4 Men 1 Lady

Painting the stair banister.

Post Christmas I typically go in to hibernation mode and try and survive the rest of the cold, dark winter. However, winter in the west has felt more like spring. Today I went out and watered the tulips that have started to grow. I know, right!? Our dry state desperately needs to the snow but it’s hard to curse the sun. As a result I’ve come out of hibernation a bit early and am feeling an extra pang to get started on some spring cleaning and creative projects.

My first “out-of-hibernation” project involved myself. If you follow us on Instagram you saw that we went down to Vegas for the Rugby 7’s Tournament. I also revealed that I cut off almost all my hair when I was having a particularly daring moment at the salon…it’s liberating to rid my neck of all that hair but I can’t lie…still trying to adjust.

While in Vegas my dad made himself right at home and surprised us with a little “DID” project (Do-It-Dad), not be confused with “DIY”.
Forever I’ve been talking about making changes to this stair wall and banister.

It’s old, it’s wobbly and it really dates the house. For the past 3 years I’ve had it on my to-do list to replace it with something much more up-to-date. My dad suggested I paint it but it just seemed like one of those massively tedious projects that I love to procrastinate. Well, sweet guy that he is did it for me as a Valentine’s Day gift.

He taped and tarped the entire space then spray painted those old spindles. The top hand rail got a coat of black paint. Amazing what a little paint can do. I’m even more motivated to now to get on to the planking project that will go behind the banister.

We all took a vote and decided that the first larger spindle needs to be black, not white. That will be next weekend (where I will also be de-cluttering that magnet board).

Even though I didn’t do the project myself I do have a few tips…
1. Air the house out when using spray paint. While spray paint is a great choice for all the nooks and crannied on the spindles it stinks. Bad. Think spring or summer when you can keep the doors and windows open for a long time.
2. Tape really well. You can see in the next picture there was quite of bit of overspray that we’ll have to go back and touch up.

It’s been a few days and the smell has finally dissipated. I still plan to eventually change the entire banister out but until that time this nifty paint job will hold us over.

What out-of-hibernation projects do you have planned for the spring?

3 Comments

Vintage framed arrows.

11 Feb 8 Comments

I’m pleased to announce that I have joined a fabulously creative group of bloggers to be a part of ACE Hardware Blogger Panel!

As a part of this panel we will be bringing you monthly home improvement and decorating projects.

I’m really excited about my first project which involves our little men’s bunk room.
It’s been layered with white on top of white on top of white. Now it has touches of yellow, yellow and more yellow…the perfect color for their personalities.

I wanted to share a sneak peek of one of the projects I completed to spice things up in there.

Last March, during a sleepless night I found myself perusing Etsy. I came across the coolest vintage arrows. At the time I didn’t know what I was going to do with them but a week later they were shipped to my doorstep.

They sat in my closet all this time but finally I knew they would be perfect for my little men’s room re-fresh. The question was how to display them? After some brainstorming I decided to frame them. Luckily Ikea sells a white frame called the Norrlida for $9.99 that was (almost) long enough to fit the arrows (I had to cut the arrows down a few inches and re-attach the tips).

The question was…how was I going to incorporate some yellow to tie it together with the rest of the decor I had planned? My first thought was to have a custom yellow photo mat cut but custom-anything is expensive. Instead I used some Delicate Frog Tape I picked up from ACE to simply tape off a yellow border.

First, I arranged my arrows on the mat that came with the frame and added a bead of hot glue to secure them.

Next, I took my Frog Tape and taped off a border directly on the mat.

I cut the edges of the tape at a 45 degree angle with a razor blade to make it look similar to the frame corners.

I would have liked to find a frame / shadow box deep enough to accommodate the arrows and have the glass over the top but I felt lucky enough to find an affordable frame long enough to fit the arrows. After all said and done they looked great as-is.

Who said picture frames were just for pictures?

Vintage framed arrows.
Stay tuned for the rest of the reveal coming soon!

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8 Comments

New Hallway Rug.

4 Feb 5 Comments

This is a sponsored post by Medallion Rugs. I was given a rug to review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% authentic.

This has been a tissue-permanently-stuffed-up-the-nose kind of week.
I’ve got a cold that has taken the wind outta my sails and made me want to stay in bed all day.
Unfortunately, my little man will only let me stay in bed if we watch Calliou together…a women can only take so much of that…

On a happier note, I made my rug selection from Medallion Rug for “Operation Mini-Hallway Makeover“.

Just to refresh your memory. We started with this:

Gallery wall, no rug. The patter of little feet on a wood floor was loud.

Then we found this Jute rug which looks nice but the natural fibers were not very comfy underfoot, plus it shed. A lot.

Not to mention all the pictures started falling off the wall with three boys running up and down this hall several times a day.

Out went the rug. Out went the remnants of what was once a gallery.
In came the new/vintage area rug / hallway runner from Medallion Rug.

I love the introduction of color in the otherwise stark, white hallway.
Plus, it perfectly imperfect.
I’ll never stop shopping big box stores but there’s a big let down to buying trendy items just to have them be so “last year” the next season. Vintage Persian rugs are classic and timeless.
They were “in” then and they’re still “in” years later.