Velcro Pictures–Quick Picture Hanging!

I know I’m not the only one who has this idealistic vision of a perfectly decorated home … with millions of beautiful snapshots all over the house and up the stairway and on every side table. I mean, really … is there such a thing as too many pictures of your children?!

No, people. The answer is emphatically … NO!

I’ve had this project on my list for years. Truly. Years. And I’ve put it off, thinking it was way more expensive than it actually was.

Over Spring Break, I got a wild hair and went to IKEA … and spent $100 (give or take) and bought 75 picture frames. In the hope of achieving that perfect staircase photo wall …



Now. I’m not a photographer. And I’m not a designer. I’m really not … try not to act shocked.

But, I do have a bunch of snapshot pictures that I just love  … you know the ones: the messy highchair pictures, the ‘here, take our picture for us’ vacation pictures, the baby pictures … you know the ones.

So, I uploaded all of them to Costco. Something ridiculous like 300 pictures. But, Costco only charges like $.12 a photo … so I went crazy. Then I narrowed down my favorites to my most favorites. Then I got to work, filling each frame. And then. THEN I pulled out my second most favorite household item, save only RustOleum oil rubbed bronze spray paint:


Heavy. Duty. Industrial. Strength. Velcro. Pretty much my second favorite BFF.

And I had Superman help me cut it into a billion little strips. And then I put the strips on the back of each frame, like this:



The smaller frames only need 2 strips of Velcro. The bigger ones need four.

And then I removed the plastic backing from the Velcro and placed my large frames at every third stair (using a level … but just stuck it up on the wall … NO NAILS!!!). And then I put a medium frame in between each of those (all in alternating orientations). Like this:



And then, I filled in the spaces in between all of them, with the small frames. Like this:



And I had enough frames to go around the corner … still need to buy more to finish the back side of the staircase.



And … can I tell you how much I LOVE going up and down my stairs now? Love. Like, to the moon and back kind of love.

I’m not a scrap booker, but I do take tons of pictures that never see the light of day. I’m trying to change that. Y’all run to IKEA and grab some inexpensive frames. Best money spent.

** I went with dark frames because we are planning to replace our carpet with dark wood floors in June … but I think there were white frames at IKEA too. I think. **

Spray Painted Hardware–What Works? What Doesn’t?

Okay, people. Here it is … a follow up to the 'Refurbishing Hardware' blog post, where I spray painted every shred of brass in my house using Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. Y’all have asked. I have listened … and put off this post simply because it’s a tedious one. However, by far the most frequently asked question(s) is/are: “So … how are the door knobs holding up?” or “So, how’s the shower holding up?”

So.

Here is my detailed response. I have not touched up any of these pictures. There are tricks to saving tons of $$$$ spray painting your door knobs, locks, latches, bathroom fixtures, light fixtures, etc. However, there are things that you DO NOT want to spray paint and it’s better to spend just a little money to replace those with the real thing.

Okay.

Here we go.



First of all … the one thing we noticed very quickly was that the catch/latch on all of our doors quickly looked like this, after opening/shutting the doors a few times:



See that little brass strip? Yeah. Not a huge deal. In my opinion, it’s still way better than the whole thing being brass. HOWEVER. There is a very simple and inexpensive fix for this.

Behold:



Home Depot sells packages of JUST the door latches!!!!! They come in packs of 2 … and I think they were $2.48. Do yourself a favor. Buy one for every door latch. At around a dollar each, I promise, it is money well spent.

See?



Bam. No more annoying strip of brass. Easy Peasy.

Next, all but two of my bedroom/bathroom/closet doors look like this (still, 18 months later):



Still in 100% perfect condition … these door knobs (to inside doors) are absolutely worth spray painting. They hold up well. Zero problems. No complaints. (Saves you around $15-$20 per door knob)

However … the powder bathroom door knob (which gets used about 25x more than the average home’s powder bathroom door knob because I have a preschool in my house) looks like this (Ignore my dirty door … I’m doing you a favor here):



See that little bit of paint wearing off around the lock? Does it bother you? If so … buy a replacement. If you’re like me, this totally doesn’t bother you … because it just looks like it was antiqued. I’m not crazy. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the ‘real deal’ and lots of those door knobs look slightly antiqued.

Moving on.

Here is my bathroom, today … 18 months after the renovation (thanks for making me clean it!) :



Boom. Still looks the same today as it did 18 months ago.



Was spray painting the cabinets worth it? Absolutely.



Did the sink/bath tub faucet handles hold up? Sure did.



