Screen Porch Update

Cable railings-We didn’t want to do wood railings/spindles because it would block our view…we got a little creative (surprise surprise) and decided to do cable railings. (We ran it by the inspector and he liked the unique idea and passed it!) Boy, were we relieved!  We have two cables running between each support beam (one at one foot and one at 3 feet) and Ryan tied them off with turnbuckles. The turnbuckles match the ones that are across the ceiling for the cross-ties. It looks really neat and we didn’t lose any of our view. The cables blend in with the background and you hardly notice them!

 2 screen doors- we bought two screen doors at home depot and are so excited about them! One of them we got for 50% off because the screen was damaged..which was fine by us- that’s an easy fix! ;)

Beaded Board- Ryan bought beaded board for the ceiling. We put it up against the plywood so that the ceiling looks recessed and the beams are still exposed. 

Ceiling color- We picked out a color to paint the ceiling-sherwin Williams Sky High (a really light blue).You can see the quarter round is already painted...we need it to warm up to paint the ceiling!

Chose a fan- we found an awesome fan that has a pretty large diameter so we only need one fan out there. 

 Outdoor Speakers- Thanks to Aunt Lynda and Aunt Laurie we have outdoor speakers, and they are great!!! We put two on the porch and two on the patio ceiling.

 

Railing- At first we thought we wanted a wrought iron railing for the stairs and we found one on craigslist. But it didn't work out so well. Ryan ended up building a railing and it looks fantastic. He built them out of metal pipes, cut and welded them together and then spray painted it a flat black. They match perfectly with the style of the rest of the porch. 

Stone work- We had to build stone steps on both sides of the porch and a landing on one side. Ryan has become very talented with stone-masonry and has recently taught me. It's actually pretty fun!

Getting ready to pour the slab

Installed the handrail

a craftsman

Steps and slab done!

He did such a good job!!

On the patio side of the porch we had to bring the landing out a little further or else you would step off the porch onto a step.

Starting the stonework-no more gap going stepping onto the porch!

 Ryan set the stones along the front to make sure they are level (the engineer) and I filled in the rest (the artist). I definitely have much more of an appreciation for stonework.

The two steps I did-not too shabby for my first go!

Steps are almost done!

So the screen porch is getting there! I am already working on decorations. Haha I just can’t help it, we are SO excited to use it in the spring and can’t wait for y’all to hang out on it with us too!

Guest Bedroom Makeover

I don’t think I took any pictures of the bedroom before I started getting ready to paint…because it really was BAD and I just didn’t think about it. Besides the bed being in there, it wasn’t a usable space at all due to the amount of boxes stacked high to the ceiling and across the floor.
Here are a couple of pictures I took before I started painting:

yellowed doors and pink walls-yum!

The walls were a light pinky color and the ceiling, doors and trim were a semi-gloss and stained yellow. The trim and baseboards were white (at one time) and the window casings were brown. Not to mention all the baseboards were cracked or chipped and needed to be replaced. There was also a hole in the sheetrock that needed attention... Boy did I have my work cut out for me!

I started painting the ceiling first-I just did Ceiling White-Flat. Then I started on the walls…trim…windows..doors. I used Sherwin Williams, Nomadic Desert on the walls and for the doors, windows, and trim I used Sherwin Williams-Shell White, semi-gloss.

Swatch of Nomadic Desert

 We bought new wide baseboards and I LOVE THEM! I want so badly to do the rest of my house like that…but it would cost a small fortune. One room at a time!

and all the painting is done!

Now the room serves as a guest bedroom and more importantly my craft room! I have a nice big desk and armoire that holds all my craft stuff, sewing machine, etc. I made another (large) chalkboard frame to go over the desk.

I got an awesome deal on the bed set from our K-mart that closed and I am super excited that it's Ikat.

my creation station! yeah!

More decorations will come soon I’m sure, I have lots of wall space to cover! I am also happy to say that with this bedroom being done, that only leaves ONE more room left to paint (our bedroom)-yippee!!!

Kitchen Table Makeover

I have to admit this is the first time I have ever straight up copied a project from another person…but I liked the idea SO much and the final outcome of the project was so awesome I just couldn’t help it! (Well, there are SOME things I did a little differently. )  I wanted to have a table for the screen porch where we could eat out there, play games, etc.  and I was looking for something that would seat 6-8 people. After much searching for just the right table, I found this one on Craigslist. It’s just what I was looking for…patience is a virtue! It has a leaf that is attached and folds up underneath the table, so it’s easy to use if we need to accommodate for a bigger crowd.

