Thrift Shop Find, Updated

Remember how I am a terrible painter? If you missed my last attempt at painting, here are the links Part 1 and Part 2. You should look at them if only to laugh at how bad of a painter I am. The thing that is ridiculous is not that I'm a bad painter because painting is hard, but that I keep trying when I know I'm not good. I've just always loved painting, so it's hard to give up the dream that I could be good too. There is always the hope that next time I'll be better.

So I tried again and my latest attempt was less of a 'major fail' and more of a 'eh' (which is how a lot of my DIY/craft projects turn out).

A few months ago I showed you guys this painting I found at a thrift shop (more about it here):

It was only $2.99! And it's pretty big at about 14" tall and 18" wide. I love a good deal and I also like things that are just slightly ugly. This scene, while quaint, isn't the best painting ever or anything. But when I saw it I really liked the frame and what the scene evoked. I also liked it because I've been wanting to do a 're-painting' project. I've seen a lot of projects lately that take old thrift shop paintings and update them by painting over or accenting the original (examples here, here, and here).

So I did it!

And it looks... eh. It's just so... 'eh'. Why do I keep attempting painting projects??? That is a question that I just can't answer, but swearing off of painting has done me no good in the past so I highly doubt it will make a difference now.

Not sure what I'll do with this painting. For the last few months it's been on my dresser leaning against my Scratch Map so it will probably remain there.

Have you attempted any re-painting projects? I'm a huge fan of them, but apparently they aren't quite as easy as they look.

New Blinds, Finally

Happy, happy day! I finally got new blinds in the living room! 

Soooo goood right?? While I was grateful that my house came with blinds on every window (seriously, that was amazing), they were all of the $4 vinyl variety. Not my favorite obviously, but they kept sun and people's eyeballs out. That is until Bob systematically destroyed the blinds in the living room. He kept getting his paws caught up in the cords and yanking them down. After buying four new blinds for the living room (it was only $16 but still, they are ugly and I hate buying ugly things as place holders) I said enough was enough and I refused to buy more. When he broke two more a few weeks later I held my ground. And then... well, a year later I still only had two out of four blinds in the living room, but Bob totally learned his lesson.

But, my long game paid off because when I finally decided I had enough money to buy the ones I wanted (it too me a loooong time to decide what I wanted, here is a post about that) they were on sale! $140 later (sounds like a lot but it totally isn't for blinds, trust me on that!) and new blinds were at my house. Of course, it didn't occur to me until after they came that I would have to hang them, boo. Thankfully, they came after my cast came off (oh yeah, my cast is off!!!!) but my wrist was/is still really stiff so I wasn't sure if I could do it myself (drilling is hard for me on a normal day). I asked my brother to help me hang them some time and he said yes, but in typical Jasmin style I randomly decided one day that I couldn't wait another second and that I was going to hang them that moment. And I did! The process required a lot of cursing and two-handed drilling but the end result was totally worth it. Now, let's revel in their glory shall we?

They are also thermally lined (not sure what that means, but it sounds good) so they provide great coverage at night.

Needless to say, I'm extremely happy that my wait is over.

New Art: Irvington Edition

The home tour is inching closer and in preparation for the tour I got news and a gift. The new is that, despite all the information to the contrary, my house wasn't actually built in 1925... it was built in 1922! How did I come by this info? An Irvington historian told me. Every home on the tour was researched by a historian who gathered as much information about the house as possible. All the information was interesting but the most surprising thing was that my house is three years older than I though. Crazy, huh?

I also got an awesome gift. Every year before the home tour there is a poster contest. As a one of the homeowners on the tour I got a signed copy of the winning print (done by Paula Nicewanger)!

via Facebook

Isn't it lovely? Even better, when I got home I found that the 10"x15" print fit perfectly in a frame I bought for $2 at a yard sale last summer. The frame was a dull wood color so I did a quite spray paint job to make it look a little more modern. If you are wondering how I spray painted something while wearing a cast on my dominate hand, the answer is, my cast now has spray paint on it.

I hung it in the dinning room corner that I updated a few months ago (here). I think it looks great!

Again, apologies for the blurry pictures, but dude, I'm doing the best I can with this cast. 

What I Want in My Next House

When I first contacted a realtor about buying a house her first questions to me was, "What are you looking for?" A simple enough question but I really struggled to come up with an answer. She suggested that I make a list of what I wanted in a home. After carefully consideration After five minutes I came up with this list:

Wants:
- In a specific neighborhood (I had one in mind and it helped limit my search)
- One to two bedrooms
- Within my budget
- No major damage or repairs needed (I wasn't afraid of doing cosmetic repairs but I didn't want to get stuck with a crumbling foundation or something)
- A "safe" feeling street

Although I've made a lot of cosmetic changes, this house was basically move in ready.

