Painting
Knock Knock… Who’s There?
Moose.
Moose Who?
Moose Lamp!!!
Wait, but some of that pic is photoshopped. I can explain.
It all started when I saw a moose lamp at an moving sale back in West Virginia when we were there to makeover Granny’s bathroom…
I couldn’t resist grabbing him for ten bucks.
His shade was an odd too-small shape and his paint was flaking off in a few places…
… but I knew I could take him from log-cabin to log-cabin-chic with a little spray paint and a new shade. So guess what? Dude, I got on that (see how these odd, usually-animal-related “Dude Get On That Already” challenges started here). I got on that moose like a cowboy. That’s totally a thing right? Moose-riding cowboys?
As for a color, I knew I could go a bunch of ways with him (blue moose? yeah, buddy!) but after some serious moose-related thought I went with white. Why? Duh, because he looks like a ceramic animal first of all. And second of all, because that frees me up to do something crazy fun with his shade. We’re talking patterned fabric. Oh yeah. I’m a wild woman. I even have the exact shade in mind, but it’s a secret book project so I can’t share it until the 6th when the book is officially out – but I’m totally planning to pair that DIYed fabric shade with Malcolm (what? that’s my moose lamp’s name) and hook up Clara’s big girl room with a super fun dose of color and ceramic moose power.
The best part? When I had the lamp out on the table before I got around to spray priming and painting it (I just used Rustoleum Universal since it has a built in primer in it) I said “What’s that?” to Clara and pointed at the lamp and she said “I don’t know what it is” and I said “It’s a lamp with a moose on it!” and she said “I want a moose with a moose on it!” and I said “well I don’t have a moose with a moose on it, but it’s a lamp with a moose on it!” and Clara looked me in the eye and totally deadpanned: “moose… with… a… moose… on it.” Like she was spelling it out nice and slow so I’d understand. That chick is hilarious.
Thankfully after I sprayed him white and paired him up with the secret fabric shade that’s waiting in our crazy cluttered playroom (can’t believe it fits perfectly! it’s actually the original shade from the glass based lamps that a certain mischievous painting broke – we’d replaced the shades with whiter versions and had old ones around for secret book projects last December) Clara was 100% down with Malcolm…
… as in, she can’t wait for him to live with her in her big girl room. And she says goodnight and good morning to him every day (and even offers him snacks sometimes). The moral of the story? When in doubt, introduce a moose lamp to encourage manners and sharing.
And as for the photoshopping that I said I’d explain, I just faked a patterned shade (by grabbing this one from here and photoshopping it on). And while I was at it, I showed how a white moose on a white table might be blah, but could be amazing on something painted – like a soft celery green table (or even a rustic wood dresser).
Moose, there it is.
What have you guy been getting on lately? Anyone else doing any other ceremonial spraying of animals? Or ceremonial spaying of animals?
Bathroom Bootcamp: Day 2
Yesterday you saw Day Numero Uno of what I lovingly call “Operation Granny Chic.” Mission: update my Granny’s bathroom over three whirlwind days. So with all of the prep work done, our day-by-day play-by-play continues with painting and new floors. Except for one minor step that stood in our way…
Notice that giant rust spot on the air duct near the floor? Since there’s no way paint would fix that on its own (it would bleed right through), we slapped some Rustoleum on that puppy before breaking out the paint cans. It was amazing how one fast coat worked like a charm.
The paint color we chose for the room is “Hint of Violet” by Benjamin Moore, which is a soft violet with some subtle gray undertones. Granny is such a colorful person (and often wears purple) so we knew had to do something cheery for her, but since the room is so small we didn’t want anything that would knock you over the head or make the space feel more cramped than it already is, so the plan was to bring in more pops of bolder color with the accessories, window fabric, etc.
The new wall color went on in two quick coats, including the slanted ceiling (in small spaces like bathrooms we love doing the ceiling the same color as the walls since it feels less chopped up and more open), so by lunch we were ready to tackle the floor.
Oh the floor. The existing floor was one of those old sheets of laminate. It was actually in decent shape considering it’s age and it was neutral enough to not offend. But Granny (who doesn’t ask for much specifically) wanted a new, more updated floor in the form of those individual vinyl tiles with a lot more texture, so that was a must for our to-do list.