Was all that tedious work of painting the shower trim worth it? AITCH YES, people!!! Best two week project we’ve ever done!!



Are there areas that don’t hold up? Um. Yes. But, pretty much only the shower door handle where it catches when it gets opened and closed. (Please note: just as before, the spray painted shower door handle holds onto soap scum just like it would if it wasn’t spray painted!! BONUS.)



Do I care about that? NOPE. Why? Because you can’t see it when the shower door is closed!! Winning, people!!!

**However, Superman told me that you can buy one of these door handles at Home Depot, in oil rubbed bronze finish, for cheap. Maybe someday I’ll decide it’s worth a few bucks. Who knows?

Okay.

Just keep swimming.

Remember the light fixture out front? This one:



Well. It still looks just like that. Here. Look:



Okay. There’s some dust on it. And a few water spots on the glass. Sue me, people.

This chandelier:



Still looks the same … it just houses a little more dust than it did back then. ;) (I’m too lazy to take a new picture)

How about the light switch plates?

Bam:



Outlet covers?

Boom:



And now, my friends … here is what you will want to spend money actually replacing ………

Front Door Hardware (Please over look the fact that I desperately need to paint my front door/trim. K, thanks.) :



Um. Yeah. With the heavy use (and need for a key), I recommend just spending the money on this one. I found an oil rubbed bronze finished front door hardware set at Home Depot that I liked for only $93. But. It’s still $93. And, my scratched door still works … so … I’m not running out to buy one just yet.



Because …. at the end of the day, I rarely notice anyone else’s front door handles when I go visit them. And if I did notice … I wouldn’t care two seconds if it was a little scraped. And I know y’all love me enough to not care either. Right? ;)



The inside looks the same … except … I have since replaced the little door catch/latch thing. If I cared enough, I might even just touch up the scuffs. But I don’t care, people. Sorry. I just don’t.

And, lastly, the other thing you’ll want to just replace, is the back door hardware:



Especially if your back door is like mine and you have blinds that clank against the door knob every time someone goes in or out. I found a back door hardware package in the right finish for only $53. But. Again. I’m not a big spender. So ….. I’ll wait on it. Because: I just. don’t. care. (I did, however, also replace the little door catch/latch on this one too … because it was a buck. Sometimes I go crazy. ;)

So. Moral of the story?

Don’t paint these:



Just replace them with these:



But, do paint the entire rest of the door knob/hardware set.
DO paint your shower trim, faucet handles, cabinets, light fixtures, outdoor light fixtures, chandeliers, light switch plates, outlet covers … yadda yadda. For added emphasis, I’ll say it again … There are only 3 things I wouldn’t recommend painting (because they don’t look 100% a couple months down the road) and those are: front door, back door, all door latches.

There.

I’m done.

I said my peace.

So glad I got all of that off my chest.

Now, go spray paint something, y’all!!

Re-Using an old, discarded chandelier

We are the original owners of our house. When we moved in, there was a dated BRASS chandelier in the “formal” dining room.

A carpeted formal dining room.

Seriously? Who eats on carpet?

Well, we quickly replaced the chandelier with a ceiling fan … because we live in Dallas … and we were never using the carpeted room for a formal dining room anyway.

To my complete shock (and almost horror), Superman found the chandelier in our attic recently. I don’t know why we hung on to it because there is NO way I would hang it in our house. You’ve seen it before. You might even HAVE this exact chandelier in your home. If you do and you love it, my apologies.

Here is the most recent victim of our Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint goodness:



I forgot to take a ‘before’ picture … you know … before we declared war on all that brass.

After we sprayed it with oil rubbed bronze, I was so excited that I had hung on to that ugly brass chandelier because I knew exactly where it needed to go …



… in our entry way. To replace … yet again … more brass. I almost didn’t get a ‘before’ picture of that dusty hanging light. I had to snap a quick pic while Superman was on the ladder taking it down.

We used the same long chain from the original hanging light and just spray painted that too … we needed it … the other chain just wasn’t long enough.

It took Superman a couple hours to take the old one down, remove the chain/wiring, spray paint it, and then re-wire the chain and wires to the newly spray painted chandelier. Then, he hung it up … and holy moly …



… it looks so much better than the dated brass hunk of glass and junk that used to hang in its place.



Seriously. For the whole $2 worth of paint that it took to change out the two fixtures, it was WELL worth it. Because at this point in time, the game is: trying to change everything out while spending the least amount of money possible.

Mission. Accomplished.

$1 Front Porch Light Makeover

Our latest project:

Updating the sad porch light out front. The thing was beat to smithereens during a record breaking hail storm last April.

