Just a girl with a hammer

Tag: paint

  • If you are a house blogger . . .

    If you are a house blogger . . .

    If you are a blogger, chances are you’re either redoing your kitchen or you’re pregnant. No, seriously, go look at your RSS reader. Pregnant or remodeling their kitchen or sometimes both.

    I don’t want babies so I’m satisfying the demands of the gods by doing the only kitchen remodel I can afford: painting the door. These pictures best show the gnarly state of our kitchen door. Dinged, dented, filthy, peeling, and just sad.

    Upon taking apart the doorknob, I discovered that the previous owner had affixed it with caulk. Like the kind you use to seal your bathtub. That makes sense! I used a scraper to get the caulk off, leaving me with this mess.

    I sanded everything down but I didn’t have wood putty because of an unfortunate accident where my tube of wood putty hardened at the top and I squeezed too hard and the whole tube pooped out its contents from the bottom end, all over me. That’s pretty much what having kids is like, right?

    I wanted to get the door done before the boy returned from his work trip (Surprise! Paint fumes!) so I just painted it without filling the gauges. Enh, we’ll live. I also hit up the knob with some Brasso.

    It looks better, ya? Of course, now that the whole thing looks shiny and new I kind of feel like it would look better with a color. Maybe I could paint it yellow and Greg would feel better about the fact that I stole his yellow hallway from him.

    Or maybe that’s a bad idea.

    Sherwin-Williams Daffodil

    Sherwin-Williams Chartreuse

    Sherwin-Williams Jonquil

    The kitchen has always been tricky because the yellow counters are so cool and the floor tiles ended up being so much warmer and browner than I expected–I’m still trying to find ways to bridge the gap between the two. Regardless, I need to address the trim which still needs to be filled, sanded, and painted.

    Now go double up on your birth control and get ready to pick out faucets. Or suggest paint colors for the door if you’re feeling opinionated.

  • Removing doors and patching holes

    Removing doors and patching holes

    We have two doorways that lead to the back hallway and bedrooms: one from the living room and one from the kitchen. Only one of them had a door actually hanging from the hinges. Even if we had doors on both, we’d never use them. We just don’t have the same sense of propriety that they did in 1938 when they built my house. Realizing that we never close the door off the living room, I asked Greg if he’d care if I just got rid of it. He responded that he’d never been sure why I hadn’t removed it already.

    But that means we had this situation going on when I removed the hinges. Sorry about the bad photography–this hallway gets zero light.

    Bad pictures, ahoy!

    My friend Sarah told me about using those free paint stirrer sticks to patch these holes. They fit perfectly.

    You just trim them to fit (we used craft scissors), attach them with finishing nails (drill a pilot hole or the wood will split), hit them with some wood putty, sand them, prime them, and paint them.

    It’s like there was never a door here!

    Oh wait, except for on the other side. We haven’t figured out the best way to patch this hole yet. It’s too shallow to accommodate a paint stick. So we could chisel out a deeper hole or try to find a thinner piece of wood to patch it. We’ll probably go with the latter.

    In case anybody is worried, we are keeping the door we removed in storage. Future owners may want to be able to close off areas of the house and you don’t give away original solid-wood doors.

  • Because I’m a sucker . . .

    Because I’m a sucker . . .

    Because I lack sense, I’m painting the bedroom. Again. For curtains that I may or may not even sew at this point.

    I’m totally over painting at this point. Except that I sort of really want to paint the hallway–but it would be easy! No furniture to move, a half gallon of paint, and a couple of hours of work. And then I’d really for reals be done with painting. Except for the basement staircase. Then I’d be done. And maybe the entryway. 
    I can’t stop; send booze.
  • I’m slowly making progress

    I’m slowly making progress

    The living room is starting to look less like a construction site.

    The rug is Sakura from West Elm.  Window coverings as vexing me more than I should let them.  More on that later. 
    Do we like?  The white fireplace looks alright, ya?
  • Quick update on the living room

    Quick update on the living room

    I spent all day Sunday painting the ceiling and trim, which is a terrific way to spend a lot of time doing something unpleasant with no real visible change.  But then my car door busted and I had to take it to the shop, so I got a bonus day for painting.  At least this time you could tell I had been doing something in there.

    Here’s a quick reminder of what it looked like before:
    I had to repatch an area over the fireplace where I did a bad job the first time–that white stripe will be going away soon.  I’m really digging the white on the fireplace and the brighter white of the newly painted window.  
    After I finished painting for the evening I somehow ended up obsessively scraping paint off the wood floors with a razor blade.  All of my floors look like this because the previous owners couldn’t be bothered to use dropcloths. 
    And the fact that I feel the need to do this is the number one reason that they will have to drag me off to the loony bin someday.
  • Because nothing can ever just be *easy* with me.

