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DIY

DIY Projects

DIY Abstract Art

Last week I shared a post with several ideas for free and low cost art (you can read that here). This week, I’ve been super bored around the house with no big projects that I’ve been working on, and so I was itching to do something. I had been inspired by some abstract paintings I’d seen online, and figured I could make something similar with items I had in my garage. File this under: free projects. (If you don’t have a garage full of leftover renovation junk, this might not be free for you. But still super low cost! So, let’s get started!

The first thing I did was grab some plywood from the garage. Mine is smooth, but pressed wood would work as well. I used a board that was 24×36 inches, but any size will work! I also grabbed some drywall mud, a drywall mud pan, and a putty knife.

These photos are screenshots from a video I filmed at 8 pm while starting this project, so probably not the best quality. But bear with me. I started out scooping the drywall mud slowly onto the board, but quickly realized it would be easier to just pour a bunch on the board directly and move it around with my (gloved) hands.

Then, using both a putty knife, and my hand, I just gobbed it all around until the whole board was covered, and there was textured look to the entire thing. The goal was to make it look like super textured. I let it dry overnight, and when I woke up the next morning, it looked like this:

Exactly what I was going for! Then, I poured white paint over the entire thing and brushed it over the mud texture.

This step isn’t technically necessary, but I wanted it to be a brighter white. I used Behr Ultra Pure White, which is just what the color is with no tint in the paint can. You could also choose to do a different color here completely, depending on what you wanted your background to be.

After the white was dry, I did the final step. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of this step, because I was being climbed on by my toddler and forgot to take any photos! However, this is the fun/easy part. I just took a small craft brush, some blue paint I had on hand (Glidden America’s Cup Navy) and painted on some loopy squiggly lines. I didn’t really have a plan, I just went for it. You could do this in any color with any shape/line.

Some of the paint ended up dripping down, which I actually love. The messier the better with this!

You can see in some areas I went a little thicker with the paint, and in others I let the texture show through.

Overall, excluding dry time, this project took probably 45 minutes of active work. And now I have a larger piece of “art” that I didn’t have to pay for. And I absolutely love the way it turned out! You know that blue is totally my color, and so I think it works perfectly in the dining room where I have lots of blue and white going on.

What do you think? Would you try this? Let me know if you do! Well, that’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

*This post may contain affiliate links.

August 7, 2020 by
House Progress

Status Update: Year Two

Today marks the official two year anniversary of owning this old house of ours. Today I wanted to look back at this past year, year two, and see all of the things we accomplished. I’m going to share a few (not all) of the big projects we’ve done in the last 365 days.

If you’ve never seen the before pictures of our house, you might want to start there, just for fun. This last year kind of unintentionally became the year of getting the upstairs more livable. One year ago, our master bedroom was downstairs and the only thing we had done upstairs was our son’s room. In the fall, we updated one of the bedrooms upstairs and moved the master up there.

Then, over my winter break from school, I decided to do a bit of work on our upstairs bathroom.

We also worked on finishing the third bedroom upstairs this year when we found out we were expecting our second child. The nursery is one of my favorite rooms in the house, and I cannot wait to get to use it very soon!

During Spring Break (are we sensing a pattern here? it seems like every time there was a break from school, I did a project!) I painted the porch floors on all three of our porches. That ended up being a lot of work over an extended period of time, but made a huge impact.

In a spur of the moment decision late last summer, I decided to paint some dalmatian spots on the wall between our living room and dining room. Best decision ever!

We’ve also done tons of work in the yard, and countless small projects around the house to help move the progress along. It’s crazy to see how far we’ve come. They say that people overestimate how much they can get done in a day, but underestimate how much they can get done in a year, and it’s so true! Last summer I could not have imagined the progress we have made. I can’t wait to see where we are by the end of year three! Hopefully some work in the downstairs areas… I’m getting real sick of looking at a few things downstairs. LOL! Well, that’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

July 31, 2020 by
Home Decor

Free and Low Cost Art

They say that to make a house feel more homey, it needs art. Well, I agree, but what I know about art is that it’s expensive. And if I go to a big box store and buy something off the shelf, chances are someone I know has the same one in their house. And that doesn’t make my house feel special or unique. Today I wanted to share with you a few ideas for finding art for free or inexpensively that are unique and make your home feel special!

