pulled out the spray paint again

I bought this little table at a thrift store last September.  It was an ugly reddish brown colour.  

It may look okay in this picture but in real life it was real ugly.

But last weekend I whipped out a can of white spray paint.  

Turns out there was cute little table hiding in there!  

I love cheap thrift store finds.  I love white spray paint.  I love this little table.

The end.

ps- If I'm painting it white I always spray.  It is WAY easier.

pps- Always prime with Kilz no matter what kind of paint you plan on using.  The BEST.  Spray it on-- instant stain blocking and instant perfect surface to apply your paint.

ppps- I used Rustoleum Painter's Touch.  Used it a few times now and love it.

All of my Mom's projects...

My Mom likes to do projects too.  She usually has several on the go.  Sometimes she rips something apart or starts painting something before she even knows where it's going to go in the house.  Sound familiar?  Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree sometimes.

Well my Mom's been working hard to finish up a few things around here before she gets too involved in the next projects (the chair-- for example).  And when my sisters and I come home it's usually our job to figure out where to put everything and to make it look pretty.

Today we found this newly painted dresser a home.  We made it look pretty.

My Mom found this dresser on Kijiji... it was a blond wood in not very nice condition.

She slapped a few coats of light blue paint on the dresser and put some pretty sparkly crystal knobs on the drawers (courtesy of Lee Valley-- she chose the chrome base) and it's now looking pretty great.

You can really see the color in this picture below.

I'm loving the way it contrasts the charcoal grey walls.

Every project needs a home.

This project found it's home in one of the upstairs bedrooms. 

Nice work Mama!

Pick your favorite color... round 2.

So if a game is fun the first time... it's gotta be fun the second time around, right?  When I was trying to decide on the color to paint my (now green) side table I posted a few inspiration photos of furniture painted in fun colors-- it was fun to hear everyone's favorite picks!  So... let's play it again, shall we?

Loving this sunshine yellow... I am quite possibly attracted to sunshine yellow more these days due to the fact that the sun seems to have disappeared around here...

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This green looks a lot like the one I chose... I must be cooler than I thought :)

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this one's fun... it reminds me of an orange creamsicle.  Wouldn't this be so cute in a baby boy's nursery?

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This is probably the most perfect shade of grey to paint a piece of furniture.  I love the grey/yellow combo and I love this dresser.  If it were mine, it would always looks this perfectly staged... right :)

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Wowzers.  This one's bright, but I like it.  I like it alot.

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Alrighty... so the next few painted items are not dressers or side tables... I know.  But they are still awesome.  I love this console table.  How great is that color?  No joke, I saw a table EXACTLY like this one at MCC about a week ago for like $10 bucks.  Somebody needs to buy it and paint it like this one...

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How amazing does this look?  If my outdated kitchen cabinets were paintable, I would seriously consider doing something like this (until Doug would find out... don't think he'd go for it).  Guaranteed, your house would be the only one on the block with kitchen cabinets like this.

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These chairs are so great.  But then again, pretty much anything would look great in this kitchen.

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Now, I know you're all thinking... this game is fun Elissa... really fun, but why are we doing it again?  Well, I found another table at a thrift store the other day.  It is the perfect side table for the downstairs family room.  It looks alright as is... but I think it will look even better painted.

Now I just gotta decide what color!
So... which would you choose?

Feeling Green

Remember a looong time ago when I showed you this side table that I wanted to paint?  And I showed you a few of my not-white inspiration photos?  Well, I finally chose the color and finally finished painting the table.  And here it is today!  Not bad for a $15 thrift store find!

After much consideration I decided to go for pink.  What?!  Long story short.... I went to home depot with the intention of purchasing hot pink paint (and as Caleb would say: "it only LOOKS hot but it FEEL cold... right Mom?") but once I got there and started to look at the samples I changed my mind.  Why, you might ask?  Well, all the pink's I liked required a clear or deep base-- which would mean many many many coats of paint to get the desired shade.  So I decided to look for green, and decided on Green Energy (UL210-17... whatever that means) by Behr.  After primer, a couple of coats of the green and some Polycrylic for a more durable finish... I was done!  This is the first time I've used a protective top coat after painting... but now that you can't buy oil paint anymore, a top coat is definitely needed.  I'm hoping the finish will be as durable as oil paint, but I guess time will tell!!

Anyhow, I LOVE the green.  Doug loves the color too.  It's a bit of a bold choice, but the green looks fabulous in our room, it also looks amazing in Caleb's room and Emerson's too!  This is helpful-- since I'm constantly moving things around in our house.  And one day I will probably paint it again... but not for a long time :)

For those of you who are a bit squeamish about kid stuff-- stop reading now.

Let me fill you in on all the gory details of the week.

So as you may recall, Caleb's head isn't looking so hot these days.  He recovered quite quickly from his accident (the incident definitely hasn't stopped him from running around the house at breakneck speeds and crashing into walls head first) but two days ago he succumbed to the flu.  Of course I only realized he was sick after barf fest 2011 took place in my living room.  Let me tell you, I haven't seen or smelled something that terrible in a long time.  This resulted in the rental of a steam cleaner and Doug and I have spent the past 48 hours steam cleaning every carpeted/upholstered surface in our house.  And the car.  And Doug's mom also steam cleaned the carpets in her house.  Gotta get your moneys worth, right?

