Finished Green Paint

Last night at 11:30, I finally finished painting my walls green. I was really happy with the color. I think it goes really well with the brown wall. In case you are wondering, the white stripe in the middle is for the border/mural I am going to paint. I have to buy the paints at Home Depot this weekend. The plan is to do a plaster skim coat on the border, frame it with trim, and paint it with little front loaders, cement trucks, and dump trucks like the bedding set.

Brown Wall

Okay, I am so stoked about my new brown accent wall, I just had to post a picture of it. You can see on the top of the picture that we have painted the ceiling and put up one piece of trim. It will look much better when we get the crown moulding up and the rest of the ceiling trim, but you get the idea. Hopefully I will get some of the green paint on the other walls and post some pictures tomorrow.

Here is a picture of the room during the day before I painted the corners and edges. The brown looks a lot darker when the sun is coming through the window.

Wesley's Bedding

Wesley's new bedding set just arrived in the mail today. I got a super deal on it. I won it on an Ebay auction for $50 and it has something like 9 pieces in it. Anyway, I am designing his room around this bedding set, so I needed it to arrive before I could get the paint. I am painting all the walls that jade green color except my accent wall which will be that dark brown. The bottom half of two of the walls will be done in blocks of blue, yellow, red, plaid, and green with some murals painted of little trucks and things just like the bedding set. Anyway, I think it will be so cute when I am finished, I can't wait.

I have been so busy working on stuff, I haven't had time to take pictures and post them. I have painted the ceiling and the closet ceiling with primer and white paint. I still need to paint the light brown that I am doing around the border of the ceiling. I have painted the crown moulding, the ceiling moulding, the doors, the windowsill, and one wall of baseboards. This weekend I want to paint the ceiling border, put up the ceiling moulding, and start painting the walls. I will make sure and take some pictures as I go.

Devin Paints the Trim

Devin and Layne Paint the Trim

The Boys Help

Nursery Ceiling

I am so exhausted I am almost comatose, so I hope this post makes sense. In the last few days, we have made a lot of progress on the ceiling. I textured the middle and Ben did a plaster skim coat on the sides to make the surface perfectly smooth. (Eventually, I will have a two-tone ceiling with white on the inside and brown on the outside edges, set off with some white moulding.) The boys helped me with the texturing process. They helped mix the plaster with water to thin it out before I stamped it on.

As for the skim coat, Ben is really talented at that. He did cement work for a while and learned how to work a trowel like a pro. Here he is at work on it.

I got to sand his skim coat to smooth out all the minor imperfections. There weren't very many, so the work went fast. I was able to get the whole thing sanded in a couple of hours. Devin loved the sanding. He told me I was making it snow. I had him take a picture of me modeling my lovely sanding attire. I decided to wear a hat to keep the dust from coating my hair. I also wore protective goggles over my glasses for extra eye protection. The dust mask adds the finishing touch to the ensemble. Next stop, the red carpet!

Brown Accent Wall

After talking to Sara, my sister-in-law, I am seriously thinking of painting one of the walls of my babyroom a chocolate brown. It is really kind of bold for me, so I thought I would search online for some examples of rooms with brown accent walls. I found this adorable blog with some really great pictures, so I thought I would post a link.

http://little-inspirations.blogspot.com/2009/06/brown-bedroom.html

Newest Project

It has been two months since I have posted! I have been such a slacker. Part of the reason for that is because I haven't done hardly a thing in my garden. It has been so blasted hot, and I am pregnant. . . the excuses continue! Anyway, one big thing has happened in the garden. We were able to grow a cantelope plant. It was quite an accident. We decided that a cantelope seed must have fallen out of the compost pile and sprouted in the ground next to it. Anyway, we got a lovely little volunteer plant that even produced this beautiful cantelope that actually tasted good. Next year we will actually have to try and grow a cantelope plant.

I decided that I would also post home improvement projects on this blog, so I am going to write about my newest project. Yes, the nesting has begun, and I am getting my nursery ready for baby Wesley. When I decided to make Westley's little room into a haven of baby bliss, I knew there was one thing I had to do before anything else.

What is yellowish white, sticks to the ceiling, and makes you want to barf? Popcorn ceiling! Unfortunately, we have an abundance of it in our house. It was built in 2002 and I am wondering why, in this enlightened age, a builder would choose to mar his creation by splattering the ceiling with a layer of lumpy, bumpy, powdery, nasty popcorn texture, but they did! So, nearly six months pregnant not withstanding, I am going to single-handedly climb the ladder and hand scrape off the popcorn texture, re-texture, and paint my baby's new bedroom ceiling.

I also have some grand plans for painting and decorating my baby's room, which I will relate for you in long and loving detail as I complete each phase of the process. While in Utah for JoAnn's wedding, I discussed decorating with my sister-in-law, the incredibly talented interior designer, Sara Zaugg. This baby room should really be something when I am finished, at least that is what I am hoping for.

Here is a picture of a small section I was able to scrape off today. First, you have to protect your floor with plastic. This is an extra-ordinarily messy project. Then you have to spray water on the ceiling to soften the texture. I used a hand pump garden sprayer. Finally, you scrape the texture off with a trowel like the ones you use for perfataping. It isn't relaly hard to do because once it is soft, it comes off in sheets right to the sheetrock, but it is exhausting work. I was only able to do the closet and about a fourth of the ceiling today. I am going to go back in there this evening and try to make more of a dent in it, but I am going to take it slow, so I don't wear myself out too bad.