First, let’s talk free. It’s my favorite word.

This is a view of the art ledge in our living room. Our living room is a work in progress. Let’s look beyond that. A couple of things I have here are some literal weeds that I cut from my yard and pressed under some magazines. I stuck them in some thrifted frames I had on hand, and boom. Done. I also have a framed scrap of wallpaper that we found while tearing out a wall in our house. It’s probably close to 100 years old. Now, you may not have 100 year old wallpaper you want to frame, but you might have something personally special to you like a handwritten recipe card from your grandmother, or a silk scarf that your mom used to wear. Frame it, and it’s personal and unique and free art!

You can also paint your own abstract art. I would consider myself “creative,” but not “artistic” if that makes sense. But anyone can paint some circles or blobs on a piece of paper and call it art, right? (Also, check out this sneak peek of my bathroom refresh! I’m waiting on a few things to be delivered before I share more, but it’s coming! And it’s green!)

And while you’re browsing your favorite magazine, be on the lookout for pages that appeal to you. You can always cut pictures from books and magazines and frame those too!

Now let’s move to the “low cost” category.

Not quite as good, but still pretty cheap, so listen up.

These large frames in our living room are prints of Sanborn Maps. These are map views of our neighborhood from the early 20th century that I had printed. They are available for free on the library of congress website, but I’m including them in the “low cost” category because I had to pay a few dollars to have them printed in large format at my local office supply store. You may not live in an old house and so these may not be relevant to you, but I wanted to share with you my favorite and new found obsession for amazing prints.

The Smithsonian has thousands of archived digital files available to download right on their website for free. Can you even believe that?! Through Smithsonian Open Access, you can browse tons of actual paintings and photographs that you can legally download at a great resolution. These are free to download, but I’m including them in the “low cost” category as well, because I print them as posters or large scale photographs at my local drugstore. This ballerina print in the nursery was one that I downloaded from their website.

And lastly, you know I’m going to tell you to thrift. This original mini oil painting was $4 including the frame. No one else has one, and it helps the room feel unique. Thrift stores, flea markets, and estate sales are filled with framed art for just a few dollars. Sure, you have to look beyond the 90’s prints of flying ducks or the “live, laugh, love” posters, but there are some real gems to be found.

You can fill your home with pieces that not everyone has on a budget! You can fill your walls with art and special things without spending a ton of money. That’s all for today, friends! Have a fabulous day!

July 29, 2020 by
House Progress, Room Tours

Baby Girl Nursery REVEAL

It’s finally finished! The room we’ve been working on for months is done and I can’t wait to share with you all the details. If you haven’t been following along, you may want to catch up with some of the older posts pertaining to the nursery. First, I shared the original moodboard, how I did the DIY wall stencil, how I stripped the painted doors in the room, and the updated list of what projects were still left as of a month ago. Now that all those things are crossed off my to-do list, I’m finally ready to share.

Before we have a look at the photos though, let’s take it wayyyyy back to early April when I was in the planning stages of the room. This was the moodboard I came up with, mostly based on a few things I already had found (art) and furniture I knew I would be reusing from our son’s room (crib and rocker).

Now the whole thing has come to life and I could not be more excited.

The artwork over the crib was purchased at a flea market before I even knew I was having a girl back in… February? March? I snagged it because it was only ten dollars and I knew if I had a girl it would be perfect for above a crib. Luckily I am actually having a girl, otherwise I would just have this painting with no place to put it. It came without a frame, so it took me a while to track down a frame that fit, but I did eventually. I bought some random ugly artwork just for the frame, threw away the print inside, and used Rub ‘n Buff in the color Gold Leaf on the frame to make it look a little more aged. Here’s what it looked like before:

It’s so 2002 chic, am I right? Anyway, our crib is the same one I used in our son’s room, I just dyed the crib skirt with some RIT dye to change it up a bit.

