Here is a lovely little desk that I recently gave new life to.

Recently I've tried Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (ASCP) and liked it. Honestly, for the price I was hoping for... I don't know, miracles. It was very similar to a other paints I've used, not hugely better and certainly not worse. It's a good paint but I can't afford it! 

Sooooo, for this little desk I tried my hand at a homemade chalk paint recipe and really liked my results. The recipe calls for 8 oz. latex satin finish paint, 1/2 cup really hot water, and 1/4 cup plaster of Paris. This combination makes the paint quite a bit more watery than ASCP, so if you're a lover of thicker paints, you could experiment by adding more latex paint, adding more plaster of paris, or using less water. 

Before I starting doing anything with the desk I gave it a good cleaning. It was pretty dusty. Then I gave it really good layer of Zinnser's 1-2-3 bonding primer. This desk wasn't solid wood and I didn't want to sand anything off the existing finish for fear of ruining it. This primer is INCREDIBLE for boding to slick surfaces and eliminating the need to sand that slick surface. However, I didn't want brush strokes to be visible to I used a sponge roller as much as possible and when it was dry I sanded it until it was very smooth.

After the primer was dry and sanded I wiped it down to remove the dust and began painting. On the top and sides I used a sponge roller to try and prevent signs of brush strokes. I was going for a super smooth finish. On the drawers and detailed parts I used a small paint brush to get into all the cracks and crevices.

Since this paint is pretty watery it took a good 3-4 coats of paint with sanding between every layer to get the look I was going for. Once this was done it had a very smooth finish with very little evidence of brush or roller strokes.

Next, came the fun part, the distressing and antiquing (actually, it's all fun!).  Even though the paint was thin, it is very strong when dried! I really had to use some elbow grease to get the desired look I was going for. Using a medium grit sanding cube I gave this thing a pretty good scrubbing on the edges and in places where it would appear natural distressing would happen. After the sanding was done I used Miss Mustard Seed's dark wax in various places to help age and "antique" the finish a little bit. Last came the finishing wax. I used ASCP clear wax. I LOVE this wax. I love the smooth, buttery feel it leaves when buffed and shined. It really finishes off painted furniture the right way and when it's fully cured it has a hard durable surface.

This was a fun little desk to bring life back into. I'm REALLY bad at remembering to take before pictures! I'll try and do better about that. If you have any questions about how any of this happened, please let me know!

Alright, seriously, blogging is not my strong suit! But, I do love being creative and when something turns out beautifully I want to share it with someone.

Just before my birthday this year I stumbled upon Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint. I fell in love with her blog, her website, and I've now fallen in love with her paint (which I ordered oodles of for my birthday).

It comes in 12 great colors, which I love because sometimes picking just the right shade of green is the hardest part and not having too many options makes it easier for me. I just LOVE, Love, love this stuff. Here is one of the projects I've done so far:

Before

We purchased these lovely old things off of Craigslist a couple weekends ago.

After

 The color I used on these chairs is called "Mustard Seed" (Please excuse my poor camera skills and the delightful mess in the background)

The wonderful chipping that you can see here happens all by itself. I was a little afraid of how it would turn out, but I think it looks naturally worn and chipped in all the right places. There is a bonding agent that can be added to the paint to stop it from chipping if that's not the look you're going for.

I love the design on the backrests of these chairs! I just can't quite decide what kind of pattern, if any at all, I should use for the recovering the seats.... Hmmm, what do you think? Maybe something spicy with a poppy orange-red? Or maybe something more subtle with a soft cream/off-white color? What do you think about the chairs? Do you like them? Do you like the color? What the chippy-ness?

Spring Time Means New Life.

Well, life has been a big blur these past 6 months! But, I have actually had the chance to be creative and give new life to some great furniture in my home.

The first items I'll post about (because they're finished) are my kitchen table chairs. When we were first married a lovely older couple was updating their dining table set and gave us their old one. This table and chair set is fabulous but has been in serious need for a face-lift for a while.

Before:

After:

 

 

 Don't they look great?! I did two of the six chairs with the beautiful pendant material and the other four with the less decorative. I absolutely love how they turned out.

Here's how I did the chairs:

1. I cleaned the chairs with a wash rag and warm water.
2. I primed the chairs with the handy Zinnser 1-2-3 bonding primer. It bonds to previously finished surfaces so you don't have to sand things down. AMAZING.
3. Then I painted the chairs with Rust-oleum Painter's Touch spray paint in heirloom white with a satin finish. It took 2-3 coats but if I was careful it only took 1 can per chair.
4. After I let the paint dry/cure for a day or two I put Minwax polycrylic topcoat on to seal everything up. 

