Max's Bedroom - Baseboard Heater Covers

I did this in Maila's room....

And I thought it was only fair that Max's room get the same treatment!!
These are just some pictured updates... let me know if you guys want a full in-depth tutorial on how to make wooden baseboard heater covers!

Above is a reminder shot of his beautiful metal baseboard covers.... (also the pretty paint job)
Below is the progress shot.... MUCH BETTER!!

xoxo
Hailey

How to get paint off of Laminate Floors

Guys, there's been a lot of painting going on at my house. And I have a lot of toddlers. Well, ok. I don't have A LOT of toddlers, but I have two. SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE A LOT OK??!

So maybe one of them walked around in her shoes and maybe she got paint all over the floor because maybe I had taken out the plastic cover because it was bothering me ok?? So MAYBE THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!!

Let's not lay the blame out on who done it... let's just fix it.

Ok. So just imagine these little white paint spots ALL OVER EVERYWHERE. I do count my blessings though that at least it's not carpet in the basement!!

The solution to my problems was 100% Acetone. I first tested it in a corner of the closet to make sure that it wouldn't hurt the finish on my floors. MAKE SURE YOU CHECK!! After that, I got a little rag, poured some acetone on the rag and then got to scrubbing the floors. It worked like a charm!!

Above is the after.. MUCH BETTER!! Now excuse me while I do this in 3 rooms....


xoxo
Hailey

Max's Room - Getting rid of that HORRIFIC paint job!

Ugh. Guys. I love color. Really, I can handle it, I promise... but Max's room was just so out of control. That nasty paint job had to go before we moved in!!!

Here's a reminder of what it looked like...

My favorite/most hated part of the room are the blue and green cirlces that make the transition from yellow to purple less horrible.

Ugh.

First things first... these colors required TWO coats of primer and TWO coats of paint!!

Ahh.. now breath a sigh of relief! Doesn't it look so much better???


xoxo
Hailey

Maila's Room - Building the Board & Batten

Ok. This is probably my favorite room in the house so far!! This was definitely a labor of love. And Maila is only 4 so she probably doesn't appreciate how much work I put into this project, but let's be real... while I want Maila to love this room... I also want to love it. Enter BOARD & BATTEN.

When we last saw eachother, Maila's room looked something like this...

I had just added the chair rail around the span on the room...

NOW it looks like this....

Oh my goodness.. It's so pretty and such a difference!! Let me know you how I got there!!


After adding the horizontal chair rail around the entire perimeter of the room... I hopped on over to Lowes and picked up some 1x2 pieces of primed MDF..... (the material I used to the chair rail was a 1x3 primed MDF)

Since I knew I was already going to be painting all of the trim I was planning to put into the room, I wanted to save myself some time and get something already primed.

I measured from the top of the baseboard to the bottom of the chair rail, cut the board to the right size and screwed them into the wall... it looked a little like this...

I ran into a couple of problems while I was doing this throughout the room. So let me help you so if you decide to do this, you won't run into problems too...

The MDF is wider than my baseboard. But I didn't want to have to take out my baseboards, but I didn't want the MDF sticking out awkwardly over the baseboard. My solution was the cut the bottom part of the vertical slats, where they meet the baseboard, at a 45 degree angle so they would kind of give the illusion that they were the same width as the baseboards....

I know that's confusing.. here's a picture!

Above is showing you the 45 degree angled cut on the bottom of the MDF... Below is what it looks like on the wall...

Yes, yes, I could have bought some slimmer trim to do the vertical slats with, but I wanted them to have some weight and add some depth to the room. So this is why I chose this option.

The other problem I ran into was that I ran out of enough MDF to do every single vertical slat in one piece. See below....

It was a simple solution... I just took left over MDF, measured it to size, cut it, and then installed it.

 Here is what it looked like after. Nothing a little spackle, wood filler, and caulk can't hide!!

Here's what it looked like installed throughout the room before it was painted....

I did have to pay attention to where the sockets went in the room. Whenever I went to install the vertical trim and there was a socket, I had to be sure that I could put the cover on the socket and not have the trim in the way. It wasn't hard, just meant that some boards had to be moved over slightly.

After I finished installing ALL of the trim, then came the time consuming part...

CAULKING EVERY SEAM

Ok guys.. if you want your project to look like someone who actually knew what they were doing did it, then all the seams need to be caulked. all of the surfaces need to be sanded. Where the screws went in, they all need to be countersunk and then filled in with wood filler and then sanded again.