The footstool, curtains, rug, and curtain rods were all new purchases for this room. The rocker was one we already had from our son’s nursery. You can see in these photos some shelves both with artwork and with books. Ethan built the book display shelves with a lip on the front to keep books from falling over. I stained them with my favorite stain color, Varathane Early American.

The pillow was something I whipped up in 30 minutes on a sewing machine on a whim after an unplanned Hobby Lobby trip. I used a pillow I already had and made a new cover for it with $3 worth of fabric. I used some leftover trim from another project.

The lamp was a Facebook Marketplace find, the table was a flea market find a few years ago, and the picnic basket was something I’ve had forever (it’s full of baby toys). The little doll quilt sticking out was made for me by my Great Grandmother when I was young.

Moving to the other side of the room, the dresser was Ethan’s when he was younger and I repainted it. The basket was a thrift store find, and the tassel on the doorknob was an estate sale find. The tree was found randomly on clearance one day just after I had started browsing Facebook Marketplace for faux trees. It was meant to be!

The artwork and decor on both shelves are a combination of thing I had and repainted, or things that were picked up at flea markets and estate sales. The actual art prints are from a source I recently discovered and am currently obsessed with. The Smithsonian Museum has something called Open Access which is an online catalog of millions of photographs, paintings, pictures of sculptures, etc. They’re all free and available to download without copyright infringement, so I like to search for different art prints and have them printed as posters. It’s a super affordable way to get high quality prints that aren’t just the same thing everyone has from the same box store!

The nursery is a such a happy room, and I absolutely love it! Although, it’s now time for it to be filled with the ugly but necessary baby accessories that aren’t pictured in these photos…

I love that just like the rest of our home, this room encompasses a little bit of old, a little bit of new, a whole lot of DIY, and a whooooooole lot of thrifted and secondhand finds. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now we just need a baby sleeping in the crib!

And, just for fun, let’s throw this waaaaaay back to two years ago when we first bought the house (and let’s be honest, also a year ago because we did nothing in here for a long time).

Now that’s crazy, right? So, what do you think? Do you see what I saw with the original moodboard? I am so glad you stopped by to see our baby girl’s nursery! That’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

*This post may contain affiliate links.

July 3, 2020 by
House Progress

Nursery Status: What’s Done, and What’s Next?

My big project as of late has been the nursery. of course. The big accent wall was a huge undertaking, and will definitely be the focal point of the room. Since then, we’ve done a few things, but still have a lot to do.

We moved the crib and rocker (ours isn’t sold anymore!) from our son’s room into the new nursery. I used some fabric dye to dye the crib skirt that we already had on hand.

I also painted the dresser that was previously in our room and gave it some fresh knobs from Hobby Lobby. For the dresser, I used a satin finish paint from Home Depot in the color Gentle Sea. This was a quick, slap a coat of paint on kind of project, not the kind where I did a step by step tutorial. I didn’t use very much of the paint that I bought for the dresser, so I ended up painting the inside of the closet with the same paint. It’s a fun little pop of color, and it makes the tiny closet special.

So, I still have a lot to do in this space before it feels “ready.” I have a bunch of projects, things to buy, and a few things I want to make.

Things to Do:

  • Paint the window frames
  • Finish stripping the door to the closet and bathroom
  • Reinstall the closet and bathroom doors
  • Deep clean the windows and floors

Things to Buy:

This is the big one, as I feel like I need to collect a ton of little things to make the room put together. Some things are specifics I have in mind, others are things I’d like to find thrifting (hopefully I can do that soon!).

  • Curtains (I just placed an order for these, but the shipping is going to take a while. I’m not even sure they’ll work, so I may end up returning.)
  • Curtain rods
  • Footstool (I’m loving this one.)
  • Crib sheets I like basic white ones for easy washing.
  • Small art work (I don’t have anything in particular in mind just yet. I’d love to find something vintage.)
  • A frame for the over-the-crib painting. I bought the painting at a flea market sans-frame. I’m hoping to find the right gold frame in the right size for the right price. Not too much to ask for, right? (If you have a 36x24in frame without glass or matting, let me know. I’m scouring FB Marketplace daily.)
  • An accent pillow for the rocker. I put the one from my son’s room in here, I’m not sure if I love it.
  • A lamp (nothing specific in mind, not sure if I’ll go thrifted or new)
  • Tall plant?? (I need something with some height in one particular corner to disguise an awkward wall length. I like the look of olive trees, but we’ll see.)