    Because nothing can ever just be *easy* with me.

    So, about those bedroom curtains.

    I ordered a swatch of the fabric I posted last week, only to find that it really has an olive undertone that makes the bedroom paint read really minty.  It was disappointing.  I was holding up different swatches to the wall and *all* of them were making the paint read mint, actually.

    The boy was like, “Why don’t you just paint your bedroom?”  Oh Greg, you can’t put ideas like that in my head or it riles up the home improvement demons!  So yeah, now I want to paint my bedroom.  Again.

    Now, the path of least resistence would be to paint the room something that goes with the curtains I currently have but no, goddamn it, I love this fabric and I want to waste my time and money sewing new curtains. And the fabric looks really nice with the paint in the spare bedroom!

    Effing home improvement demons.

  • The big picture

    The big picture

    I’ve never storyboarded (is that even what it’s called?) before, but this is sort of the master plan for the living room.  Until, you know, I change my mind again.

    And I think I agree with the majority below: the fireplace should be white, even if it will show smoke and soot.  Hey, my fireplace doesn’t work anyway!
  • Help me pick a paint color.

    Help me pick a paint color.

    I like to paint a large area when I’m waffling over color choices but I think the color swatches, combined with the 6 existing paint colors, skidded right past “helpful” and right into “confusing.” The walls will be the olive green you see on the lower half of the wall.

    It looks sort of awesome the way it is, no?  *Sigh.*
    But seriously, which looks better? Dark gray or white? Or something completely different?

    poll by twiigs.com

    Update!

    Rachel makes me realize that I haven’t specified what the color scheme will be in this room.  This is the inspiration photo for the room:

    The rug will get swapped out for a light blue one and there will be pops of red.  So I’d like the fireplace to have some drama  . . . but more of the black-white spectrum kind. And of course I’ll put a bird on it. 🙂
  • My crazy is showing

    My crazy is showing

    Summer was incredibly short this year.  I had to really hustle to get some of my outdoor projects done.  I have a couple of projects that have been weighing heavily on my mind.  I don’t know if other people do this, but I worry that something will happen to me and my family will get stuck trying to sell my house and they won’t be able to because the back of my garage looks like this.

    It’s fun being tightly wound.  It’s also fun realizing you left a trowel on the roof when you were cleaning your gutters. *Sigh.*
    The back of the garage was really dirty so I had to scrub it down with a brush and some TSP.  That part sucked but painting the cedar shake with a brush was so meditative I *almost* stopped crying over the fact that I’m having to evict my housemate.  It’s a long story.

    After washing it down I slapped on the only neutral paint I had in a flat finish.  This is my kitchen color.  It really doesn’t go well with the mint green.
    But! The back of my garage is ONE color that doesn’t go with the mint green.  And some day I’ll replace that light fixture that’s hanging by the wires.  Baby steps.
    We’ll call it shabby chic.
  • Outer beauty

    Outer beauty

    Remember that realtor who told me house was ugly?  Every time I pull into my driveway I wish I could repaint the exterior and pull out those awful rhododendron.  Some day.

    I got my newsletter from This Old House recently and they had a bit on painting your house for $500.  It’s a TON of work, sanding, caulking, scraping, and powerwashing, but it beats the three to six grand it costs to have a professional do it.  It got me thinking about next summer and how that might be the time to tackle this.

    And then? And then! And then I saw this article on Lifehacker about a site called ColorJive.  You can upload a picture of a room and “paint” the walls using Sherman Williams or Benjamin Moore colors.  It’s really fun–instant gratification!

    Too brown!

    Too green!
    Too grey!

    Hmmm.  That’s nice.  I was curious what kind of paint colors were used when my house was built so I checked out Sherman Williams’ historical color palettes.  They had the orange color I already picked out!  I tried on the combination for size.
    Oh, ick.  No brown for me.  But I liked the green.  So I made a mash-up!
    Of course, who knows what I’ll pick when I actually get around to doing this.  But I love plotting..  I’ve been thinking about painting the slab in the backyard.  Why not use ColorJive?  My first instinct was to paint it robin’s egg blue, since that is the color you see the least in the garden.  And I’ve planted a LOT of pink flowers.  But I also tried a bunch of other colors because, hey, you never know what’s going to look great.  And I put in some pink and green dots that are supposed to represent plants.  Just go with it.
    Purple:
    Maybe too bright?
    Pretty, but maybe too muted?
    And red, a more intense version of what is already there:
    This one is called Blue Shoes!
    What do you think?  Is there a color I overlooked that I should mock up?  Which blue do you like?  Or should I skip the blue and pull that color in with pots and furniture?
    (And go waste some time on ColorJive!  It’s fun.)