Words From the Wise Irish Twin

To add some family fun lovin' to our blog, (er, what I really mean is, to distract you from the sad but true fact that I don't have another project whipped up or one of the many I've been "working on" done) I asked my Irish twin sis, Farrah, to guest post this lovely weekend.  She was born ten months and five days after me - me in February and her in December - and yes, we have the same mother.  As the story goes, our mother got a surprise notification at her post-birthing-me exam.  :)  News to us and known by God, we endearingly refer to that blessed surprise as "Peach".  She's one of the most artistic, creative people I know and I'm so excited for her to share her wisdom with y'all.  So, without further ado, here's Peach:

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Well, I'm excited to say, I am one day closer to putting my sister's fabulous tutorials, tips, and tricks to practice! But first, I must CLEAN.

A recent series of events has landed us in this little ditty.

It's a cute, little, three-bedroom house only a couple blocks from the beach. 

As my sister knows, I am a total sucker for all-natural products and all things DIY and budget-friendly; having a new baby only makes me more so.

So, to prepare my canvas (aka new home), I am pulling out all my cleaning secrets (or maybe not so much secret) but certainly all-natural, DIY, and cost-effective cleaning methods. Of particular interest, and for the purposes of this post, I am highlighting odor-fighting tricks and wanted to throw out a couple quick and easy recipes. Bear with me.

1. I use this to wipe down pretty much everything, including walls:

ALL PURPOSE CLEANING SOLUTION:

1 part (preferably distilled) water to 1 part distilled white vinegar

Lemon EO (optional)

That's it. So easy right? And vinegar as a cleaning agent rocks. Read more about it here. (O, and don't worry, as you clean, the vinegar smell will completely dissipate.) The essential oil is totally optional. Sometimes I'll even just throw in a fresh lemon peel (makes it pretty). A note though about the benefits of lemon essential oil. It is thought to lift spirits and fight fatigue and psychological weariness (definitely helpful when cleaning), and is a powerful antiseptic - antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal (also good for cleaning). It's also useful for a lot of other cool things. See here.

So, to rid of smells trapped in walls (aside from painting... also very effective, and I'm certain you can find a tutorial about that on here somewhere), I simply wipe them down with this solution using a soft sponge (so as not to destroy the paint).

I also set out bowls of straight up vinegar where needed (particularly smelly areas like closets) and let them sit anywhere from overnight to several days.

*Tip: If you get a gallon jug of vinegar, use half the jug to set out in bowls and replace that half of the jug with water to make your cleaning solution. To this I add about 40+ drops of Lemon EO.

2. To deodorize the carpet, we use this:

NATURAL CARPET DEODORIZER

(Recipe adapted from aromaweb.com)

1 12 ounce container of baking soda

8 drops Tea Tree EO (optional)

8 drops Lemon EO (optional)

16 drops Lavender EO (optional)

You can always find a use for baking soda so be economical and get a big box. But also get one of the small 12oz ones with the holes in it that permit you to "shake" it onto your carpet and just refill it as needed. Again, straight up baking soda does the trick but I love using essential oils, especially because of their antibacterial and disinfectant properties (the above named are particularly useful). If you choose to use the oils, simply add them to the container and shake it all up really well (you may have to remove a little baking soda first to give you room to do so). 

To use, simply sprinkle onto your carpet, allow it to sit for 20 minutes (sometimes I leave it overnight) and then vacuum it up. That's it!


A few more smell-good tips:
– Sprinkle several drops of your favorite essential oil (mine is lavender) onto your ac filter to get the house smelling fabulous in seconds. Sort of like a giant diffuser. (My husband was the genius behind that one.)
– Also, dry coffee grinds are another great odor-neutralizer and can be set about in small bowls/cups much like the vinegar.
– Dilute several drops of your favorite essential oil in a spray bottle with water and use like you would Febreze. 