Here's how I did the seat covers:

1. I removed the previous material and staples from the seats.
2. I used the same padding that was already there and just added another layer of 1" foam on top to make them more comfy.
3. I used an indoor/outdoor material from Joann's that's supposed to endure sunlight and exposure to water (I was thinking, "Hmmm, great for kids?") to go over the seats. I stapled them on and that was it. Easy-peasy.

What I like about how I did things:

• I LOVE that the spray paint eliminates brush strokes and gives a smooth finish. 
• I love the material I chose to cover the chairs with. 
• I love how easy it was to recover the seats, and that the material will be durable.

What I don't like/would change if I did it again:

• If I didn't already have oodles of my favorite Zinnser primer I would have used a spray on primer to completely eliminate brush strokes. Even though brush strokes were minimized with the spray paint, the strokes from putting on the primer are still noticeable up close.
• I have also recently learned (after I already did this) latex paint, when fully cured, doesn't need a topcoat to seal it because it's strong and hard enough on its own. Had I known that handy tidbit I would have eliminated that step of my process to save on time and resources.

Well that's all for now. I haven't started the table yet but when it's finished I'll post before and after photos. I've also recently stumbled upon Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint and have been experimenting and becoming familiar with it. So far I love it. I'll post pictures of those projects soon too.  Thanks for stopping by!

Truth is....

Truth is... I've had a lot on my mind lately. So here comes a brain dump:

Truth is... Breast feeding sucks. Literally! It's painful and makes boobs look ugly. Once you get over engorgement there's always the cracked/bleeding nipples creeping around the corner. I hate breast feeding. If I didn't have a ridiculous notion that the world is coming to an end and formula won't be available I'd give it up right now! Luckily, however, there is technology out there that helps ease the pains. I've found a fabulous nipple shield (which has saved my cracked and bleeding nipples from feeling like I took a cheese grater to them) and I have a good pump so why am I complaining?

Truth is... I'm in love with my little baby Connor. He's so special. He has the most gentle, calm disposition and I'm thankful my Heavenly Father sent him here to me at this time. It's stretching me emotionally and physically to be a mother of two but when I sit and think about it, this is exactly what I want to be doing right now.

Truth is... With my last semester of school quickly approaching I'm having a hard time wanting to let my babes be taken care of by someone else. It's only for 16 weeks and will most likely go by quickly once it gets started, but seriously! I just wanna be done with the student phase of my life so I can move on!

Truth is... As frustrating as a two year old can be, I think this is my favorite stage that Carter has gone through. He is so full of life and energy! He has the best memory in the world and never forgets anything. He's in love with super hero's and pretends to be spider man on a daily basis. He can even almost sing the entire spider man theme song from the 1967 cartoon that's streaming on Netflix. He speaks incredibly well for a kid his age he easily speaks in full sentences (if not paragraphs) that are very articulate and understandable and never ending (he talks A LOT). He often tells me that he wants to be a doctor. Wouldn't that be cool?

Truth is... I need to get out of my house more and start enjoying this beautiful new area we live in. I've been stuck in the house basically since we've moved here. At first it was because I didn't know my way around (and I still don't) but now I'm just timid to leave the house with two munchkins. But, alas, I need to get over it. I'm a big girl and can adapt... I suppose.

Washington: Week 1.5

Well, we've officially lived in Washington a little over a week. So far it has been great! Luckily with a baby on the way and unpacking and having a two year old life has been too busy to really get home sick. I'm grateful for that every single day.

Anyway, we are renting a cute little house in a great neighborhood. We are close to church, schools, parks, shopping, the temple and pretty much anything else you could possibly need. Carter loves it here too! Sometimes when we drive away he whines and says, "No, I wanna go back to Washington!" I don't know if he fully understands that even when we leave the house we are STILL in Washington...

We attended our ward for the first time on Sunday and everybody was really nice. Our church building is basically in the same parking lot as the temple and I LOVE that. The temple here is small but beautiful. I can't wait to be able to go inside and attend a session.

Baby Connor is scheduled to be here next Tuesday October 23rd. I'm a little scared for the labor and delivery but I think that's natural. Being induced is ALWAYS risky but I'd rather risk it again than have to deal with the same kind of tearing that happened with my big boy Carter... (I just have to keep reminding myself of that.) My new doctor's name is Michele Johnson. I've met with her two times and really like her. She's very personable and was REALLY patient with me on the first visit. I went alone because it was Blake's first day of work and had to take Carter with me. He was really good... for a two year old but still, I'm sure patience was practiced and I appreciated it.