Well. That … and it was just plain ugly to begin with.

Behold, I give you more brass:



And then, a few minutes later after we kicked its butt with some Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint:



Total cost: About a dollar. Booyah.

And here is the front porch ceiling light before …



Ummmm … that would be 7 years of gross. So. Disgusting. So, we cleaned it out real good, scraped the white paint of the places where the lazy painters made their mess … hit it with a little spray paint and …



SHAZAAM!!! Now, I realize this light is way up high and probably no one but me ever looks at it … but I sleep all warm and fuzzy at night knowing it was taken care of. ;)



And that, my friends, is how you save yourself a quick hundred bucks on front porch lighting. Man. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Rustoleum.



Saving the world. One ugly porch light at a time.

$2 Ceiling Fan Make-over (with tutorial)

Here we go again … more brass. It’s every where. EVERY. WHERE.

We live in the Dallas, Texas area … which means that there is a ceiling fan in every room … to keep us from melting in the scorching summer heat. :D

Here is my daughter’s bedroom ceiling fan. Builder’s grade. Ugly. Brass.



So, I had Superman take the fan down … I cleaned it up really good with soapy water … and I sent the poor guy back out to the garage to spray paint it with some Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. Since he’s a firefighter, he was worried about the white plastic that surrounds the casing that the light bulbs are screwed into. See what I am talking about in the picture below? Those white tube things? He did NOT want those sprayed with spray paint, aka flammable material. (The last thing we need is the firefighter setting his own house on fire!) So, he taped those off really good so they would not get paint on them. I must recommend that you do this. There, I recommended it.



To make the job easy, he suspended a 2x4 from a couple of buckets in the garage, screwed the fan mount to the board, and then just hung the fan from the 2x4. It made it super easy to paint.



The whole process, start to finish, was only a couple hours and literally cost pennies. Maybe a third of a can of spray paint? Maybe? And believe me, you’d spend more time if you bought a new fan … put it together … and then hung it up. This was easy peasy.

Here’s the before and after:



Sorry. Those aren’t the best pictures. The fan was on … and I was too lazy to pull the cord to turn it off. ;)

$20 Bathroom Refurb

We just completed the refurb on our upstairs bathroom. We used baseboard and Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. And that's pretty much it.

The ‘before’ pictures on this are a little crazy with clutter because for nearly 3 years, we shared this small bathroom with both of our children. (My Grandma moved in with us, we gave her our master bedroom/bathroom downstairs, and we moved upstairs with the kids. Sacrifice of serious proportions and love.)

So.

I'll give you the nice 'after' picture to get you through the ugly 'befores' that are coming. :D



Anyway. Here is what the bathroom once was. Holy clutter. We were just trying to survive.



My eyes are burning with all the clutter. There was NO WHERE to store our bathroom supplies, so I turned to hanging buckets on the wall … yes, those are the same buckets that now hang in my master bathroom. Good eye!



Yikes. Clearly, not going for aesthetics at this point.



100% functionality. The picture frames were empty at the time that these pictures were taken (nearly 3 years ago). I did, however, put pictures in them later. I swear. ;)



I’m in bath toy hell right about now. Please. Someone come save me!

That was our life. For 3 years. 2 adults, 2 children. Makes me itch just thinking about the confinement. ;)

And, here we are now:



We used the same Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint for this project. I’m a little obsessed. But, don’t knock me until you try out the color. It’s gorgeous and magnificent. Too bad it photographs black … because it is not black.



You’ll notice that all of the fixtures and door knobs were sprayed with bronze.



We also took down all the craziness from the past 3 years and de-cluttered the small bathroom. No more make shift shelves or stainless steal buckets full of cords. Ahhhh.



No more bath toy hell either. Can I get a hallelujah?! ;)



I have always hated the faucet in the bathroom upstairs. Very dated. And the red and blue hot and cold handles … seriously … like we need them labeled? If you haven’t figured out which one is hot and which one is cold by the time you are old enough to recognize color coding, you don’t deserve to wash your hands! ;) So … I did what I do with every other builder grade aspect I don’t like: I had Superman spray paint it. It looks better in real life than it does in the photograph. :D

And … here are the before and after pictures:



This was the flooring when we bought the house … we had it tiled a few years ago. The cost of tiling the floor is not included in this $20 makeover.



Huge difference.



$6 of spray paint and $14 of baseboard for the mirror.



Yes, we spray painted the toilet handle up here too. ;)



Bye, bye color coded hot and cold handles!

All four of us love the new look. My kids feel so special now!! :D