All the surfaces need to be smooth and no noticable seams should be showing!! It's a LOT of work, and takes a LOT of time...but if you put in the time in the prep work... the outcome will be totally worth it!!!

xoxo

Hailey

Maila's Bedroom - Primer, Paint, Chair Rail & Baseboards!

Whew!! That's a lot of work going into one little girl's room!!

Yesterday the kids woke up early so I decided to take advantage of it and get some work done. I loaded up our van with some things from our rental and headed over. We got there around 8:20 AM and I did not get home until 12:45 AM... Yes you read that right... I spent 16 ish hours at the house working. I am SO TIRED!!! But I got so much done!!

Here's what it looked like before I spent 16 hours in one day ripping it apart...

And here is what it looked like when I left at 12:45 AM...

Sorry for the low quality - it was late.

- 2 coats of Primer
- 2 coats of Pink Paint on the top half of the wall
- Chair rail wood cut and installed (I used pre-primed MDF)
- Old metal baseboards removed, cleaned, and replaced with custom wooden baseboard heater covers that I MADE!! Woo!

Old Metal Baseboard

New Baseboard Heater Covers

Kyle is a little concerned about the efficiency of wooden covers on baseboard heaters... but I think I may line the back with some aluminum strips to help them be more efficient. I HATE HATE HATE the look of baseboard heaters in general but the metal covers are especially gross. I LOVE how this wooden cover looks! Like LOVE it! I made it study enough that little feet can stand on it too to see out of the window! 

It looks so much better, and to be honest - I'm super proud of myself that I was able to complete so much today!! Lucky for me I had lots of help - my sweet friend came over and brought her kids so that they could keep my kids occupied and she helped me paint! And I'd like to give a special thanks to my new compound miter saw for keeping me company on that long lonely night!

There is still lots to do in this room.. I need to finish installing the board and batten on the walls, caulk everything so it looks more professional, paint the lower half of the wall, the trim, and the baseboard heater cover. I also need to paint the two columns in this room. Also - I'm not sure if you noticed or not but there is no paint on the very top of the wall.. that is where hopefully the crown molding will go!

So much to do... and we are moving into this house in less than three weeks!!! AHH!

Tutorials to follow later! This was just a sneek!

xoxo

Hailey

A good powerwash, and vine removal!

From the moment we drove up to this house for the first time, we knew. We just KNEW that ONE DAY we were going to come back here and rip out all of the vines on the side of the house!!

Climbing vines look SUPER gorgeous on some houses, but on this one, they just didn't work. They had grown a little wild and were in between the deck boards and the siding on the house. That is when you know they have to go!!

My husband ripped it all off while I was inside taking pictures of the house (he could NOT wait), so I only got this picture of him taking off the very last bit..

Guys - the view!!

The vines had grown up the utility box thing that sits on that side of the house. They were intertwined with the wires so we had to be super careful not to cut or pull out the wires! Always make sure you keep in mind the wires when cutting down anything outside!!

After all the vines were gone, a good powerwash was in order to freshen up the boards and clean up the side of the house!!

See how filthy those boards were??? These steps were totally covered with vines!! We continued on to the sides of the deck and the exterior of the house...

Make sure all of your windows are shut tight before powerwashing the windows!!!

Now it looks like we have a brand new deck!!!

A little hard work can make a big difference!


xoxo
Hailey

OUR FIRST HOUSE!

I may have peed my pants a little from all the excitement/holy-cow-now-we-are-grown-ups feelings that I got when I walked into OUR house today! And then I may have peed a little from the holy-cow-there-is-so-much-to-do feelings that soon followed. Either way, I'm putting on my big girl panties and digging right in! We did a lot of work in that little house today, but first... I'm going to show you what it looked like on the day we closed!!

This house was listed on Zillow.. but only with like 12 pictures, and I don't know what genius thought that would be enough for this nosy house watcher. So here, I present, more than 12 pictures for your viewing pleasure!

(Feel free to judge the wall colors - there are some CRAZY combinations!!)

EXTERIOR

You guys. YOU GUYS. THE VIEW IS AMAZING! PLUS it's fall. Bonus.

The door on the left is our REAL front door... but here in the county, 

everybody comes in the side or back door, 

which is the door on the right... weird, right?? It's also a little sad,

the front door is so cute!!! Yes,

Anywho... the side door leads right into the.... 

