Tween Boy Baseball Room--Part 1

My stepson LOVES baseball.  Yankees in particular.  His room has only 1 window so not much natural light.  Here is where we started out.  A faux-birch wood and navy bunk bed contraption and builder beige walls.  Stepson added his own wall art in the form of posters tacked up everywhere.  There was also a lot of clutter.

BEFORE:

BEFORE:

We put up the Derek Jeter fathead about 2 years ago when we moved in and wanted to keep him intact throughout this makeover.

Step 1.  Paint!  We started out by painting one wall a deep blue/gray color (same color as we used in the library) and the rest of the walls a bright white (I just used Behr paint and primer in one with no tint added).  Wow, did it brighten up this whole room.  Amazing, its like we added 10 lights in there.

DURING:

DURING:

Step 2.  Swap out small dresser for a refurbished IKEA Malm dresser that I painted navy.  You can see it in the picture below.  I used spray paint.  I did prime first and used a clear coat after.  I didn't get the best coverage on the side you see below but not so noticable in the room.

AFTER part 1:

Step 3.  I sewed a curtain and some pillows.  I plan to swag this curtain with a tieback (that will be in the follow up post) thats why its extra long.  Not sure why the blue wall looks so light in these pictures.

AFTER part 1:

AFTER part 1:

AFTER part 1:

Derek survived the move to a new wall intact!  It actually wasn't that bad to move him although we were a lot nervous about the move.  We rearranged the furniture and I'm working on painting the rest of the faux-birch.  The bunk bed will be back after I paint it. 

So far this room looks 100% better and so much brighter.

AFTER part 1:

What is left to do for this room:

--new comforter (already here, you'll see in the follow up post)

--paint bunkbed

--add tieback for curtain

--add magnetic board

--hang mirror

--add shelves above dresser

Thanks for stopping by!!!

---Adrienne 

Linked to:  http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/2012/06/wow-us-wednesdays-71.html

BEFORE:

DIY Gel Nails

I've been wanting to try this forever.  My nails are usually unpainted.  They look OK, just really plain.  Once in a while I get the urge to have pretty, shiny nails and I'll paint them.  They look nice for about 24 hours.  Maybe.  Sometimes less.  Then I have chipped nailpolish that I don't bother to take off for a week.  Lovely.

I ran into CVS to pick up a prescription and passed this display.  The kit cost $60 but there was a $10 coupon.  It was 5 days until Mother's Day so I decided I would pick up my own Mother's Day gift.  The kit comes with everything you need for a gel manicure that is supposed to last 2 weeks.  Its called Senstionail by nailene.

My first observations of the kit were that the polish bottles were really small.  Also, the bottles are black so you can't tell how much nail polish is in each bottle.  I learn that this is because the polish is light sensitive. 

The UV light comes with a plug which is nice, no batteries that you constantly have to change.  But the plug is short, I had to set a chair right near the outlet as to hold the UV box.  BTW, thanks to my 8-year-old daughter for taking the pics!

The instructions are really easy.  Clean the nails first with the cleaner and cloths they provide, then brush on a primer coat and let nails air dry 30 seconds.  Next, brush on the base coat (which is the same bottle as the top coat).  The base coat cures under the UV light for 30 seconds.

After the base coat comes the first color coat.  That cures for 1 minute.  Then the second color coat, another minute.  Finally, the top coat is applied and cures for 30 seconds.  This really did go quickly.

After that my nails were really tacky.  Not dry at all.  The instructions said to use the gel cleaner again to remove what they call the "moisture layer".  I skeptically did that and they were totally dry.  Wow.

I'm not the neatest painter.  My cuticules were painted here and there but overally they looked pretty good.  And super shiny, that is what I love about the gel manicure.

TEN days later ...................................

Fast forward 10 days.  This stuff REALLY WORKS.  Yes, my nails have grown out and I'll need to redo this in another week, but I've had pretty painted nails for the past week and a half.  Amazing.

Here is my other hand 10 days out.  I slammed my middle finger in a door a few weeks ago, that is why its black. 

There are other polish colors that you can buy, but I'm thinking for this next time I'll do just the clear. 

Thanks for stopping by!!

