Ceiling fan switcheroo

On Friday night, we found ourselves at Home Depot picking up a few things (this is usually where we are on Friday night). We happened to walk by the fans, and decided that this weekend might be a good time to finally update our master bedroom ceiling fan. It had these can-type lights that blocked off lots of light, so it made the room really, really dark. Adam had installed a ceiling fan once before at his grandma's house, so we were confident we could do it!

Here, we've already removed the old fan and Adam is about to open the box with the new fan (which we got from Menard's... Home Depot didn't have a huge selection of fans, we discovered.)

The wiring was a challenge, since one of us (me!) had to hold up the fan above our heads, while the other (Adam) had to do all the electrical work. Here it is completed--with much more light than before!


We decided that the fan we took down should go to replace this ugly one in the guest bedroom. It has tacky gold accents, and people who've stayed in our guest room complained that it made a loud wobbly noise:

This was a bigger challenge, because we didn't have directions for installing this fan. And two of the screws that held it up in the other bedroom didn't work here, which frustrated us to no end... But finally, finally, we got it up and working!


Up next: replacing two more interior doors? Painting the bathroom? Decorating the office? Starting the trim? So many options...

More painting!

Saturday morning, we got up and decided that it would be a good idea to paint our guest bedroom. This is why:

Formerly a child's bedroom, it was all decked out in dark blue and bright orange (not sure if he was a Bears fan or an Illinois fan...) We weren't sure what color to go with, but ended up going with "Chocolate Froth" from Behr. It's definitely a lot more neutral than before:

We've now painted almost every wall in our house. Still up: the bathroom and the office, both of which are OK colors. But I think we'll still paint them :) No more orange walls left, though! Whew.

Shelving and Snow

Sorry for the last of posts for the last couple of months. We haven't had any major projects going on, although we did install wire shelving in our linen closet (photos below) and replace another door (no pictures of that).

We forgot to take pictures for most of the beginning... we tore out the old MDF shelves, patched the holes, and painted the whole thing (it smelled funny, which is what prompted this project). Here I am installing the clips for the shelves:

And, of course, here are our furry friends "helping" with the measuring tape (their favorite!):

And the glorious finished product:


This morning we woke up to a winter wonderland! Adam cleared the driveway, while I took pictures :) We're considering ourselves lucky that we got all our Christmas lights up last weekend!

Front yard:

And back yard:

Refinishing a Kitchen Table, Part 2

The kitchen table is finally finished, and moved back into the kitchen tonight! Here are photos from the rest of the process. After stripping off the old varnish and stain, I was down to bare wood. Then I sanded and stained. These two pieces below are the two leaves; the one on the left has the stain already wiped off. On the right, it's still waiting to be taken off.


After two coats of stain, I did two coats of oil-based polyurethane over the top. You can see it below, where the tabletop is shiny! Next, I primed the legs and sides of the table that I was planning on painting black. I used oil-based primer, too, as water-based products can "raise the grain" of the wood. (Shout-out here to YHL, whose furniture painting tutorial provides much of my inspiration for these types of projects!) As they point out, you can totally use a latex paint over an oil-based primer.

I used Behr's paint/primer combination paint for the legs (we've used this stuff a lot on walls, and it's fabulous). The color is actually Black Onyx from Glidden. But The Home Depot will mix up whatever you want for you, so you can switch back and forth with their brands, which is nice. After a couple coats of paint, I put on a coat of water-based polycrylic finish to make the rest shiny... and here's the finished result!

The cats enjoyed checking it out... it was sort of like they totally forgot what a kitchen table was. Guess it was out in the garage for too long! :)

We're glad that we are now going to be able to park in the garage, too--just in time for cooler weather!

Refinishing a Kitchen Table

I have undertaken what's turning out to be a lengthy project, so I've decided to split it into two posts. I'm still not done, but am getting close!

We acquired a table from a coworker of Adam's (we traded her for a lemon meringue pie!). It's a really nice all oak table with two removable leaves, but the varnish was starting to come off in places. We've had it for some time now, and I've finally gotten around to refinishing it. Here's the victim, below (no, not the cat...)


First, I used a paint stripper to remove all of the old finish. In this picture, the stripper is still applied on the left side of the table, and on the right side I'm removing the residue from it after scraping it off. Paint stripper was actually a lot easier to use than I expected--I had thought that using a sander would be easier, but now I know that this was the much better method!

I had thought about using a sander on the table legs, but I had such good luck with the tabletop that I used the stripper there, too. I had good luck with CitriStrip, which is apparently less noxious than other products. (Gloves still required!)

Here it is down to the wood, with all of the finish and stain removed! Now, I'm going to restain the top, do a few coats of polyurethane, and paint the legs and skirt black. More pictures to come as I make some progress after this weekend!

Bedroom Makeover

This past week, we finally got around to making some decorative changes in our master bedroom. The bedrooms have been last on our list in painting and updating, since generally people who come over to our house don't really see them.

Our room previously had three different paint colors on the four walls: two dark, navy blue walls, one dark red/maroon wall, and one white wall. Kind of patriotic, I guess?

Anyhow, like many of the former paint colors in our house, it was dark -- it made a small space look even smaller and cave-like. Our only bedroom window had maroon curtains (already removed here) that didn't block out much light, and no blinds at all.

We went with two different colors (three walls in green, one light brown) and added these bamboo-type blinds and some new curtains. The room looks totally different now. I love it!

We hung the blinds and curtains higher and wider than the window itself to make it look larger. Plus, these curtains actually block out light, so that's always a plus on a sleepy Saturday morning!

Painting Things Black, Part 2

Our patio set is finally, finally done! We have been working on this for weeks and weeks, so we're excited that it's all over. The set is wrought iron and came from Adam's parents, who have had it for 20+ years. Adam, ironically, has painted it several times in his lifetime. It was quite rusty and all the paint was chipping off.

A close-up of the paint condition:



We sanded using many different tools (but most of all, our favorite Ryobi orbit sander). This took forever, it was messy, and our garage is still coated in dust. Then we primed with a primer made for rusty metal, and painted and painted. But it was totally worth it in the end for this!

And here's how it fits in with the rest of the backyard:

Basically, we enjoy painting things black.