That was it! I couldn't think of anything else. Honestly, I got really lucky with the house I bought. Not only have I had very few problem, I actually really like this house! But after living here for 18 months I have found that I could definitely make a more complete list of 'wants' for the next time I buy. So for the sake of my memory which is failing me more regularly, here is my current list for what I want in my next house (whenever that may be):

- interior trim that is white (I love that my house has the original trim but decorating with dark trim is challenging at times)
- fenced in yard (this is Bob's only request)
- front porch (I love sitting on my front porch)
- window or door to backyard (my current house only has one window to the back yard in the second bedroom, but I think it would be really nice to have windows and a door directly into the back yard)
- hardwood floors (I love hardwood floors! They are my absolute favorite floor of choice)
- driveway (Currently I have street parking which isn't the worst thing ever but it would be nice to have my own driveway)
- garage (a garage or carport would be nice too!)
- trees (I like older homes so yards with trees is usually standard but it's on the list anyway)
- large windows (My house has pretty great windows so I'd like to keep that feature)
- deck or patio (This isn't necessary but it would be fun to have a place to hang out in the backyard)

I'd like a functional driveway in the front yard and less of a beat up
cement pad in the backyard with no car access, because that's just silly.  

Have you thought about what you want in a house? I've always dreamed about houses but when I came time to actually buy one my mind went blank!

Dining Room Corner Facelift

So the thing about weekend to-do lists is that they are a terrible idea. Mostly because as soon as I make a list I get mad about lists, like lists are fascist, I can do whatever I want, ugh. I mean, can I just live?

So guess what got done from my list I made on Friday? Yeah, nothing.

But I did do something else that was on an invisible list in my mind.

This is the corner of my dining room as it's been for the past 15 months:

Pretty sad and boring. Here is the other corner of my dining room:

I got these two windows from an antique shop for like $5 each. They are huge, 30" x 20" and pretty heavy. I'm sort of over the old window as a picture frame thing but since I've had them for over a year I just wanted to hang them and get it done with. The reason it has taken me so long to hang them is because they had no hanging hardware on them and I was nervous to attach hardware on the back, but I'll go into more detail about how I hung them on Wednesday. For now let's skip ahead to the big reveal:

I hung the windows, added a little side table from a thrift shop, and voila! The previously dead corner has life. Not that I expect anyone to actually sit in that corner and have tea or anything but I like having those two extra chairs in there for when I have more than six people over for dinner so having a little vignette in the corner make the chairs seem a little less out of place. Plus this dining room is so big that it makes it seem less like a big empty room. 

My new goal is to make to-do lists of the things I don't want to get done and then I'm guaranteed to succeed! I'd basically given up on hanging those windows because they had been sitting around so long but then I just got a rush of inspiration and did it. 

Do you actually get stuff done from your to-do list? If you do, share your secrets because I'm a big failure when it comes to that sort of stuff. 

Weekend Update: Ceiling Paint

I wish I could say that I did something awesome with ceiling paint this weekend, like this:

via Apartment Therapy

But sadly I just did a few boring touch-ups. I moved into this house 14.5 months ago and all of these 'spots' have been on my to-do list for oh about 14.25 months. Thankfully, the previous owners left a gallon of ceiling paint in the basement which I finally made myself go down and get this weekend. 

It was ridiculously rusty but the paint inside was still good-to-go after a vigorous shaking (I should have taken it into a hardware store to have it shaken in that machine-thing, but ain't nobody got time for that). 

So after shaking it up, I got my trusty 2" angled brush and I got to work on those spots. 

Spot #1

This spot on the living room ceiling has been there since I moved in and since denial is my best friend I like to think that this spot got there magically and that there is no underlying issue. After a few coats of paint...

Okay, so it's still pretty noticeable, but at least there isn't that ugly yellow ring in the middle.

Spot #2

See that really hideous yellow ring around the dining room chandelier? Yeah, that's been there for a long time. I should have used one of those decorative caps when I had the light installed, but live and learn right?

Much better! I'm so happy that I finally took 10 minutes to do this. I hope no one noticed it before so I don't expect anyone to notice it now, but I know and sometimes that is all that matters. 

Spot #3

This is the kitchen light which I actually did buy a decorative cap for, but sadly, it was too small. Oh well, I knew a little paint would make it look better I just didn't think it would take me 14.25 months to do.