Then to top it all off, Caleb awoke this morning with a nose bleed of epic proportions.  Poor kid-- head injury, flu, nose bleeds, many many sleepless nights. yuck.

But today he must have been feeling better because I turned my back for 2 minutes and he colored all over his pants with marker.  Great.  Thank goodness for washable markers.  And with the amount of laundry I've been doing these days, I didn't even flinch.

And my little Eme bear.  After several days of being little miss grouchy pants the tooth fully emerged and my happy little girl returned.  Thank you for all of your teething advice... it will come in handy when the next tooth decides to make it's appearance.  This week Emerson has a cold... and still has grouchy days here and there, but nothing like last week!

I turn around for 2 seconds and my daughter starts eating grass.  I do feed her... really I do.

Okay, that's it!

the end.

Not White

So I have this side table sitting in my downstairs guest room.  I picked it up (correction.  Doug picked it up for me) at MCC a couple of months ago.  I think it's got good bones.  It's solid wood, the drawers slide in and out like a dream, and it's the perfect height for a bedside table.  Did I mention that it was only $15 bucks?  Side note, everything I seem to buy from MCC has the $15 price tag... strange, no?  Anyways, I don't love the color.  I want to paint it.  My first thought was white, of course.  I already have white paint at home... easy.  Lately, however, I've been thinking that a different color could be more fun.

(Please don't look at the headboard... it's still not finished!!)

So over the past few weeks, I've been on the lookout for some colorful table inspiration.  Here are some of my favorites.  

I like yellow.  I really like this little number... especially the ring pulls.  

I actually really like a lot things in the room that this yellow table resides in, you should really click on the link and check it out.

Little Green Notebook

This bright yellow table caught my eye at Home Sense a while back.  Yes, I take pictures in Home Sense.  It's become one of my favorite past times since acquiring my new phone.  It may not be as fun as buying things, but it's cheaper... if I can't take it home with me I might as well take a picture :)

I love this green.  And that mirror...

Young House Love

How about these cheerful blue ones?  I like the glossy finish.

Little Green Notebook

And this grey blue number caught my eye.  That table looks so familiar.  I'm pretty sure everyone's grandma has a table like this in their basement.  If you have one, you really should paint it :)

Rambling Renovators

And of course, I'm loving this pink table.  Seriously, I would have never thought that I would be attracted to a hot pink dining room table, but it's awesome.

Life in the Fun Lane

So now... what to do?  What to choose?
What's your pick?

Paint Post!

As requested, here are the paint colors we used in our house!  Fan decks have been known to frustrate and overwhelm people.  Looking at the wall of paint chips in paint stores used to send my head spinning, until I worked in the paint section of a home improvement store and was forced to stare at it all day long!  Now I'm always interested to know which paint colors people are using in their homes!  I've had a lot of people ask me how we chose the colors in this house.  Here's what I did:

1.  I borrowed the fan deck from the paint store.  It's so hard decide which paint chips you like in the store-- instead I brought them ALL home with me so that I could see them in the space... not in the store's funky lighting.
2.  Since I was painting the entire main floor I selected 4 colors that all went together... and that I liked!  Instead of picking a color for each room hoping they would all go together-- I did the opposite. Instead I selected colors that worked the best together within the house knowing that they would all make their appearance in a room somewhere along the way.
3.  Then I had 4 gallons of each color mixed up.  I brought them all home and painted a 1x1 foot square of each color in each room.  Over the next few days I observed how the colors looked in each room's different lighting and made my decisions!  (I had time on my hands-- there was so much priming to accomplish first!)

I tend to be drawn to colors with more muted undertones-- I think they have more depth and interest.  Whenever I am selecting a new color I usually try to find the shades that have grey/green undertones since they tend to be a bit more warmer and interesting.

So!  Without further adieu, here are the paint colors found in our house!!

In the living room, dining room, kitchen and hall we used Benjamin Moore's Intense White (OC-51).

We wanted a neutral light grey that wouldn't feel too icy.

In the master bedroom and main floor bathroom I used
Benjamin Moore Horizon (OC-53).

It's a really light blue that has a bit of green in it which
keeps it from feeling too cool.

In Emerson's room we used Benjamin Moore's Woodlawn Blue (HC-147).  This wasn't one of the original four colors I chose-- we picked this color later on when the room was becoming a nursery!
It's a nice soft shade of blue that still has a bit of intensity.  One of my favorite things I love about the color is that it always looks a little bit different throught the day in different lighting.

In Caleb's room, we used French Canvas (OC-41).
It's a light neutral that is a really subtle grey color.  This color was also in Emerson's room initially when it was still an office.  I really loved it because any color scheme works with this shade on the walls.  It also makes rooms feel really warm and bright.

The last of the four colors I originally selected didn't make it into the upstairs.... instead it's been making its appearance in the basement!  The color is November Rain (OC-50)-- it's a bit more greener than the others.

Here's a few pictures of November Rain in action!

More on these rooms later-- when they're finished!

I hope this post wasn't too boring for y'all!  Hopefully all the paint junkies out there found it interesting.  Anyone else have a favorite tried and true color they'd like to share?