We would’ve loved to give Granny some kick-butt hex tile or something else with a vintage vibe, but given the time and money constraints of the project we had one obvious option: those vinyl stick tiles that Granny had requested. Plus my parents suggested that we not risk any major plumbing issues – which would grind our makeover to an immediate halt – by attempting a sink or toilet removal considering the age of the pipes in this older home, so we were happy to oblige.
Sherry and I actually installed vinyl tiles about 6 years ago in our old kitchen, so we were a little rusty but we were quick to find our groove. The nice thing about this type of flooring is that it goes down super easy, doesn’t necessitate a wet saw or any sort of thinset/grout, and is über affordable (we got these from Home Depot for 99-cents per tile). The key is to make sure each tile is set very (very very) snugly against the others so you don’t get any seams, so we really pressed each tile firmly into the edge of the previous tile before sticking it down.
The other thing I love about these guys is that they’re crazy easy to cut. All it takes is a quick score with a utility knife and then it (I can’t believe I’m about to make a Legally Blonde reference) bends and snaps. Though unlike Elle Woods, it then breaks apart.
Granny’s itty bitty bathroom would’ve been a cinch to complete except that there were so. many. dang. edges. to cut. It’s not the hardest task – just time consuming. Again, since I was advised not to remove the sink or toilet – I had to cut around them (but we left Granny a bunch of spare tiles to bridge any potential gaps in case the toilet is eventually replaced). I started each cut by making a paper template. Typically I’d use a stiffer paper like cardstock, but Granny just had a spiral notebook handy – so I taped it into place and used my knife to cut right along the edge of (in this case) the toilet.
Gorgeous, no?
Then I taped my template on the to-be-cut tile and slowly sliced along the edge of the template.
Once I bent-and-snapped out the section that would interfere with the toilet – and did a test placement with the protective backing still on – it was ready to be stuck down. Voila:
By the end of about 23 tiles and 4 hours it was completely done. And it was definitely a huge upgrade from the old sheet o’ vinyl that was there before. Again, if we had the luxury of time I would’ve loved to remove the sink and toilet to go under them (so for those of you at home who do, I’d recommend it), but leaving Granny seven spare tiles was the next best thing – so if she ever has a plumber replace the toilet or sink, she can fix any gaps if either fixture happens to have a smaller footprint.
It was amazing how much the new flooring updated the room… especially in person since it has some great texture. And it looks pretty darn good with those soft violet walls.
With the paint and flooring done, most of our major projects were checked off for the day, so it was just on to prepping a few more finishing touches – like breathing some new life into some of Granny’s old cabinet hardware (which we think was added sometime in the 80s or 90s, but had since peeled a bit). Enter Valspar’s Indigo Streamer in Satin to the rescue (it looks kind of bright here, but it’s a true deep navy in person).
First we sanded them smooth and then it was spray-time. We had originally hoped to replace Granny’s cabinet hardware with some new shiny chrome versions, but the existing holes weren’t a standard size. That ended up being a blessing in disguise because not only did we get to reuse what she had, but we also got to make them a fun and less expected color. Navy definitely beats worn-and-peeling brass and adds tons of interest to an old white toilet paper holder.
So with our spray painted items drying outside for the evening, the room was looking like this by the end of Day 2 (pardon the terrible picture, it was late at night, so the floor looks Frito-orange and you can hardly see the voilet color on the walls).
Oh but we were able to tackle a few other minor items in preparation for Day 3′s big reveal – like giving Granny a playful blue glass knob on her medicine cabinet, and hanging a towel ring into some existing holes on the duct (we worried hanging something on the duct might be a bad call, but Granny said it used to hang there for years and since my dad also said it shouldn’t be an issue, we used the old holes that were there and plugged them up with a shiny new towel ring).
Oh yeah, and we replaced a couple of her outlets – including the burned one on the floor – so they were all new and white and up to today’s safety standards (an electrician had looked a them prior to our little makeover to ensure they were nice & safe before we messed with them).
Isn’t this little problem area by her sink already looking worlds better? That was definitely one of the more satisfying views of Day 2. Although for some reason the soft violet walls are really hard to see in these late night shots.