Things to Make:

  • Shelves for book and art displays

There is still so much to do in here, and with stores being closed and shipping being delayed, it seems like I’ve been unable to get moving in here. Hopefully soon I can get things moving! I have been working feverishly on the door refinishing, and I will share a full tutorial of that process once it’s finished. That’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

This post may contain affiliate links.

May 27, 2020 by
House Progress

Backyard Updates

Backyards are a tricky thing, aren’t they? I don’t have a green thumb, I have a giant dog who ruins grass, and I have never particularly enjoyed being “outdoors.” But, part of being a homeowner and making improvements to your home includes the outdoors as well. My toddler loves to be outside. Now that the weather is nice, he would rather be outside playing with the hose and some trucks than doing anything inside. So, I’ve been spending more time than ever in the backyard lately.

After painting the porches, I had a lot of paint left over. I accidentally overbought. Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I had extra paint for projects on a whim. Since spending so much time in the backyard, I’ve been able to dream up more things I wanted to do with the space, and it’s been nice to have supplies on hand. We have this swing and arbor in the backyard that came with the house. It was pretty sad looking, and we thought about taking the swing down and making some kind of grilling station, but the more we sat in it, the more we thought it should stay. I was swinging one day when I realized I had extra white paint from the porch railings, I might as well just paint the thing.

So I did. I used my paint sprayer and sprayed the whole thing.

As for the pea gravel firepit to the right, you may remember my early stages of this from last summer. Well, we bought pea gravel last summer, but it wasn’t enough, so we just sat around with a half pea graveled firepit for a year. I told Ethan I wanted to finish off the firepit for Mother’s Day, so my Mother’s Day present was literally a truckload of pea gravel and a wheelbarrow. Some people get perfume, I got literal rocks.

But we sat out here on Mother’s Day and made s’mores for dinner and it was wonderful. It’s already a much used space. My son is also loving the fresh pea gravel for his shovels and dump trucks.

We (and by we, I totally mean I, with Ethan just along for the ride) also decided to build our son a playhouse. We used all scrapwood we had in the garage and leftover paint from the porches. We don’t have plans for this, but basically it went something like this: I looked at the piles of wood in the garage, drew a picture of what I thought could work, and Ethan built it two days later.

It is definitely a more family friendly backyard now, and we enjoy spending time out here so much now that things are fresher and nicer to look at. 🙂 Now we just have to do something about the dead grass…

My favorite thing about this yard is what it looked like just a year ago. Everything we’ve done in the last two months has been one project leading into another as far as supplies go, and I love the way one thing inspired another.

I wish I had photos of when we first bought the house two summers ago…there was no fence, there were awful metal garden bed edgers that were just full of weeds, there was a broken chimnea in the middle of the yard. It was in rough shape. I’ve heard it said that with outdoor spaces, you just do a little more each year, and soon enough you have a space you can really be proud of. I have so many more plans for next year already. I’m already focusing on learning more about gardening and have big, green plans. Maybe next year! Well, that’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

May 13, 2020 by
DIY Projects

DIY Wall Mural

If you saw my plans for the nursery a few weeks back, you know how much I wanted wallpaper! I did a lot of online searching for removable wallpaper (after all the wallpaper scraping I’ve done, I am not about to put traditional wallpaper paste back up in this house), only to find that I did not want to spend an arm and a leg on wallpaper. Having never been in the market for wallpaper, I did not know how expensive wallpaper could be!

I had a budget in mind, but I did not want to put over half of it toward wallpaper. In my planning post, I talked about attempting to paint something on the wall using a projector. I tried it out, it worked, and this is that post!

