I Did It!

So you know how we all (well not WE ALL) but LOTS of us are on Pinterest? And how we spend good time 'pinning' ideas that inspire us, make us laugh, are things we want to make, organize, do, or remember and so much more? But to be honest- how many pins do we actually end up making, doing, organizing, or remembering?

At least for me- not many. But every now and then, there are some that are truly motivating and I have to act. Well friends- this post is about one of them!

You know those horrible 'contractor' mirrors that are in a lot of our bathrooms? You know the ginormous ones that while useful (because practically EVERYTHING on you and behind you are reflected) they're not that attractive to look at. So as I was looking on Pinterest, I saw several pins about people who 'framed' out their contractor mirrors and I was sold!

Here is our UGGGGULAYYY contractor mirror  BEFORE:

For the past week (yes week- it takes a while when you a. have a 6 month old, b. are still recovering from jet-lag, and c. well... it just takes a while) I've been working on this project.

Armed with my pinterest pictures as inspiration:

and this blog's tutorial (http://impatientlyprayingforpatience.blogspot.com/2010/05/mirror-frame-tutorial.html)- I set off to do this thang!

I went to Lowes (since we had a gift card) and bought 2- 8ft long 4 1/4" base moulding (our mirror is 4' X 4'), went to Home Depot and bought Liquid Nails, Mirror adhesive, and used caulk, a hand saw, tape, and sander that I already had at home. 

While at Lowes, I had them cut both 8 ft pieces in half : 1. less work for me =P and 2. I could easily put it in my Civic to bring home.

Once home, I used a right angle ruler to measure a 45 degree angle on each end of the trim. 

Note: it important to be consistent to cut 'in' the same way with each piece. For example, the curvy side of the trim was my 'inside' and so I needed to cut towards that in order to piece them together correctly to frame my mirror.

Note: It's also important to make sure your 'outer' side is the exact dimension of your mirror. You don't want it to be too short as it won't properly frame your mirror. SO make sure you measure that several times. I took my pieces to the mirror too, just to make sure they were indeed long enough.

After cutting each end, I laid all 4 pieces out on the floor into a square and played with which piece should be the top, bottom, left and right. Once I figured out which piece fit best where, I then realized a couple of my cuts weren't as smooth  but didn't take care of that just yet because I wanted to paint the trim first. You could probably go ahead and sand first if you wanted to. I painted both sides (even though I bought pre-painted trim) in a bright white, semi-gloss paint (since it's going in a bathroom semi-gloss helps act a repeller of moisture and is easy to wipe off). I went ahead and let the paint set a day partially because I wanted to let the paint dry thoroughly and mostly because I knew Eva was going to wake up soon and I wouldn't finish gluing the trim to the mirror in one sitting.

The next day I re-laid out the pieces on the floor and figured out which one especially needed a little sanding to make a better fit. I used my electric sander to help them out and it was a step that was totally worth it, even though I wanted to take a short-cut and just 'go for it' since I was banking on caulk covering any 'non-perfect' seams anyway.  After sanding it was a better fit and made for less work in the long run, a better end product, and more peace of mind.

Next came the gluing time! DUN DUN DUN!!! Thankfully Eva subconciously knew her momma needed extra time, so she helped out by taking a longer nap than usual! Thanks love bug! =)

I took the: 4 trim pieces, liquid nails, caulk, caulking gun, painters tape, level, and paper towels to the bathroom! After reading the directions on the Liquid Nails tube I realized I had about 10 minutes of setting time to get each piece in place. 

All the pieces in the bathroom!

I loaded the tube into the caulking gun and after pumping several times realized nothing was coming out. DUR- forgot to puncture the inner seal.

After puncturing the inner seal =P

 Oh yah- I forgot to mention our mirror had a piece of duct-tape across the bottom edge ever since we moved in and after removing it today, I found this:

Old, decaying mirror. No worries- it would be covered up again soon!

 I didn't get any pictures of my caulking pattern, I was too nervous to take time to take pictures mid-caulk but the pattern I used was a zig-zag, and I made sure to stay away from the 'inner' edge especially of the trim. If you caulk too close to the edge you will see it in the reflection in the mirror. Once I finished zig-zagging (yes that's a word =P), I pressed the first piece into place making sure to line my outer edges with the edges of the mirror.

After pressing the trim firmly against the mirror, I grabbed 3 pieces of tape I already laid out and fastened them to the trim.

Very handy to already have tape laid out since your hands will be occupied holding the trim.

The first piece is up!

Oh yah- I should also mention after caulking each piece the glue continued to ooze out, so I just put a paper towel under the gun and used the excess caulk at the start of caulking the next piece.

Allllllllllllmost there!