Happily after a day of painting, changing up the flooring, and doing a few little updates to get a jump on things, our to-do list was looking like this:
Brainstorm colors & go shopping for accessories (Day 1)Spackle/sand/caulk everything to prep the room for paint (Day 1)Rebuild the cabinets a bit so they look more balanced (Day 1)Prime and paint the cabinets for a more updated and open look (Day 1 & 2)Paint the entire room, including the ceiling (Day 2)Fix a few issues, like a rusted duct and an old dingy corner below the sink (Day 2)Redo the floors, which were that old sheet laminate stuff (Day 2)Revive some hardware/accessories with a fresh finish (Day 2)- Make & hang curtains to add some charm (Day 3)
- Bring in some meaningful art (Day 3)
- Add some functional/personal accessories to finish things off (Day 3)
- Reveal the whole shebang for Granny (Day 3)
We’ll have all of the official before & afters in tomorrow’s post about our final day of upgrading the room and – the best part – video and photos of us revealing it to Granny. We’ll also have a full budget breakdown for you (we just have some receipt-math and photo-uploading to do). In the meantime, is anyone else out there using peel & stick tiles for a super affordable upgrade? Did you make paper templates too? Or did you use some other method to size them?
All Aboard The Train Board
Can I get a choo choo?
As promised via our little Instagram/Facebook sneak peek yesterday, here’s the story of how we made a little train board for Clara. Why a train board? Well, Clara is nothing short of obsessed with the one at Barnes & Noble (a nice big track is screwed into place on a little pedestal board and kids flock from all sides of the book store to play with it). In fact if we pull into the parking lot (which also leads to a ton of other stores) before we even turn off the car Clara is shouting “we’re getting to play with the trains!”
So when John suggested that we make our own version of one with a train set that we got for Clara’s second birthday from a few relatives of ours, I remembered seeing this one over on Aubrey and Lindsey’s blog so I googled around for a few others to gaze at (like this one and this one). As for our specific objectives, we had a few goals in mind:
- to use all of the Melissa & Doug train pieces that we already had and make a nice big track
- to use solid wood if we could for the board part (just to avoid the off-gassing issue of MDF/plywood since solid whitewood is nice and light – and cheap)
- to paint something fun on the surface to give Clara more play ideas (ex: the train is going to the beach, the train is going to the forest, the train is going over the water)
- to paint it with low-VOC paint, seal it with low-VOC sealer, and attach the tracks with screws from beneath to avoid fumey glue (just in the same eco vein as the wood choice)
So here’s how we got ‘er done using nine dollar’s worth of sample paint from Home Depot and one plank of 12″ whitewood for $19 (also from Home Depot) – for a total of $28 spent. First John got a twelve foot long 10″ x 1″ board of whitewood and had them cut it down to make three equal 10″ x 1″ x 47″ boards right in the store. Then he joined them together with his Kreg Jig (you could also use flat bracing pieces of wood or metal along the back to connect them and add some felt pads to make sure nothing scratches the floor). Then he sanded everything to keep the board from feeling rough or splintery. See how the seams are barely visible (these arrows point them out for ya).
Next we pieced the train tracks together in about a million different configurations before finally deciding to go with this one (it has hills, an elevated part, a bridge, a tunnel, and even an area where the train will shoot down an incline and off the board – which we thought would be Clara’s favorite part):
Then we brainstormed what we thought the background should look like on a piece of paper and came up with this (the light green is grass, the blue is the ocean, the stripe next to the blue is sand, and the dark green is the forest):
Then I sketched that layout onto the board with a pencil – just marking the lines of delineation between the water, the beach, the forest, etc.
Then we ran to Home Depot and grabbed three $2.95 sample pots in Japanese Fern, Mirage Lake, and Shamrock all by Behr Ultra (which is low-VOC).
After we brought them home it was time to take the whole track apart so we could paint the background (tip: take a photo of the track configuration that you’ve landed on before dismantling it so you remember how to recreate it when you’ve painted your background). I started with the water and then I added the grass (these two don’t touch, so I didn’t have to worry about if the blue paint was still wet when I applied the green):
Oh and I didn’t prime anything because we didn’t mind this looking like painted wood (we thought a few knots showing through could be authentic and charming). But if you don’t want them to show through, a coat or two of stain-blocking primer should do the trick before you paint your design.
Then I gave that stuff a while to dry since I would be going up against the edges of those for the sand and the trees (and didn’t want things to smear) and came back a few hours later to paint the forest. That was the most fun because there’s that sort-of-bushy shape, so I made this quick video to share my weird little traingle-brush-swiping technique to make those jagged edges:
Then I added the sand, which was just leftover no-VOC white paint (we loved the idea of a white-sand beach between the ocean and the grassy plains, haha).