So the first thing I did was to find an image that was similar to my inspiration photo for wallpaper. A quick google search found a pattern that I liked, so I then went to make a projectable image. I made sure that the image I chose would be able to repeat itself continuously.

I used a PowerPoint document to work from, and placed my image in a very corner of my screen.

Then I just copied the image and lined them up so that the entire page was covered.

As you can see, it’s just the same image lined up directly next to each other.

Once the image was on the full screen, I put it in present mode on my laptop, connected it to the projector, and projected it onto the wall. I was then able to use a small artist paintbrush to trace from the projector onto the wall.

Pardon the iPhone photos, I am not the greatest with remembering to take progress photos.

Now, I know a lot of people don’t have a projector lying around. I get that. Ethan works in production for live events, so he has access to a lot of equipment that the average person does not have sitting in their house. He was able to borrow this projector from work that I was able to use.

For me, this project was free because I had paint left over, and access to a projector. However, you all know I like to do thinks cheap and easy. But, while I was looking online, I found some projectors that are only around $100. While that seems expensive, it could still end up being muuuuch cheaper than purchasing wallpaper. The wallpaper I had been pricing out was going to be around $400, so even if I bought a projector for this project, it would have still saved me money.

Overall, this took about ten hours of painting, which is definitely not for the faint of heart, but it was a project I spent no money on, and I got the wallpaper look I was going for.

The color is French Colony by Behr, which was leftover from our upstairs bathroom project. It’s hard to capture the whole wall at once because of the size of the room, but the wall is about ten feet wide. Overall, I am super pleased with the way this turned out. And you know my favorite type of project is a free one!

What do you think? Would you try something like this? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Well, that’s all for today, friends. Have a fabulous day!

April 17, 2020 by
DIY Projects

How to Paint Porch Floors

You guys. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited about this project I am. Or how excited I am to be done with it. I decided to make it a priority over my spring break to get our porch floors repainted. I had the week off from work (little did I know at the time that I would not be returning to work in person for who knows how long, but that’s another story…), and so I had some time to devote to getting some paint on our multiple porches.

So we actually have three porches on this house (or technically two decks and one porch but whatever), but two different types. Our front porch is a traditional tongue in groove type wooden porch floor with no gaps and was already painted. It was badly chipping as it had probably been 40+ years since its last coat of paint. The back and side porches are more what you would consider a deck, They are 2x6inch (I think) boards with a small gap in between them. Ours had never been painted since it was installed in 1989. Are you ready for this before picture. Please don’t judge me. This house is a choose your battles kind of project y’all, because not everything can get done at once.

This picture was taken one month ago. Like, I’m embarrassed. Here’s one more for good measure.

The process for both the front and back porches was pretty much the same, with a few minor variations. Because the back porch had never been painted, we just had to clean it, using a power washer. In the front, the paint was chipping, so I scraped by hand what I could, and then power washed the rest. The power washing definitely got more of the paint chippiness off.

You can see here just how bad it was. There was multiple colors showing through from different layers over time. So once we got everything scraped, washed, and ready to go, it was time to paint.

I used porch and patio floor paint mixed in the color Teton Blue by Behr. I bought a five gallon bucket, but only used about two gallons. Which is fine, because I have plenty for touch ups in the future. The first thing I did was roll using a regular paint roller with an extension brush. If you’ve never painted floors this way, honestly, it’s the easiest thing. Just standing, no strain on the back or arms. Honestly, it’s great.

In the front, since there were no grooves between boards, this was super easy. I was careful not to get too close to the house with the roller, but it was a very quick process. Once I completed the rolling, I had to cut in with a paint brush. On the front porch, this was just along the edges next to the house. On the back porch, I had to get my brush individually between each board. This was the most time consuming part.

I eventually coated everything twice, with some interruptions from the rain. When I was done painting, I let it cure for a few days before sealing it. I wanted to use something to seal the porches because it’s such a high traffic area that’s prone to dirt. For that, I used Thompson’s Waterseal and brushed it on completely. I did not use a roller for that. Because of the consistency of the mixture, I found it annoying to use the roller. It took forever to dry. Forever. That is likely in part due to the amount of rain we were battling along the way with this month long affair.