MUD ROOM

 The last two pictures are a pretty accurate portrayal of the FIREBALL ORANGE 

that they painted this mud room. Why they did that??? No idea.

The mudroom leads to the...

KITCHEN

Complete with the most beautiful Thomas Kinkade-ish border wallpaper you EVER did see,

and these lovely red brick-ish tiles on the floor.

Oh man. 

It ALSO has a cool bar top (which is totally useless) and, AND 

a window air conditioning unit that they cute a hole in the house for.

Just a second. THEY CUT A HOLE IN THE HOUSE.

Oh man.

It ALSO has a cool fireball orange pantry door because WHY NOT??

And this cool light pot-hangy-thing... which they hung too low.

So many cool things.

The Kitchen is connected to the...

DINING ROOM

 It's pretty straight forward. Nothing special.

The dining room is next to the...

FAMILY ROOM

You have to walk through an archway to get to the family room.

I like archways. This archway is fireball orange. 

It's kinda fun. But it is a little low... That or Kyle and I

are freakishly tall. Or maybe both.

Ok. I did get impatient and put some primer on the wall. But it was only a little bit.

And I can't wait to get this color out of the family room!!

Connected to the family room is the...

UPSTAIRS HALLWAY

Pretty straightforward, pretty boring. It's also fireball orange.

Are you noticing all the fun colors??

 Moving on to the...

UPSTAIRS BATHROOM

This is a good bathroom! It is SO big! It has a HUGE jacuzzi tub, and a big vanity. 

The tiles are also pretty nice. They are blue too.

Can you see all the different, soothing blue colors in this bathroom?

*relaxing*

(did you notice that the bathroom closet doors are also blue!! YAY!!)

This bathroom is connected to the hallway and the...

SPARE BEDROOM

I feel like playing a game now... how many colors can you spot in this picture?

I see lots. Like 6. Which is 5 too many.

I do have to give them props though for painting the closet doors to match.

Not match each other, but the opposite walls. 

That's creativity at work, people!!

I'm also glad that the fireball orange made it to another room.

Across the hallway is the...

MASTER BEDROOM

This room has an en-suite (yay!!) and HUGE closets.

PLUS, NO FIRE ORANGE!

Double YAY!

Here's a quick peek at the...

MASTER BATHROOM

Super simple, but is also has a blue closet door!!!

#blessed

Moving on down to the....

STAIRCASE & LANDING

 The inside of our front door is also a nice blue color.

But she painted the whole staircase and landing BROWN.

Well, technically, she didn't paint the WHOLE thing brown....

as you can tell. She decided it was a bad idea at the end.

But the bottom left picture is a cute nook I can't wait to turn into an even cuter nook!!!

This connects to the...

DOWNSTAIRS HALLWAY

There was actually nothing much wrong with this hallway.

Except for the vinyl tree.. which may or may not have gotten taken down today by

a small army of toddlers....

At one end of the hallway it's...

MAILA'S BEDROOM

Colors... so many colors....

 

This is a BIG ROOM. It even has a little playhouse built into it, which I LOVE!!

It is in the basement so it does have those nasty drop ceilings, but at least there is no

fire orange. There are however, quite a few colors in this room...

(Make sure you notice the matching closet doors!)

It's crazy right?? Yes. It is. 

Then there's the....

LAUNDRY/CRAFT ROOM

Obviously, these are totally finished and we don't have to do anything to these rooms.

Excellent!!

Then we have the...

BASEMENT BATHROOM

Another totally relaxing, huge, blue bathroom. 

(The closet doors are blue too!)

This is connected to...

This is another BIG ROOM!!

I'm so glad that we have such big basement rooms!

This room also has lots of amazing colors that I can't wait to get rid of....

Make sure you notice the cool blue and green circles which make the transition

from purple to yellow much more appealing!!

The last room in the house is arguably the most important...

THEATER ROOM

(but not in a snobby way....)

Now this room. THIS ROOM. There was a valiant effort put into painting

it the darkest green they could probably find. But, alas, they didn't finish it 

and now I am FORCED to repaint. 

Dag-nabbit.

Well, that concludes this little house tour... I know it was super long winded and full of amazing colors....but before you rush off to copy all of our cool colors, just remember, don't.

But in all seriousness, these colors would be fine.... somewhere... else. But in my own house, where I can do WHATEVER I want.... nope. They are going! The sooner the better.

OH! And here's an other picture of fireball orange... because I know you were missing it just now.

xoxo

Hailey