Hello, friends! I thought it would be fun today to show you a few things around the house that are seemingly random but all have one major thing in common.
So, everybody knows about the power of paint in transforming a space, yada yada yada. You hear diy lovers everywhere talk about it. Well, that’s because it’s true. Paint can make something totally blah look totally fabulous.
So, let’s back up a little bit. A few weeks after our son was born, I decided to paint the stairs in our house. As one does mere weeks after giving birth. Obviously. So, I went to Home Depot (this is not sponsored by the way, I just only shop there), and picked up a gallon of Behr’s Totally Black in a latex semi-gloss finish. I wasn’t sure how much I would use, or if one gallon would be enough, but I decided to stick with one and if I needed more, I would go get more.
So, the black staircase was born. This is the view from the front door, by the way. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the paint covered the stairs (I did two coats), and how little paint I had actually used. So then, while still on maternity leave, I decided to paint the fireplace. Because, well, I already had some paint I could use, so why not? Hence, the black fireplace joined the party.
Now, in this picture, you may notice a sneak peek of another project. Hold on, I’ll get to that. Seeing that I still had some leftover paint in the bucket, I decided to go ahead and paint my back door. Now, this one comes with a warning. The back door is in the kitchen which is completely unrenovated and honestly just ugly. The quality of this photo is terrible. I’m sharing just to show you yet another thing I did with this single bucket of paint. So here we go.
The door is awful. It was more awful before. That’s pretty much all I have to say about that. Moving on.
Some months later, the paint can had found a home in the garage awaiting some eventual use. That use came when on a random day in which work was unexpectedly cancelled (I work in a school, and the water had been turned off due to some road construction so school was cancelled). Finding myself with some extra free time, I decided to build a coffee table. A perfectly stable and precise coffee table it is not, but I built it alone and with items I had completely in my garage spending zero dollars. I’m sure you can guess where this is going…I painted the legs to the coffee table with more of the black paint.
Time goes on. On a whim one day browsing Pinterest, I decide to paint some faux-dalmation wallpaper on a passthrough area between my living room and dining room. Good golly this one was a good one. In a few hours time with the trusty bucket of black paint and a step ladder, I had done this.
The dalmatian wall is my faaaaaaavorite. It adds so much personality to the space and I love it. It was one of the most popular projects I have ever posted about on Instagram as well. And why not? At this point, it wasn’t costing me any more money and wowza it packs a punch.
So that brings us around to the final project, the one that you’ve now possibly spotted twice already in these photos. You guessed it. The dining room chairs. By this time, I’ve already completed five other projects with this gallon of paint, but I still have more so why not? I did use a paint sprayer with these chairs, which means I had to add water to my mixture to make it thin enough for my sprayer. So, full disclosure, I stretched a bit here.
This is the most recent project, and they aren’t completely finished yet. I’m looking for the right fabric to recover the chairs, but I haven’t found what I’m looking for at the right price point just yet.
So there you have it. Six things I did with one silly gallon of paint that cost me less than $30. Insane, right? Would you believe I still have some left? Yep. Now, I probably won’t do any new projects with it, as I’d like to have some left just for touch ups. And with all these things, it’s likely I’ll have things to touch up over time.
So, a couple of takeaways here. Number one: paint is freaking awesome. You can cover a lot of ground for a little money. Number two: doing these different projects in different spaces throughout the house makes things feel more cohesive. The fireplace is the same color as the front stairs which makes it feel less random and more like they belong together even though they are in completely different spaces. It helps the house flow visually, I think. All that to say; I hope this inspires you. Get out there and paint something!
That’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!
No Comments