It’s official, we’re moving!

So here we go again, moving, it’s such a pain in the rear and totally not something we were planning on doing anytime soon! If you’ve been following my blog anytime in the last 3 years you’ll know how much renovation we have completed in our current home and you may remember we just put the finishing touches on the master closet and the kitchen… both of which causes me pain to think about leaving! We have absolutely L-O-V-E-D living here in Louisville, KY, it was such a wonderful surprise for me to find out just how much we would love living here! There is so much to do, more festivals than I can ever get to in one season not to mention the Kentucky Derby, for which the celebrations go on for at least a week in advance of the actual race day. We will miss living here, but we are leaving a little something behind… our middle daughter Cassidy has transferred to the University of Louisville and will be finishing up her college education here, so we’ll be back to visit for sure!

So here are a few pictures the photographer took for the listing, most of these I haven’t shared before!

Sunroom (my favorite family space in the house)

Mudroom (super convenient with doors to both garage and front yard)

Dining Room

Master Bath

Upstairs Hall

Basement (a walk-out with 10 ft. ceilings!)

And the backyard, just part of the 1.12 acres

Our move is prompted by an unexpected job offer for my Hubby and a relocation back to the state of Virginia. We moved to Louisville almost 4 years ago from Richmond, VA, but we will be moving to the Virginia Beach area which I’m pretty excited about! So right now we’re in the process of finding just the right home, you know one that’s not too big… not too small…?! That always proves to be such a difficult task, but we are certainly trying! We’re torn between buying a new home or a fixer upper or something in between the two but I’m hoping something will come on the market soon that will make us want to put a contract down on it.

In the meantime our home was just listed on the market last Thursday and we were fortunate enough to get 3 very great offers the very next day! We accepted a contract which would allow us to rent back until the end of the school year, which will be very helpful to us. So now I am focusing on packing up rarely used items, listing stuff for sale on Craig’s List, gathering small items together for a yard sale and taking stuff to Goodwill. At least I don’t have any painting or renovating work left to do so while this work is time-consuming it’s not very difficult.

So wish us luck! I hope that this transition will go as smooth as possible…

Thanks as always for stopping by… until next time!

February 13, 2017 5

Kitchen cabinets and a little R&R

So I have this project I’m working on and I am doing a pretty good job of not letting it stress me out or make it a priority in any way… the project is painting all of the kitchen cabinets, but I’m starting with the buffet / butler’s pantry area just off of the kitchen.

This is what I started with, not too bad, the cabinet color is pleasing, but what the pictures don’t show is quite a bit of damage (one door broken, prior owner’s dog chewed on corners etc.).

Not only did I want to paint my cabinets white, but I wanted to beef them up a bit. My final color choice was White Dove by Benjamin Moore (in Advance Satin), I saw so many pretty examples of this color and since my countertops are staying the paint tone worked perfectly with them. I removed and labeled all of the door and drawer fronts, lightly sanded (repaired) and cleaned the cabinets and then hand painted the boxes and trim.

I also added the same trim to the sides as I did on the island and my Hubby made a beautiful set of “feet” for the base which I think makes the piece feel more like a custom piece.

The cabinet doors and drawers are getting all new handle placement so I filled and repaired the original holes and used my Critter sprayer to spray them in the garage so I could have a beautiful streak free finish. And this is where I’m at after 3 weeks of working on them off and on…

As you can see I still have 3 door fronts to finish (and a glass decision to make), my Critter sprayer is being a total B-I-A-T-C-H and keeps spitting chunks of paint onto the cabinet surfaces so I’m waiting for some warmer weather to tryout a new sprayer to see if I can get things working properly again… this is hugely frustrating for me, but I have plenty of other things to work on in the meantime.

So last week I left the work behind and me, my Super Awesome Hubby and the last daughter packed up and went camping at Red River Gorge for her spring break. We had a fabulous 4 day/3 night stay with lots of campfires, Uno, stories told and many beautiful hikes.

We had an awesome camp site right next to the creek… and despite what this picture may indicate we hiked miles and miles of beautiful woodland trails!

I happen to catch these two enjoying some much needed (no electronics) father daughter time… I just love the fact that at almost 14 she still wants to hold our hands from time to time.

So we’re back home and I’ve got to get back to painting (eventually), I’ve already removed the door and drawer fronts off of the rest of the base cabinets in the kitchen and I will slowly be working my way through them. For me this is not a race to get them done, I have no deadlines so I’m taking my time and making sure that this paint job is done properly so I won’t have to do it again! And while I’m waiting for paint and filler to dry I can enjoy some gardening and planting my new plants! We had a great time at the Starview greenhouses yesterday, I’m sure that this place will be my go-to for all of my garden plants, it was fabulous… just look at all of my lovelies! I’m also growing quite a bit from seed as well…

And this little absolutely stunning true black Petunia just stole my heart and it is going to find a prominent place in the garden where I can enjoy looking at it everyday!

Also there is SO much going on in Louisville now, the Derby may only be a one day affair to some but for this town the celebration starts a month in advance of the races and we have plans to enjoy as much of the festivities as possible!

Thanks as always for stopping by…

Until next time!

April 11, 2016 6

A Child’s Desk and a Horse of Course!

ASCP Provence blue painted vintage wood childs desk

I seriously cannot believe I have FINALLY gotten around to working on some furniture pieces! I must admit thought that I do have a little motivation… We are having a community wide yard sale in a couple of weekends and I want to get some UYOM pieces out there as well as the hoard of decorative items I have not been able to use in this house. I’m not looking forward to setting it all up, but I am hoping to get my storage room cleaned out!

So here is my first projects, I started with this sweet little desk I purchased about 13 years ago for my middle daughter. She first used it as a desk (or if I’m being honest with you a place to stash her crap) and once she started wearing makeup etc. we set it up to use as a vanity and of course more crap storage… UGH!

Before I took this picture I had already removed the wallpaper and sanded it down. Yes, I wallpapered the top of the desk, but I had glass over the paper… it was very pretty trust me!

BEFORE

As you can see it was just a cute desk, the knobs I added myself from where I don’t remember, but they’re blue glass and very pretty.

So here it is in it’s new color! I painted it in Provence Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I used 2 coats (3 on the top) then I waxed it with ASCP Clear wax and buffed the wax. It doesn’t look super special in this shot but wait until you see the cool top!

Checkout the cool horse silhouette I added to the glass! And no that is not a brick pattern on the glass just a reflection… isn’t it pretty?!

Here it is reflecting the beautiful blue sky today.

So basically I found a horse silhouette I liked on line, I printed it out, cut it out and then traced the cutout onto contact paper.

I cutout the horse from the contact paper and I adhered it to the back of the glass and then sprayed the glass with 3 light coats of Krylon’s Looking Glass spray paint, man do I love this stuff!

I carefully and slowly removed the contact paper a viola! a blue horse! If I had wanted the horse to be another color I could have sprayed the glass again at this point with a secondary color, but I wanted the blue top to show through.

Back painting glass is a super simple project that I have done numerous times, but I can’t seem to get enough of it! This process has so many great possibilities, checkout my glass plates, Halloween hurricane lamps or church window projects for more inspiration!

I’m hoping some lucky horse lover will snatch up this desk at the yard sale! Living in Louisville, KY we have LOTS of horses lovers which is why I decided that the horse silhouette would be perfect! So what do you think? Do you like this project?

Thanks as always for stopping by…

Until next time!