The table was pretty beat up, I mean…well loved by a lot of kids…Parts gouged out by a pencil, colorful magic marker drawings and the gloss finish was slowly chipping away. Exactly what I wanted! My dear friend, Ann, is so sweet and brings me her “Better Homes and Garden” magazines to flip thru and I just so happened to find a teeny tiny little coupon on one of the pages for 25% off a stencil from: Cutting Edge Stencils .

It was so ironic b/c that’s the same website the other girl got her stencil from. I looked at all the stencils, trying not to copy this girl to a “T”, but turns out the Paisley stencil was my favorite one too… it’s just so darn cute! And the stencil is awesome, no bleeds, easy to clean, I was very pleased!

First to prep the table I sanded it down and took all the original finish off the top of it. Then I wiped it down to get the wood dust off. 

after it's sanded

 And it was ready to stencil, that easy! I use white latex outdoor paint and a mini roller-I didn’t use a foam roller because they tend to hold more paint and I didn’t want it to bleed under the stencil. You don’t have to press down too hard…just a light pressure and I did 2 coats.  I layed the stencil in the middle of the table to get started and then I went out from there. 

One mistake I made was turning my stencil because I thought it would look neat not to have a “repetitive pattern” welllllll they are smart and made the stencil to line up and look never-ending..so don’t turn your stencil! Just keep painting, just keep painting... (let it dry, takes about 2 min to dry) and then line it up and paint the next section. Since I turned my stencil, it obviously wouldn’t line up so I had to wait for it to dry and then sand the paint off. Not too big a deal-just a 10 minute detour. 

if you make this mistake, the paint sands off really easy

ran the stencil down the middle first

almost done...

 Another thing I did was wrap the stencil around the edge of the table…I didn’t want it to look like there was a defining plain border going all the way around the sides of the table. 

done stenciling!

When the stenciling was done and the paint was dry, the next step was to stain it. That’s right, stain over all the hard work you just did! Trust me, you’ll love it! I used Minwax-All American and it turned out pretty dark since the wood was sanded down to the raw, so I’m glad I didn’t go with my Kona stain. Make sure you wear latex gloves-staining can get messy and have an old rag to wipe the stain off. I did two coats of stain because I wanted it a little darker in some places.

my sweet hubby helping me :)

After staining

I painted the legs and sides of the table a teal color- the same color I used on the China Hutch. I did two coats, my rule of thumb is two coats of paint on any and every thing you are going to paint! It always turns out smoother and covers any spots you may have missed the first go around. 

I waited 24 hours for the stain to really dry and then put on a semi-gloss poly-urethane to seal it.  

It gave the table a pretty little sheen and it will help protect it some from the elements.

And here she is, in all her lovely shabby farmhouse glory! Don’t yah love it!?

here's how we wrapped the stencil around the edges/corners

 It’s probably been the easiest project I have done so far and I’m SO happy with how it turned out!

Rain Chain

We have been slowly whittling away at the screen porch..it’s getting pretty close to being finished. There are just a lot of little details to finish out the project.  We got all the gutters up a couple weeks ago and installed my rain chain! It replaces the downspout, so when it rains the little cups fill up with water and the water flows down to the next one. Making a really pretty trickling noise and it looks kinda like a waterfall. We needed to somehow direct the rain away from the house once it trickled down the chain. I knew I wanted a really big clay pot and as always, my ever impressive engineer husband devised a plan.
 So, we went to a nursery where they have a TON of different huge clay pots. There were so many to choose from and they were all so neat but we chose the prettiest, tallest one. I just love the colors! (it's kinda dirty here but it's teal dripped into dark blue)

Any who, Ryan made an incognito French drain out of the clay pot and cut a hole about 3 inches in diameter in the bottom. Then he poured a small concrete slab for the pot to sit on and for the drain pipe to come up through.  He layed PVC pipe in the ground and it goes from the concrete slab to the backside of our stone retaining wall. So all the water trickles down the rain chain, into the clay pot, down the drain and under/out the other side of the wall. We also got some wire mesh and put it down in the pot to catch leaves and debris. That way the drain doesn't get clogged up from our thousands of acorns and leaves that fall. By looking at it you would never know..it just looks like a chain and a clay pot!

Eventually we are going to plant a nice little garden around it. But here it is...

Mesh in the bottom to catch debris

we cut in a funnel to make a round downspout

close up of funnel

Fairly easy and fun project! Ta-ta for now!