-----Adrienne

TypeA

A Very Gold Console

More Family Room updates.  To review, first we got rid of the big huge TV and replaced it with a flat screen, then we mounted the flat screen on the wall, hid the wires, and lastly we got a new-to-us console.  Its actually a dresser.  A fake blond wood veener dresser. 

I had a few criteria while looking for this piece.  It had to have specific dimensions, something wide enough to fit on this little diagonal wall, and not too deep because the room is small.  I wanted something that didn't have open shelving because I know I can't keep open shelving looking nice.  And I didn't want to spend too much money when I wasn't sure how well my painting skills would actually work to transform something.

 So here is the "beauty" I found on Craigslist.  $50---sold.  Then I stared reading all of the 'painting veneer' tutorials I could find.  I decided to try using only spray paint, hoping for a smooth finish.

I went back and forth trying to figure out what color to use, and settled on a light gold color, Carmel Latte, by Krylon.

I primed first, using various spray-on primers.  I first made the mistake of using a grey color primer.  Whoops.  I had to sand those 2 drawers down and redo them with the white primer.

 The final pictures aren't very good--sorry.  The end results looks nice.  The hardware is the original that I put on until I can find something better, but it kind of blends right in with the gold.

I still have to add some accessories.

Eventually we'll also paint this room.

---Adrienne

Wires, What Wires?

More progress on the family room.  Let me recap.  First, we got rid of the big, huge TV.  For the past 2 years, the TV wall looked like this.

After hanging the flat screen, it looked like this.  Some lovely wires and a table I put there temporarily to hold the cable box.

And today, it looks like this:

Gosh, my pictures suck!  Anyway, it really looks a ton better.  Really. 

So, here is what we did.  1.  Hid the wires.  2.  Purchased craigslist dresser.  3.  Painted dresser a light gold color.  I still have to add some stuff accessories to the console and we're still working through technical difficulties with the TV but its coming along.

Here is how we did it. 

Hiding the wires.  I read a FABULOUS tutorial on how to hide the flatscreen wires in the wall here.  This tutorial gave me the courage to at least try to do this.  Then I had to convince Alex to help me try.  Anyway.  Here is my version of a tutorial, or at least what we did.

Find a space on the wall between the studs and cut 2 holes with a drywall saw, one behind the TV and one low enough to be covered by the console.

Drop a heavy cord through the top hole and hold the top of the rope while pulling through the bottom hole.  So the rope ends are showing through both the top and bottom holes.

Tie your first wire onto the end of the rope at the bottom hole and pull through.  Untie the cord and drop the rope again to get the next wire.

It wasn't so bad, and looks so much better without 3 heavy black wires hanging out of the TV.  Here are the problems we had:

*  Our 6 foot cable wires weren't long enough to go through both holes and then back up to plug into the cable box.  I ended up cutting a second lower hole that was still low enough to be hidden by the console.  I have to patch the original bottom hole you see in these pictures.  Another option would be buying a longer cable wire.

*  Plugging the power cord in to the rear of the TV after hanging the TV on the wall wasn't easy.  Alex had to hold the TV out while it was partially hanging on the wall mount while I was trying to quickly find the plug with only my hands.

*  Threading the 3rd wire through the small hole was tough because of the first 2 wires taking up most of the room.

Another shot of the wireless flat screen:

I'll talk about the console in a follow-up post.

---Adrienne 

Happy Anniversary



We got some beautiful flowers for our 2nd Anniverary from my inlaws.  Alex also got me some beautiful purple roses.  After the original boquets started to wilt, I had some fun with the fish.

The big one, I forget his name. I call him "big fishie".

Here is the little one, didn't get a good shot of him.

 

Hi fishies!



More Office Updates -- Diploma Wall Collage

I wanted to share some more before-and-afters of our office updates.  If you missed part 1 of the office update you can read about that here.  Here is the wall of shelves before paint and the track lighting.

And here it is lit up in the nighttime pic with the walls painted.  We still need to organize the shelves...

Here is the diploma collage before we painted. 

Another angle.

And here is the new-and-improved diploma wall.  BTW, most of these are Alex's.  I also remounted and reframed one of Alex's water-damaged diplomas using the method I blogged about here.

Thanks for stopping by!!

----xoxoxo   Adrienne

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