So there you have it. Now my sweet daughter can rest her weary head upon fields of clean, aromatic carpet and reserve her energies for things of greater importance, like finding her lost sheep...

Note: She does have a bed. I only do this for pictures. I swear. Check out more here.

Thanks for reading and happy cleaning!

~Farrah

Toothpicks Galore

I recently swiped up this Target mirror

complete with a few dents and a bunch of tape residue due to someone placing some sticky stickers on it's pristine surface.  Happy camper I was though because I took it home for 3 bucks, knowing a little creativity would hide those imperfections and leave me with a brand new mirror.

So, I brainstormed for about a week on what I could do to fix it up; something that would barely make a noticeable difference to the 'ole bank account.  Here's what I came up with:

Should I...modge podge fabric or scrapbook paper on?  Glue on sticks from the backyard?  Cut wine bottle corks into small circles and glue them on?  Glue twine or some sort of string around it's perimeter?  Since it was going in the laundry room, glue on some clothes pins?  Use a silver sharpie to draw on some sort of design?  Glue on tile/rocks/pearls/vase fillers?  On and on and on my brain racked.  

After making two maybe-something-will-pop-out-at-me trips to Michael's, I was almost set on the gluing on tons of pearls option...but I couldn't find any faux pearls that weren't meant to be strung/without a hole in them, not to mention the fact that the amount of pearls I needed would cost more than I wanted to spend.  

So it was that I felt like I was back to brainstorming when I stumbled upon a little box of goodness and inspiration as I was reaching into our cupboard for a can of soup for lunch - TOOTHPICKS!  Perfect!  I could glue lots of toothpicks around the perimeter!  A trip to the store and I was all set!

      

Out came the mirror, which I first cleaned with a damp cloth.  I really didn't bother trying to scrape the sticker residue off much since it was just going to get covered up, besides, the mirror frame is made out of MDF and I really didn't want to warp it with cleaner and lots of scraping.

 In the above picture you can see penciled lines - I quickly tested the 'draw on it with silver sharpie' idea using a pencil just to see if the design I had in mind would look good.  As you know now though, that idea was scrapped and eventually disappeared behind the chosen wood sticks.

To attach the toothpicks to the frame, I used some craft glue we already had.  I worked in sections, lest the glue dry faster than I could work, and simply laid a thin foundation of glue, threw on a handful of toothpicks, and arranged them next to each other.

To make sure the toothpicks were laid at the correct angles, I laid the top and sides first as a base to go off of.

 When I got to the pegs, I just trimmed some toothpicks to fit around each.

500 toothpicks later, we have this:

 A mini-mudroomesque spot to hang a coat or two and maybe an umbrella.  :)

I really love the natural look of it but if ever the tides change, the toothpicks could easily be stained or I could whip out some of my favorite color in a can and spray paint the entire frame.

It will also serve us well as a memo board of sorts to hold to-do lists, birthday reminders, and whatever else we feel we need posted, all in the name of beauty AND function.  :)

Total cost:

Mirror:  an "as-is" steal for $3

Toothpicks:  $3 (I only used 2 boxes of the 6 I purchased...and will be returning the extra 4) 

Craft glue:  free (already had) 

Grand Total:  $6

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I was anticipating a post this weekend on our 'painted wallpaper' but it's taking much, much longer than I expected.  I only had time to spend about three hours on it this week and I'm only a third of the way done.  Needless to say, it's made me question my sanity and marvel at the beauty it adds to our bathroom all at the same time...  I hope to have it done, time allowing, within the next couple of weeks!  It'll be one post you won't want to miss!  Until next week though, have a great weekend y'all!  :)

Hung Over

No, this post doesn't have anything to do with alcohol...or a self-induced nausea fest as a result of too much of it (I don't see how that's "fun"...never have, never will).  Anyway, it does, however, have everything to do with valances.  And it all began with a little bit of this:

and a little bit of that:

I know some of you (eh-hem, Farrah) were hoping I'd have a post on a finished loveseat this lovely Saturday Friday (I know, I usually post on Saturdays but tomorrow my world wide web access will be a world wide won't), but alas, it still sits undone.  I'm at the point with it where I need Anthony's help and he's been swamped with school and work so - no Anthony, no help, no loveseat...yet.  But back to the valances.  It's been on Anthony's to-do list for me to whip up some valances to adorn our dining area windows for like a year.  Finding the perfect fabric took me a long, long time...one reason for the delay in said project...but I did find it.  It wasn't as cheap as I'd been hoping (actually it's the most expensive fabric I've ever bought at $17 a yard) but luckily I only needed two yards to get these babies made.

Here's how it all went up:

First I painstakingly cut out the four rectangles that would soon be sewn into valances and laid them out on our living room floor to make sure they'd look okay...a.k.a. to make sure that there weren't two side-by-side that looked too similar.

I could've made each valance exactly the same - the same floral pattern across each - but that would've required about 4 yards of fabric and I wasn't willing to splurge.  Besides, I liked that they would all be different and since I was using a floral, I could do that without it looking off.

Next up I cut the lining that would be sewn onto the back of each valance.  All I did was lay a large piece of lining fabric (don't know the technical term) over the future valance and then cut it to be about an inch smaller.

After everything was cut I went back and forth from ironing down seams, pinning, and sewing until I had five almost perfect valances ready to be attached to the wood beams that would hold 'em up.

We used two, long (8 ft. I think?) pieces of the cheapest 1x2 pine strips at Lowe's but made sure they were straight before we bought 'em...very important!  Enter handy man Anthony, who cut the wood pieces to the measurement we needed to fit each window.  Because of my little perfectionist personality, I also gave the under side of the wood beam (the side that would show if you looked under the finished valance) a coat of white spray paint, you know, so in case anyone looked underneath they'd look nice too (okay, maybe I'm crazy).  Then, Anthony attached some corner braces we picked up for 75 cents for 2 at our local ReStore.

  

In comes the staple gun and newly sewn valances.  First, we stapled the valance to each corner.  Since we wanted the valances to wrap around the entire piece of wood, we did this first to ensure the fabric was centered and that the side seams were straight and would be flush with the wall.

Then, to make sure the valance hung level, I quickly measured along the length of it.  When I had measured twice and was certain of it's perfection, we began the stapling.

I held each valance in place while Anthony did the clickety-clicking.

We didn't use too many staples since the valances were super lightweight - about one every 4-6 inches.

And then, after a tough 20 minutes of holding and stapling, we celebrated our 'hang-overs' with a rousing game of hide-and-seek.  Ten points if you can find Anthony!  :)

 Haha...that was fun.  Anyway, we did get around to putting them up and we're thrilled with them!  While we were staring, admiring our work, Anthony said "They look so good.  I can't believe we went this long without anything up there."  I don't know...how did we ever survive?!  : p



In case you were curious as to what they looked like underneath...

 To get the crease on the corners, Anthony broke out the iron and made his own corner...yep, that's what I said, Anthony used the iron...I know, I'm a lucky woman.

And finally, here's the whole shebang:

We also hung an itty-bitty valance over the window above the sink, but lighting conditions and a not-so-great camera wouldn't allow a good pic.  You can take my work for it though, it's darn cute.  Now I just need to dress up our plain jane table with a runner and decor or something.  And, now that we've got valances up, the wall to the right of the windows is looking a little too blank and bland, but don't worry, I've got a collage project up my sleeve and I'm sure you'll be hearing about it.  :)

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Stay tuned in the coming weeks if you wanna see a curb-side rocking chair make-over and painted wallpaper...and, crossing my fingers and hoping for time, an un-antiqued, antique loveseat finito.  :)  That's all.  Have a happy weekend everyone!

