Eureka!

I know I promised some new paint colors, I will get to those soon. Right now, I am still working on those pesky walls! The sun room is still throwing me for a loop! I decided to test out a third pattern, which I think I like. On the other hand, it still leaves the wall wanting...something. Therefore, I have moved on to the living room where I will also demonstrate another technique for hanging wall art.

I have these amazing canvas pieces that I bought when I moved out of my parents house into my first apartment back in 2006. For those that knew me then, they are the three square canvases that hung behind the couch. I like them, because of the multiple layers of vibes I get from them. They are serene, but still impart a warm energy. They are elegant, but casual at the same time. They have that zen quality of balance, but without the sterile minimalism. They definitely go with my typical style, which I like to call Organic Elegance. Who wants to take a stab at defining that? Lol! They were a pretty amazing bargain, too! I believe they were $40 each, which is pretty cheap for this size (19.5" x 19.5"). Just go to Michaels, an empty picture frame this size typcially runs at least $50. At Bed, Bath, and Beyond (where I have found these same pieces as prints rather than canvas) or Target they would run about $60-$80. I won't even go there for how much something like this costs at Pier1!

Ok, so these pieces have been sitting on the floor all over my town home. I debated putting them them above the headboard in my bedroom, in the foyer above the side table, on the wall by the sliding back door to the yard, on the other side of the foyer as you enter the first floor, even broke them up and scattered them around. I should have just went with my original instinct. I bought them for a living room, just keep them in the darn living room! Really, this is what you get when you have stacks upon stacks of decorating magazines and watch HGTV nearly 24/7! Too many ideas that crowd out your instincts.

Yay, step one complete! I know what I am hanging on my wall. Time for step two: how am I going to hang these on my wall? That is actually easy this time. Since I only have three and do not want to spend a lot of money to find filler pieces. I am going to hang them horizontally like I did in my apartment.

So, my last post consisted of discussing how cutting out the shapes of the frames or artwork can help you visualize the finished arrangement before taking hammer and nail to your [painted] walls. I did that again here, but I have an added another step. When you want to hang things horizontally, you probably want them to be at the same height, right? I thought so. Well, after my experience in the sun room moving my paper mock-ups just a bit up, a little bit down, crap I went to far to the left, I came up with a pretty neat idea to help get that out of the way quicker. Actually, it is half my idea, half Better Home and Gardens.

This is another one of those repeated advice articles, but it has always been aligned with the tricky task of hanging art or pictures in a stairway. Use string to make a grid to guide you. Brilliant! I bought a 200 ft roll of bright colored twine for only 97 cents at Lowes. Not bad! Worked amazingly. The trick is not only the string, but also the use of a level and a little assistance from more blue tape. Do not forget the level unless you want to keep stepping back to look, then back up the ladder to adjust (repeat until just right!).

Anyway, I think I have my design. The three canvases aligned horizontaly, with two 12" floating shelves that will allow me to swap out table top frames and other interesting little pieces tokeep things fresh. I like it when a task comes to a resolution.

All Walled Up

I am at a dilema. After over a year and a half in my townhome, it is time to get something on my walls and I am stumped. When it comes to positioning anything on a wall I get nervous and even more so when that wall is painted and I have no touch up paint left over! I am the kind of person who will move an object back and forth a million times until it is just right. You don't really have that option after drilling a hole big enough for a wall anchor.

With an idea in mind, I set out to find something that matched what I was imaginig for my brightly colored sun room. The goal was sturdy, but sleek, simple black picture frames (preferrably matted) that were reasonably priced. By reasonabaly priced, I mean cheap. I am a bargain hunter, what can I say? Originally, I was thinking 11x14s, but as I perused the aisles of Michael's I came across something a bit more unique and cost only $10 a pop: 10x10s matted for 5x5s. Even better, the Home Gallery section was 50% off. Score! At $5 each you betcha I scooped up the last six in the store. Isn't shopping fun when you actually find things you want to buy????

Now for the dilema. Would my imagination look as good in reality as it did in my head? Eep! I can't drill or hammer anything yet!

As many of you know, I tend to snatch my mom's Better Homes and Garden magazine when she and my sister have finished reading it and Val has cut out all the recipes. I also tend to waste my money by purchasing all their special publications rather than subscribing and saving a butt load of dough, but that is another story. Anway, one piece of advice that tends to be recycled over the years is to make paper cut-outs of the shapes of the frames or artwork you want to arrange on your wall. Not completely economical when your frames don't fit within the parameters of the standard 8.5x11 sheet of paper, but not too costly if a) you know where to shop and b) you don't want to ruin your walls.

Good thing I did the cut out thing, because my original idea of a row of three frames on either side of the mirror just isn't jiving for me. Hmph.

Now to figure out whether I can work out something nice with the frames I already have, or if I need to return them and find something else. Wish me luck!

Independent Lady

Happy Independence Day! Is it bad that I use holidays to catch up on housework (and sometimes work work)? Today I finally finished cleaning my deck to get it ready for some protective sealer.



So the standard rule when you have a deck built with pressure treated wood is that you need to let it "weather" for a year. One of my handy co-workers mentioned something about the chemicals used in the wood. From a recent Google search, it sounds as if the chemicals in fresh pressure treated wood prevent a sealer from penetrating the wood. Feel free to correct me if my information is incorrect. The point is, the wood was absorbing water, which means time to seal!


Since a deck is exposed all day every day to the elements, it's a good idea to use a deck cleaner on the wood. It revives the look of the lumber and gets rid of nasty things like mildew stains. During my initial search, the majority of deck cleaners required diluting and scrubbing. You know me, I don't have that kind of time! Luckily, I found a cleaner made by Olympic that did not require either. Unfortunately, that didn't prevent this project from being back breaking!


Clean then rinse. Clean then rinse. I also did a little brushing (not quite scrubbing). Helped even out the "bleaching".

Okay, enough for today! Tomorrow I'll be trying out some paint samples for my kitchen and the foyer.

An Encouraged Attempt

At the encouragement of several of my more tech savvy friends, I am venturing into the world of Blogging. Now what will I be blogging about, you might wonder. Well, for the most part it will be on my adventures as a new homeowner. My friends and co-workers tend to get a kick out of my decorating posts on facebook, and even more so when I get to the maintenance issues and power tools get involved. Maybe a random non-home related post here and there when the fancy strikes.We'll see how this goes, but first things first...learning the art of blogging!