Frog tape, cats and general disorder

A few weeks ago I was attempting to put some order back into my dressing room. 

But before I could put everything back, I needed to spend an evening with some frog tape and trim paint, fixing up the baseboards.  I had some left from the nursery-esqe stripes (and granny sheers, whoa!) that I did in here when we moved in....

.....so I busted it out for protecting the new floors.  The baseboards were in the same boat as those in the closet.  Stain, poly and general yuck on them. 

As soon as I got the tape down and the paint out, I had quite a crowd surrounding me. If you consider 2 cats a crowd. 

What is it with cats and painting?  They either love the smell, or love that I spend lots of time pushing them away, inadvertently 'playing' with them. 

I don't think it's a good thing that he probably licked this paint off his nose.

This is what it usually looks like whenever I'm painting trim.  Max will run around the house with white streaks all over his cheeks, tail and ears. 

The frog tape worked well to protect the floor. 

The line was even and pretty perfect when I removed the tape. 

There were a couple spots that needed to be touched up a little, but that is to be expected when you leave the tape down long enough to do two coats before removal. 

I like Frog tape, but I don't think it works any better in this application than cheaper blue painters tape.  I know many people rave about using frog tape for wall stripes, but as far as painting trim, either works for me.  Maybe I should have put some on my face!

Buyers remorse and pineapples

Do you ever buy something you think you need in a hurry, and then realize later that you don't really like it?  That is what happened last spring when I wanted a lamp for our entryway.  I'm not even sure why I felt pressured to buy a lamp in a hurry, but I went and bought this one from Target:

You know, the one you can't even see against the wall color?  I thought that since we had the bronze chandelier, I needed to buy a bronze lamp.  I also thought I needed a small lamp for the small table.  The cage-style lamp was the only one I kind of liked, so I brought it home without totally loving it and it's been bothering me ever since.  It's not ugly, it just doesn't look good in this area.  And the linen shade looks dirty next to our white trim.  So, I'm going to sell it on Craigslist, as I don't have any other place for it.  (Wanna buy it from me?)

Of course, I have already purchased the replacement.  Shaun and I were picking up a rug pad at TJ Maxx when I saw this gem in the clearance racks.  He tried covering my eyes and dragging me to the checkout telling me I didn't need it, but I wouldn't budge. 

I've never purchased anything this funky before, or anything shaped like a fruit for that matter, but I instantly knew this was just the fun punch of white that my entry needed to break up the teal walls and dark wood console.  And it was just $23, which meant less than $20 with his discount!  I'm totally marrying this man for his TJ Maxx discount!  No, really, that's a wine-induced joke.  I actually love him without the discount.  Ahem.  Where was I?

Oh yeah, I love this lamp in here!  The shade is large and in charge, and a nice crisp white that looks so much better against the stair molding.  Here's another blah before:

And the cool and pineapple-y after:

I also switched around the accessories.  I kept the jar full of wine corks because, uh, we're winos and need a place to put them all, and added these little Crate and Barrel plates for our keys. 

**Staging alert!**  Yeah, those key-holders would be great if we actually came in the front door, but that doesn't happen, so they probably won't stay there.  Do you like the change?  If so, say it with me now, "I LOVE LAMP!" 

(That one is for you, Micah!) 

Finally

Our french doors that have been sitting on saw horses in the basement for the last year are finally primed, painted, and hung.  We got them up just in time to refinish the upstairs floors without worrying about kitty paw prints in the finish.  Like, a month ago. 

Just ignore that storm door chilling in it's box to the left of the doors.  It's been there since early fall.....eh, at least the box matches the wall color.  Actually, I'm not sure that is a good thing.  'Cardboard box' was not really the look I was going for in here! 

Luckily, you can't really see it with the door open.  Does that count as a 'clever concealment?'  Anyway, these doors have come a long way from when we moved in.

Yes, there was salmon paint underneath the cream.  We attempted to strip them, thinking we would stain them.

I gave up after what seemed like hundreds of hours of work, and primed over them again.  I had better things to do than pick off layers of stubborn paint with a toothpick.

 

Thank you to BIN and my last nerve for making this project a success! 

A little extra padding

Since I own about a million rugs, I have also bought a lot of rug pads.  A rug pad is so important when laying rugs over hardwood floors!  Without them, the backing of your rug can really rub the finish off your floors.  Not to mention pad-less rugs can create a slippery situation.  It's also important to buy a tight-weave rubber (or woven) pad, not the rubber ones with the large grid pattern. The large-weave ones can leave a checkboard in your floor over time, which actually happened to my mom.  She was not amused when she removed the rug pad and saw a nice pattern on her wood floor!  There are a lot of pads that work well.  Here is a sampling of the many different rug pads in our house:

And this is an example of a pad I wouldn't trust over hardwoods (sadly, from my beloved Overstock):

The 'recycled' rug pads like this one from Pottery Barn are great, but 8x10's go for around $100 at PB! 

I get all my rug pads at TJ Maxx, I always buy the rubber ones because they are softer and springier than the recycled mat-style ones.  Oh, and an 8x10 pad is $20 at TJ.  Yes, ma'am!   

