Paint, paint, light!

Over the weekend we managed to tackle a few projects. For one reason or another, I really feel like accomplishing something - which is really saying something because most of the time, I just daydream about getting things done.

The first project on my to-do list was to repaint the white wicker loveseat that my parents brought up from Florida last year. 

I forgot to take before photos, but here are a few of the process: 

Still kind of splotchy - time for coat number two!

Much better!

It was about a billion degrees outside on Saturday - why I thought it was a good idea to work outside, I have no idea. Normally those are the kinds of days where I hide in the house and fall asleep on the couch watching Lord of the Rings or something like that. Wait, that's almost every weekend...

I also wanted to spruce up our front porch with some flowers. I had a gold 3-pot planter hiding in the sunroom that I've been wanting to use for quite some time. I ran out of paint at one point so off to Lowes I went and they had white mums for sale for $5. So I picked up three. 

Now you may want to know why on earth I cocked them weird. Well, see, I had these three terra cotta pots  in my garage and unfortunately I forgot to measure to see if they would even fit in my planter before going to Lowes. Yeah, I know, dumb. But, I actually like them cocked like that. You can see more of the flowers this way and, I don't know, it just looks different. It's better than having random camp chairs on my patio! At least give me that!

All we need now is to:

• find two little side tables to put on either side of the loveseat
• vacuum off the loveseat cushion and bring it outside
• take out the metal decorative thing
• replace the outdoor light
• replace the front door 
• fix the concrete slab
• find a nice hanging basket

... and out front patio will be complete!

The next project was to hang our new light fixture in the kitchen.

Photos to come soon... I have a few other projects going on in there right now that I want to finish first!

My arms were entirely sore on Sunday and Garry needed my help holding the fixture up in the air while he did the wiring. Both of us were not at all thrilled that it took as long as it did (meaning, it took more than two minutes and both of us were sore from the previous day) but once the fixture was up, and we ran and got bulbs for it, we were surprised at how much light it brought to the room!

Our kitchen always seems really dark, so this will certainly help us in our quest to have better lighting in the kitchen. The next thought is to see if we can get a dimmer switch for that outlet so we can have soft "candlelit" dinners in our dining area. Maybe it will encourage us to eat in there more often.

Finally, I started working on painting the bathroom. Even though this is a small space, there was a LOT of prep work that needed to happen.

• First we had to clear everything out of the bathroom and take down all of the outlet covers and towel bars.
• Garry fixed the drywall where our old light switch used to be (before the electricians with the grant program came and moved the light switch to a safer location in the room) and reinstall the beadboard and trim. 
• All of the holes were filled with joint compound (since I'm the Queen of Spackle this was no huge task) 
• The floor was vacuumed 
• The beadboard was scrubbed with a eraser sponge to get off any excess dirt or grime (you don't want to paint over crud) 
• The floor and walls were taped with painter's tape

Finally, I was able to paint. 

It took a few hours because I ended up painting it by hand with a brush. See, trying to paint beadboard with a roller just wasn't working out for me, so I took my time and did it with my 2" brush. It took forever. 

One part of my prep work that I didn't think to do was to scrub the ever living daylights out of the toilet. Don't ask me what it was like practically sticking my head in it to paint behind it. It was not... pleasant. 

Even though it's kind of hard to tell - the white on the left-hand side of the photo is much brighter than the right-hand side. See, apparently the previous owner never painted the beadboard after installing it so it was just the pre-primed white. Oh well. It's bright and shiny white now! And since it's gloss paint, it's perfect for bathrooms. Since we keep the cat litter box in this room we need to be able to wipe down the walls without the dust from the litter staining (one of our cats will absolutely not use a litter box with a hood on it, so we've had to deal with a lot of litter flung everywhere) 

I have one more coat of the white paint to do and then I can add the color to the wall, reinstall all of the hardware and finally start putting artwork and what-not on the walls. Maybe I'll get some new, extremely fluffy towels for myself.