Guest Bathroom Before and After

I am sorry I have not posted anything in awhile.  I got in trouble this weekend by several of my friends for my lack of posting so I figured I must update my blog.  Two big things happened two weeks ago.  First we finished stenciling the guest bathroom which was a very long project.  Second we got engaged! Yay!  The second is obviously a bit more exciting but the first was actually quite a feat.   My mom came to town and helped us a lot on the start of this project, we intended to finish in that one weekend but that was just not in the cards.  She of course could not stay for the weeks that followed (bummer) but I think we did a good job finishing.  DP begrudgingly helped and actually ended up doing most of it as I got caught up in other craftiness.

Well this blog will probably very soon become The House on Love Lane Gets Hitched but for now I do have a couple posts to continue our home renovation.  I hope you enjoy our guest bathroom when you come to visit us as much as I do.  It really has been a labor of love.

Bathroom Before Construction

Mid Construction

Post Construction

Pre-stenciling

Mid Stenciling

Completed Stenciling

Finished Bathroom

Finished Bathroom

Crate Nightstand - Before and After

I love old crates. I think they are so cool and useful. I have moved this old crate (that you can kind of see in the image below) with me to all of my apartments in NYC. I actually have no idea where it came from; the options are really my grandmother, mother, or a flea market. I used it in my old apartment just sitting on the floor in the kitchen to hold tupperware. This worked really well until we got a puppy and the tupperware needed to move to greener more elevated pastures. Anyway, I moved it to this apartment and decided I really wanted to turn it into a nightstand in the guest room. I just thought it needed more prominent placement.

So, while I was painting the other night tables, I put DP to work creating a night stand.

First, I bought some legs from home depot and had DP cut them down so they were short enough to use as end-table legs.

Attaching them was a bit tricky but DP managed to screw them into the slats just inside the corner blocks.

The legs were new raw pine and the crate was some darker, harder, and stained wood.

DP primed them with some of the left over paint from our living room wall. By mixing a latex candy apple red paint with a bit of water, DP created a sort of deep colored stain. Once the primer was dry, he applied just one even coat of the stain/paint.

Here it is dry and in its new home next to the guest bed.

How To Paint Raw Pine

After

When we were decorating the bedroom, I knew that I wanted to paint our raw pine furniture. We had two antique pieces and then three pine pieces that just didn't fit in the space. I haven't quite decided what I am doing with the dresser but I knew right away that I wanted our end tables to become the pop of color our room needed.

Supplies:

Paint

Sand paper

Wax (I used Fiddes Wax which I had to order online)

Paint Brush

Knobs

Nylons

Lint free rag

Rubber Gloves

1. Start by washing and sanding any imperfections in your wood. My wood was raw but there were a few places it had been patched up which I sanded and then wiped clean with a wet rag.

Before

2. Paint the piece of furniture. I chose a light blue/ aqua colored paint. I really only did one coat on most of the piece but ended up applying a second on the top. Let dry for 24 hours.

3. After everything is dry, take a fine grain sand paper and sand the edges and top of the wood. The intent is to reveal a little of the raw wood beneath and make it look a little old and weathered.

4. Wipe down again with a dry rag to make sure no remaining dust is around.

5. Take the wax (I bought a dark brown version) and using a paint brush apply strokes with the grain.

6. Immediately after applying the wax, take a dry lint-free rag and begin to wipe the wax into the wood. This will remove a lot of excess wax and let you really work in the wax so you can get the desired look. Continue this process until you have done the entire piece.

7. After it is all dried and you have worked in the wax, take your old nylons and use them to buff the piece. Basically you are just at this point really trying to work the wax completely into the wood so that it doesn't cake in any areas or rub off.

8. When you are finished with that, it is time to reassemble the piece and it is ready for use. If you are not happy with any of the areas of wax feel free to use paint to retouch or just sand out some of the wax. Painting furniture is very forgiving as you can always just take a step back and fix the problem.

After

After

Before and After Hallway

Hallway Before

Hallway After

Inspiration

When I first began this whole apartment process, the one thing I was dead set on was stripes in the hallway. I love stripes-- I probably own over two dozen shirts or dresses that are striped and I thought it would be awesome to incorporate them into our apartment. That said, when I first proposed painting the hallway with vertical stripes DP was not overly enthusiastic. So I set out on the internet to find individuals, designers, anyone who had painted stripes in their homes. I found tons of different examples. None exactly what I wanted, but close enough to get an "A-Okay" from DP on the idea. I knew I wanted the stripes to be subtle and not too overwhelming; I also knew that they needed to seamlessly flow into the kitchen and living room and really tie the apartment together.

Wallpaper

It was hard to say goodbye to the original hallway wallpaper. There was this amazing velour print wallpaper throughout the entire hall-- it was black and gold and had probably been put up in the early 1950's. It was amazing but in complete disarray. I contemplated actually wallpapering the space instead (I am really into wallpaper again), but my taste in wallpaper was way too expensive for my budget. The paint seemed the best option. I did attempt to keep a square of wall paper to hang in a frame, but alas, our contractor wasn't able to salvage any-- it just flaked off.

Chandelier in the Bedroom

Picking out the colors for the stripes was fun. Again, I wanted something neutral because my plan was to put a large collection of photos up in the hallway where you walk in. I also knew I wanted to keep the chandelier that was in the second bedroom when we bought the apartment; it was amazing and needed to be in a far more prominent position. So, we selected the living room colors and then selected a complimentary tan to go in the hallway. We ended up paying someone to come in and actually do the work. I was pretty confident I could do it but as DP said it would have taken me several months to actually get it done. I think it was all worth the extra money and I am totally in love with how it turned out.

Before Gallery

After Gallery

Kitchen Poster