Ad(dressing) the window

Before I could put up the pretty bamboo shade I bought on Overstock.com, I had to address the crumbly, yellow and downright sad window in the art space.  This window is in fine working order, but unfortunately was a huge eyesore due to bad paint jobs and general neglect.  

It is missing chunks of wood and glazing, and really needs to be redone when it gets warmer out.  Until I can do some structural work, a new coat of paint was necessary to stop the assault on my eyeballs.  And your eyeballs.  Because your eyeballs are the whole reason I have this blog!  See, I painted this window for YOU! 

I usually use BIN primer on windows, but I had a gallon of BEHR 'Premium Plus Ultra Paint And Primer In One' that our painter used on our living room windows.  I thought I'd sand everything really well, and give this product a spin instead of using a separate primer. 

It wasn't half bad!  It is definitely not as good as using shellac-based BIN to seal up the wood and smooth over bumps, but it did the job.  And this was just about looks, since I'm going to take my time with this window later on.  When I paint windows, I always run the paint onto the glass to create an extra 'seal' between the glass and the wood. 

Oh my, the up-close shots are still not too pretty.  Just pretend there is another coat and it's lovely, ok?  Oh, and also pretend that I have cleaned the glass.  Also pretend that I have cleaned the outside glass on every window in our house since we moved in.  Ahem.

The day after painting, I come in with my favorite tool, the glass scraper.  If you can rest your hand against the sill or frame and keep it steady, it is quite easy to scrape the excess paint away in long strips.

And the bonus is that you make all this fun 'latex confetti' that you can throw up in the air while singing and dancing to "The Safety Dance" give to your cats to play with!  Actually, they might eat it, so just do the 'confetti' thing and not the 'plaything' uh, thing. 

Once I was able to get a coat of fresh white paint/primer on the window, I felt ok about installing my bamboo shade.  I try not to HIDE bad things with pretty things, you know?  It's all about homeowner integrity.  Just don't peek underneath all our ceiling medallions.   

This shade is rad.  If you are in the market for some shades, Overstock.com beat Home Depot's price by 8 bones, and there are many more styles and sizes on Overstock.  The inside of my window is 29.5 inches, and trying to find a 29-inch shade was difficult.  I left several stores pretty disgusted and had to soothe myself with a Starbucks.  See, Home Depot cost me 4 bucks and I didn't even buy anything there!  Well, my coffee habit is neither here nor there.  I'm mighty happy with the way the window shaped up. 

The fabric is from Joann's Home Decor section.  I can't find it online, so I don't have the link.  Again, here is the link to the shade I purchased. I think I should be getting a little kickback from Overstock at this point, don't you?

A sticky and stanky makeover

Since I have a shopping addiction, I have tried very hard to keep my spending in check for our art room redo.  It wasn't too hard since this room could only hold one piece of furniture...but I didn't even want to pay for the piece we needed, which was a large desk or table.  I found a perfect (almost free) solution when I looked into this little-used room on our first floor.  We call it the 'office,' but do not do any sort of office work in there.  In fact, the only ones who work in there are the cats.  They work on beating their records for smelliest turds.  Honestly, there is no good solution for cat poo, is there?

I will go into more detail about this room later, it definitely needs it's own full post because it was riddled with homeowner drama!  But back to the main story...I decided to steal the IKEA laminate desk for the art room, since it was just a place to pile up mail and other garbage, anyway.  Here she is after the 'hutch' and glass top were removed:

NOT CUTE.  While the light wood-look was hot when I purchased the office set 7 years ago, it is definitely not anymore.  So, I decided to paint it high-gloss white.  I took it apart and brought it downstairs to my 'kill room'...where I spray paint things with Dexter.

And then I finally took off the IKEA sticker.  Because I probably won't return it now.

I gave everything a good sanding.  Well, as good as you can sand without removing any of the dowels or Ikea hardware.  Yeah, sometimes I'm LAZY. 

I sanded the laminate until I had pretty impressive piles of dust all around the pieces.  Then I sprayed everything with a great oil-based primer, Cover Stain. 

I usually roll or brush on BIN primer for wood/laminate, but I saw a fantastic deal on Cover Stain cans at my local BM store, so I picked that up instead.  It works well and I'm LAZY.  Plus, I have a kill room.  Duh!  The choice is obvious.   

I sanded any rough spots after the primer dried, and then busted out the sticky, messy and stanky Rustoleum Oil-Based enamel in Gloss White.  I knew oil-based would work better on laminate than water-based, and I wanted a nice candy-shell finish on the desk, but OH MOTHER it is such a pain.  On the plus side, you get a little 'high' from it.  So that's cool.    