Triple Attack

In this house, on this Saturday, we've got three unfinished projects in motion.  One, ze master basroom:

It's painted but not all the way...you'll see what I mean in a couple of weeks.  Also, a roman shade needs to be made and hung.

Two, ze teking-forever lofeseat:

Finally ready to be reupholstered - that's the batting alayin' on top!!!!  Hopefully we're working on that while you're reading this!

Sree, ze valances in ze kitchen/dining room:

Don't remember if this project has been formally introduced yet but we're concocting some valances to adorn our dining room windows.

So, next Saturday, you can expect at least one fully finished project unfolded in a blog post.  I do, however, have one other teeny, tiny project to show and it involves a sweet little bundle named Alex.  Alex just happens to be our one month old Godson.  He's getting baptized tomorrow and we are so excited!  As a reminder of our love for him, I souped up a wee-little onesie with a little paint brush and some red acrylic paint:

And, just for kicks (and to make sure his loyalties are set at a young age), I pulled out the white paint and branded a hoodie with his Godparent's fave team. 

So, if all that doesn't make a smorgasbord of a post, to top it all off, I recently revamped our "Our First Nest" page and ran across these two 'home tour' videos, taken right before we moved down south and courtesy of 'yours truly'.  Take it away Anthony!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Making Granite Out of Laminate

Since the beginning of our master bathroom mini-makeover, seen here, here, and here, we've been tossing around ideas in regards to replacing the dated, cream-colored, laminate countertops.  After shopping around and realizing that nothing we could buy in a store would fit in our budget (or be worth the investment in this house, with this market), we thought we were on track to create some concrete countertops, and then Tuscan Accents from Lowe's came into the picture.  Tuscan Accents is a line of paint products made to give your walls a sort of Italian charm using two different kinds of paint - one as a base and one as a top coat with a cool spotty effect achieved by using a stippling brush to dab on paint, waiting for the paint to semi-dry, and then wiping excess paint from the surface.  You can read more about it and see some examples by clicking here.  We, on the other hand, took the idea to our countertops, thinking that we'd conduct a little painting experiment - if it didn't work, we had the concrete to fall back on and if it did, well, we'd be two happy little jumping beans.  :)

When we decided to paint our tops, we actually toyed with two different techniques before we chose the Tuscan Accents route.  The other idea was to use a spray paint with a stone-looking effect.  So, to decide which idea would win, I tried out both on a piece of backsplash we removed the week before.  First, I primed the entire piece with a spray primer - Rustoleum's White.  Then I went to work using some leftover paint from our living room.  Here's what it looked like when I was done (with a little photoshopping for results sake):       

1 - Stone spray paint - a no go.  We weren't crazy about the colors - speckled ivory with a sort of greeny-beige - and couldn't find another color we liked.

2 -  Tuscan Accents with a semi-gloss white base - I liked it, Anthony didn't.  The lines between the dried, stuck on paint and the wiped off paint were very obvious.

3 - Tuscan Accents with the white primer as the base coat - nope.  I put too much paint on here so that when I wiped the excess off several minutes later, most of the paint was still wet and therefore came off leaving large splotches.  It really wasn't bad but in the end we liked...

4 - Tuscan Accents with the white primer as the base coat - winner, winner, chicken dinner!  Just the right amount of paint was dabbed on, left to dry, and wiped off to create this look.

5 - Tuscan Accents with the white primer as the base coat - nada.  This was actually my first attempt at the Tuscan Accents but I didn't wait long enough to let some paint dry and it ended up just looking like one big smear. 

So, after we decided on #4, I applied a glossy polycrylic finish (more on that later) over the area make sure it wouldn't yellow the TA finish and to see the look of it.  It worked great.  Then came the real test.  I pulled out my curling iron and straightener to test the durability of the future bathroom countertops, thinking they would be it's biggest ransackers.  It passed with flying colors!  Even though the surface became pretty hot after I left the straightener sit on it (on it's highest setting for 10 minutes), the surface was unscathed!  So anyway, on to the good stuff after I just rambled on for about a million words to set the stage...