Carter's been expressing interest in potty training! I'm excited for him to be potty trained so we don't have two munchkins in diapers. Plus, he's almost 2.5 years old, it's about time. I think it will be a good activity for us to focus on once Connor is born since we probably won't be leaving the house much. Carter also has a new found fascination with Spider Man. He LOVES him. Luckily Netflix has a wide variety of Spider Man shows from the 60's that aren't too scary for my little super hero. Today he even went up to the wall and tried to climb it. He turned to me and said, "Mom, I wanna climb the house like Spider Man! Mom, I can't do it! Why can't I do it?" So I told him he needed sticky hands... Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite me!

Blake has been enjoying his new job. It has a lot of similarities to what he had been doing as far as managing goes but he's had to do a lot of learning about the healthcare field too. Luckily, he's very smart and remembers stuff like that really well. I'm lucky to be married to someone like him. He works so hard at work and then still actively participates in our family life when he gets home. I'm grateful for his sacrifices everyday. His children will grow up knowing that they were a priority in his life!

Anyway, life is good. It's better than I expected it to be. I'm actually kind of enjoying my time in Washington so far. I'm a little afraid to admit that and I'm not sure why. Rest assured, however, that my "home" will always be South East Idaho and I will always yearn to be back there again. I will update again once baby Connor is here and by then I will have some pictures ready as well.

Front Door

Soooo... Another household project. This time I tried to make-over our front door. It's a metal door and was originally dark blue. Here is a before picture (I'm really bad at before pics and so once again I had already started working on it.):

I primed the door with a primer made by Glidden called Gripper Grey. It's an indoor/outdoor primer used on and under dark colors. I primed it and let it dry over night. I don't know if the door was still too hot from the sun baking on it all day but the primer kind of crackled in a few places as it dried. This was really frustrating to me because I tend to lean towards the perfectionist side of things when it comes to painting and crackled primer is not perfect. Also, I think because the door was still warm from the day it was really easy to over-work the primer. It got tacky really quickly and if I accidentally went over it too much it kind of got gunky and weird. Anyway this is what it looked like after it was primed:

Next I painted it. I used the darkest shade of black that Behr makes in an outdoor paint and I got it in a high gloss (a big mistake). I love the color, and as always the Behr paint covered beautifully, but super glossy paint is really difficult to work with (as I learned the hard way). It would have turned out much better with a semi-gloss or even a satin finish. I've decided that I'll just stick with satin finishes from now on because they almost always look perfect when you're completely finished.

The shiny paint was difficult because if there was an inconsistency in a brush stroke or roller stroke it showed, even when it dried. This was annoying because making one long stroke from the floor to the top of the door is hard, especially being in the 8th month of a pregnancy. Oh well, this was a good learning experience for me. I did about four coats (is it cotes or coats? I dunno) and finally felt like it was "good enough". I wouldn't say that I failed miserably but I also wouldn't say that it was a huge success...Not my favorite project so far!

If you're going to paint your front door consider using something other than a high gloss paint... Unless you're going to get it painted at an auto-body shop then it will most likely look exactly how you want it: shiny and seamless. :)

How to be a good Stay-At-Home-Mom?

This summer has been a lot of fun for me and my little family. We've been crazy busy updating and cleaning our home that I haven't really had time to sit and think.

Except for this week.

Since we got the new carpet in our basement, we've been taking a chill pill from home projects and it's been wonderfully relaxing. However, I now have almost nothing to do (except the typical house work and chores). And I seem to be doing too much thinking and going a little bit nuts. This seems to happen every summer. I get bored, which leads to anxiety, which leads to any other number of unpleasurable Nakelle mood swings. And then I go back to school and order is restored. But school is quickly ending for me and I'm a bit worried that this insane feeling I have will become something that I experience all the time.

So my question is: How do stay-at-home-moms do it?

I have a wonderful 2 year old boy who is great and loving and fun and everything in between and another little boy in the oven. So, the possibility of being a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) is quite a reality for me.

How do SAHMs not go crazy? How do they keep themselves from feeling run-down and worn out? How do they stay positive when their kids are sick and cranky? How do they make time for themselves when there literally is no more time in the day? How and who do they vent to when they need to vent?

Anyway... this is just what has been on my mind for a while. If you have any tips to pass along, please do!

Here are a couple of recent pictures of our summer:

 Carter was "helping" us organize all the baby stuff. I honestly can't believe how much of that stuff we have...

My cute family enjoying the coolness of the basement.

A quick shot of what the new carpet looks like. It's one of the in-stock carpets that Home Depot carries. It's called "Firework Explosion." So far it's been fabulous and I really love its color.