I'm kidding.  Sort of.  Whatever you do, do NOT apply this paint with a nap roller!  I had little fuzzies everywhere, for some reason dust, dirt, hair, boogers, anything in the air is attracted to this paint like a magnet.  And it takes 24 hours to dry.  Booooo!

I sanded the first coat of paint to get off all the little fuzzies, then wisely decided to give the nappy roller another shot.  I am dumb.  Needless to say, the same thing happened and I just don't care anymore.  It will remain fuzzy.  And you can totally see it. 

At least the top has glass, so that helps a little.  Fuzzies or not, it is much improved, and definitely serves it's purpose for the room.  Side note: there is another part of the desk that I also painted, but used a foam roller instead of nap.  It worked oodles better.

It looks so much better white!  And it only cost me about $13 in paint and primer.

And because I'm not quite done putting everything together, here are some teasers of the other components of the room:

I will have it all posted by Friday!  In the meantime, happy Hump Day!

Ode to Overstock

Overstock.com, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. Your website is well organized, and the online reviews mean that I always know what I'm getting.
2. Your amazing prices make my heart flutter!
3. 'Club O' membership allows me to get an extra 5% off plus free shipping with every order, which almost puts me into cardiac arrest from the excitement!
4. The coupon page on your site ensures that customers practically never have to pay full price, even if they are not a member.  What company does that? 
5. The speed at which my items ship leaves me flushed with happiness.  Like this Saturday when I ordered a rug for my art room at 11am, and it shipped at 1am Sunday! Who ships things in the middle of the night on a Sunday?  You do!

6.  The quality of your items has the ability to inspire love letters....and I can't wait to get my (8' square) jute rug on Wednesday!

Love,
Sara

ps - I will post the reveal of the art room after the rug arrives this week.  We love the way it turned out!

Art room floor

While we had an empty room to work with, I thought it prudent to address the floor.  The wood floor in this room is pretty rough.  It's got water damage, visible nails and has lost much of it's finish over the years. 

We are planning to refinish all the upstairs floors soon, so I just wanted to make it look a little nicer until then.  I had picked up some Bona Hardwood Floor Refresher awhile back, and decided to give it a try.  First, I gave the floors a good cleaning with my go-to product, Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner:

Then I let them dry, and busted out my secret weapon:

It is supposed to put a very thin layer of urethane back on the floor, smooth out scratches, and give more sheen.  You are supposed to use this special pad to apply it...

 ...but I think you could use a t-shirt wrapped around a regular mop.  I'm all about savings!  I rocked the bottle gently to mix, then followed the directions, making large S-patterns on the floor and mopping with the grain.

 

I made sure to coat the bad area by the door really well:

When I was done with the room, it was looking mighty nice!

Of course, it didn't dry that way.  After two coats, it looked like this:

Uh huh.  Your eyes aren't going, there really is no discernable difference.  Maybe side by side will help to see it?

Not really.  Apparently, this stuff only works when there is actually poly already on the floor.  Well, I'll be darned.  The areas of the room that still had some finish did shine up a bit.  The rest, well it just looks clean.  

Even though I wasn't blown away by the results, I will definitely be trying this product on our floor in the living room and front hall, there are tons of scratches there already, and I'm interested to see how it does on floors with a nice newish coat of poly.  Refresher aside, the Bona cleaner is the ultimate.  Professionals recommend it, and it won't damage your finish or make your floors dull like Orange Glo can over time.  I highly recommend it!  I buy the Bona products at Bed Bath and Beyond, and the bonus is that you can use those 20% off coupons they litter your mailbox with on a weekly basis! 

Cost

Refresher - with coupon, $15

Cleaner - with coupon, $16 for a gallon container (we refill our spray bottle)

Mops/pads - I'm really not sure anymore.  Probably $20 for two pads and the mop itself. 

I've fallen hard

You all know I love my stairs.  I'm terribly proud of our renovation of the entry/stairway.  It's hard to not be proud of this tranformation:

Back when I first posted this renovation, I got some comments about safety.  Like, do I ever fall on my ass when I go down the uncarpeted stairs?  I'm here to tell you that YES INDEEDY I do.  I have fallen a few times, in fact.  These satiny steps are killer.

An especially bad fall happened two nights ago.  I was wearing my slippers as I'm supposed to (these stairs are a no-sock zone), but the tread on my slippers was no match for my careless thundering-down-without-holding-onto-the-railing descent. 

My foot slipped off a step, and I took the last four to the back, butt, thighs and ribs....while carrying an unsealed can of white oil-based paint. 

