can paint your desired color on. I chose Rust-Oleum's Painters "Touch" Gloss in Purple. Once again, many light even coats, always keep your spray can moving.

The color turned out so pretty!

I opted to not use a clear varnish/lacquer type top-coat because my paint is very glossy and these shelves are fairly light-duty use and don't get wet. 

I also had this bathroom shelf from IKEA that I painted the same purple and Hubs installed. It now holds our keys, my purse, J's wallet, and our cell phones. It's SO NICE to have all that stuff in one place.

The finished product! The lighting was poor, but you get the idea. My next additions will be a purple valence for the window and hopefully a fun little chandelier!