Funny story:  Before I was a savvy homeowner, I actually tried to duct-tape a bathroom rug to the linoleum to stop it from sliding.  It didn't have the rubber backing, and we would skate across the floor whenever we had to pee.  Shaun thought I was the biggest nerd for trying to rig it with tape, and I had to go buy a rubber pad the next day.  Oh, the silly things I've done in the past!

Walk all over them

I found the West Elm Zig Zag runners over a month ago and thought the espresso version would be perfect for our upstairs hallways, sort of like a nod to the espresso zebra rug in our living room.  Suprisingly, Shaun liked them as much as I did and told me to go ahead and buy them.  Say wha?  Yes, he gave me permission to buy things, and even let me use his credit card!  They were backordered, which worked out fine because we had to wait 30 days for the poly to fully cure.  I also was able to cash in some Discover rewards for a $50 West Elm gift card to help pay for them.  Bonus!

We also got the existing rugs back down in the bedrooms, after much sweating, yelling and flailing around.  News flash - it's not a super idea to put down room-sized rugs when the furniture is already in there!  It just worked out that way because I wanted to get the extra furniture OUT of our bedroom asap.  Oh well.

I love these rugs!  They are flat woven wool+cotton and nubby, which initially made me nervous that they would turn into long scratching posts for the cats. 

Thankfully, they don't seem interested in anything but laying on them, sitting on them, and sniffing them.  Mostly while I take pictures. 

The rug pad adds just the right amount of cushion to make walking in bare feet nice and cozy.  I still have to stack something heavy on the edges to get them to lay down flat.

They were pretty reasonable at $119 each, however the $23 shipping cost and $12 (WI 5%) tax charge certainly inflated the price.  We could've gone to pick them up at the store, but driving to IL just for these wouldn't save us any cash.  Hello, IL?  It's not nice to charge visitors tolls.  It makes me not want to visit.  Especially when your roads are some of the worst wagon trails I've ever been on.  And your sales tax is over 10% which is craaaaazy!  Just sayin. 

Cost:  $225 for both after my (free) gift card was applied.  Rug pads were about $10 at TJ Maxx.  Sounds good to me! 

A sticky situation

Do you have drawers that stick?  We do.  Most of the built-in drawers in our house are all wood on wood, no runners, no 'tracks'.  Our built-in dresser in the closet was a pain because the drawers were massive and when they stuck, they stuck hard.  So, I was trolling the web for a quick fix after everything was painted and before I put them back into the frame.  And I came upon a thrifty tip...

Candle wax!  You may recall that I am psycho over the 'Fresh Balsam' candles from Bath and Body Works and want to douse my body with the home fragrance oil.  Well, when the candles dwindled down to nothing after burning them every night, I couldn't bear to just throw them away.  So, I would pop them in the freezer overnight and then go all Sharon-Stone-in-Basic-Instinct on the wax until it was all chopped up.  And into a baggie the wax would go, to later be used in this wax warmer thingy....what the heck are these things called, anyway? 

This way I still get to enjoy the fragrance of the wax, even though the candle itself is long gone.  Oh, and of course I use the leftover glass jar for other things, like holding our acrylics in the art room:

 

Anyway, this is not the point of my post. The POINT is that the wax, while deliciously scented, is also a practical way to help your drawers slide more freely.  I grabbed my baggie, took out the largest wax pieces, and started giving the wood drawer supports inside the frame a rubdown they would not soon forget.  Boom chicka bow wow!  I also rubbed some on the bottom of the drawers themselves. 

 

Then I put the drawers in and opened and closed them a few times.  Do not be alarmed if they seem to stick even worse, once the wax is 'rubbed smooth' over a few days, those drawers will slide like a knife through butta!

Problem solved!  And that is why I love to chop up candles.  It has nothing to do with my repressed aggression. 

My 6th picture

My soul-sister Meg at House Notes tagged me to share my 6th post earlier this week...or weekend?  I can't keep track of days anymore!  Because Meg invited me to participate, I couldn't refuse.  Actually, this originated as a 'share your sixth blog picture' party from Londen at Sixty Fifth Avenue, so I went back to August 31, 2009 to find the 6th (extremely undersized) picture I ever shared on this site.  It was this one:

The post was all about the hundreds of flagstones that were buried all over our yard.  Boozie Susie alert!!  I heard from a neighbor that the back yard had a custom-built flagstone planting bed that probably cost $$$.   Well, it was demolished and all the stones were conveniently placed on the ground, then covered with dirt and grass seed.  Wha?  Why?  Why?  Why?  Imagine creating a planting bed (where you thought there was none) and every time you put the shovel down, you hear a CLINK of stone.  That sound is forever ingrained in my memory and causes my blood to boil just thinking about it.  Planting one shrub turned into an hour-long ordeal complete with sweat, swears, mutiple tools, and lots of beer.  NOT COOL, BOOZIE!  At least some of them she was too lazy to bury...

Either way, we had the last laugh because we used all those stones to create a new, curvy planting bed that goes the entire length of the back yard - which you can see in my header.  And the 'after' to the 6th picture above?  Well, we dug up that entire side yard, moved 11 tons of dirt, and created a 300 sq foot paver patio ourselves. 

It is fantastic, and surprisingly still intact from last summer! Check out the how-to post here.  And please share your 6th blog picture with us!  It's too funny to see how much your writing and blogger skills have improved since the beginning.