Lastly, for the back porch railings, I painted those white, using exterior flat paint. I got the color Cameo White. Those I just brushed on, it took forever, was honestly the most time consuming part of the whole thing.

Alright, are y’all ready for the after photos? I’m assuming that’s what you’re actually here for. Let’s look at the front porch first.

This isn’t all that dramatic, it’s just fresher and cleaner looking.

But the back. Y’all. Let me just show you one more time the before.

And now…

I cannot get over how much of a change this makes.

This project cost about $200 for all of the supplies, but I could have gotten away with much less paint. I used a total of about two gallons for an estimated 500 square feet of space. Just as I do with all my projects, I kind of just dive right in without really knowing what I’m doing, but this one wasn’t as intimidating as I made it out to be.

So, what do you think? Can you even believe this is the same porch? I hope this gets you feeling motivated to tackle your own project, whether it’s a porch floor or something else. It probably won’t be as bad as you think! Well, that’s all for today, friends! Have a fabulous day!

April 9, 2020 by
DIY Projects, Home Decor

DIY Bed Canopy

Hi guys! Glad you’re here! I wanted to share with you a project that was a big undertaking in our master bedroom. If you remember a couple of months ago, we were working on getting one of the upstairs rooms livable to move our master upstairs. You can read all about that here . Over the last weeks, I kept some of the progress live on Instagram, when we revealed the paint color, and the new rug.

If you remember, this room has six doors in it, leading to various places, meaning that there was no good spot to put a bed. We ended up putting the bed in front of a door, and I started coming up with some ideas on how to cover that door or make it less obvious. I thought about painting the door and door trim the same color as the wall, or putting a privacy screen behind the bed, or even making some kind of false wall contraption that would rest behind the headboard. Then I stumbled upon this on Pinterest from Design Sponge, and I knew this was what I was going to do.

She had a great tutorial that I used, but because I was trying to cover a door behind the wall, I needed it to be wider than the bed itself. It ended up being a 10 foot width that I needed to cover, by 15 foot length. Trying to find fabric of that size was a nightmare. I first tried a large dropcloth and dying it the color I wanted, but that ended up being a massive fail because the fabric was so large and it didn’t fit in my bathtub where I was trying to dye it.

So I ended up buying a bolt of 60″ wide fabric (ten whole yards), cutting it in half, and sewing the two pieces together so that I had one 10x15ft piece of material. The only problem was that now there was a seam down the middle of where it would be hanging on the wall, so I decided to add an accent material up the center of the canopy to cover the seam.

The accent fabric was a nightmare. I ordered from one place, only for it to be out of stock. I ordered the same fabric from another location, only for that one to be out of stock. I finally just walked in to Hobby Lobby and found this fabric. It’s no longer listed on their website, so I think it might be discontinued, but I liked that it had blues and greens in it, and would probably work well in the room.

I used my accent fabric just in the middle of the canopy, and then hung it up. One rod is mounted on the wall, and the other from the ceiling. Hanging was also a nightmare, because this canopy was super heavy, and these are tall ceilings. I used a dab of hot glue once we had it in place to prevent it from shifting.

I also used hot glue (because hot glue can do all things) to add the greek key ribbon trim. Before the ribbon was added, I wasn’t too sure about it overall, but I do think the trim polished the whole thing off and made it look more finished.

The goal here was to cover that unsightly and unused door, and I think that this definitely fits the bill. And the best part is that the door is still totally accessible so the next time we need to move furniture upstairs, we can open the door! I’m really loving the way this project turned out, and it’s true what they say: necessity really is the mother of invention. What do you think?

And just for fun…take a look at the original mood board for the space! It’s so fun to see it coming together!

The rest of this room is evolving slowly, and I have some continued plans for the space, but all in due time. That’s all for today, friends, have a fabulous day!

December 18, 2019 by
DIY Projects

Six Big Impact Projects With One Gallon of Paint

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!

October 14, 2019 by