Fun with white paint

As you know I am a big fan of black paint. So far our headboard, the powder room vanity, the living room mirror, and (some of) the kitchen cabinets have been painted black. Well lately I've been on the opposite end of the spectrum and have been having fun with white paint.

It all started with this coffee table I found on Craigslist:



When I saw it I thought it would be perfect for the living room. I've always felt like that room could do with a bigger coffee table but every big one I saw was too pricey. Enter this huge, solid wood beauty with an even more beautiful price tag: $35!

The color wasn't great but that's what paint is for!

At first I thought I'd paint it black (surprise, surprise) but because its so big I was worried it would suck all the light out of the room. So I decided to go with white.



(The Trader Joe's daffodils are back - a bunch of 10 blooms for an unbelievable $1.29!)



(Once again all the animals felt the need to get in the picture. The only reason you don't see Zoey is because we didn't have her yet!)

I'm still getting used to having so much white in the room but I definitely like it!

I think I spent about $20 on supplies so I am pretty happy to have a huge 'new' coffee table for under $60!

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I was so happy with how the coffee table turned out I started thinking about other things I could paint white. The craft room is on my to-do list for later in the year and I've given myself a pretty small budget for it so I've been collecting used furniture to use in there. This thrift store chair has been sitting in the garage, patiently awaiting a makeover.

She started out like this:





Pretty ugly huh?

And after some spray paint, new foam and fabric, she now looks like this:



I seriously LOVE it!!!

I cant believe I almost left that ugly chair at the thrift store - isn't it amazing what paint and fabric can do?

I think my darling black paint has some competition :-)

A new (puppy) baby

Meet Zoey!



She got chomped in the face by one of the other dogs at the breeder's house so they deeply discounted her because she's all scarred up now. We don't mind though and were more than happy to bring her home.

Master Bedroom update

We 'finished' our master bedroom a year ago. I was happy with how it turned out but I always felt like it was a bit too blue. I bought the blue bedding before we moved into the house, and then we decided to paint the walls a light gray color. The color we chose is called "Light french gray" but when we put it on the walls we discovered it was more blue than gray. Luckily we love the color but combined with the blue bedding its a bit of blue overkill.

So for the past couple of months I've been thinking about how I can switch it up a little without buying a bunch of new stuff.

I found these pillows at Target and did a happy dance in the aisle when I discovered they had been marked down to $10 in the after Christmas sale! I think technically they are 'winter' pillows but since I am drawn to cool colors I think they can work year round.

Unfortunately they didn't work with the blue duvet so I started looking for a light gray one. I checked Ross, Home Goods, TJMaxx, and Marshall's regularly with no luck, and then finally I found a dark gray set at Home Goods.

I was worried it might be a bit dark and masculine, so to soften it a little I made white pillow cases for our big square pillows out of a twin sheet. They aren't perfect but for $8 and a little time they are perfect enough for me!

And that's how we made the change from this:

To this:

I love it! It seems so much fresher and modern and the gray doesn't seem too dark at all!

Next I wanted to spruce up the bay window a little. It looked like this for a while:

Then I moved the ottoman downstairs so it has looked like this for the past couple of months:

I thought some light and airy curtains would add some nice softness to the room. Originally I had planned to hang curtains on all the windows but I couldn't get the curtain rods to work on the small windows so I just hung them on the big window (does it look weird?). They are the same Ikea curtains I used in the living room and they aren't the highest quality but at $10 for 2 panels they're unbeatable! The black chair is relocated from the family room - we never sat on it down there. Its a little bulky for the small bay window but its free so we'll make it work!

I don't know what the deal is with our pets but they are constantly trying to get into the picture!

What do you think? Is it an improvement or is the gray too dreary?

Pet portraits

As you know we are completely a little obsessed with our pets. We already have pictures of them all over the house and we just added a few more to our collection.

My friend and co-worker, Kaethe, is an artist in her free time and started doing pet portraits a few years ago.

Just before we moved into our house she painted Monkey and Hobbes and then I temporarily lost them due to disorganized packing. I recently found them and then asked her to paint Zeke too.

They are pretty small (5 x 5) but they capture our darlings perfectly!

Monkey



Hobbes



Zeke





We have this skinny wall as you walk into the family room and it fits the pet portraits perfectly!



Aren't they cute?!

Spring is here!

The winters are never very long here in northern California but I think ours is officially over.

We were working in the backyard this weekend and I noticed our peach tree is covered in little buds. I hope this year's peaches are bigger than the miniature ones we had last year. Although its probably my fault since I didnt water the tree. At all. Oops!

We are in the process of cutting down this unattractive bush (because its a hiding place and litter box for the neighborhood cats) but I quickly grabbed a snap of its spring growth. I like how the new light green leaves look next to the dark green older ones.

This purple guy (girl?) is cascading over the neighbor's fence behind the mail boxes.

These mustard weeds are everywhere - especially along the sides of the freeway. Even though they are pesky weeds I still enjoy their sunny yellow flowers.

The cherry blossoms are starting to bloom and I just love their pretty pink color!

(These cherry blossom trees are outside the grocery store and Josh sat in the car embarrassed while I took a few pics. I think I embarrass him a lot.)

These are my Valentine's day flowers from Josh - they have a springy vibe so I think they are appropriate for this post too.

Anyone else experiencing an early spring?

The loft: a work in progress

Wow its been a long time since I last posted! I thought it had only been a week or two but apparently my sense of time is a little off ...

Its been cold and rainy for the past few weeks so we've spent a lot of time lazing around indoors but its time to start being productive again! Apart from our bedroom the upstairs of our house is in a complete state of disarray so its definitely time to change that. First up: the loft!

The loft is mainly going to be a man room but will also store books, CDs, and games so I guess I'll get to go in there now and then :-)

This is the best pic I have of the room (from when we first moved in):

Over the past year we've filled it with a bunch of junk (actually stuff that will eventually go in there), painted the ceiling, cut in the walls, and replaced the ceiling fan. Currently it actually looks worse than when we started!

This is our plan for the furniture / layout:

(please excuse my kid-like drawings)

We got a great deal on an Ikea slip-covered sofa on craigslist and we're planning on building our own bookshelves. Besides the headboard I made for our bedroom neither of us has any woodworking experience so who knows how they'll turn out.

I found this awesome blog called knockoffwood and it has plans to make all kinds of furniture so we're using her plans to make these shelves:

Hopefully I'll be able to report back with some shelves that resemble these and not a crumbled pile of wood :-)

Since I work better under pressure I'm shooting for us to get most of the room done in the next month but considering how little we've done in the past year that might be a little optimistic!

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In other news, Wednesday was the one year anniversary of the day we got Zeke. Its hard to believe we've had our sweet little boy for a whole year already.

He may look like a tough dog, but he spends his nights wrapped up in his blanket between us on the bed ...

Awwwwww :-)

This dog ...

... is far too patient with me!



"Oh geez she has the camera - this is never good."



"I'll just pretend I don't care that I look ridiculous right now."



"Does this make me look girly?"