Little (Creepy) Boy: Finds a Home!

Remember our creepy little boy we adopted? Welp, we cleaned him up and found him a great place to live!

A few months back we "adopted" him at the amazing flea market, Elephants Trunk. Joey made a decision (with out me!) to use the left over spray chalkboard paint we used on the fridge to give the frame a facelift. Lucky for Joey, I really like the results.

It seemed last time we brought creepy boy up, in regards to where he should live, you guys had a lot to say! We really loved the guest bathroom idea, so that's were we put him! After repainting that room, he really looks great and if I can convince Joey to paint that bathroom black, he will make a great foretelling of what the inside of the bathroom will look like!

It totally creeps us out how ghostly he looks, but at the same time we are a little obsessed with him. I love how perfect that spot is too. He points right at the bathroom. Awesome! Also, see that tiny hallway right outside the door? well it's boxed in by four doors. I am thinking black and whit stripes right there. We'll get into that another day. We just never showed you that before. We are full of secccrrreeeettts.

So, you think he's looking good? Opposite of him is the newly stenciled wall. Now if I can just get my hands on some uniformed pallets, I can wrap this room up! So close!

Goooooo Peeeeeee! Haha sorry. I had to.

Down Down Guest Room

Hello Lovely! Today we are venturing into a room you have yet to see! Downstairs we have a tiny little guest room originally meant to be for a maid or au pair. It's the way to get to the only bathroom downstairs. The whole back corner of our downstairs is a reminder of how freaky things were back in the day. A maids quarters. With a separate entrance and everything. Accompanied by a swing door into the rest of the house. Totally makes me mad. Not that I am against maids or au pairs' or anything like that. Just that this house was built to shove them in a corner with a tiny room. That makes me mad.

With supplies from Cutting Edge Stencil, Behr paint from Home Depot, and two unused paint-brushes from our Purdy three pack, I was ready to conquer another guest room.

If I could take a moment of your time and vent....I am really upset with our Home Depot. We are there multiple times a week. We spend God knows how much money on supplies, and we even do the DIY check out most of the time. You would think we are model customers and would be treated 1/2 decent. Nope. The staff is always rude, like you are disturbing them to open the spray paint cage or don't know how to answer simple questions like "Where are your nails located?". We have been able to push that under the rug because there are only two hardware store by us, and True Value keeps minimal hours sadly. But this time, oh this time, I about had it.

This time, they refused to mix paint for me. They simply wouldn't color match. All four paint employees were too engrossed in their (colorful to say the least) conversation. Three ran and the one left behind refused to color match a swatch. So I picked from the shelf on this project. No matter how rude they have been in the past, at least I left with the product I wanted. Even if 1/2 the time they didn;t mix the paint right. So there. I huffed and puffed. Not happy.

I seem angry today. I promise I am not. Moving along.....I hope you will forgive the photo. It's so tiny it's hard to photograph the room properly. Here she is. Or was...

Just big enough for a daybed. This is a temp bed passed down by Joey's amazing Aunt and Uncle. It's done us well with all the guests we have packing the house each year. I almost want to treat this bedroom like a hallway or a foyer. Like an emergency-guest-back-up-room. I want it to be something you pass through to get to the bathroom, but don't spend too much time it.

I thought to get rid of the icky beige which was a total downer and painted it a crisp super light grey. Then I stenciled the wall (along with help from my friend Duane) across from the bathroom door with a grey a few shades darker. Keep in mind I wanted that color to be a rusty purple. But you know what happened.

The whole bad experience kinda disappeared when I got to work in the room. Dealing with Cutting Edge Stencils in a whole other story. Their products are high quality, current, and their team is so sweet and responsive. Earlier this year we stenciled our bedroom with Large Rabat, and this time we landed on something just as sweet for the downstairs guest room. Welcome, Kagami.

Pretty sweet, eh? This room is far from done. We have a little list for her which includes:

1. Hang Art
2. Find a better bed solution
3. Find and install fan
4. Find one small perfect piece of furniture
5. Dress the windows
6. Style and Accessorize

So what's the deal with the Purdy brushes we were testing out? First off, they clean up awesome with laytex paint. Pretty much good as new. Oil is super hard to work with when it comes to cleaning, but I have to say, it's worth saving the brush after cleaned! I also got a little daring when I realized how well the Purdy brush could cut. Are you ready for this?

I started taping off the room....then stopped. I didn't need to. So the final break down between yesterday's oil based review and today's latex based review is this:

1. Easy to clean, and reusing is definitely an option
2. No stray brush hairs at all. Zip. Nada.
3. Can cut like nothing I have ever used before.

I am not dissin' blue tape, we know we need it for the million other things we need to tape off (like the stencil itself!), but it surely cut the prep time down 75% or more.

So there ya have it! Guestroom #2 in motion, Kitchen in motion, and pretty soon we will be revisiting the dining room!

Do you have a tiny and awkward room in your home? Share photos in the comment section below! We want to see how you dealt with the space!

It's Progress Report Time People!

Hi there love! How was your Monday? I spent most of the day painting the downstairs guestroom. It already looks soooooo much better! Lighter, brighter! I would totally share photos, but it's a stencil project, and what's the fun in sharing the first layer? We also started hanging the refinished cabinets up in the kitchen! I do however have some photos to share! After 40 days and 40 nights of rain in the NYC, I finally got some shots of the upstairs guestroom with some sun light. She's done!

When I say "done", I mean shes in a condition we don't dread, and we know some other stuff needs to be done, but we are happy for now. It's totally our POW room. Everything in the house is pretty neutral so far, and it's a pretty random room. See we had a pretty colorful apartment, and I had so much stuff from Etsy and Anthropologie, I just had to make a room to justify keeping some of those prized possessions.

I had some left over fabric from the closet curtains, so I whipped up a little pillow for the reading nook. The chair I grabbed from the garden room and the fan we found ages ago at Elephants Trunk. The chandy is from Urban Outfitters, maybe 4 years ago.

So we are crossing this off the good ol' list! It was awesome to do a room at no cost! The only thing we paid for was the lamp and $100 for the fabric. I am dedicated to getting the next guest room done twice as fast. If you are keeping track, here is where we are at:

1.) Finish the kitchen cabinets (oil polyurethane yellowed, now we need to redo with water based. we were warned).

2.) Finish the curtains in the guest room; I reordered the fabric! Should be here soon! + Finish styling

3.) Greywash fireplace in bedroom

4.) Greywash heater covers in bedroom

5.) *Bonus* Greywash whole closet in master bedroom.

6.) Patch water leak in dining room + paint entire dining room

7.) Patch water leak in foyer + paint entire foyer ceiling

8.) Paint/Stencil downstairs guestroom - 1/2 DONE!

9.) Patch wall in downstairs bathroom

10.) Move couch to Joey's office; two flights of stairs...ugh!

11.) Buy new dishwasher and have it installed

12.) Buy five (yes five!) fans and install

13.) Install backsplash in kitchen

14.) Install counters in kitchen

15.) Purge my closet, big time - Hello Goodwill!

16.) Install light outside we bought two years ago - I know, I know...

17.) Hang pillars in bedroom + finish that window wall

Now that your down reading this, go enter this weeks giveaway!