Once all 4 pieces were in place and securely taped, I just had to wait. I decided it was better to wait to let everything set then to just begin caulking (even though I really wanted to because I wanted to see the finished product!).  I was glad I waited since the pieces actually shifted as they hung there drying, even though they were taped up. So I just kept coming in every 5-20 minutes over the next 4 or so hours to press the pieces against the mirror. I'm really glad I did that even though it was annoying, because as the pieces pulled away from the mirror during the drying process you could see the zig-zag glue pattern. So pressing it every 5-20 minutes, helped keep the trim drying closer to the mirror.

Ok, enough blabbing- the final product!

Before:

 AFTER:

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

YAYYYY!! SO glad I did it and now I can't wait to paint the bathroom!

A New Year and a New Life (so to speak)

It's been a while since I've had the chance to blog here, and it's for a very good reason. It's because we welcomed our first baby to our lives on December 7. Yes friends- we welcomed our sweet Evangeline Ruth and life is indeed sweet.

~Eva at 11 days old~

Life certainly has changed drastically here in the Deng household but truly, it is a blessed change. I admit for the first 6 weeks of her life, it seemed as if life came to a screeching halt that basically just included nursing, crying, nursing, nursing, dirty diapers, nursing, and more nursing. O yah, and pumping. (sorry if that's t.m.i.- too much information)

However, now that she is 3 months old- oh man it is just amazing. Eva is quite the little person now- able to coo and squeal, and almost laugh, smile, and kick her little legs in excitement. It's precious.

As if that weren't a gift enough, since she is sleeping better at night (for the most part) I have been able to resume little projects here and there around the house. Which is fabulous, because it just adds a sense of normalcy and as you know- I love projects.

One project in particular that I wanted to get done was the foyer. First I wanted to put privacy lining up- so that when I nurse Eva in the living room I can do so without worrying someone walking by (especially at night) could see in. And the second was painting the foyer!

The privacy lining was so worth it and definitely a great decision. It still allows light to come in but offers an eye appealing solution for some privacy. A win-win if you ask me.

So without going into too much detail- I'll just simply show you the difference.

Before:

After:

When we got home from the hospital- I realized quickly that the open windows just weren't going to cut it. So I came up with a quick-fix of hanging up some curtains on hangers over the windows.

See Exhibit A:

Oh man- that was rough looking, but it worked. Not eye-appealing at all, but it did work... (Shwew I'm so glad those are gone).

Muuuuuuuch better.

On to painting.

I knew I wanted it to be a similar shade of the gray that we did in the living/dining room but I knew I wanted to take a risk (for me) and go darker. We have lots of natural light that flows into the foyer and with the huge white bookshelf that constitutes 2/3 of the banister, I knew we could go for it. 

So we did!

We tested 3 different shades of gray:

(however in this picture it looks like 4, but that's just because I painted the same color twice- the top and bottom one are the same.)

Can you guess which one we went with? 

Numero dos! We felt it was the right amount of contrast (aka it was dark enough) and it held a similar tone to the living/dining room color. And we were definitely not disappointed.

Josh snagged a few of me, err I mean the foyer, in progress. 

And here my friends is the final product:

Yup! Totally what we wanted~

Ze Nursery!

So it's been a little while, but that's because things have been crazy busy around these parts. Getting ready for a new born is no small feat, and I have a new respect for moms who've already done this.

This past month or so has just been filled will preparations for our little girl and it's been a good mixture of nervousness and excitement. Overall though, it's now just excitement that we are ONE week away from her due date. That being the case, I am EXTREMELY happy to announce we have finished her nursery. (however, I do recognize that me being the little decorator/tweaker that I am, there will be changes from where it's at now. But that's what is fun! A room is always transforming, just like the people who come and go in it!)

Anyways, without further ado- here is the big REVEAL of our little girl's room. Ready friends?


When you walk in the bedroom door this is what you are greeted with:

OOhhh little girls~

And now for all the fun details-

I found something like this on Pinterest, so I modified it a bit and LOVE the end result.

Directly underneath the frames is this cute little cube organizer filled with all her goodies, topped with a precious pink corduroy bunny~

Over by the window, I made this picture/scripture artwork from scrap wood that we had around the house. I'd been praying about what verse to put up in her room, and this one is one of my favorites~ 

The verse is: "Luke 12: 7- Indeed, the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a flock of sparrows."

 These two snuggling birds are my favorites.

Directly to the left is her crib! What a lovely gift from Josh's parents. Above it is a mobile that is made completely out of paper cranes my Mom made as wedding favors for our wedding! I love that we were able to include something so sentimental for our little girl to stare at as she drifts to sleep.

Just a little close-up.

Behind her crib is a mural that I painted on the wall with a shade lighter than the wall paint. In case you're curious: the wall color is called 'Lavender Lace' by Behr & the mural color is 'Graceful' by Behr. 

And lastly, turning back towards the door, we have her dresser ( a $25 yard sale find!)/ changing station that simply needed a little paint job (I 'white washed' it in a light grey paint) and some adorable pictures taken by a dear friend on the shelves above.