Then we let the whole board dry and I applied a few thin and even coats of my favorite eco poly (Acrylacq by Safecoat). We’ve had the same quart of it since before Clara was born and it’s still going strong (seriously, I can’t recommend it enough- not only is it low-VOC it’s actually non-toxic). I just brushed it on in thin and even coats, being careful not to belabor certain areas (if you brush things over and over they can get gummy, so I moved quickly across the board, let it dry, applied another coat, left that dry, and applied one last thin application).
As for why we decided to temporarily attach the tracks to the board:
- at this age for Clara, putting the tracks together herself just led to frustration (crying/throwing stuff) so it wasn’t really a good time for her when things weren’t attached.
- yet, we noticed how much fun she had at B&N when things were nailed down (it still led to a lot of creative, independent play with talks about trains stopping under tunnels, trains crashing, trains running out of fuel, people stopping at specific destinations, etc).
- if she ever has a hankering to build her own track down the line, we can always free up this track by just removing the small screws on the underside of the board – so it’ll still be really functional and flexible for spur-of-the-moment-building if it’s detached later.
We just saw how much more fun she had at B&N with the fixed track (no tantrums or frustration of trying to make things go together, etc) so we thought a fixed track made the most sense for now. So after we gave the poly lots of drying time (48 full hours) we laid out the track on top of the newly sealed board and attached the whole thing with screws from underneath the train board. In other words, John removed the tracks one by one, drilled a pilot hole from the top of the board through to the bottom…
… and then held the track in place on top of it and screwed up to attach the track to the board from underneath).
That’s how he got the track to stay in place without looking like it’s covered in screws (using counter-sinking screws meant they sunk into the back of the board and didn’t stick out and scratch the floor). We also added felt furniture pads to keep the board from rubbing on the floor/table/ottoman if it gets lots of use.
As for the elevated part of the train, we attached those blocks to hold the track up the same way we did the rest of the track (a pilot hole through the board from above followed by a screw driven from the back of the board up into the block to hold it in place without seeing any hardware). Then to hold the track in place on top of each of those blocks, we drove a small finish nail into the groove of the track and into the block, which actually proved to be really sturdy without being super obvious (you have to get pretty close to even notice them at all).
When it came to making that one piece of track look like it led off the corner of the board, John just traced the shape of the board onto the bottom of the track, and cut it along that line that he drew (and then sanded it to make it nice and smooth). Then he just drilled that track in from below like the rest of them (he actually had already attached it, which you can see in the pic on the right, so he removed it, cut it, and drilled it back in).
Next came the big test. Holding everything upside down to make sure it was all attached. Thankfully it’s all nice and sturdy. As in, Clara has taken great joy in kicking the elevated part and it’s all holding strong.
Choo-choo, baby. Here’s the whole shebang in action:
Clara loves it. As expected, there’s lots of chatter about people going to the beach, the forest, and over the hills and valleys, and contrary to our guess – her favorite feature is actually rolling them down the middle hill and into a big pile-up. And now for a little video of our train board in action:
Sometimes she even lets us get in on the chugga-chugga action.
Are there any other train board fans out there? At first I thought making new tracks would be part of the fun, but seeing how much Clara loves the fixed one at B&N, I’m glad we made her a souped up board with a fun little background to make playing with it even more exciting. Things like adding an environment behind it and having trains shoot off the board have certainly upped the train-playing ante around here. And John may or may not have played with it a little himself after Clara went to bed last night. Not kidding.
And perhaps the best thing about it is that it’s nice and flat, so it can slide completely under the sofa for storage when it’s not in use. Here it is halfway in:
That’s actually one of the reasons we thought a board would work better for us than a table, since we used all the tracks and trains that we had to build this, so we didn’t need additional storage or anything). It’s nice that we can stash it away in a second and that seems to make it even more special for Clara (she loves things that we bring out and tuck away, like markers and Play-Doh a bit more than things that are always out at her disposal). Maybe it’s like those special “limited edition” holiday Oreos? They always feel more special than the regular kind to me. Haha.
So that’s the full $28 train board rundown. What have you guys been building/painting/sanding lately? Any fun kids stuff in the works?
