Labor Day/Week

Labor Day became "Labor Week" for me with all the projects I had sitting in my garage waiting to be tackled. My Dad used to say, "First we work...then we play".  I took his advice to heart this week, knowing I wanted to enjoy a long weekend with my family and friends without things hanging over my head. Here's a small sampling of what I labored over:




Simple two minute project:  Stenciling "Bloom" on this vase.

Painting a bedroom set that was originally oak:

There were two of these.

  There was a headboard with this set that I painted black as well.  Once again, I am in love with my Benjamin Moore Ironclad Black enamel.  It was a good paint week.

I'm still having fun covering lamp shades.  I used a different base with this one.  I actually reused the scalloped ribbon for the bottom trim.It was quite brittle and old, but worked well with the colors in the new fabric. Bonus.

This shade I used for a floor lamp that was oak.  I used a black satin spray paint to update the look.  This one's in my family room now. 

Sign orders keep rolling in.  So fun to see what phrases/quotes you guys come up with!

This one was for my precious niece Kaia Lynn, whom we lovingly call Lynnie Lu.  This little ditty is what her daddy sings to her every night.  It was her birthday last week.

All in all, a busy work week, but all my tasks were done by Friday and I spent the last weekend of summer "playing" with family and friends.  Happy Labor Day! 

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I had a dream...

That money talks

I'll not deny

I heard it once:

It said "Goodbye."

My husband and I once had a dream of owning a cottage someday. It would be in a quaint small town, not neccessarily on the water, but near it.  The town would be filled with amazing, creative people, and most everything we needed for a relaxing summer and life would be within walking distance.  We would feel refreshed and rejuvinated being there, and would spend time sitting on our porch, sipping cappucinos and chatting with our interesting, friendly neighbors. Our kids would be able to bike where they wanted, and on weekend mornings, we would walk for pastries and buy produce at a local farmer's market. We would be able to invite friends to this place, and grill out and and catch up on life. When we were there, we would breathe a little easier and laugh a little louder.  This was our dream...

And it dawned on me just this summer, that we are already living it.  It's not a cottage, but it's our home that we bought three years ago downtown Zeeland.  All of the things I've always wanted in a cottage, I already have right here with me, every day. 

I get to enjoy cottage style living every day, without the monthly mortgage and upkeep of owning another home.

But, in another life, if I ever won the lottery, here are a few cottage homes that I might choose.

A girl can dream, can't she?

  Enjoy this virtual parade of cottage style homes, taken in our favorite vacation spot, Pentwater, Mi... 

In reality, this is my cottage...

And I wouldn't change a thing!

"Command those who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment."

1 Timothy 6:17

Pentwater "Cottage" Memories 2010

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The Burning Ring of Fire

A tribute to the great Johnny Cash and my 40th "White Hot" Suprise birthday bash two years ago. 

I painted this quote on our family room wall after watching an incriminating DVD that my brother-n-law made in honor of the night.  Let's just say it involved a thunderstorm, lots of dirty white linens and the guest of honor almost literally falling into a burning ring of fire.  Two years later and a bit older and wiser (I pray), and I thought it was time to retire the phrase.  Both my kids were thrilled to help me with this painting project.  The first step was covering over the lettering with the brown paint.

I have been wanting to lighten and brighten this wall for quite some time now.  Our family room is an impossible room to furnish.  We have a coatrack wall that acts as a mudroom, a pennisula with four barstools on the adjacent wall, two doors, (one closet and one bathroom) two windows and a large sliding door.  It's also very narrow with low ceilings.  I've tried many different configurations and finally settled on one that works, but the back wall was still drab and depressing.  I had purchased a stencil a while ago from Designer Stencils online for a client but we never used it.  I thought this wall might be a good application for it. 

I started by buying the creamy white trim paint that I had used in the family room.  I was going to leave the brown base color and stencil over it with white.  I knew I'd need some spray adhesive to hold the stencil template to the wall while I painted.









Here is the stencil that I bought online for $30.00. I was a little stumped as to why the outside edges weren't cut in the shape of the design but it's so NOT like me to think something through to the end, so away we went.

Here's Kennedy spraying the back of the template with the adhesive. For a temporary hold, you spray it on and let it sit for a couple of minutes.  This worked beautifully to hold the stencil to the wall for at least three paint applications. 

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I rolled the white paint on with a foam rollar. I use these things for just about everything.  This part was easy and fun, but I quickly realized that I shouldn't have removed the stencil until after the paint dried. It would need another coat.  I grabbed a fan to speed up the process.  This might take all day!

And, here's the image that it produced.  Notice the outside edges that remained brown.  I didn't think anything of it yet at this point.

Look closely at the brown in between.  This is where I should have overlapped the template so that no brown paint showed through at all.  I still wasn't convinced that this was a problem.

As you can see, it was starting to look like a pattern.  I wasn't loving the brown shapes but at least it was looking uniform.  Well, my darling husband came home for lunch and asked about the brown.  That confirmed it.  I had applied it incorrectly....but I knew it could be salvaged.  See the picture below to look at how I started overlapping the edge. The top row was done the correct way.

And I continued...keep in mind that each square took about 6 minutes for 2 coats plus time to spray the template every so often.  My patience was running thin.

And here is the mess that it looked like at 5:00 PM. I had been working since 11:30 AM.  I stepped back and freaked!!  Arrrgggghhhh!  It looked horrendous!  Look at the middle of the wall...smack dab in the middle where I started correcting the mistake!  I packed up the ladder, put away the paint and pouted my way through dinner. I seriously thought I'd be repainting the wall the next day.  What a waste of a day.

Kennedy and Brecken to the rescue.  Kennedy kept repeating, "Mom, patience, patience, Mom" like a mantra.  It was just what I needed to regroup.  We eached grabbed an artist's brush and went to work fixing up the thin lines and rebrushing the mistakes. 

I have to say that this was the best part of the project...working together and seeing instant results. Very rewarding and humbling, (that my daughter once again assumed the role of mentor).  I'm so blessed.

You can see that it's certainly not perfect, but all of us love what it did for the room. It's so much brighter in here and because it was a group effort, the girls are so proud of what we accomplished together.  In a perfect world, there would be a modern pear colored sectional in that corner of the wall with really crisp accent pillows but for now I like the change.  Proof once again that a little change ($65 to be exact), goes a long way!

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