Oh yah, and I couldn't resist the urge to take a picture of her little winter jacket hanging on the back of the door! Ah I can't wait to bundle her up in it!

 So dear friends, that is her room! What a joy and blessing it was to do it, and I can't tell you how neat it was for God to provide for it! Between gifts given and simply pulling things from around the house, the total cost was minimal! He even provided a gift card to cover the cost of the rug! We are SO incredibly blessed and I can't wait to bring her home~

Just a Taste~

This month has officially been deemed, 'Baby Month'. We are having two showers thrown for us by friends and family, and we're also going full steam now at getting her room ready!

Just two days ago we finished painting the nursery and here's just a little sample, if you will, of what is to come!

I love Painting!

So if you remember a few posts back, I mentioned here at the end that we were prepping for another project. Well friends- if you spotted those paint swatches on the wall then you probably figured out that we were painting our living room/dining room/ and hallway! After weeks of deliberating over which grey we finally picked one (Silver Sateen by Behr in case you wanted to know) and it felt GREAT to paint!  Something about picking out our own color for our living room/dining room/ hallway in our first house sure makes you feel like an adult! It was great.

So to keep this short and sweet, let's just get to the befores and afters!

Befores:

And drumroll please, the Afters:

In case you are very observant, you probably saw this picture:

now added in the dining room area! The space needed something different than the last Venice piece and I have been meaning to blow up this fabulous picture from our wedding. I ordered it through posterprintfactory.com and was VERY impressed with them. The quality is great, but they actually messed up my first order by not printing it in black and white. When I called to ask for them to fix it, they apologized immediately, said it was their fault and they would have a new copy out by the end of the day! Well not only did they follow through on their word, they let me keep the first color print AND they sent a 2nd color print in the new shipment. I'm guessing there's some new person on the production side of things and they messed up, so they just sent me the extra copy anyways. Who knows, but now I have 3, 20 X 30" copies of this fun picture!

And here is another fun change to the dining room since the first before was taken. I'll do a short little blurb on this another time.

Facelift, part 2!

Are you ready for this? Oh man, cause this is one exciting update for me to write about! As previously mentioned, in this post, we've been doing a little 'beautification' project. And as promised, here is the update/finished product.

When we bought our house, we knew she needed lots of updates... one of them being her exterior. She's been neglected to say the least, and well- we're just not fans of the whole 70's motif we have going on. So for a simple, (read: inexpensive) update we decided to paint the shutters! That way we could break up the monotony of brown, brown, brown, and more brown. Let's just say I'm MORE than thrilled because with fall approaching (aka. after the colors have faded) we'll have even more brown surrounding our house, so adding a pop of color I hope really helps liven things up.

First, we laid out a bunch of cut-up cardboard boxes to help cover the ground so we didn't up with blue grass. And fortunately since we've just recently moved- there's no shortage in supply of cardboard boxes in our house.

From there it was pretty basic- lay out the shutters, grab and shake a can of spray paint, and go at it. One thing I read and found particularly helpful is to do light, even coats- keeping in mind that at least two coats will be needed to cover the surface adequately. I found that by doing this, our end result was smooth, consistent, and exactly what I was going for. So just a thought.

After one coat- here you can see what I'm talking about with needing another coat.

I tell ya- reading the label on the spray can is the most effective thing you can do. I realized that a second coat could be applied as early as 20 minutes after spraying the first, but also definitely needed to be applied within 24 hours of painting them. I also realized that for 6 shutters, only 5 cans were needed since roughly it was just a little under 1 can per shutter for 2 coats.

Waiting for all of the shutters to dry enough before applying the 2nd coat.

Unfortunately it began to drizzle while I was waiting, so in a frenzy I leaned them all against the house (don't worry the backs were dry so no blue paint got on our white painted brick). I had to wait until the next day to get the second coat on but like I said, the can said 'within 24 hours' so I made sure to do that, and I am really happy with what we were left with.  When I did get to paint them the next day this is what I found waiting for me on one of the shutters-

Who knew we had so many fun bugs around our house? Wait did I seriously just say that? 'Fun' + 'Bugs' in the same sentence... I must be coming down with something. (In case you don't know... I HATE bugs. I am scared of them and they're scared of me (or rather me when I yell for my hero-husband to come save me from them. aka "squash it squash it!!! Now flush it down the toilet so it can't come get me again!"). *Don't worry, no bugs were harmed or killed in the process of this project*

Alrighty, enough stalling from me. Here is the final product:

Before:

After:

Mm hmm. Ain't she a beaut? Much more cottage-y for sure, and definitely a nice break up of the brown! And for under $20 bucks  (5 cans of spray paint at about $3.50 a piece), totally worth the cost for a good facelift.

Hooray!