So that was my big weekend project (just kidding it only took me like 30 minutes). 

Did you get any projects done this weekend?

How to Install Floating Cork Floors (Or How to Watch Someone Do That)

Like the parenthetical subtitle suggests, this is not much of a tutorial. I love blogs that go into crazy detail like YHL and Bower Power, but I am not like that. My posts tend to be on the long side, but being detailed is not a strong point for me. So this is a tutorial in the vaguest sense (now I know you're super excited to read it). Also, I apologize in advance for the poor picture quality. We did this mostly at night and I am easily distracted so I didn't remember to take pictures very often. If you want a good tutorial the ones we used are here, here, and here.

Steps to Install a Cork Floor:

1) Hire someone.

The end. Haha just kidding. But no seriously I did hire someone because I had no intention of doing this project on my own. I really wish I was handy enough to do this sort of project but that is currently way beyond my skill set and my tool supply (my fanciest tool is a hand-me-down power drill). So I hired my awesome friend* who has helped me with so many other projects at this house (bathroom tile, medicine cabinet, fence repair, shelf hanging, etc.). Because I am interested in learning how to do this sort of stuff he let me hang around and help him. Turns out I was not helpful at all but it was nice that he let me try.

2) Prep the floor.

Since the linoleum in my kitchen was relatively intact we decided to just leave it down and install the new flooring on top of it. Our first step was to pull up the toe kick around the border of the room.

Like I said the linoleum was mostly intact but around the edge it was pulling up a little so we (I say 'we' but let's be honest I had no idea what I was doing so it was mostly 'he') decided to used a blade to cut the part that was curling up off. 

Despite the bad picture quality you can hopefully see how the linoleum is curling up around the edges in the picture above. He used a blade to trim the raised part off and since linoleum is so thin we were left with a fairly smooth transition.

We also pulled up the thresholds to the basement and back door and the transition into the dining room. We also went around and checked for any missed nails (if we couldn't get them out we hammered them down so the floor was smooth). After cleaning up the debris and sweeping we were on to the next step. 

3) Underlayment. 

The next step was pretty easy and I was still able to help at this point. Because the type of cork I chose is 'floating' meaning it isn't glued or nailed down, the underlayment was very important. I did my research and found that the best one for this type of flooring is the Eco Silent Sound HD Underlayment (someone had a little too much fun naming this product). It was pretty straightforward to lay it down. 

Like I said, not good pictures, but that is what the underlayment looked like after it was all put down. We used a combination of this double sided tape and a staple gun to attach it to the floor. 

Side note: this is what my dining room looked like for a week...

It actually wasn't so bad because my dining room is abnormally big. I sort felt like I was in a ship's kitchen which was cool because who hasn't dreamed about living on a ship? I think I would like living on a ship if I didn't get so crazy sea sick... ah well, in another life maybe. 

4) Install Cork Flooring. 

I chose Lisbon Cork in Rossio from Lumber Liquidators and after a quick look at the instructions we got right into it. 

At this point I became extremely unhelpful. I was basically just leering in the corner offering very unhelpful advice. The main problem we ran into, which I did not take a picture of, is that the tongue and groove where the pieces connect was very fragile and one bad tap and the tongue would crack and then not lay properly. But we he figured it out after a few attempts. This flooring kit was really helpful as was this video. 

5) Finishing touches. 

I didn't even attempt to help at this point because it involved a lot of measuring and sawing but if you want to know how to install a toe kick... uh, Google it. 

Before the toe kick (that black thing is a spacer)

After the toe kick - it makes such a big difference! I didn't even have to repaint which was very nice. 

Another shot before: 

And after:

6) Enjoy your beautiful floor!

I guess I should have at least wiped up the floor before I took pictures, ignore the puppy paw prints...

This floor is Bob approved.  

Though I've only lived with this floor for about two weeks I am 100% happy with it. I highly recommend it! It feels great on my feet and it's easy to wipe clean when necessary. I was initially nervous about getting water on it but I don't really worry about that any more because it hasn't been a problem. Mostly I'm just happy that the beautiful floor further distracts people from noticing the boring countertop and backsplash. 

*It bears repeating... this project was managed and executed by Osborn & Stillman. Specializing in custom furniture, Osborn & Stillman also do built-ins, flooring, countertops, and pretty much anything "wood" you can imagine. Being that they are good friends of mine I heartily recommend that you contact them for any home projects you have in mind. They also did my bathroom tile and medicine cabinet which I'm still in love with. Seriously, check out their website, it'll make you want to burn all of your IKEA furniture.