First, we prepped by removing the sinks and covering all surrounding areas (thank you Catholic Weekly) since we'd be using the same spray primer as on the test strip.

Then I took a hand sander to the top to remove any sheen and build-up and to create a surface the primer would stick to.

After wiping any and all residue caused by sanding, we were ready to prime.  We made sure the window was wide open and even set a box fan in it, blowing any fumes outside.  While I sprayed, Anthony held a large piece of cardboard underneath the front lip of the top to protect the cabinets.  Here it is, all primed and ready to go:

Next up - painting or should I say, stippling.  I mentioned above that the TA look is achieved by dabbing on paint with a stippling brush.  They sell the brush at Lowe's for 20 bucks.  But, I wasn't going to spend 20 bucks for it considering it was basically a glorified scrub brush.  On the tester strip I 'tested' with a scrub brush we had on hand and it worked wonderfully, so why not continue using that same scrub brush, right?  It saved us $20 and now can brag that it's multi-purpose - "for all of your cleaning and painting needs".  :)  

All I did was dip the brush into a tupperware dish filled with paint and dabbed it onto the top.  I worked in sections, dabbing one section, waiting 17 minutes for it to dry, wiping excess paint, then moving on to the next section.  It was hard to get good pictures of the process as the paint we decided on was so light, but I tried... 

Waiting for it to dry:

Right before wiping (see how some of the paint is dry and some is shiny and wet?):

(Side note:  I might be worth mentioning that to wipe, I used an old, cut up t-shirt of Anthony's and also used a fresh, dry piece for each section.)

To do the front face of the tops, Anthony ran a line of tape underneath the lip to protect our freshly painted cabinets:

Here it is, all painted and ready for poly:

For added protection and to achieve the glossy sheen we were looking for we used Minwax Polycrylic.  After searching "painted laminate countertops" on Pinterest, we decided to go with the popularly used, non-yellowing polycrylic over epoxy ($$$) and polyurethane (yellows).  Using our best paint brush, I painted on seven coats over three days, leaving at least 2 hours of drying time in between each coat.  I also lightly (and I mean lightly) sanded down each coat before painting on the next because the poly directions said to and to get a smooth surface (in the beginning, the paint was a little bumpy so sanding each coat eventually leveled the top out).

This is after two coats of poly:

And this is after the lucky seven coats:

We are SO happy we decided to take the painting route.  You'd have to see it for yourself, but we honestly think that you'd have to take a second glance to realize it wasn't quartz or granite.  As for what it cost us:

Primer - already had

Paint - sample size at $3

Scrub brush - already had  :)

Polycrylic - $16.50 at Wal-Mart (cheaper than the same stuff at Lowe's) and we only used about half of the can bringing the total down to $9 

Paint brush - already had

Grand Total = $12

Some other possibly pertinent information:

1.  Our countertop is 18 square feet.

2.  The paint color we used for the top coat is called 'Oatlands Subtle Taupe' by Valspar.  (I had them add only 75% of the color at Lowes so that it was a little lighter but then added more white at home so really it's a custom light grayish-tan color.)

[Three years later, the countertops are still doing good!  Read the update post here!]

Anyway, I feel like I just wrote another ba-jillion word post about diy but I hope you enjoyed our little, muy successful painting experiment!  As I type these last few words, Anthony is putting the sinks back in (muttering "I hate plumbing" under his breath) so I'm gonna skidaddle and help him and then I'm off to play hair dresser and make-up artist for the day for some teens as Homecoming is this eve.  :)  Have a great weekend everybody!  I'll be back next weekend with more diy craziness!

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P to the S:  If anyone has taken on the task of revamping their laminate countertops with paint, please send us pics and tell us how they've fared so far!  We'd love to hear from other peeps who are as paint crazy as us!  If you're contemplating it, we encourage you to take the leap...and then send us your pics!