I know what you're all thinking, "Oh no, did you spill paint on your stairs??"  And after that, "Are you ok??"  Well yes, I'm ok, relatively speaking.  And no, miraculously I didn't spill paint on the stairs.  Although, I'm beginning to think that maybe some texture paint on the treads would be a good idea, as Shaun has also fallen a time or two.

Right now I feel like I did after getting rear-ended in my car many years ago.  My neck is whiplashed, my ribs ache, my butt is sore, my thighs hurt when I try to cross my legs, and I ache in areas I don't want to mention.  Getting out of bed requires hoisting myself up out of the squishy Tempurpedic material with my arms only.  I feel like a paraplegic.   

With my record of clumsiness, I've struggled with adding a stair runner when I really don't want to cover up all our hard work.  It's a tough call, since I have yet to find a runner that I love.  I do like the wool carpet that Aubrey and Lindsay had bound for their basement stairs: 

And Copy Cat Chic has a nice post about runners here.  Although, I must admit the thought of nailing/stapling anything into my beautiful stairs makes me want to puke more than my aching body does. 

Has anyone else found uncarpeted stairs to be a safety hazard, or is it just us? 

Springtime, we are so ready

Not just because it is snowing so much here that they have closed our mall and TJ MAXX early today, but because we finally replaced our brokedown living room windows with a set that OPENS.  Seriously, they go up and down and tilt in and everything!

As you can see from the next few shots, we tried valiantly to strip these windows from the layers of paint slopped all over them.  They were completely painted shut, and no matter what we did, we couldn't open them. 

A whacked-out previous owner had painted these solid original windows with a bright terra-cotta paint.  I also know which one, because our lovely neighbor Margo told us the harrowing story of being invited over so 'boozy Susie' could show her the 'fab new trim paint'. Margo could only stare in disbelief.  Much like we did while trying to remove it.

There was so much paint, we just kept scoring the poor sash with a utility knife (in the wrong place) and ended up cutting the bottom of the sash off.  Duh.  This was the most costly, stupid, 'HBO-passing-on-Mad-Men' type of mistake we made in this house, hopefully there won't be more of those dumb mistakes in our future. 

 

Rather than try to cobble the window back together, we decided to replace the set.  We hemmed and hawed about windows for over a year because the choices are so mind-boggling, then I finally put my foot down and chose what I wanted.  I picked the Marvin Ultimate Insert (replacement) Double Hung Windows, with wood interior and aluminum-clad exterior.  Leave it to me to pick out the most expensive option. 

 

They were top-rated in Consumer Reports, and I liked that they were real wood and offered the details I was looking for, such as divided lite grids and bronze hardware.  The owner of the company also has these windows in his own house, which made us feel even better about our choice.  We got them installed in January, so please say hello to Marv #1:

 

And Marv #2:

You know I sprang for the Oil Rubbed Bronze latches instead of those boring 'taupe' ones!

Why wood?  Well, for our house, they just look better than vinyl.  Some people on my block installed vinyl windows, and I can tell from the street they are vinyl.  I wanted something that fit the age of our house, and these ones are designed to meet 'historic design' criteria.  Our house is not 'historic' by any means, but I still wanted real divided lites that didn't look painted onto the glass.  And even though they are wood, they are very energy efficient and qualify for the Tax Credit, so we will get 30% of our cost back.  Many also believe that a quality wood window will outlast vinyl.  Seeing as how all the rest of our windows are in great shape after 70 years, I'm inclined to agree.

What was the cost?  Well, it was $2400 (talked down from $2586) for the windows and the installation.  Then we paid a company $300 to paint them for us.  Why on earth did I have wood windows painted?  Because all the remaining windows in our house are white, and I'm not replacing any more original windows.  I could have painted them myself, but I already have an entire house of windows to paint, thanks.  I also will be re-glazing some of our original windows as the weather warms up.  Looks like a party, eh? 

 

(This chick is waaay to clean to actually be working.  Just sayin.)

Bottom line: we paid $2700 for two 5 ft tall windows and new cladding on the outside of the house.  A lot of money, but worth it to me.  I could have found a better deal, but the contractor is local and in business for over 13 years, and that was important to me in case we have problems down the road.  What was the actual window cost vs. installation cost?  We don't know for sure, but I'm guessing with the options I chose, $600 per window and the same amount for installation.  I do think we got our money's worth because the 2 installers took around 7 hours to put in the two windows!  Which means it would've taken us 3 years to get them in ourselves.  Or, that they were incompetent.  Only time will tell, I guess! 

Have you replaced windows recently?  How did you decide what to buy?